Photo by Cătălin Dumitrașcu on Unsplash
I grew up in Dew Shire, a forlorn hamlet on the outskirts of a dense woodland surrounded by rivers, mountains, and neighbouring towns.
To get to Dew Shire, one had to drive through a narrow-forested roadway which went through several villagers in the countryside.
The roadway was not lit up, so the vicinity used to be dark at night, which was why only a few people prowled these parts of the country in the wee hours.
But it was not the murk that kept people at bay. This, only a few people living in the area knew.
Two decades ago, one stormy night, a murder took place in the woods.
The authorities found a vacant blue Sedan on the roadway, which belonged to the victim, Enis Fair.
A young graduate, Enis had taken on her first job as a reporter in Danbury.
She was investigating a missing case in the area when an undisclosed hunter found her lifeless body at daybreak.
The vile animals had ripped her remains apart; it was only a coincidence she was ever found and belatedly identified by her employer.
People in Dew Shire, the young as well as the old, recounted numerous instances where her vindictive apparition scavenged the woodland.
Some swore to have seen her savaged face and harrowing grin, her bloodied white dress and greasy long hair dancing in time with the moaning wind.
It was said that she waited for her murderer to show up. She experienced such an unjust death that she could not bear to leave this earthly world and ascend to the afterlife.
These, however, were only sayings and no living being had seen the apparition with the naked eye, and those who did never survived to tell the tale.
Who could’ve guessed that I would return to this place? Even now, as I stared out through the car window and observed the darkness-shrouded woods, I could not believe I was here – that I had really come to this place.
In my absentmindedness, I belatedly noticed that the chauffeur struck up a conversation with me.
We locked our eyes through the rearview mirror.
He was a middle-aged man with warm, brown eyes and a radiating, fatherly smile.
I did not know why, but there was also a hint of concern in those eyes.
“We are there in roughly a few minutes, miss, do you want me to drop you off somewhere specific?”
“No, don’t bother; I’ll find my way, thank you.”
He hesitated before speaking again.
He kept peeking at me from the rearview mirror.
I saw his Adam’s apple move as he gulped; there was something on his mind, something that bothered him and needed to escape his lips and be heard.
For some reason, I already knew what he wanted to say.
After all, he was not the only one who had warned me about Dew Shire.
Anyone who knew its past heeded me to listen to their admonitions and insisted that I change my mind.
Maybe it was because I was stubborn and hardheaded even as a child – I’m not sure – but these threats made me want to come here even more.
“Please forgive me if I say something I have no right to speak on, but this place…”
“I know. It’s not safe.”
He gulped. “Then why…?”
I smiled and dropped my eyes.
If only I knew why myself then maybe it would be easier for others to grasp my peculiar train of thoughts.
But I did not know the answer.
I was only sure about one thing: Dew Shire brought me here, not the other way around.
How could I possibly explain this to people? They would think I had gone bonkers if I said those words.
But it was the truth.
It really was.
It all began the day I received a call from an unknown phone number two weeks ago.
I was on my way home after a private lecture when I received the call.
Being a teacher for the last five years, I knew that my students liked to play pranks on me and call for the sake of having some fun in an otherwise mundane life constricted by rules.
But there were also instances where potential customers called me after hearing of my credentials from other parents.
During those five years in this profession, I helped graduate even the most afflicting child.
There was a case which I especially remember as if it happened just yesterday.
It was a fond memory of mine and one that helped me slave through the evenings and pay the bills.
Yet it was a peculiar case.
His name was Jonathan Giray.
I had the pleasure of teaching him in my first year as a private tutor.
He had dropped out of high school at the time and his parents, in a last attempt to save his academic life, hired me.
There was something grey about Jonathan.
Just grey and colourless.
He refused to be tutored and locked himself up in his dimly lit room every session.
I recognised from our first meeting that his problems were far more complicated for a mere teacher like me to handle.
Jonathan had given up on life.
Even as I tried to convey this to his strict and elite parents, they refused to believe my sincere words.
The Girays were academicians themselves, one with a doctorate in philosophy and the other dean of a private faculty.
They were not concerned with Jonathan’s wellbeing, they only wanted to save face.
In their minds, Jonathan was a failure and an embarrassment.
I resigned after a month and slid a note under Jonathan’s door.
Half a year later, Jonathan’s presumed suicide reached my ear.
I paid him a visit after the funeral.
A dark-grey marble stone greeted me.
The damp soil was dark, tender and soothing against my skin.
I left a bouquet of lilies on his grave and never returned.
He was my turning point, my downfall.
With him, I could no longer turn a blind eye to the miseries I experienced in each new household.
It wore out on my psyche.
Each day, I grew even more delirious than the previous trying to come to terms with my role as a mere tutor.
I was not God.
But I heard and felt those children’s screaming hearts for mercy deep within my soul.
To return to the call concerned, I had not the foggiest idea who was calling back then.
Given the circumstances and my profession, I answered the call expecting the giggle of pranksters or the grave and rotund tone of potential customers.
But it was none of these things.
I only heard someone’s shallow, hesitant breathing on the other end of the line.
This caught me off guard.
It was unexpected.
By the time a woman spoke, I had got into my car and was ready to hang up.
A quiet and antsy voice greeted me by my first name.
While ruminating whether the woman was a customer after all, she asked if I wanted to take on a job.
She would not specify what kind of work I was supposed to do at first, but when I insisted, she revealed that I was to tutor children in a village.
Details on the village itself, the pay or insurance she would only send me if I accepted her offer within two days.
Before she ended the peculiar call, I asked for her name and contact information.
Mary Magdalene.
(203) NXX-XXXX.
I knew at that point that she used a pseudonym.
Could it be a coincidence? It could be.
But the nature of the phone call, her delayed speech and the bizarre job offer told me it could not just be a coincidence.
I knew my Gospel.
My mother was a nun before she gave birth to me.
I never had a father; I was called all sorts of names and slurs due to this while growing up.
There were times when I considered finding him despite my mother’s pleas.
Moreover, we did not look alike, my mother and I.
She was pallid and blue-eyed while I was tanned and brown-eyed.
My peers used to make fun of this, especially, they called me the whore’s daughter and a bastard.
I could not help but wonder over the years whether I resembled my father…
When she lay on her deathbed a year ago, she made me promise not to look for him.
She was cruel even as she passed away.
I was 28 years old at the time.
A father figure had always been missed in my life.
My mother remained a recluse nun until the day she died and harboured such hate towards men that I grew up thinking they were all devils.
It was an unwritten rule between us that I was not supposed to take to men.
Even after she bit the dust, I could not fall in love.
The resentment was deep and persistent; it pervaded and shaped my entire life.
But I knew I liked men.
I had never fallen in love with another woman despite my best efforts.
On countless nights, I prayed for my cold heart to open up and welcome the honeyed scent of females.
In the end, I ended up falling in love with a man.
His name was Ossian. Ossian Hallberg.
We were in the same peer group at university. With him, I experienced my first and last lovesickness.
I did not intend to act on my feelings, however, which was eventually for the better.
Ossian was already in love with another person – another man.
I realised two things about my covert sexuality with him: first, that I could fall in love like everyone else, and, second, that I liked femininity in men.
He was caring and kind, always the first to greet me even though everyone else avoided me.
His facial features were effeminate although his body was not, and his tone was sweet and sugary like a female’s although deep and guttural.
And first and foremost, he reminded me of myself; I, too, had both feminine and masculine features.
I was looking at a shrewd mirror whenever I stared at him, and he reminded me of a parallel universe where life was much different from the one I was living.
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