“Am off to visit dad, won’t be too long”
“Make sure you find father frank before you go to see your dad so he can look after you,” Anna says concerned for her daughter’s safety.
“don’t worry mum I will,” she replies, “can I have some money please to get some flowers,” Roxy shouts.
“There’s some on the side near the kettle, take that love,”
“okay thanks.” With that she exits the house and starts on her journey.
She enters the florets. The air inside is filled with a heavy scent that reminds her of her grandmas garden. She takes a few seconds to embrace the moment, closes her eyes and smiles whilst taking a deep breath, filling her lungs with the scent and not letting the breath out as if to hold the feeling as long as she could. When she’s ready she looks around carefully gazing over each and every flower. There it is, the very flower that touched her at her father’s funeral, the same deep red, so red, and the soft velvet touch. But today was different, she wanted to forget the sadness of that day and take her father something bright and uplifting.
“Can I help love” a voice came from over her left shoulder, “something for your mum eh, birthday is it?”
“Dads grave actually” she says
The shop assistants face fell, “oh im sorry love,”
“It’s okay,”
“Wait here I have the perfect thing, just had a delivery out the back,” When she returned she was holding the most beautiful sunflowers with petals so golden they could light up a room.
“I’ll take them” Roxy says.
Roxy arrives at the cemetery, she goes inside to find Father Frank so he can take her to her father’s grave.
“Father Frank!” she calls
“Roxy” Frank says in surprise
“Where’s your mum today?”
“She’s at home she said I got to find you if I want to go see my dad so you can take me there,”
“Did she? Well come on then” He says
They start to walk down through the cemetery, Frank looks at Roxy as they walk.
“What you looking at?” Roxy says innocently
“Nothing I thought you had a bug in your hair,” he says stroking her hair gently with his fingers.
“Here we are,” Frank says breathlessly.
Roxy walks towards her father’s grave with the flowers, she bends over to place them in the pot on his grave.
“I hope your ok dad” she says
“I got you some nice flowers,” Roxy stays there for a moment looking up to the sky. The hot weather felt like it was holding her to the spot. There was no breeze to cool her down, she was thinking about her dad. In her mind the clouds seemed as if they were a gateway opening up into heaven, the immaculate beams of light, bursting through the clouds and down in front of her foreground vision.
“Roxy are you thirsty?” Frank says from behind her
“I am a bit as a matter of fact,” she says changing her focus to frank.
“Do you want to quickly come back to my house to get a drink?”
Roxy says her goodbyes to her father and gets up.
“Ok then,” she replies.
As they approach Father Franks house a large heavy golden gate opened up in front of there path way. They started to walk down towards the house through a long path with huge trees shading over them stopping the hot sun, it was cool and refreshing Roxy thought to herself. The trees led all the way down to the house along both sides of the path and there before them stood an idyllic cottage. It was very isolated but beautiful. Birds were tweeting throughout the acres of land. The atmosphere of the cottage gave a pleasant feeling to Roxy. Frank opened the wooden doors of the cottage then walked inside heading towards the kitchen.
“Come on in Roxy, what would you like to drink?” Frank asks.
“Ummm….do you have milk?”
“I do,” Frank says
“You can sit down if you want Roxy,”
“Ok,”
Frank brings Roxy a drink over to the table and sits down besides her.
“So do you have a boyfriend Roxy?” He asked
“No,” she says gulping the rest of her milk, “I got to go now, its pretty cool here but I got to go,” realising the time. Just before Roxy gets up Frank leans forward as if to kiss her, not the usual playground kiss but the sort she saw on TV or the type she read about in books.
“What are you doing?” she says stunned and feeling somewhat awkward, “I got to go now!” Roxy says raising her voice a little with nervousness.
“I don’t know why you think your leaving,”
Roxy starts to feel anxious and frightened, her tummy had the feeling it did when her dad used to drive fast over a bridge, only this time is wasn’t fun. Frank was blocking the door.
“Father I really do need to get home, my mum will be wondering where I am”
“Take of your clothes,”
“What?” she says uneasily, “please let me leave,” she could feel her body temperature rising and a stinging sensation burned around her neck
“You not leaving Roxy my dear, don’t you want to have some fun?” As he spoke those chilling words he moved in closer to her.
“Your father would thank me for taking care of you,” he said
Roxy’s body froze, she wanted to turn and run but her body seemed to have lost all co-ordination, she wanted to scream and even opened her mouth but no sound came out. What happened nest was a blur but somehow she was on the floor. Suddenly the realisation kicked in. She fought as hard as she could, trying to hold Farther Frank of her but her hardest wasn’t hard enough. He pinned her down to the floor then tied her wrists up with the rope curtain tiebacks. Roxy couldn’t move. She just lay there flat on the ground with farther panting away on top of her. Farther started to press his lips down against Roxy, They were wet. She tried to scream again but she couldn’t as she was so out of breath from the fight.
“Don’t,” Roxy said exhaustedly,
“Don’t,” she said again making it seem that this word was the only word she could say. Farther became tired of hearing her voice.
“Shut up,” he said whilst reaching over to the side grabbing a tea towel and shoving it in her mouth. Father began to press his wet lips down Roxy’s neck then began to shove his hand under her skirt. He ripped Roxy’s pants off then started working himself over her. After what seemed like forever he finally stopped. He stayed there. Roxy could feel his heartbeat thudding against her chest.
“This is our secret. And if you break it bad things will happen to you” he said in a stern voice. He gets up and pulls his trousers up high. He pulls the towel out from Roxy's mouth then unties her. Roxy walks towards the door terrified sick to the stomach and shaking from head to toe, she starts to walk out of the house. What had just happened was wrong, very wrong, she knew that much yet she was unsure how to react. She thought if she stayed calm she could talk to him. She saw this in films and it always seemed to work. She just wanted to get home and feel the warmth of her mothers love. She pictured in her head how she would run to her and hold her as tight as she could and never let go. But her thought was broken.
“Do you want a lift home Roxy?” farther asked switching his attitude entirely. Roxy turns and nods in a “yes” motion but she did not make eye contact, she just bowed her head and focused on a crack in the floor tile.
“Come on then,” Frank takes his keys. Roxy follows.
On the journey back to Roxy’s house not a word was spoken. Frank just kept his eye on the road eyes focused the whole time.
“Here we are, now remember our little secret,”
Roxy turns to open the car door.
“God is watching you,” father tells Roxy in a sly voice.
Roxy shuts the car door.
“Mum!” Roxy shouts throughout the house, nothing, no replies. Roxy runs upstairs, thoughts start running through her head about her ordeal. She falls and presses her back against the wall, and slowly slides down in a crouched position holding her head in her hands. Tears start running down her face, her eyes sting as though being poked with needles and her nose was dripping uncontrollably. Her tears fell hard against the floor. She slowly stands and walks to her room. She walks slowly towards the free standing mirror in the corner of her room. She could barley stand to look at herself. Everything felt wrong, she had been robbed of something that was supposed to be special. She felt dirty, unclean and sick to her stomach the figure staring back at her seemed distorted. She could still smell that dirty animal on her skin. Roxy didn’t swear usually but right now every word that came into head was obscene. She had to rid her skin from the disgusting smell.
Roxy ran to the bathroom and started the shower. She needed it hot so hot she wanted to scald him off of her. And there she stood for the best part of an hour repeating the same thing over and over. Soap, scrub, soap, scrub.
Back in her bedroom she found herself in front of the mirror again, her skin red raw yet still she felt dirty. Suddenly she lets out the scream that was forbidden earlier, she started pulling at her hair uncontrollably tears gushing from her eyes body shaking, her temperature was rising, she was sweating, her breathing became shallow as she frantically threw objects around her room. Exhausted she slumped on to her bed and there at her feet as if by fate laid the rope from her dressing gown. She leans forward and picks up the rope. She walks out of her room and down the stairs toward the kitchen. Her tears had stopped now her breathing seemed to have recovered and she felt calm. She walked over to the note pad her mum always kept by the phone. There she sat and wrote her note. Then she turned, walked out of the back door and down to end of the garden towards the apple tree. Roxy climbs up the tree. She sits there thinking about her dad. Her mum was still not home and yet it was now after dark but this made Roxy able to carry on in her quest. The moonlight comes down and reflects of Roxy’s tears shining, glittering in the moonlight. Roxy starts to tie the rope around a thick branch of the tree. Grasping the rope firmly in her hand she pulls the hoop over her head.
“I'm coming dad,” Roxy whispers under her breath. Roxy closes her eyes and allows her body to effortlessly slip from the tree. Her summer flip flops fell to floor. Her body was thrashing vigorously and seemed set to fight against her will until there was nothing left. She hung motionless.
Roxy’s mum arrives home with several bags of shopping.
“Roxy, can you come and help me with these bags please,” Anna shouts as she struggles to get through the door.
“Bloody el, where is she,” she mutters to herself.
Anna manages to get through the door and puts the shopping on the table. She calls for Roxy again this time with slight anger as she needs some help and thinks Roxy is just ignoring her. Again nothing so she sets on unloading the shopping herself. Out of the corner of her eye she notices a note, puzzled she reaches over picks it up starts reading it.
“Dear mum
I saw father frank today and he done something horrible to me. I cant live with this. Its horrible, he told me I must never tell. I tried to fight him but I failed. He touched me mum and cant carry on with my life if I have to carry this secret. I need to have peace and so I am going to be with Dad. I am sorry Mum.
I love you, always remember that.
X xxx xxx xxx xxx x x xx x”
As Anna read the note her heart began to race. Her hands were clammy. Her body ached, and she shook from head to toe, her throat seized up and her mouth was dry she needed air or a drink but she couldn’t decide in what order. She turned and let the sink support her body weight. She reached for the tap while leaning forward to open the latch on the kitchen window when something caught her eye.
“No it couldn’t be,” she strained her eyes and fixed them hard on the tree in the garden.
“Please God no,” she screamed and rushed to her image.
With every step closer it was clear her eyes were not deceiving her.
“No, no, no,”
When she reached Roxy her body was cold
Months after the death of Roxy Anna’s mind was focused on Frank. She knew what she wanted to do. She was raging, day after day, night after night she could help but to have the most furious uproars in her house. Her anger had been bursting out. She couldn’t help it. Killing Frank was running through her mind. She couldn’t get it out of her head. Blood was running through her mind. She sat at the table with her elbows pressing down and biting the knuckles of her thumb. Her eyes were so wide it looked as if her eyes were trying to crawl out from her sockets. Her eyes were looking at a pot of rat’s poison which she’s had to use to get rid of her rats. She suddenly gets up and takes the phone from the charger and starts calling someone.
“Hello is that Father?” she asks
“Yes it is, who is this? Sorry I’m not good with voices,”
“It’s Anna,”
“O hello Anna how are you know? I hope your feeling much better,”
“I’m ok I guess. I’m pretty sad. Do you think you could come round my house tonight for some company?” she says as her hands become tense. The horrid feeling in her body was running through her blood. She was starting to sweat.
“umm…,”
“I’m going to cook,”
“Ok, I will I know you are feeling lonely,”
“Ok great,” she says,” could you come round about eightish ok,”
“Ok will be there,” he says, “bye,”
“See ya later,”
That night Frank comes round for dinner. As he arrives at the door of Anna’s house he could smell the succulent smell of her cooking. Frank knocks on the door. He hears the footsteps from Anna walking towards the door.
“Hello father,” she says as she opens the door, “come on in,”
She leads him towards the kitchen dining table. Candles were placed around the table with two silver place mats on the table.
“That smell great,” Frank complements. When frank isn’t looking she pours the poison into the meal. After leaving the meal to foment for about half hours she brings the meal over to the table
“Thanks, hope you like it,” Anna goes of to pour two drinks.
“Go ahead, I’m just going to get us two drinks,”
Frank takes a bite of a big piece of chicken.
“This is fantastic,” frank says with halve a mouth full of food.
“That’s good then,” Anna says as she pours two glasses of wine, she slowly turns round and looks at Frank. Her anger starts to rise again. Her pulse beats so load it sounds like there is a band of drums inside her. But she doesn’t show it. She sits down opposite Frank as he eats over half of his dinner.
“I know what you did,” she says quietly.
“Huh,” Frank looks up in a shocked face.
“I know what you did to my daughter,”
Franks heart started to pound, his face drops, his hands become clammy.
“The funny thing is Father,” Anna leans over the table to whisper in his ear, “we all have to die sometimes,”
Aaron joll