Jack and Jill

Chapter Two

Jill opened the creaky door. Her house was never quiet, even when there were no voices to disturb the air. It looked majestic and tall on the outside, but inside, it consisted of dirty furniture and peeling, yellowed wallpaper. That was the true reason no one was ever welcomed into their home. Of course, no one would ever want to come in; not with "that demon child" around. She might attack someone. Everyone knows she bites.

The house had been left to the family by her grandmother, so despite the financial situation at present, the grand house was right in the middle of town, on a nice street that they did not deserve to grace. Jill personally felt uncomfortable there, but what was she to do? This was home, and it was the only one that she had ever known.

She came into the house with the wooden bucket as quietly as she could. The sounds of the crying toddler and her nine-year-old brother's antics were in her favor. She walked in softly and set the pail on the countertop beside the wash basin. Jill tried to sneak away then. Perhaps she could make it to her room before her mother noticed her.

"Jill, will you take this child, please?" her mother asked, catching the girl before she could slip away.

Jill turned to have baby Timothy practically thrown at her, and there was nothing for her to do but cradle him as best she could. He was drooling again, and smelled terrible.

"You trust me with him after what happened yesterday?" Jill asked quietly, staring down at the child she'd so foolishly struck. He just looked up at her. Such a shame: two years old and he couldn't speak a word.

Her mother rubbed her reddened eyes tiredly and sat down in a chair beside the table. This woman had seen better days. Jill was certain that her mother had been a fine-looking lady once. Perhaps she had been one of those pretty, town-girls. Her only mistake was that she had married the wrong man, and everything had fallen apart after that. Her eyes were always cradled with dark crescents, and her mouth was lined by the permanence of her frown.

"He's whining about something, I don't know what," her mother said. "I don't know how to make him stop anymore."

Jill could see an open liquor bottle on the table. Ladies didn't drink. Her mother was no lady – not anymore. Years of hard life had taken their toll on her in many ways.

"What should I do with him then?" Jill asked in confusion, the child was now bawling his eyes out on her shoulder, smearing her sleeve with saliva and snot.

"Your father's at the pub again, as always," her mother said instead, lost in her own world. Jill wondered if she'd even been heard. She wondered what it would be like to live in a bubble of soap and water. Would she have a voice to anyone but herself?

Jill stepped away as her mother slammed her fist on the rickety table, as if she needed to in order to get Jill's attention back. The girl hadn't drifted far… The woman continued on.

"We don't have any money because your father wastes it all at the pub, drinking and gambling, and women… And that brat!" she burst referring to Timothy. "It won't give me a moment's peace!"

Jill didn't think it right to call him a brat or refer to the child as an "it". At least when she had yelled yesterday, she had called him a child, never mind the other words she'd said. Jill tried to console her little brother. She was trying to be rational with him, unlike she did yesterday; she would never be violent again. Her mother quickly pulled herself together and took her best coat off the rack beside the door.

"I'm going out," she said. "Help your father to bed when he gets home, will you dear?"

That meant: Don't tell your father where I am. Just give him the medicine I gave you and tell him lies until he goes to sleep. Did these words mean that much to Jill? No; not really. She would try to put Timothy to sleep and then she would sit in her room and stare blankly at the wall until her father came home.

She knew where her mother was going to be. She would be down the road, meeting Clark Everett, married man and banker. He'd give her mother a little money to help them get through…in exchange for favors of the sort Jill preferred not to think about. This affair had been going on for quite some time now. In fact, the child her father had gotten so mad at her for striking yesterday was not even from his loins. She wondered if he knew.

Jill took Timothy upstairs and spoke sweet words to him, trying to explain as best she could why mommy hadn't been listening to him. She knew by the anti-language sounds he made that he'd been hungry. Of course he was hungry. They all were. Jill told him it was best if he went to sleep; that would make him not think about his hunger. Finally, the tears stopped, his eyes began to close, and Jill stayed with him until he was fast asleep. She looked down at him for a moment, buried in the covers of his small bed. He was cute when he wasn't disrupting life. She wondered if the child's father had indeed been Clark Everett, or if it was someone else. After a bit of pondering, she decided it was useless to try and figure it out. Timothy could have belonged to anyone in town.

Jill journeyed down the hall to her own room. Her quarters were at the far end of the second floor hall. It was out of the way and let alone; just what she wished for. It was dark inside with only the light of one small lantern to light the large, cold room. She had no source of heat within, and didn't have anything but thin blankets, but she didn't sleep too much anyway.

Once inside her own cold room, she unbraided her hair so that it hung to her elbows in lovely black waves. Then she proceeded to undress herself. She never truly felt free until she had pulled the thick, dark clothing from her body. It was unsuitable for a lady to be unclothed publicly, so, when she must, she wore the only clothing that made her not feel as though she was suffocating. The black dress that lay across her bed now was nothing like her family wore. Her mother and father would dress above their station; another thing they spent their hard-earned money on. Her brother wore what he was told and the baby was dressed in the finest material. Jill was not forced into anything because her parents quite liked having an "mad girl" as a daughter. This gave them the talk and pity of the town.

Jill did not bother pulling on her nightdress yet. She simply sat down in the only wooden chair inside her room, letting the coolness surround her body. She turned the light of the lantern up a tiny bit and tilted her head against the backing, the shapes of her body splashed with light. The cut marks across her arms were visible where she had sliced herself in the past. The bruises across her legs and back showed slightly in the light. Jill did not mind the sight of her own tormented and abused body. She knew she was really clean in her heart; she was really a beautiful creature.

Her feeling of comfort vanished as soon as the laughter reached her ears: the laughter that was torture upon her broken body. It reminded her of earlier that day. Her fists clenched as the sounds drifted through the window.

"Oh! You are so funny, Jack!"

Jill's eyes shot open. She could barely breathe then, but she wasn't sure why. This voice was easy to recognize, for Jill had heard it through her window before. The tones belonged to Sylvia Moore, one of the very girls that had laughed that day. Was she…with Jack?

"The play was wonderful. I'm glad father sent us," she said, her voice drifting through the window.

Jill reached her hand over and dimmed the lantern beside the bed, after which, she rose and made her way to the window, her leg brushing against the dress on her bed. She barely leaned around the frame so that she could peer out without being noticed. Down below, she could see Sylvia and Jack walking along the road through the darkness together. Sylvia was dressed in an elegant gown and cloak, her blond hair pulled on top of her head in curls. Jack wore a suit, nicely trimmed, and walked with his hands behind his back. They stopped. Interesting coincidence that Sylvia lived in the house across the street from Jill. The two houses were twins, built right across from each other, sharing the same land.

Sylvia and Jack stood in front of the gate to her house as Jill watched and listened intently. She didn't know why she wanted so much to know what was going on, when often she wished that she could ignore everyone in the world. This time, she felt that this was her business.

"So, did you have a good time tonight?" Sylvia asked with a bat of her eyelashes.

"It was pleasant," Jack said with a nod.

Sylvia looked at him strangely. "You seem so odd tonight, Jack. You don't seem like usual. What's wrong?"

Jack scratched the back of his head absently.

"That Jill girl is started to get to you isn't she?" Sylvia asked in a tone Jill didn't like at all.

"I guess you could say that," he said.

"I knew it! She's so weird that she's making you depressed! I should have a talk with your father and tell him that he shouldn't make you talk to her anymore!"

"It's alright, really. I'm fine with it."

"No you aren't! Your father thinks you should be around her to talk to her and try to save her soul. I know you're only doing it to make your father happy."

Jack said nothing.

"Besides, the girl's already going to hell anyway. Nothing you or anyone else can say will change that."

"You shouldn't say things like that, Sylvia," he insisted.

"Oh why not?" she whined. "It's all good fun."

"Shall I quote you a verse?" he asked, and Sylvia paused. She could not hope to best him in a battle of scripture slinging.

"Spare me," she said finally with a roll of her eyes. "But seriously, Jack, you know what I mean! You know as well as I do that she is going to hurt someone one day, or maybe even worse. Murder!" Sylvia had lowered her voice when she had started talking this time. She seemed to have just remembered that the girl in mention lived right across the road; someone could be listening. Jill smirked at the thought.

"Jill?" he asked in amazement that she would say such things.

"Yes. You should know better than anyone how odd and satanic she is. Does she not refuse the Bible every time you mention it? That's what I heard."

Jill focused on the young man then, and watched him brush his hair back with a gentle hand. He didn't respond to Sylvia right away, but he seemed unsure about how to handle it. At least, that was Jill's perception.

"And where did you hear this?" he asked finally.

"Everyone knows it," she assured him.

"Oh really?"

"Of course. The girl's as good as a whore…like her mother!"

Jack laughed slightly at this, and while Jill heard it, it was not that same sort of laughter that made her feel so enraged. It was a scoff, an insensitive dismissal of what Sylvia was saying. Hearing this was the only reason that Jill did not grow hot with fury.

"And what is so funny, Jack Hillton?" Sylvia demanded, hands on her hips. "You don't believe me?"

"You assume too much," he said.

"So, how is it then?"

Jill looked on with curiosity, forgetting that she was cold, or naked, or that her arms were aching from holding herself up against the sill. What would Jack say? She had told him nothing, but this have her one chance to truly know his mind. What would he say, thinking that she was around to hear it?

"Those things are between Jill and her God," he said, and Jill found that she was pleased with that answer.

"You aren't going to set me straight, young reverend?" Sylvia teased, disappointed that he was not going to allow her the information. "What has she confessed to you?"

"All you want is the gossip of it," he said.

She gasped, taken aback.

"Why, Jack, how could you say that about me?"

He shrugged, wearing a smirk.

"Lying is sin," he said simply.

At this, the girl laughed, and Jill felt herself tearing apart inside.

"Oh shut-up, you wretched thing," Sylvia scolded lightly though her laughter. "Now kiss me. Wouldn't want daddy to have wasted his money."

At this, Jill turned her face from the scene. She couldn't bear to watch the rest, feeling her heart twisting inside her body. She took a deep breath and turned her bare back to the window, stepping further back into the dark room. Though Jack's words about her had been kind, she could not forget the words that had come from Sylvia's mouth. Though she had refused to watch, she imagined them down below, their lips pressing together as Sylvia tried to seduce him for keeps. As she thought of this, her fists began to shake until she could no longer hold it within.

"I'm going to hell, am I?" Jill spoke loudly, being careful not to yell. "I'm evil, huh? I depress Jack now, too? What the hell do you know about what Jack thinks, you bitch!"

Jill's head hurt. She slumped to the floor and put her hand to it, as the tears started to roll down her face. She cried in loud sobs, the salty water dripping to the floor. She never liked to do what she knew she had to now. She felt her hatred for Sylvia coming on strong. She couldn't control herself when she became angry. She knew that it was futile to try and control her anger through her mind; she would have to take action. She would have to hurt herself again. She didn't like to cut herself and make herself bleed, but there was no other way to keep her anger to herself. She lifted her shaking hand and reached under her mattress, taking up the knife she kept there. She held out her wrist and stared down at it sadly. It would get a butchering tonight.

Holding the knife down onto her skin, she could not bear to press down to her vein. Though she almost wished for death, she could not bring the pain upon herself. She slid the knife through her skin, making the thick red blood flow to the floor as it always did. After she became used to the pain, she gathered her anger and sliced her arm indignantly. She continued, making gashes in anger across her shaking arm, the tears running down her face and the blood cascading down her appendage. She paused a moment to take a deep breath. No; she could not stop; the angry was still there. She raised the knife to rip it across her arm again, but was stopped short when a voice reached her ears.

"What the hell is going on here?!"

Jill's eyes shot open wide; her father was home. She wiped the blood off on the bed sheet and pulled an old bandage – a handkerchief Jack had used once – from beneath her mattress and tied it around her cuts. Her father would be drunk; he wouldn't even notice anyway. She hurriedly pulled on her nightdress and wiped her tears away as she ran down the stairs to cater to him.

"What is it, father?" she called.

After she had burst from her room, everything became clear. The baby was screeching loudly, her brother John had cut off the end of their cat's tail and it was yowling madly, the blood across the floor. Her father stood there, in the middle of the house, looking up at her, seemingly waiting for an explanation.

Jill's father was a burly man of tainted Irish decent. He might have passed for a pleasant gent, if for the fact that he didn't like scotch in his morning tea. He was a man with true values – he was sober every Sunday.

"Where is your mother?" he bellowed up to her now. "I thought you two were supposed to be keeping this place running smooth! No damn kids screamin' nor diseased animals running through!"

"Sorry, daddy. I'm really sorry," she insisted, rushing to get the broom to scoot the messy cat out of the house.

"Why is John still awake! Get him to bed!"

"John, go to bed," Jill ordered toward the freckled youth. The boy knew better to protest at a time like this, but for some reason, hiding under the table, he hesitated.

"Now!" screamed the boy's father.

John jumped up quickly and hurried off to his room, leaving her with him – with the monster.

"Why can't I count on you, Jill?" her father continued to yell. "I only want to come home to bit of peace and quiet, and you give me this!"

"Father, please, you don't want the neighbors to hear!" she insisted, lowering her voice so that perhaps he would follow her lead.

"Always being so considerate, aren't you?" he scoffed, rubbing his red nose. "Where is your mother?"

Jill searched her mind for an excuse, and all the while, her father seemed to grow larger and larger – puffing up for a dance.

"She – went down the road to Mrs. Quint's house," Jill lied, clutching the broom so tightly that her knuckles were white.

"At this hour!? Don't lie to me, girl!"

"Y-you know how she has those nightmares," Jill stammered. "Her screaming woke mom up. And you will wake up the whole town if you don't keep it down."

"I can yell however the hell loud I want!" he said, even louder than before, but his voice got snagged on his own throat, and he began to hack

"Dad…please! You haven't taken your medicine today have you? You really should. I'll go get it for you."

"I don't need any damn medicine!"

Jill hurried into the kitchen anyway and pulled a bottle from the shelf. She hurriedly jerked a spoon from the drawer and poured the medicine into it with her shaky hand.

"Here! You must take this!"

She knew that her father understood that the medicine was only a common sleeping draught, but on many of these nights, his drunken mind realized that it didn't want anything more than to sleep. This was one of his more cooperative nights. Her father grabbed the spoon in disgust and took the medicine. After which he threw the spoon at Jill and coughed for the awful taste.

"This shit gets worse every night," he said, spitting on the wooden floor.

"You should go to bed now," Jill told him, beginning to fell hopeful. He would do as she was suggesting, and once he was asleep, all would be quiet for a time. Tomorrow was Sunday.

Her father made a move to go, and it was only by chance that he looked down at her arms , which she was using to guide him toward his own bed. Before she even knew to hide it, he had seen the blood.

"What is this?!" he asked, grabbing her wrist and clenching it too tightly for its current tender state.

"You're hurting me!" she screamed, wincing in pain. His twisting summoned new blood from her fresh wounds.

"Did you do this to yourself?!" he yelled at her, jerking her around as she tried to pry his hand off hers.

"I—I was cutting some meat a-a-and I accidentally cut myself!" she protested meekly.

"Why do you want to hurt yourself? Are you trying to die!? We don't treat you well enough!?"

"No!" she cried. "No! It's not that!"

Her father threw her to the ground. Jill knew what was coming. She should not have hoped to escape it. Before she could curl herself into a ball, he had put his hands to his head, swearing irately.

"Oh, sweet Jesus! I thought you were hanging around that minister's boy! He was fucking supposed to be a good fucking influence! Why won't you listen to him?!"

"I do!" she promised, feeling tears. "Honest I do! I told you, I was cutting some meat---."

"Damn it, Jill! You just…you never learn!"

The girl made an effort to lift herself from the ground.

"Don't you dare get up!" he yelled, striking her shoulder. She fell back down, holding herself lightly, her shoulder throbbing with pain.

Her father always made it rule not to strike her face. Though he was drunk, he could remember this. It wouldn't look dignified for his daughter to have a huge welt under her eye.

"You are supposed to be a good…a good girl!" he yelled, emphasizing his two last words by pounding his fists onto her frail back.

She was forced to the ground, her tears falling from her eyes, but she made no sound.

"I work so hard and this is all the thanks I get: a lunatic for a daughter that can't do anything right!"

With this, he kicked Jill hard in the stomach and she recoiled into a ball. That was when he had heard the door open; Jill's mother was back.

"Catherine! Where the hell have you been!?" he yelled, and automatically, he was done with the girl.

Jill could finally hear his footsteps leaving her. She tried to drown out the sounds of the yelling in the background by concentrating on her own pain; it was tremendous. She lay in the middle of the floor amidst the blood and coldness until she had cried herself silently into sleep.