Just three people

“It’s just three people.” she sighed, staring up at the sky from the balcony with no regards for the chill of the night. The stars looked less bright, almost as if she wasn’t worthy of seeing them in their usual brilliance. The dim face of the moon seemed one of disapproval. Her left wrist burned, and she quickly covered it with her sleeve as she sat back down on her rickety chair. Her tea was somewhat bitter, but it didn’t matter. Her bag was ready, and she’d leave in the morning. She didn’t know when she’d be back; that might even be the last time she saw her grandmother’s house.

Grandma Julie had been so worried about her recently, said she never saw her enough. Marie didn’t think too much of that, as worrying seemed a grandmother’s job. When they said goodnight, her mind was elsewhere. She didn’t notice her grandmother lingering on the doorway, her expression no longer concerned – almost scared. “Well, don’t go to sleep too late.” mumbled Grandma Julie, her voice trailing off as she cast her gaze down and placed her hand on the cross she wore as if to check it was still there.

Marie never did go to sleep. She took the flask she’d used to smuggle some rum from the party the week before and sipped slowly, the liquid burning in her mouth in a more pleasant way she would have cared to admit.

Hopefully she wouldn’t have to see that face again. The reason she had to leave in the first place. Not that she would be long: she couldn’t, didn’t have the money to be gone for long. If she had, she could already afford her own place to begin with. She liked her grandmother, but things would never be the same now that Marie was marked.

She was still on the balcony as the first lights of dawn heralded a new day. She brushed her teeth and put on clean clothes for show, and then went to knock on the door of her grandmother’s bedroom. That was usually around the time Grandma Julie was waking up, but there was no answer.

“Grandma, I’m leaving for a week.” blurted Marie still outside to rehearse. Another knock, no answer. Her grandmother was a lighter sleeper than that. Another knock, and Marie didn’t wait for an answer. She dropped her backpack on the floor and opened the door.

Grandma Julie was in bed still, but she wasn’t really there. Her vacuous gaze looked right through Marie. Her breath was feeble and pained, and it wouldn’t last much longer. The younger woman stepped forward as if in a trance. That was the only moment in the entire week she had given that much attention to her grandmother. The elderly woman was now the single most interesting thing in the entire world.

Her grandmother wheezed out something incomprehensible and reached for her cross on the nightstand. She held it tight, grasping it with what strength she had left, and pressed it against her chest.

“You can be the first.” uttered Marie with hesitant realization, her hands shaking as she went to pick up a pillow. Julie didn’t fight her.

There was no time to stay in that house. Marie grabbed her backpack and left for the train station immediately, only stopping to down something so she wouldn’t faint. Black coffee that tasted like punishment and a stale Danish. Perhaps now everything would have an awful taste. As she got on the train, she held out the newspaper in front of her as a shield and began browsing the crime report.

It had been easy with her grandmother, and even that had taken a lot out of her. From time to time her hands still shook. How was she going to kill two more people?

The smell of death had been incredible at first, but now thinking back to it was nauseating. Pure power was coursing through her veins when she did it, and now she was powerless. She was no one again. She was less than the person she used to be. Even her grandmother had looked at her as if she was polluted.

When she arrived, the station was teeming with life. Busy commuters, families. A woman ran her stroller over Marie’s foot while talking on the phone, and barely looked over her shoulder as she marched on. Marie followed her with her gaze, having barely reacted to the pain at the first. For a moment, she thought to herself that could be her second.

No, that was stupid. She would never pull that off. That woman clearly had somewhere to be, and the chances to find her alone were slim. Even then, what of the baby? She wasn’t going to make someone an orphan, and she wasn’t going to kill a baby. It didn’t matter how easy it would be to kill something so little and helpless. She wasn’t even sure a baby would count. It would be nothing compared to extinguishing years of life.

As she left the station, she remembered every time she’d been warned about how dangerous that area could be. She caught herself wanting to be that danger and decided to savor the idea. What could a little thing like her do? It would be completely unexpected. What could a little thing like her do… All she could kill was an old woman already on her last breath. Some would even find that charitable. She wanted more. It needed to be something more to count.

At every step, her fantasies multiplied. Nobody was going to miss that homeless man, the one who’d held out his ratty hat for change and then muttered something under his breath when she’d passed him by. No, someone would find him and think his murder charitable too. She would be putting him out of his misery, extinguishing a life in which she could see no dignity left.

It wasn’t up to her to decide once, but now it was. Now she had that power, now she meant something – to herself and the lives she would cut short. Now she got to be judge, jury, and executioner. She was no longer just a rag doll.

Unintelligible calls preceded a hand landing on her shoulder, on her backpack’s strap. She froze on the spot, cursing herself for bringing something that could make it so easy to stop her in her tracks. She conjured a tentative smile, slowly turning around the stranger who had walked up to her. Marie didn’t even wait for him to finish his sentence. All he was to her was a stranger who somehow felt entitled to her attention.

“I have something for you.” Her pleasantness was unnatural and stilted, and the man stared at her with intrigued bewilderment and something of… no, it wasn’t fear. She was too little a thing for him to be afraid of her, but it was clear part of him didn’t think he should stay there. However, his feet didn’t move one inch for now.

Marie took off her backpack and started searching, that affected smile still on her face even as cold sweat started to pearl on her forehead.

He took a step back. “Look, lady…” he began, knitting his brows and peeling his eyes off that strange girl to look around. “Forget it, ok? We don’t have to do this.”

She stopped rummaging through her backpack and looked up with the newfound coldness of security in her empty gaze. “I think we do.”

No one would miss someone so stupid and careless, but he was good enough for her. Breath left him as her head collided with his stomach, and he tumbled on his back for her effort, grunting like an animal. She plunged the blade into his abdomen in a frenzy, terrified he would stop her. He couldn’t even scream: he wailed like a widow before his pained gurgles stopped.

Dying helpless and alone in an isolated area was the fate she had been taught to fear all her life, and for once she was the danger, the villain in a cautionary tale. A villain that had to vanish. She couldn’t stay there a moment longer, or it would all be for nothing.

Blood had gotten on her hands, her shirt, some on her jeans too. At once she rubbed off what she could of it against the man’s clothing. She couldn’t get rid of its smell, but at least she could mask its appearance under the dark sweatshirt she hastily fished out her backpack.

On the train back home, bit by bit the stench of blood became unbearable. Could anyone else smell it? It was the only thing she could sense. The high she had experienced with her grandmother and once more with that stranger was already gone. It dawned on her in her haste she hadn’t chosen a third person. The thought of making that choice again almost made her vomit right where she sat.

The more time passed, the more the conviction she would ever be rid of that mark left her. Even without her branded wrist, she would still be marked. What could it matter what third victim she could choose? That rush of pure power, of unadulterated control would course through her veins one more time – and then no more, and she would be sullied still.

At first it terrified her; however, there was still one choice left. The only choice that could count. The only possible victim that would grant her liberation at last. She knew just what to do, and that would make her whole once more. Nobody would interrupt her.

Nobody had come by her grandmother’s house. Nobody was aware of the corpse. Marie closed the door behind her and checked her grandmother’s bedroom. The elderly woman lay perfectly still, the scent of death heady in the air, everything in her room just the way she had left it the night before – except for the crucifix she still held against a heart that had stopped beating.

She kissed her grandmother on the forehead, a smile making Marie’s face light up as she already savored her last choice.

It was a beautiful starry night outside, and the chill in the air erased all thoughts. She drew in a breath, but that disgusting stench of blood no longer tormented her. Her wrist no longer burned. She was whole and magnificent and she wasn’t even finished.

There was her rickety chair, exactly where she’d left it on the balcony. All was as it should be. The glory of the moon smiled upon her in encouragement, and the stars looked brighter than ever. Enchanted as she observed that spectacle, she spread her arms as if to embrace the entire sky and dove off the balustrade. Her mark was gone, and she was free and unblemished like an angel.