Read A Strange Fire (Florence Vaine) Online
Authors: L.H. Cosway
A Strange Fire (Florence Vaine)
A Florence Vaine
Novel
By L.H. Co
sway
Copyright
© 2012 Lorraine McInerney
All rights reserved.
Cover picture by
Katie Little.
Cover design by L.H.
Cosway.
This is a work of
fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead is purely coincidental. No
part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without
written permission from the author.
Books by L.H Cosway
A Strange Fire
(Florence
Vaine #1)
A Vision of
Green
(Florence Vaine #2)
Tegan's Blood
(The
Ultimate Power Series #1)
Tegan's Return
(The Ultimate Power Series #2)
Tegan’s Magic
(The
Ultimate Power Series #3)
Crimson
(An
Ultimate Power Series Novella)
Painted Faces
The Nature of Cruelty
(June 2013)
Contents
Creeping. Creeping. Creeping up on her. Always creeping. Always watching.
Forever waiting. Lauren knew she was being followed. She knew what the
following was going to end with. She could see the future ever since she had
been little.
“Mind the step, Mother,” she’d
say, five minutes before her mum would trip and bruise her knee on the back door
step.
Puzzled looks, fear, and
conclusions that she was mentally ill soon taught her to keep quiet. Let the
future be what it may. She would no longer interfere. But now she had to do
something. Because she saw her own future and it was not a pretty picture. The
problem was, she could not see what led to it, nor when it would occur. She
knew that the song
Immortality
by The Bee Gees and Celine Dion would be
playing. Sometimes that fact alone scared her more than the torture that was to
follow.
At first she avoided the shed in
her back garden like the plague, the original setting of her untimely demise.
But when she saw her future again, the same thing happened yet in a different
location. That was how she knew that no matter how much she avoided the places
of her death, it would still happen. It didn’t matter how far she ran, because
those women would find her. The women with black veins and upside down
crucifixes tattooed in the gap between their eyebrows. They always came for her
in the end.
It had been her birthday
yesterday, Lauren had turned eighteen. She’d been happy, momentarily pushing
away thoughts of her death. She’d laughed with her friends, basked in being the
centre of attention, and enjoyed opening her presents. She had even spent an
hour or so making plans with her best friend Kate for their summer trip to
Berlin. Lauren tried to pretend that the trip to Berlin was going to happen,
but deep down she knew it would not. She had not had one single vision of
Berlin, and therefore it would not be in her future.
There were only two weeks left of
school and then she was to set off for Germany. She could deduce that if she
did not make it to Berlin, then her death was coming within those two weeks.
The thought caused fear to rush through her veins. She sat in her bedroom and
stared at the lemon coloured paint on the walls. The colour had once been so
vibrant to her, now it seemed rather sickly.
It was at that very moment that
the feeling struck her. Hairy spider legs running down her spine. The women
were coming in their true form, and the harder she felt those horrible spiders
she knew that they were getting closer.
For a split second her entire
house rippled, the solid bricks became as fluid as liquid, and then a second
later turned stable again. An unearthly silence filled the space; she could no
longer hear her mother chattering with her aunt Vivian downstairs in the
kitchen, even though her bedroom door was wide open. She couldn’t make out the
noises of her little sister watching television in her bedroom next door.
Lauren hesitated a moment, then
called out, “Mum?” but no sound came from her lips. She tried again, “Mum?” Still
nothing. Her vocal cords had been rendered useless. Tears filled her eyes and
she stood up from her bed. She knew what was coming. She’d been seeing it all
this time, never knowing when it would happen. But now they were here, they’d
finally come for her. Lauren was almost relieved her wait had come to an end.
And then, just like in her vision, the music started up. This time it came from
the stereo on her bedroom shelf.
Immortality
by Celine Dion and The Bee
Gees.
What a creepy song
, she
thought, as the lyrics flowed from the speakers. But then she realised what
made the song so creepy. Celine was not the only one singing the opening verse.
Another voice sang along, a voice that was on the surface light and cheerful,
sentimental even. But Lauren could hear its true nature. Selfish. Power hungry.
Ruthless. Evil. And just as the voice sang along to the line, “The spark that
makes the power grow,” the woman appeared.
The others filled the staircase
and landing that led to Lauren’s bedroom. Lauren had seen this woman’s a face a
thousand times, in her visions and in her nightmares, but here in the flesh the
horror of her appearance was tenfold. Every black vein in her body was visible
through her translucent skin. The heretic’s cross in between her eyebrows
pulsated. The long grey gown she wore seemed to hide a myriad of atrocities.
The woman stopped singing but the song played on.
“I do love this tune,” she said,
gazing hungrily at Lauren. “It is the perfect song for us, my little lamb.”
And then she creeped closer,
creeping, creeping, creeping. Lauren tried to scream out in terror but it was
no use, her voice was gone. The woman opened her mouth wide, wider than was
natural. Her jaws became unhinged and Lauren felt a slight pull. The suction
quickly grew stronger. Her very life force was being taken from her, but all
she could do was gape in horror at how this monster took it.
The Story of Florence Vaine
I was born to be a victim.
I was born to be timid. I was
born to be a prisoner. I was born to gaze at my shoes and not be able to get
the words out. I was born to be the target of my father’s hate. But still, I
was born. Doesn’t everything that is born deserve to live?
The daisy growing on a patch of
grass outside of my grandmother’s doorstep tells the truth. All things that are
born do deserve to live, but that doesn’t mean they are going to get what they
deserve. Because I’m sitting on the step and looking at the daisy, just as my
father storms out of the house and stamps the defenceless little flower into
the ground. Crushing living things seems to be his speciality. Or maybe just
poisoning them slowly.
I barely know my grandmother, and
yet he is abandoning me here. I should feel liberated. But I don’t. I must have
become institutionalised by his brutality somewhere along the way. How could it
be possible to be sad about getting away from a tyrant? I am being freed by a
cruel and evil dictator, and somehow I feel let down.
There must be something wrong
with my brain. All the years of abuse has messed with the chemicals. Besides,
all of this has come as kind of a shock, since only last week as my dad knocked
back a bottle of Jim Beam, he slurred,
You’re a worthless excuse for a
daughter,
but don’t you ever think of running away, because I will bloody well find you
.
The hateful words still ring in my memory.
He’s always saying things like
that to me, whenever he thinks I might pluck up the courage to run away. All
the time with the threats. I still don’t understand his sudden decision to send
me to live with Gran. Perhaps it was divine intervention.
He takes the last drag out of his
cigarette and then throws it away, stubs it out with the sole of his black
leather boot. He looks at me as I peer up at him.
“So Flo,” he begins, without even
a hint of regret in his voice. “I’m off now, you better be good for your gran,
you hear?”
I take a deep breath, before managing,
“Y-y-yes s-sir.”
I’ve always had a stammer. It
kicks up when I have to talk to Dad, or if I’m meeting new people. Social
interaction is not my strong point.
“You’ll be starting school on
Monday, your gran registered you.”
“O-okay.”
“Still with the stutter, eh?”
“S-sorry.”
He glares at me disdainfully and
then looks over at his truck. “I’m probably gonna be gone a long time, so, you
know - take care.”
This is certainly the most love
he has ever shown me, and I’m not even sure that telling a person to “take
care” can be classified as actual affection. He gives me one last squint eyed
look before getting in his truck and pulling out of the driveway. I stand up
for a minute and watch as he gets further and further away from me, and then
completely disappears from sight. I wonder if he’ll ever come back.
My grandmother is in her
seventies and has very little vision. I haven’t spent much time with her in my
life. I could probably count the number of occasions Dad took me to see her on
one hand,
without
using up all five fingers. But even though I don’t
know her very well, I still know that she’s a good person. Not like Dad.
I can see everybody’s aura, the
colours of their soul. It’s a gift. It’s a curse. It’s ambiguous really. I
never asked for it, and yet I have it. I still don’t know if it’s real. There’s
a good chance I’ve got psychological problems. Maybe all of those cracks to the
skull have caused me to start seeing colours that don’t exist. Gran’s colours
are a mixture of lavender and silver, most elderly people have silver mixed in
with their aura. I’ve come to think of it as a mark of distinction. Once you
get to a certain age you get your silver badge, or whatever. The lavender
indicates imagination, sometimes a daydreamer, which is unique for an elderly
person. Gran must be one of those old ladies who will always be young at heart.
The colours change with a
person’s feelings, with their mood and inner thoughts. Gran’s are telling me
that she’s both happy and nervous to be having me stay with her. I don’t blame
her for being nervous. Her son is a devil. She probably thinks I’m one too. I’m
not though. I’m just me, a nervous, stammering idiot. I sit down on her floral
print sofa across from the mahogany rocking chair she’s perched in. I wonder
what her degenerating eyes can see, probably just a misty outline of me.
“I’m not like him, you know.” I
tell her, my words flowing freely.
The stammer mostly kicks up at
times of pressure, or if I’m intimidated. Gran doesn’t intimidate me, she makes
me feel at ease. Maybe I feel safe with her because she’s half blind. It means
I have the upper hand. With Dad you were always fighting for your survival, for
your sanity. It’s caused me to be defensive around people, and most people have
no intention of doing me harm. But such is my mind-set.
“I never said you were, sugar,”
she replies, with a smile in her faded brown eyes.
“I know but - I just wanted to
tell you I won’t be any trouble, I promise. I’ll keep to myself. You’ll barely
even know I’m here.”
“Well I wouldn’t want that,
Florence. You treat this house as if it were your own. God only knows you
deserve a bit of freedom after living under my son all your life.”
Nobody ever calls me Florence.
It’s weird, like being called by the name of another. “Oh, um okay, thank you.”
She laughs softly before saying,
“Now tell me a little about yourself. I want to hear all about my seventeen
year old granddaughter who I’ve never known properly.”
“There’s not much to tell,” I say
modestly.
“Balderdash! Everybody’s got
something to say about themselves. Now come, you know my sight isn’t what it
was, describe to me your appearance.”
I don’t think I’ve ever heard
anyone use the phrase “balderdash” before. I have to stifle a laugh.
“My appearance?” I ask.
“Yes love, I’d like to be able to
imagine the details since I haven’t the ability to see them, at least not
properly.”
“Oh,” I clear my throat, “my hair
is dark brown and long. My eyes are green.”
“Green eyes?” she asks. “I don’t
think there have ever been green eyes in the family before, or do you mean
hazel?”
“No not hazel, Gran. There’s no
brown in them, just green.”
“How very unusual. You must have
inherited those from your mother.”
A moment of silence ensues as we
both regard each other politely. The subject of my mother is a sore point for
me. Dad always hammered home the fact that she died while giving birth to me.