Hel – Volume 3 (Part 2)

“When we are children we seldom think of the future. This innocence leaves us free to enjoy ourselves as few adults can. The day we fret about the future is the day we leave our childhood behind.”

 Patrick Rothfuss

Hel – Volume 3 (Part 2)
 
 
“There are so many evil people in the world.  I don’t know how we’re supposed to do anything but run and hide and hope for the best,” the shy ten-year-old said to her new doll later that night, after she’d been released from the closet her brother had locked her in while he’d gone to the skate park to smoke some weed with friends.
 
“I know you can’t fight ‘em all,” she told the Namatu the witch had given her.
 
“But if you could make my brother stop hurting me…” the little girl whispered in between sobs.
 
She’d grown accustomed to crying alone, you see, so it felt mighty odd to have the doll’s dim eyes watching her now.

Still… she hoped he saw, hoped he saw how much evil he’d put into the world… all that killing.  How it had changed her brother, who had been so much nicer before he’d gotten it into his head to become an assassin.
 
Her mother said it was just a phase and he’d eventually grow out of it.  But Jenny had seen Danny and his friends do the cruelest things, not just to her but to the squirrels in the park and other animals too, and it didn’t seem to Jenny you just grow out that kind of meanness.
 
Afterall, Jenny had met her fair share of mean adults; she imagined they had all started off just like Danny… playing with cars and Legos.  Then something had turned them… turned them to the dark side. 
 
Something had made them so angry they never could put it down again.
 
Jenny knew Danny was mad, mad about their father leaving for that stupid waitress who worked at the motel bar three blocks from her school.
 
Jenny knew Danny was scared too, scared that in a couple short years he’d be forced to get a job or go to college, and Danny sucked at math.  He’d failed basic algebra twice and now, as a junior, they were threatening he wouldn’t even graduate with his friends if he didn’t take summer school.
 
He was pissed too because his mom couldn’t afford braces, so he constantly got made fun of for his crooked teeth.
 
In fact, Jenny knew Danny hurt her the way he did because he was hurting too, and just like Jenny, Danny didn’t have anyone he could talk to. 
 
All he had were dreams of killing so many people everyone would finally respect him.
 
That’s how Danny had put it.  When he’d stashed away some bullets he’d taken from their father’s safe.
 
Danny scared Jenny. 
 
And not because he was always terrorizing her for fun.  But because Danny was so bitter and so angry at everyone, Jenny was sure it was just a matter of time before he did something serious.
 
Why else did he need that old gun?
 
“I don’t want him to hurt anyone,” Jenny whispered to the doll made to look like an indifferent killer.
 
“But I don’t want him to hurt either.”
 
You see, that’s the thing about little girls… the thing Baba Yaga had known all along…
 
They aren’t malevolent.  They aren’t motivated by greed.  They aren’t plotting and planning.  They simply want to love and be loved.
 
In fact, there is no heart more pure than that of a ten-year-old girl who’s never had it good.
 
“I need you to help my brother,” she told the hollow-eyed puppet.
 
“I need you to help save his life.”

TO BE CONTINUED


#TickTock
#Namatu
#HadensDream


© Raena Exe 2023 
​*All rights reserved

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