Page 21 of Eyes Like Angel (Eyes Like Angel #1)

Eva

In the last few hours within the next day, I wasn’t able to gather my last energy due to the labor by the time my assigned tasks were in near completion.

Labor after labor, I was reward less and less, sometimes none, which a droning results drained my last vigor, limped in my last vigor, limped at my last steps.

I was grateful for generous compliments, but accolades within accomplice were lacking in sufficient in payment.

Day by day, I was dragged all over by mothers in Fort Heaven, dragged for their sons and daughters, polished and poised, to be disciplined and aligned their parents’ expectations to follow the instructions within a consistency in homework and projects, in extension of a main objective to housekeeping—cleaning, sweeping, rinsing, lathering any dirt or soil might cause mold or diseases—room to room, storage and closets, scrapping mud, goo and gum, and unknown sticky substances glued under countertops and tables, sometimes feces and stained urine in the unreachable surfaces across their tiled floor.

In other words, property needs to be pristine, germ-free—a perfection, suffice to say.

Needless to say, everyone in Fort Heaven neighborhood acknowledged and promoted me to wipe stains and heavy and grossest muck, in extreme measures of climbing, crawling, dashing to compile decontaminated from floor to roof, disregarding the shooting pains in my fingertips, joints on my elbows and knees from crouching and crawling under place to place.

The smell of strong-scented bleach and Windex clogged my sensitive nostrils and gloved hands gotten stickier, and objectives neglected.

A disposable dust mask in the cleaning bucket is unsullied, wrapped in a clear bag; hence I took the chance on finalizing my working product, masking my face and get on with last attempts on dusting and swiping before the residential owners gets home.

Due to my hard-earning hours, until supper, all were impressed by my exceptional skills, and rewarded with food shortage—their frigid leftovers or me rummaging when no one’s in sight.

Shirked to my chores, I found myself grew listless and disinterested, to a point where I accepted I’ll never receive exchanges on currency, and grew fond of dreams, daydreaming and admiration of the plain-clouded sky.

I could fly away if I could; I pictured my glorified wings, torn and burnt—bloody in overlapped wounds and ash.

Among a peaceful neighborhood, Mrs. Fairfield—Miss Fairfield—a new divorcee, through specified as a dowager, since her husband’s affairs was recently raw, as an older woman’s visage upturned from benign and sincerity to a sour and chaffed, wrinkles formed twice as the last I saw her.

Wrinkles and crow’s feet drew longer and squished tighter, even when her newly-ragged face mellow.

A shame of a womanly potential being drained and drowned by a company of misery from a deadbeat husband’s secrecy and his haunted affairs plagued her, like his death mattered, and his death morphed her entirely.

If women are no chained under rules constructed by society, and the sworn vows were to keep its sheath for a manhood sword, manhood wouldn’t keep its sheath its warmth on a turned grave.

My sworn oath wasn’t a contradictory, as I have sworn to chastity, but a sworn oath alike.

Soldiers swore to protect and prevail people’s safety from enemies, as angels sworn their life to send their lambs with guidance.

Under five hours, Miss Fairfield demanded with crossed arms, back slouched like an armadillo.

As Miss Fairfield fretted of her child’s downhill, a downfall sent into a mind-blowing spiral, screeched at me.

My ears blared and rang, like the sound of beating eardrums driven close to burst, I held my hands together, tucked in lower, below my lower belly, the wooden basket I’d often used plopped, hanged by a thread, slipping inch by inch at my fingers.

Meanwhile, I devoid meeting Miss Fairfield’s bellowing and infuriating eyes and sound, rotated my focus at the clear sunset sky.

Dared I hope to fly; I wished to spread my tarnished wings as the wind coursed in my numbing veins. Sadly, my arms were flimsy and heavy, dulled and broken, the only remains for my gloved fingers to operate.

Autumn was my least favorite time in a year, every single year. I hoped for the frosted breeze to settle in, and it was coming near after a month of November.

“Are you listening to me, you dumb bitch? I asked you to teach my beloved son about math. And he failed! He fucking failed because you don’t anything about numbers and equations.

Do you know how long it is to find a math tutor, to get someone for a lower price, so I don’t have to worry about tutoring my son without the price charging up! ”

I lowered my green eyes in sheepish, shameful at my limitations. “I’m sorry, Miss Fairfield, I did try my hardest to prepare your son for a better grade.”

Miss Fairfield scoffed haughtily.

My back tingled as I was fully aware of my surroundings—when the neighbors at the Samson Street rubbernecked a chaotic uproar from a miserable widow.

My teeth bit my lower lip, weak joints in my bones straightened. Skin blistered in glided lukewarm sweat, wrecked and shaken from tiredness and starvation, wanting this lecture to end, but only God could help me withstand against her wrath.

“Stop, you’re so fucking useless, I can’t even stand you!

You let my son failed!And you let my daughter cry because she got her first period!

How fucking dare you let my daughter bleeding all over the floor that cost $1,500!

? You let my little girl cry, making her believe that she was dying!

Tell Father Divine I won’t be attending, and will renounce—” Mrs. Fairfield threw a heavy flower pot of roses aimed at me—“and to hell—” Miss Fairfield threw a miniature ceramic jar with a wilted lily flower, thrown—and closely collided by my cheek by smallest gap—“with you! I hope the devil comes out to get you and burn your sins to hell!”

Neighborhood spectated from their windows and front doors.

Mothers scooped their children, ushered inside, husbands averted their bodies, charade in false pretense in a blissful ignorance, and mothers blasted their withering and scorned disapprove and distaste on my lacking experience on education and girlhood.

I never gained advance knowledgeable access on school subjects after I scouted—yanked out of high school when I was fifteen and pledged myself to be as God’s devoted nun.

With shame, I trudged my exit from Samson Street and wept without a sound unleashed.

Until I bumped onto someone, didn’t bother myself to look up, but I spotted a tall figure with dark clothing and a mask. The neighbors were inside by the time I strode on.

“Forgive me,” I said, and ambled ahead in somber, feeling someone’s eyes onto me.

***

Sister Joanne slapped me and her slapped rang between walls. It was the third slap she managed to get her point across without her palm falling off. The first slap she made was light; the second slap was faster and left a hot sting, the third struck harder.

Sometimes an infliction in me was growing accustom from Sister Joanne.

There were times I felt that skin on my scar-burnt hands itched, itched from boiling hot oil pouring onto me, forcing my self-control to lose it all and tempted to give in from its temptation, to peel my burnt skin just to have it bleed and a new layered skin bleed as if my skin was ready to be torn again.

It wasn’t that it was easy, sometimes my scratches and my own self-infliction was easier to cause than how others caused me. I’ve gotten used to my own self-pain, a habit to get my life easier.

“How fucking dare you, you stupid bitch, not knowing what a period is! She thinks her little daughter was dying! How fucking dare you!” Sister Joanne slapped me again for the fourth time, veins poking out on her neckline, eyes reddened at me.

I hardly knew what a menstruation is. I thought the little girl was dying.

The little girl yelled for the past two hours, crying about how she’ll die soon.

I tried to find a way to appease her, by giving her candy or her stuffed animal but she threw it all at my face, almost knocked out against the marbled faucet, telling me to get out and go find her mama.

Ms. Fairfield fired me on the spot, and I have no opportunity for me to steal food from her fridge or her cabinets. She has the best sources of food out of all neighbors.

My mouth quivered, fighting my hot tears back. “I tried my best—”

“ I tried my best , I tried my best ,” Sister Joanne mocked with an exaggerated deep tone she set. “Oh shut the fuck up, you stupid nun! Shut up! Just shut up! I hate your whining! You’ve been nothing but so argumentative to me and my poor soul!”

“But—”

“Shame! Shame on you!” She turned to face Father Divine. “She’s a fucking disgrace! Can you believe this? Just look at her! This uneducated bitch doesn’t know anything about a period to a female anatomy.”

Father Divine watched me with disdain, in those dark and distant stare.

“I didn’t know what to do,” I explained as quietly as I could, clutching my hands together, my head lowered. “I was trying to find a way to calm her down.”

Sister Joanne approached me too closely.

“Just fucking stop! I don’t want to hear shit from you!

Honor thy mother and father! Maybe if you know how to read and how to be a perfect servant or daughter or whatever you are, you would know.

I think you should learn more on how to be a respectful member of the family, witch!

Everything that you do and say is a sin! There’s no coming back to this.”

Sister Joanne stepped aside as Father Divine stood and gathered his whiplash in his drawer before snapped the whip on my flesh.

My teeth bit on my tongue, did the best of my ability to not scream out loud with tears coming out.

In a flash, he kicked me onto the floor several times until I coughed up blood.

Sister Joanne was satisfied. But Father Divine wasn’t.

“Get out of my sight before I drown you again,” he told me. “Go back to your attic, pack your things, and go to the estate, and don’t come back here again.”

“What estate, dear?” Sister Joanne asked. “What do you mean, ‘pack up’?”

Father Divine called on his cell, not cooperating with her question.

But I couldn’t, I was writhing in pain, but kept myself motionless. Blood streaks pooled on their new-tiled floor.

Father Divine shook his head and decided to walk off and had a phone on his hand, calling someone on the phone as Sister Joanne veered at me with a sinister sweet smile I always knew.

“Oh look at her. She’s so helpless,” she taunted, standing over my helpless form. “Helpless and sickly! Looks like you’re not getting any food. I feel like we should make you skinnier and prettier. Should we feed her, Father Divine?”

Heaving, I released a bloody cough faintly, my finger was twitching as I lay still, my eyesight became blurry and the sounds became distant, echoing.

Dad, why are you so cruel to me?

My heart winced as Father Divine’s phone rang, he replied with, “If Abraham or Moses can survive days without eating, so can she.”