Burning down the house by Zoe J. Stark

Author:Zoe J. Stark [Stark, Zoe J.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: FJM

Part II

Incoming message…

Scarlett,

I want you to know that it wasn’t

her, it wasn’t your mum.

I know, because it was me.

It was me who set the fire.

She’s innocent.

1

“To die will be an awfully big adventure.”

* * *

Peter Pan

J.M.Barrie

Most people wouldn't of believed me. Hell, I didn’t believe me. Scott didn’t believe me. Not even Rubi, who was raised in a haunted house. She believed in her ghosts, but couldn't believe me gran would be just the sort to haunt the crap out of people. They all gave me that look like I used to give me mum. And there was no way I was going to get put away because of me gran. So I zipped it.

After her funeral, I looked for her everywhere. When I moved out of the bus, I looked back to see if she’d appear at the window. But it was just Dad staring at me, saying nothing as I packed up and left. It was Liz who took pity on me. She said she couldn’t stand by and watch me go through what I was going through. Everyone needed someone to step in. What a gem. When I moved me stuff into Scott's house, into the spare room with their costumes and scenery, I looked out of the window to see if granny was in the garden, pruning. When I saw the Wright’s piano in the sitting room, I half expected to hear her singing Roll Out The Barrel. She loved to play the piano, but she loved to play people more - to press at their minor keys, pushing them until people screamed at her. I felt like an instrument too, highly strung.

Everyone treated me different after. And I guess that made sense, because everything was different. I had two parents who didn’t give two shits about me, and a family who felt sorry for me. Mum and Dad had never wanted me around. On some level, I reckon I’d always known. But when it gets said, a part of you gets destroyed. And it ain't a quiet passing. It’s violent. Explosive. It was like that part in the Iron Giant when he thinks his little friend is dead, and the robot goes nuclear out of grief and starts destroying everything. When Mum confessed to burning down the house, it was the final straw.

The woman I thought loved me was worse than dead. She was a figment of me imagination. They were right. I had been living in a fantasy land. My entire life. My family. It was all a lie. Why would I believe a single thing they said? I couldn’t trust them. My family were pathological liars. That was why they were nowhere to be seen. Not one of them could face up to the truth and so they’d all run off. Not one of them could face up to what they’d done, who they’d hurt. I was ashamed to be honest. I was ashamed to know them, to be related to them. People like Kirsten, me dad, me mum, they had ruined lives with their lies.

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