Blood

My stomach has been empty for days at least, but I’ve still been retching constantly anyway.

Currently I’m hunched over a bucket already half filled with stomach acid or whatever’s been burning my throat.

My brothers and cousins and aunts and father keep coming in randomly, and I’m starting to wonder if it’s because they want to make sure I’m not dead or dying or choking on my tongue. It could be to change rather bloody sheets.

Unfortunately, I got my fucking period when I was like, ten, and got really sick from blood loss, so I somewhat ironically have to take birth control, and, being unable to hold anything down, that didn’t really work.

If you haven’t picked up on it, ten was a really great year for me.

Anyway, I’m pretty sure Gram’s been praying for my immortal soul, since the one time she came in I think she said the last rites over me.

And I’m also starting to wonder if my family is completely and totally insane.

No, I couldn’t just have the flu or something, I have to be dying of some ailment foreign to the lands of man, inflicted by God to punish me for being sinful and improper.

It didn’t help when I started throwing up blood as well. I think that’s when Reid started to freak out. It’s not like I haven’t done it before.

That was a while ago, though. I think it was just after the Good Folk had taken me, and I had some lasting affect from spending so long in their world. I ended up being fine. It was just a few weeks of hell first. Actually it was weird if I remember right.It came on all of a sudden one night, and then vanished one morning, as though I’d never been sick.

The worst part both then and now is unfortunately not the excruciating pain in my stomach, nor is it the taste of vomit, no, it’s the ruddy boredom. Some people would read if they were sick. I don’t read. Some people would draw. I have no artistic skills. Reid would likely put things together and pull them apart, but I’m only good at the destroying part. I have absolutely nothing to do but lie hear and try not to listen to my neurotic family.

So here I lie, doing nothing but contemplating my life and heaving. It’s not exactly enjoyable. The crappy part is how nice the day is, maybe one of the last. All I really want right now is to follow Sean around as he traipses after butterflies and frogs, or argue with Reid over the engine of some stupid car, or even hang clothes on the line. Hell, I would take sitting in a car with Mallory Fionn, because at least I can be outside and smoke. I guess that’s the other thing I really want: a cigarette.

Reid won’t let me smoke because he says my lungs are already shitty enough without me making it worse, and I could kill him for that.

I am also starting to become really paranoid. For example, I thought my room was shrinking, and shrinking and shrinking, mainly because I would stare at one thing for too long. It’s not like I have many choices of things to look at. My room has a white dresser, a book shelf filled with weird books I’ve never read and tools and Sean’s toys, a little window too far from the bed for me to see out of, and my bed and night stand. I already threw my lamp, so I don’t have anything else to smash for entertainment, and nobody will leave me anything to do, so I kind of just wish Gram is right and I will die really soon to save me from the boredom.

In other news, my Gram has been threatening to move out, which would be fantastic. She keeps saying about how ungrateful we all are, and how she can’t believe she’s related to us. The truth is nobody wants my Gram. She moved in when Mum was sick with Sean and didn’t leave when she died, or when Sean was old enough to walk…or ever.

My dad just doesn’t have the heart to throw her out, though I wish he did.

What else is there? Not much, I guess.

I hear the door to my room open, so I leave my mind and start to pay attention to the outside world. Reid steps in through the door and then closes it behind him before sitting on the floor.

“Hi,” he says in a troubled voice.

I roll my eyes, “Christ, you’re all horrible,” I complain in my voice that used to be pretty smooth actually, but is now as jagged as the cliff rocks.

He looks up through his bangs with no humour at all. “It’s not that.”

Reid doesn’t elaborate so I ask, “Then what is it?”

“Not important,” he says.

I exhale loudly and say, “Well obviously it is important, so what is it?”

Reid squints at me. “When did you become considerate?”

I shrug the best I can, which hurts like crazy. “Oh you know, dying does that to a person.”

“You ain’t dying, Lorna,” he says as though he’s trying to convince himself of it instead of me.

“Of course I ain’t, just try to tell our family that.”

Reid smiles a little, but it’s forced, which I don’t point out. “Ignore them.”

“I try. So what’s got you troubled, dear brother?”

My brother sighs and says, “Justin Fionn’s brother disappeared.”

I sit up a little but then lie back down because it hurts too much. “Mallory?”

Reid nods.

“When?”

“About a week and a half ago, right when you got sick.”

“Oh,” I say, because I’m not quite sure what else to say. It’s not like I care what happens to Mallory Fionn, it’s just about the time a kid or two disappears, and it’s always frightening. I always feel a little relief at the same time that it ain’t Sean. Which is horrible, but I love my brother, and most of the island kids are brats.

Mallory’s a little older than what they normally take, but as long as he ain’t sixteen yet, it means he’s still in that age window when the fey sneak in and take a child or two twice a year for whatever They do with them.

“I didn’t realise he was still young enough to be taken,” I say, and Reid shakes his head.

“He ain’t, so they figure something else happened to him. Cynthia Quigley, you know Cynthia, says he was pretty wrecked when she last saw him, so they figure he fell into the ocean or something, but Tim won’t believe it, poor man.”

We’re both silent for a minute, but then I feel my throat start to burn and I wretch more phlegm and blood and water into the bucket, and Reid looks away when I do.

“What’s the date?” I ask through gasps after I’m finished gagging.

Reid continues to study the floor and says in the same troubled voice he had used before, “The eighteenth of November.”

“So any time now…”

“Yeah,” he says, and we sit in silence again for a long while, which isn’t as boring as it normally would be, since I have so much to think about.

Mallory Fionn is dead in the ocean somewhere, Reid really thinks I’m not gonna get better, and it’s almost December and a kid hasn’t been taken yet, meaning Seanie ain’t safe yet.

I’m thinking about Sean being cooked alive when someone taps on my bedroom door.

Reid reaches back and opens the door without standing, looking up expectantly. “How’s it going?” he says and swings the door open so I can see my eldest brother standing there.

“How are you?” asks George, and I’m pretty sure he’s talking to me so I answer:

“Peachy,” and for once, Reid doesn’t try to correct me.

George shifts his weight from one foot to the other. “I mean, I know you’re doing crappy, but you don’t feel any better?”

I smile at George without malice and say, “I’m not terrible, Dad and Gram are just mad.”

He bites his lower lip and says, “Okay.”

Nobody is doing anything so Reid says, “A shame about Mallory Fionn, eh?”

George seems relieved to have someone say something. “Oh, yeah, real terrible—it’s strange. He always seemed a fairly level headed kid—”

I laugh and then cover it with a cough. I’m surprised George’s tongue ain’t brown ’cause it was a load of crap he just spewed all over Reid and I. Nobody thought Mallory was level headed. Christ, the islanders seemed to think him almost as mad as they think I am.

I have to stop and wretch in my bucket again, and when I’m finished and bloody spit is dripping from my chin, George tells us he just stopped by to see how I was doing and takes his leave.

Stupid family obligation. It’s not like I wanted him here, and George definitely didn’t want to come, but you have to stop by when someone in your family is sick. It’s the “proper” thing to do.

“Well, that was pleasant,” says Reid with an inkling of a smile.

I wipe the blood off my chin with the back of my hand and lie back, staring at the ceiling.

“You’re okay?” I ask Reid.

He laughs but doesn’t say anything for a minute. “You really need to be sick more often. It works wonders for your people skills.”

Reid stands up and asks if it’s okay for him to leave, which I tell him it is, so he walks out the still open door and closes it behind himself.

I can hear that he just stands outside the door for a second and then another before he walks away towards the stairs.

Stupid, neurotic freaks.