Evil Creatures

We miss her dearly, all of her children. So it’s comforting to know that she stands at my shoulder, gently persuading me to push the pockets flat before I run over them with the iron, reminding me to unbutton the shirts first and tutting as trousers emerge from the basket with flakes of white powdery paper clinging to the grey fabric. That really isn’t my fault, mother! Out of my remit. When the basket is finally approaching empty she wills me to sit down with a nice cup of tea. I prefer her to chat on in this way, willing her to imagine me in my little flat. Or better still, in her safe bungalow surrounded by china figuerines of the past forty years. In my mind I hear the three, four, five clicks of the gas ignition before the whoosh of the flame. I prefer narrow china cups that keep the liquid hot and stop the milk from forming its own pattern on the drink’s surface. My soul satisfied, I swirl cool water around the cup and upend it on the drainer ready for next time.

            In the room three doors away from the laundry area sits my computer. Next to it is the flat mesh tray containing a list of projects that I need to finish before the end of the week. The first one is a commission to create an image for a child’s bedroom wall. I’m a Graphic Artist in my real life, once I get past the banality of the everyday drudgery. My talents have been identified and are used to raise funds. I also make a living of sorts from the income it generates.

            ‘Any particular theme, Helen?’ I ask my supervisor. ‘Super-heroes, monsters, or what?’

            ‘It’s a girl. She’s only four, so maybe a fairy or something. Use your imagination. I’ve been told you’ve got one!’

            And indeed I have, especially when it comes to subjects of a mystical nature. Although they’re not mysterious to me. Or children. They believe; you can see it in their eyes. I choose the computer programme most suited to this type of image, preferring the sharp realistic lines of the vector software. I want this child to see the urgency of the situation, the death contained in the yellow teeth, the poisoned saliva running onto the chin and downwards to the mulch beneath its feet. This is what the forest creatures look like.

Sarah, my youngest sister, born prematurely and mollycoddled in the twenty-odd years since her birth, knows what I mean. Her eyes, as she watched me from the viewing area, communicated what she now understood. That I had tried to protect her, all of them. But I had failed. I watched them leave: Sarah, her husband, one of my other siblings and my recently widowed father. The creature had decimated the family, spilling their blood and poisoning their minds. Only I know the truth, and here it is in shades of ochre and sienna, forest green and blood red.