he had a headstart
ch1/? || 2522 words
archive of our own
That night, Sally Jackson would go through with her plan. She rehearsed it. She reviewed it. She prepared for it. And most importantly, she knew that it would work.
She had done her research before doing anything else, the discreet visit to the library reviving the nostalgia she held for her failed academic career. Life hardly ever goes as it should, and her parents’ sickness, as unfortunate as it was, kept her from pursuing higher education.
Maybe she would go back to school one day. For that to be a possibility, however, tonight had to be successful.
Books on botanic and natural poisons were surprisingly easy to access, though that might be due to how likely it was for someone to use that knowledge to plan a murder. Not impossible, of course, but the chances were slim enough for the knowledge she needed to be so readily available.
She read through the books that day, with her young son, Percy, looking through picture books by her side. Gabriel had wanted the apartment to himself that day, and she had jumped on the occasion to both complete the first step of her plan and get her baby away from that man.
Percy was five now. Most of his memories included the one she called a husband, and while she knew the risks, they would have been exposed to should she not have married Gabriel Ugliano, she could not help but regret her decision. She wanted Percy safe but was unwilling to pay that price, the price of a human monster getting to break her boy before the real monsters could even get a chance to try.
Sally married Gabriel Ugliano when Percy was two. Three years later, she was going to get rid of him. The only question left unanswered was how.
And the answer was foxglove.
It’s a wonder how such a pretty flower can become a weapon once you know how to use it properly. It just so happened to also align perfectly with her current situation. The fact that someone thought of planting it in Central Park was only an added bonus, for it made her quest much easier.
All she had needed to do was ask one of the nature spirits where she could find the plant, and after explaining to the kind dryad that she was clearsighted and what she was going to use the flower for, they were more than willing to show her the way to a nearby patch of flowers that was littered with it.
After that, it was almost too easy. Gabriel didn’t even question the bowl of chili she brought him, eating it faster than he could taste it. He returned the empty dish swiftly, leaving her with shaking hands and the usual chores.
*** * ***
Deep breaths, Sally. In, and out. She stared down at the steaming bowl of chili, not yet believing the reality of the moment. It was just like any other night, with Gabe watching sports far too loudly for anyone else’s taste, and her cooking him a meal while Percy drew with his crayons at the counter.
Expect tonight she had almost ruined the recipe four times due to stress. Except tonight Percy favored his red crayons rather than his usual blue as if sensing that something was happening.
Tonight was real. The chili bowl was real. The page of paper filled with red crayons was real. And the powdered foxglove, all remains of which she flushed down the sink, had been far too real.
She glanced at her husband Gabe through the door. He was blissfully unaware of his faith, yelling at the ongoing football match with a pack of beer between his legs. Chips and other similarly unhealthy foods littered the coffee table. She still couldn’t believe how his lifestyle made it so easy for her to build the narrative for his murder untimely death.
Tonight was the night.
*** * ***
She fed Percy his meal -a different one, that she kept as far as possible from the poisoned chili-, did the dishes, put her son to sleep, and promptly went to bed herself, bringing a book along.
There was no way she was getting any sleep that night.
Everything that came after that went fast. She walked out of the bedroom the next morning and called the emergency services when she ‘found’ her husband dead in his seat. Next thing she knew, they took his body away and hooked her up with a funeral home to organize funerals for the poor excuse of a man she married.
She went through everything, every piece of paperwork, every detail of his funeral, as quickly as possible. She was eager to put all of this behind her. Eager for a new start.
His family had come, and so had his friends. Sally would have preferred not to show up at all, but it would stain her image as the dutiful, mourning widow. So there she stood, all clad in black with her toddler by her sides, playing her role to perfection.
*** * ***
His mother had been the first to approach her.
Sally never liked the old lady, just like she had never liked, or Olympus forbids, loved her son. Her near-constant sneer and the dirty look she gave Percy every time the two of them stood in the same room never allowed Sally to warm up to the woman.
“The first few years are the hardest,” were her surprisingly honest first words to her. “But don’t let it crush you like I did. For your son’s sake.”
Without waiting for a reply, Mrs. Ugliano walked away, leaving Sally to process her words by herself. She carded her fingers through Percy’s hair, unsure what to do with her mother-in-law’s sudden concern for her son’s well-being.
It took her a moment, but eventually, Sally remembered that Gabe, in a way Mrs. Ugliano must have perceived as similar enough to her own story, also lost his father at a young age.
Guilt squirmed in her guts, calling her out for her lies.
Sally stood strong though, ignoring the weight of her sins to maintain the mask of grief she fabricated for herself to cement her tale.
*** * ***
The next thing on her list was to erase all traces of that man ever being in their lives. The memories might still haunt her -hopefully the same isn’t true for Percy-, but destroying all physical evidence would help her breathe better.
It was not an easy task. His trash was everywhere, from the ground to the cupboard, without forgetting between the couch’s cushions, the furniture smelled at him, and the walls were stained by his smoking.
The longer she spent working on cleansing the apartment of his presence, the stronger she felt the urge to burn the whole thing down. And that’s what she ended up doing, in a very much non-literal way. Thankfully for her and Percy, Gabriel had left them a hefty sum through both his personal savings and his life insurance, and as it turns out, moving out was easier than making the place liveable again.
Sally then reenrolled herself into school with what was left of that money, fully planning on getting a higher education to find a better-paying job to give her son all the chances she could. He deserved that much after Gabriel.
Her work schedule at the candy shop swiftly shifted from full-time to part-time, and with more time to spend with her son, a chance to finally pursue the education she had always wanted, and the absence of a husband in her life, her brand-new good mood quickly started to affect her job.
Her colleagues were the first to notice and were happy that things were finally looking up for her. The regulars were the next ones to do, commenting easily on her improved mood.
*** * ***
Mr. Fletcher was the kind of customer that made Sally’s day. He was a gentleman, always took the time to talk with her and her colleagues when he wasn’t in a rush, and regularly brought his dates to the shop, as if to show off the small business he visited on a weekly basis.
And most importantly, Mr. Fletcher gave her back her hope in humanity, if only for a moment, each time he walked into the shop with an order from the nearby orphanage. He was everything she would have looked for in a man but was also happily married to his husband.
What could you ask more than for a man to take the time out of his day to buy candies to the less fortunate?
It had been a while since she last saw him, what with the funerals when he walked into the shop. The bell cheerfully rang when the door opened, and Sally raised her eyes from her literature textbook to meet his eyes. She smiled when she recognized him.
“Mr. Fletcher. How have you been doing?” she greeted him politely.
He paused, as if not expecting to see her there that day. “Sally. I’ve been well. How about you? You seem… happier.”
She considered his odd choice of words for a moment. Had she really looked that noticeably miserable before Gabriel’s passing? Or maybe did she simply look better due to the good turn her life had finally taken? With the new flat and her debut in higher education, on top of her concealed crime, she supposed that could be it.
“I suppose I am,” she finally replied.
“Whatever it is, I’m happy for you.”
“Thank you.” There was a pause, during which neither of them knew what to say before Sally redirected the conversation. “So! What would it be today?”
“Right!”
They moved along easily, the conversation taking a sweet focused turn as Sally helped him fill the day’s order, and just as quickly as he had walked in, Mr. Fletcher was out of the door, bringing with him a bag heavy with candy.
Oblivious, Sally returned to her textbook, once again silently thanking her employer for their lenience which allowed her to study during her shifts.
Mr. Fletcher, however, walked away with more questions than he had previous to his visit to the candy shop. Thoughtfully, he wondered what happened to the source of the bruises he had observed on Sally during his previous visits. It might be worth an investigation.
*** * ***
It took a few more days for the other shoe to drop, and when it did, it was at the time and place she expected it the least.
She had just come home from a long shift, which had immediately followed the two classes she had in the morning, meeting and paying Percy’s babysitter in the doorway. Locking the door behind her, she kicked off her shoes and walked into the apartment, which was already well obscured by the night.
Blindly, she put her purse on the dining table before searching for the light switch. The place was still unfamiliar enough to her that she had to take a moment to search for it, feeling the wall with the tip of her fingers until she found it and the light came.
And where she had expected to turn and see only her purse on the empty table, she found instead her purse, Mr. Fletcher from the candy store, and two strangers sitting in her kitchen.
She paused, unsure of what to do in this situation, staring at the intruders and only taking her eyes off them for a fraction of a second, which she used to locate the knife block. She might appreciate her talks with her clientele while on the job, but the same wasn’t true when she found them in her home at ungodly hours of the night.
“That’s your idea of a potential recruit?” one of the strangers commented eventually, breaking the silence. They looked her up and down with a sneer on their face. “She looks more like a single mother than anything else.”
There was a sigh.
“That’s because she is a single mother, Paisley. Her son probably is sleeping in the next room,” Fletcher informed them, his tone so detached it seemed otherworldly, especially in their current predicament.
“That begs the question, then; why are we here?”
Fletcher opened his mouth to answer this Paisley person’s question once more, but this time, Sally beats him to it.
“What is this?” she asks. Her tone is shaky, but firm, in a way she hopes indicates her willingness to resort to physical violence to defend her home.
All three of the intruders exchange a glance, and after a moment, the second stranger, who had yet to say a word, spoke up.
“An assessment.”
“An assessment for what?”
‘Paisley’ whistled in a totally not subtle way. “She’s willing to hear us out. She either has as much potential as you said she had, or she’s completely stupid.” Fletcher was however quiet to elbow them into silence.
He turned toward her and answered her question. “We know you killed your husband, and-”
“I didn’t though,” she replied automatically. The lie, nowadays so solidly implanted in her daily life, became as easy to speak as the truth. She knew it was false, but she repeated it often enough that it might as well have become her truth.
“…but you did. You might have convinced the world otherwise, but we know. We recognize the signs.”
“And what might those be?”
“The high concentration of cardiac glycosides in your late husband’s system,” the third intruder immediately stated. “Commonly associated with foxglove poisoning,” he added as an afterthought.
“Let’s say it’s true,” she said, shifting closer to the knife bock discreetly. “How would you even know that?”
“It’s written all over his charts at the morgue.”
“And let me guess. You guys went to check Gabe’s toxicology report just on the off chance that I might have murdered my husband. Is intuition all you need to investigate a widowed mother?” she asked the last question with a hint of sarcasm.
“No,” came Fletcher’s answer. “But a change in behavior does. You have to admit that your being so much happier after the facts were curious as of itself. And you started sporting fewer bruises after his passing.”
Had his marks on her skin been so visible?
She felt angry for a moment at the thought. The world saw. The world knew. And yet they let her suffer. They let her son, poor innocent Percy, suffer. They knew, and yet, they did nothing.
She took a more direct step toward the knife block, hoping that the outright hostility would make them leave. “What are you, the cops?” More venom than necessary slipped into the voice.
“Quite on the contrary,” Paisley said. “We’re assassins. Hitmen. Professional killers. Whatever you want to call it.
“…what?”
Fletcher stood up and made a step in her direction. She took a step back as a reflex, despite his relaxed posture and hands stored deep in his pockets showing her how little of a threat he represented.
He spoke again, undisturbed by her reaction to his approach. “How do you feel about a new job, Sally?”
12 notes
·
View notes