Unofficial Excerpt for The Colours of Darkness
Everything was ripe for the taking in my family. Personally, stealing from an op-shop was a new low for me, but my aunt had found my stash of savings in my sock drawer. When I visited the op-shop before making my way to the Darswick cemetery I made sure to snatch the smallest candle on the shelf to lessen the impact of the sin.
I lit the candle in the glass lamp box. I thought my mother would appreciate the smell of sea spray because she loved the beach. We never got away enough, but when we did we would spend the darkest hour looking at the water with our dark vision, and see all the critters glow vibrantly, and watch the water reflect a night that didn’t match our skies.
Now, she was restricted under granite stone bordering a dirt plot of dead flowers. My aunt had thought a little garden would best honour my mother’s memory. “A living tribute”, she’d called it. I’d spent the past two weeks weeding and tearing out the decaying marigolds and petunias because my aunt had gotten over her sweet idea of cycling through colours into the next season. These poor flowers barely lasted the summer heat, so, I took the initiative to plant lavender. Something that could withstand a drought. A plant that my mother loved and one that I could scavenge from the neighbour’s garden without them noticing.
‘Hi, Mum,’ I whispered, running my hand across the granite stone. Dirt clung to my nail beds appeasing the fantasy that I had in fact crawled out from a grave plot nearby. My aunt couldn’t afford something grander than a generic headstone. Other plots had statues of angels, and glass photos of the dead under their name. I suppose we were lucky my mother wasn’t just a plaque on the ground for others to walk on.
‘I’ve been very bad this week,’ I said. ‘It was reactive, so not my fault, really…’ I sat crossed-legged and watched the candle burn in its glass case. I felt the shiver of something small crawling under my sleeve and when I pulled up it up I stiffen at the red-back spider positioned there.
‘I-I was defending myself.’ With tentative fingers, and a dry leaf, I set the deadly creature down. It seemed to stare up at me before scurrying away. I thought about the girls at school, how they always found something new to torment me with. Giannis too, but his attacks felt less targeted, he didn’t seem like the kind of guy that thought about me when I wasn’t in his line of vision. Becca however, was another story. Her hatred felt compulsive. It was all entertainment for her friends and a pathetic way to connect with Giannis who she so desperately wanted. A relationship she thought I could threaten merely because he and I had been pulling on each other’s hair and twisting the skin of each other’s arms since we were infants. I hated him, but Becca wanted an in with Giannis. Picking on me must have been her brilliant plan. Honestly it didn’t take much to get that meathead’s attention. He was an idiot.
‘Okay. More on the offensive.’ I grinned at the tombstone. ‘It’s not like I lied. You always taught me to use any opportunities that came my way.’
And no one could say I wasn’t opportunistic.