The Rapunzels ONC 2024

8: The Stranger Needs to Die

 "Is he alive?" I can barely hear Lexi speak over Lu's weeping. 

I look over at the man and nod when I notice there's a subtle rise and fall of his chest. He's not just a dead body that's fallen from the sky. 

"We need to kill him." Lexi's panic is a whisper, but it may as well be a sledgehammer bashing against my ribs.

"Kill him and bury him with the evil red," Lulu stops crying and adds in an equally panicky tone. "The stranger needs to die."

When I take a step closer to the body, both sisters grab me and pull me back.

"Don't!" Their voices are one horrid sound, like a screech of ugly nocturnal things.

I grit my teeth and tug free. "Let me go." As I fall to my knees before the stranger, I hear them both gasp.

Their feet shuffle over grass and snap brittle twigs when they move back to what I assume they think is a safe distance.

Lulu whispers, "Don't touch him. He may bite you. He could be poisonous."

But I do touch him and silently scowl. Venomous, not poisonous, you ninny.

I can't see enough. "It's very dark. I need some light." Briefly turning to my sisters I ask for a handful of sparklers.

Lulu lights about seven of them and hands the bunch over. It looks like a flaming bouquet. I wave it over the man. My breath falls out of my fingertips. I reach to grab it but it finds shelter on his chest. I was right. He is stunning. Even more so up close. I feel things I have never felt before. I understand why Blanche loves men so.

A hiss slithers to me, "Fia, we have to tread with care."

I quickly tell my eldest sister to shut the fuck up. Then add to my other sibling, "If you're thinking of speaking Lu, don't."

Lulu chips like a wounded bird, "But he is the...the... dev...devi..."

My sisters' fear is pushing logic away. "For crying out loud! He's not the Devil." There's no red on him. No horns, nothing forked. He looks like us. He is human. A man. Simply a man.

"I'm scared." Lulu's bottom lip is quivering.

The sparkles are flickering. That's when I see the blood. It's a few drops but enough that if my sisters were to see it, they'd be digging a hole with their bare hands. I reach out and gingerly turn the man's head to me. The grass under his face has speckles of red. There's a small wound on his temple and an ugly bruise around an eye. I flick the sparkles away and bathe the area in shadows. Discreetly, I wipe the blood away from his skin and reach towards the bloodied grass. My fist goes around the offending colour. I pull up a handful of blades and carefully tuck the crimson grass into my pocket.

"Nothing indicates he is anything but a simple human like us," I say to the others and pray my voice isn't trembling.

"What do we do?" Lulu sniffles.

I take a deep breath. The air calms me some. "What any good person does," I reply matter-of-factually. "We take care of him until he is better."

My sisters shake their heads, "No, we need to make sure he dies. We have to do it all together."

But I will not agree. "I'm not killing a person like us. I'm not a fucking murderer."

"What if he's bad?" Lulu is shaking the firecracker box nervously.

"What if he's good?" I hold up my hand to get her to stop. There's a moment of silence before I lower my voice and plead, "Let me take care of him."

"That's a terrible idea!" Lexi shouts. She yelps and smacks her hands over her mouth. Her eyes are animated moons.

"Would you prefer mother and father find him? Do you think they would take kindly to him? They shoot us with BBs. What do you think they'd do to a stranger who's trespassed on their property?"

It's a long, painful moment before one of my sisters finally speaks. "He can stay in the guest house. The one furthest from the house," Lexi offers and we all agree.

"Yes, he can stay there," Lulu hugs the box. "We'll lock him up and only you will tend to him."

I agree. A possessiveness I didn't know I had blooms. I don't want them to come near the man, anyway. 

"We want nothing to do with this Fia," Lexi says.

I see Lulu biting her lip, her eyes lingering on the man. "We could make sure he is at least fed," she offers.

Lexi scowls. "Fed basic meals and given a bandage and nothing more. Are we in agreement?"

"Agreement," I utter. Inside my pocket, I feel the dampness. The blood has seeped into the threads of my outfit. I'm not sure if I just made a horrible mistake.