The Usher Foundation: Statement Three
Statement 3E
Emma sipped at the cup of coffee she nursed in one hand while she flipped through a thick dusty file in the other. The small interview room which had become her make-shift office was a mess with similarly thick folders stacked high all around her, adding a musty smell to the once sterile atmosphere. She set her mug down and leaned forward over the folder, furrowing her brows. “Hmm. Interesting,” she said as she slowly reached over to the tape recorder at the end of the table, putting her weight over a mountain of unsorted folders strewn across the surface. Then came a knock at the door. She looked over to the door as it cracked open.
“Ah, is now a bad time?”
In the doorway, the door pushed ajar, stood a tall man in a black suit with a red tie. He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and stared critically at Emma. “Oh, Archivist Nicholas–I wasn’t expecting you. I was…er…” Emma righted her position and sat straight in her chair. “I was just about to record a statement.”
“Quite.” Nicholas entered the room, his dress shoes clacking against the floor in pronounced steps. He closed the door curtly behind him. “How are you adjusting here.”
“It’s been a lot, but I’m really starting to hit my stride I think. And Deven has been a huge help.” Emma laughed awkwardly, “Is there something I can do for you Archivist?”
“I do listen back to your statements, you know. Some great work in there, Emma. It’s good to see I was right to appoint you as my Assistant Archivist.”
“Oh, thank you, sir.” Emma sat up in her seat, almost giddy from the compliment. She turned her head in confusion, however, glancing over to her tape recorder, “thought, I don’t remember turning my tape recorder over to you for a review and I haven’t fully finalized my reports for their files.”
“I wanted to see how you are coming along. You come off as incredulous. I do understand that not all statements carry the same, shall we say, believable fervor, but all the same, try to exude the quality of the believer when you are taking a statement or reproducing a statement. You may find yourself surprised to see what happens when you suspend your disbelief for a moment.”
“Oh, I see. I’m sorry sir. It's…well, it's just kind of who I am I suppose.”
“That’s alright–I wouldn’t have hired you if I didn’t see potential in you. You’ll find there’s a pattern to these things in time.”
Another knock came to the door. Nicholas turned and opened it, Deven stepping in. “Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize you were scheduled to meet with Emma, Archivist. I will excuse myself.”
“No need, I was just finishing up.” Nicholas smiled and outstretched his harm, inviting Deven into the room. Deven awkwardly pushed his way past the Archivist and into the room. Nicholas turned back to Emma who was now fidgeting with her coffee mug. Nicholas straightened his tie and glanced back at Emma with a smile, “Just remember, Emma, the most sublime statements are taken from subjects who believe they are being believed. I try not to be too hard on you, you’re still quite new to this afterall.”
“Thank you for the feedback, sir.” Emma managed to get out, her face flushed, “I’ll–I’ll try to work on it.”
“Very good.” Nicholas nodded and started toward the door. He turned over his shoulder as his hand rested on the door knob and said, “Oh, and Emma, keep up the good work.”
Nicholas left the room, leaving the door slightly ajar. Deven looked back to Emma. “Sublime? What is up with that guy?”
“I mean…I guess he can be a little strange, but, hey, he signs my paychecks so…” Emma shrugged.
Deven looked around the room and winced, “Jeez, I guess you haven’t figured out a system yet, have you? You’ve certainly made a proper mess of the interview room.”
“Yeah, well, there’s just so much that Nicholas wants me to go back through and get audio recordings for and there’s really not much room in here to do any sort of advanced sorting systems to streamline my work since the systems are all still down. I’ve really got my work cut out for me, but it’s nothing Rudy and I can’t handle.”
“Rudy?” Deven said, puzzled.
“Yeah, the recorder.” Emma scooped the little recording device up into her hands like it was a hamster or other small pet.
“Emma.” Deven put his head in his hands, “We are NOT naming the recorder.”
“Anyway,” Emma set the recorder back down at the end of the table, quickly moving on from Deven’s comment, “Rudy and I are making headway.”
“The Director really needs to take a second look at who they hired in IT, I think. Systems have been down for too long to call them competent at their jobs.” Deven folded his arms, shaking his head.
“Come now, its only been a few weeks. They’re doing the best they can, I’m sure.”
“Four weeks, Emma. It’s been four weeks.”
Emma shrugged and slowly closed the file in front of her–a peeling label on it reading “Under the Sand” and slid it to the side. “I assume you didn’t risk being chided by the Archivist as well just to complain about the state of things here, did you?”
“No,” Deven shifted his weight and pushed himself off from the wall he had been leaning on. “Your next subject has arrived. I can tell them there’s been a delay, if you would like to record that statement. You’ve been eyeing it up pretty much the whole time”
“That’s alright. It’s not like its going to be going anywhere, afterall.”
“I’ll give you a moment to…” Deven glanced critically at the pile growing on the table and around Emma’s feet of unsorted files, “tidy up.”
“Yes, yes.” Emma laughed.
Deven exited the room and gingerly shut the door. Emma began to tidy up best she could, stacking the files on the table into un-tidy piles on the chair beside her and in small rows underneath the table. After cleaning up, she took a deep breath and sipped once more from her coffee. She stood and prepared herself for her next statement, straightening her tan sweater and smoothing her hands on her black pencil skirt, her long hair in a braid over her shoulder when a knock came from the door.
“Come in,” she said. The door opened very slowly as if the person on the other side was afraid that it might break off if it were opened any faster. Through the door came a meek looking woman. She wore a black dress that covered just above her knees. She wore thin black eyeliner, and, despite her attempts to conceal it with highlighter and foundation, deep bags were evident underneath her eyes from what must have been countless sleepless nights. Her long nails scratched at the door as she softly closed it behind her. Emma saw the girl flinch at the sound of the click of the door as it shut. “Hey, darling,” Emma said softly. She came around the table to the woman and held out her hand. “My name is Emma, what’s yours?”
“Violet,” the girl said. She eyed up Emma’s hand wearily and after a pause, took it hesitantly.
“Violet Samton.”
“Violet, that’s a beautiful name.” Emma led the girl to a seat opposite hers. “Please, have a seat.”
Violet did as Emma said and took a seat at the opposite end of the table, fidgeting with the hem of her dress as Emma made her way into her seat as well.
“So, I understand you are here to make a statement regarding some odd occurrences?” Emma said. Violet nodded. She was clearly skittish. Shy–perhaps even scared. Violet’s eyes darted around the room, but never focusing on Emma, and never meeting Emma’s eye contact. After a few moments, Violet’s eyes fixated on a point on the floor at their feet. “Hey–” Emma reached across the table and opened her hand, smiling at the subject, “it’s going to be okay.”
Violet glanced up at Emma, then to her hand. Tears were beginning to well up in her eyes.
“Whatever happened–why don't you tell me about it. You’re safe here.” Violet managed a weak smile and took Emma’s hand, resting her long nails on Emma’s wrist. Emma cleared her throat care-fully. “This statement will be recorded for the purposes of future potential follow ups and posterity, okay?”
Violet nodded.
“Okay,” Emma reached over with her free hand and the hard ca-thunk of the recorder’s play button sounded, followed by the soft whirring of the tape. Emma grabbed a folder from the leaning tower in the seat beside her and placed it on the table. Opening it, she began, “Statement of Violet Samton regarding,” Emma paused, squinting at the words written on the pre-intake file under ‘incident summary,’ “a hunt?--Audio recording by Emma Thompson of the Usher Foundation. Original recording done today’s date of October 3rd, 2024. Statement begins.”
Emma turned to violet and smiled, squeezing her hand.
“You can begin anywhere, darling.”
Violet let out a long sigh. She attempted to correct her slouched posture, but in seconds her back hunched back over. Emma could feel Violet’s grip tighten on her hand. “It sounds–” Violet coughed, her voice coming out hoarse and raspy, “It’s going to sound crazy.”
“That’s okay. You may come to find we kinda deal in the absurd–er–what others would consider absurd.”
“Okay I–-I—I’m being tracked. Or I should say…I feel like I’m being tracked.”
“Tracked? You’re safe here, Violet. No one can hurt you here.”
“I can feel it even now. The blood rush. The murderous intent. Like–like I can’t hide anywhere.”
“When did you start feeling that. The…uh…murderous intent?”
“I never really liked hunting when I was growing up. Before I was out, before I even knew, my dad always liked to take me hunting. My mom always used to say he was so happy when they found out they were having a son after giving birth to three girls–my older sisters–that he could finally do “guy things” that my sisters never took to. It’s ironic now , looking back since I turned out to be a girl–my egg cracking wide open at the beginning of my college years. But anyway, he always really loved taking me hunting. He loved the whole sport of it, really. Tracking the deer–lying in wait for hours for his moment to pounce. The raw satisfaction he would get when he finally got his prey right where he wanted it. He would always bring back the deer and harvest its meat. If you’ve never had venison, really, it's worth all the effort. We always had venison that time of year.
“I never really did any of the hunting. Whenever I had begun to protest going outside with him for long hours in the cold for mostly nothing to happen–somedays nothing would happen at all–he would just say it was ‘bonding time’ even though we always sat in silence. I eventually just started bringing books to read to fill the time. There wasn’t much I could do about the cold. We would sit in the tree stand fairly deep in the woods right at the edge of a small clearing. My dad had built it. I say tree stand when, really, it was more like a tree-house. Fit with four walls with windows to peer out over the field and back into the woods behind us. It helped ward off the worst of the winter winds and made for a cozy little nook for me to nestle myself in the corner in my winter wear and a fleece blanket and wait it out. Most years, like I said, it was entirely uneventful.
“But I remember most of it. That first day when I noticed it. Something in him changing. I saw a side of him I had never seen before. It was peaceful that day, almost, from just how quiet it was. Just us and the woods and the occasional rustling of some small animal in the brush below that would cause my dad to excited to sit to attention and look out over the window of the treestand, ready to pull his gun up if he found his prey, just to be let out an exasperated sigh when it was just a bunny or a fox. I had my nose in a book, not paying much attention to the excited whispers of my old man. It might have been just another uneventful day if it weren’t for that deer. I was busy losing myself in this fantasy world, the escape that books brought me, when I heard a shot ring out from his riffle. It startled me so bad my book jumped out of my hand and thunked onto the wooden floor. I gazed out over the field and heard my dad exclaim “I got one!” and watched as a deer limped away into the brush on the opposite side of the clearing. “Let’s get after it!” my dad had exclaimed.
“We quickly got down from our position, my dad hurriedly telling me to get down as I carefully climbed, trying to avoid getting any splinters from the jagged old wooden planks that led up to the tree stand. I had to catch up to him, he was so excited to see if he had gotten his deer for the season. When I caught up to him, he had this look of eager anticipation as he kneeled down to a small red droplet. His kneel became a crouch as he followed the trail. It was clear the animal was injured and bleeding heavily as we moved closer to the edge of the clearing, my dad picking up his pace, slowly turning into a run. I could barely catch up with him as he reached a sprint.
“When we finally found the deer, it wasn’t moving anymore. It was alive, but struggling to get up with the bullet lodged into its hind quarters. And the pathetic sounds it made as it tried to stand. Blood covered the snow all around the poor thing. I had never seen a deer injured like this before. All the times before when my dad had landed a shot, it had been clean. Some blood, sure. But for a moment, as I approached the scene, I thought it was lying on a bed of satin until the setting sun hit the liquid, causing it to glisten and shimmer. If you’re familiar with hunters and their enjoyment for hunting, this might not sound too out of the ordinary, I know. But, what haunted me about that moment–it still haunts me–is that my dad, he didn’t just put it out of its misery with a single shot to its head or neck. He reached down and unsheathed a bowie knife that he had attached to his leg and stalked over to the creature. He stood over the helpless thing, blade in hand. And then he started stabbing it. Over and over. Stabbing it. Ripping through flesh and tendon and muscle. Just stab after stab after stab. Blood splattered out of the creature with each thrust and removal of the blade, covering my day, soaking him in a slick film of red. And he was just laughing, delighting in it. In this…this terrible cruelty. Even long after the deer was gone.
“I couldn’t stomach it. I turned around and put my hands over my ears so I could stop hearing that horrible sound of flesh and blade meeting. I could hear him after awhile, muffled, calling for me, wanting for me to take a turn. When I didn’t respond, he came over to me. I could feel a warm, slick hand on my shoulder. I opened my eyes as he took my hands in his, dripping with blood over mine, and thrust the blade into my hands. I–I don’t remember much after that moment. I think I still repress what might have happened next. And I think I’d rather not know.
“After that day, I told my mom I didn’t want to go hunting with him anymore. I told her what had happened but she insisted that it was just a flight of fancy. That she knew I never liked going hunting with him and this was just a fantastical and extreme story to get out of it. When my dad heard about it, he was furious. More furious than I ever seen him before. After that day, he started being short with me–easily tempered. We never brought up hunting anymore around him. Everyone knew what sore a subject it was with him, and he would fly into a rage when someone asked him how his hunt was, just going on and on about how I refused to join him. That I wasn’t man enough for it and, well, I guess he’s right about that in the end. My father, he still hunted, you see, but he did it alone now. He would go out for whole days and some nights he wouldn’t return home until the next day. And despite how much he hunted, he never brought home any deer to make venison anymore after that dreadful day.
“As I began to grow further into myself and really started to explore who I am, I strayed further and further away from what my dad thought I should be. I didn’t fit his image of what his ‘son’ should have been. I didn’t play sports or rough house with other boys or whatever else people like to put into a neat little gendered box. I liked being in musicals and performing. I liked dancing and cheerleading. I liked doing make up–even if it was more guyliner at the time. I liked wearing clothes people gender as feminine. I really should have figured it out sooner, but, anyway, the point is I wasn’t the baby boy my dad had hoped to have. My mom and my sisters were all for it–my sisters practically knew at this point–even before I did. But my dad, well, ever since that day in the woods, he became more critical of me. Saying I ought to play football or wrestle. Even so, he would still attend every musical, every game to watch me cheer, even if this was more of my mom pushing him to be there with her. I know this because of how often he would come to my room and fight me about it.
“One night, before the opening night of the school musical, he came to my room for one of his usual lectures. He pushed the door open and positioned himself in the doorway. Just imagine a tall, burly man in a fleece shirt looming in your doorway, blocking my only way out since my room was on the top floor of the house. There he stood, lecturing me. And honestly, at that point, I had enough. And, as teenagers do, I yelled at him, told him I hate him. That he didn’t love me for who I was. He just wanted a cookie cutter ‘boy’ and not the person who was in front of him. It got nasty and I told him I hated him and that I wished he would just go out in the woods and never come back this time. Something about that argument was different. Like I saw something change in front of me again like that day in the woods. The anger that was so loud for the past few years went silent. He grew quiet. And I saw it again, maybe for a flicker of a moment, but that blood lust behind his eyes, like he was looking at another animal in a clearing.
“Even so, even after the blow out between us, he was there for my performance. I could see him in the crowd under dim lights next to my mom and my oldest sister. And I saw it again. That look. Fierce eyes glaring at me as I performed. My mom was smiling, my sister as well, but he had an angry look about it. I can’t quite explain it…it was like murderous contempt.
“Only a few months later I had graduated and shipped off to college. Well, I say shipped off, but it was just a local community college my other sisters were going to. It just felt natural to follow in their footsteps. I was really able to spread my wings there and be myself. My new friends and my sisters helped me replace my wardrobe and before the end of my first year, I felt confident enough to finally come out publicly. It was so freeing, and I’ll never regret that decision. Through the years, I was able to gauge sort of where members of my family and where my friends were going to land when I came out, but even so, despite all of my nerves, it was more positive and more welcoming than I could have ever hoped for. Even my dad, whose opinion of all of this was, well, as you can expect, less than supportive, came around. But I’ll never forget what he said when I sat across from him and my mom when I came out to them as trans.
“My mom had gotten up and hugged me, telling me she will always be there for me and love me. But my dad. He just sat there for a moment, looking at his coffee table. Silent. And after a moment, saying he figured that I was going to go ‘this way.’ I’ll never forget the look on his face when he looked up and said “my first instinct was to hunt you down.” He chuckled as if that would lessen the impact of such a deranged statement. Thinking about those words now makes my skin crawl.”
Emma felt Violet’s nails begin to dig into her palm. She sucked air into her teeth, but didn’t interrupt.
“Days turned into weeks into months and I was never happier than I was after coming out and being able to be me, truly me. God, if only I noticed it then. Realized it was related. You see, it was during this time that, well, I started noticing strange things when I would walk back to my dorm from club meetings or night classes. And I don’t even know if the first time I noticed it was the first time it happened–just the first time I noticed it. I was on my way home after dance practice really late one night. Everyone else had left by 10 pm that night, but I wanted to stay and keep at the choreography. I didn’t leave the dance hall until probably a little after midnight.
“The dance hall is on the far side of campus near a main road in town and my dorm was clear across to the other side of campus. I never felt too unsafe on campus as the paths are well lit and blue emergency lights sat every five-hundred feet or so along the sidewalks. Even so, I carried pepper spray on my lanyard–you never know. Anyway, that particular night–I don’t know–I just started to get this feeling–this oppressive feeling like I was being followed. I kept looking over my shoulder to see nothing. The campus was always fairly empty at this time of the night. All the way home, I would periodically look over my shoulder, feeling like something was going to be right behind me. But nothing. I never did see anything. Even after it happened more and more, night after night. I felt it–something or someone stalking just behind me, only to vanish the moment I tried to get a glimpse of them. I should have said something about it to someone. But it didn’t occur to me. I just chalked it up to my imagination or my paranoia of being out so late. You know that spooky feeling you can get when you’re alone somewhere in the dark? I just assumed it was that. I was newly presenting feminine and, well, I never really had to worry about this sort of thing before coming out. I wish I had gone to the cops.
“This went on all semester and when I chose to stay on campus over the summer instead of going home to my parents house, it only got worse. I lived alone that summer, all of my roommates having left during break, but I stayed. It was a small dorm–a common room connecting our four private bedrooms, but it was home. The first week or so, nothing felt out of the ordinary, but then, night after night I noticed strange things. The sensation of being followed no matter where I went at night–to the dining hall, the gym, anywhere, I felt it. It got to the point where I chose not to leave my dorm room unless the sun was out. And at night, I swear I could sometimes see something outside my window, waiting and watching for me to leave. I would just lock my doors and pull my blanket over my head and hope that it was gone in the morning. I even started to lose sleep. I got so paranoid. I was so relieved when my roommates came back in the fall semester, but the paranoia never stopped.
“Then October came around. Halloween, specifically. If you’ve been on a college campus on Halloween, you know it is one of the bigger party holidays in the area. College students littering the bars and the streets, drunk and in slutty costumes. But my sisters had big plans. My parents were out of town in a beach house property with our grandparents so the house we grew up in was empty for the night. My oldest sister, ever the popular girl, now turned sorority sister, thought it would be a great idea to throw a party in our parent’s house. Despite my attempts to appeal to her better senses, the party happened anyway. “Come on! This is your first Halloween to dress how you want!” she had said. And, I’m not going to lie, she won me over. Why shouldn’t I celebrate for myself? Why shouldn’t I make better memories in a place I felt oppressed? She helped me put together an outfit, and as a cheeky little jab at my father’s insistence that I go hunting with him, as a real ‘stick-it-to-the-man’ moment, they helped me with my makeup to make me look like a deer. And, I’d say the costume I was wearing was a deer costume, but it was pretty much fishnets, a thong, a bra, and an antler headband. At the very least I would fit in with all the ‘sexy cat girls’ and ‘sexy nurse’ costumes. I remember how empowered I felt putting it on that night, reclaiming a traumatic part of my childhood.
“For once, I felt like I was living without a care. For once, I felt like I was just able to be me. But looking back, that was probably just the copious amounts of alcohol I was imbibing, impairing my senses. The house was packed. The living room was body to body. Music blared off into the night, echoing back at us from the trees. I had way too much to drink and I remember stumbling out the back porch, telling my sisters I’m fine, I’m fine–there’s no need to come out here with me. I just needed a moment, before proceeding to empty the contents of my stomach in my mom’s rose bushes. As I stood back up to spinning treeline, I felt it. All at once it hit me. That feeling of being watched. I stumbled into the back yard a little further and steadied myself on one of the picnic tables my parents would leave out year round. I tried to train my eyes on it, wherever I thought it may have been coming from. I turned around back toward the house. And there it was standing. A figure sihoutted against the house. Beyond whatever…it…was, I could see the party still going strong, the music muffled yet too loud.
“I stumbled back from the table, backing up toward the woods. The thing stalked toward me. It was humanoid, that much I could tell, but its eyes…it was almost like when you shine a light at a cats eyes in a dark room when it shimmers and reflects that light back at you. Like it could clearly see me though I couldn’t see it. It took slow, careful steps toward me as I backed further and further away from the house. “Who are you.” I said, but it didn’t answer, just continued to walk toward me. Then I heard it growl. It was like an animal’s growl. It wasn’t quite human. This non-human sound made from a human throat startled me and in my drunken blur I cried out again, “Help! Someone help me!” I looked back to the house shrinking away slowly as I tried to back away from…whatever this thing was. No one paid me any mind. The music likely too loud for anything outside to breach it. No one even noticed I was gone, or maybe they were too caught up in the party to notice how long I’d been missing.
“The figure stalked toward me, getting closer and closer, its footfalls not making sound as it moved. Then, I remembered my phone. I could turn on the flashlight and see who it was. Maybe it was some boy in a Halloween costume trying to scare me. “This isn’t funny, whoever you are. You’re scaring me,” I said, fumbling at my chest for my phone. I pulled it out of my bra and turned on the flashlight. In my drunken state, like an idiot, I fumbled my phone, but as it tumbled, I knew immediately. I knew this man. This thing that stalked toward me. A man in a fleece shirt stopped. He was tall and burly and he was my dad. At least he looked sort of like my dad. It was him, but something was off. His hands were too big. His nails were too long. His teeth were too sharp. His eyes were too big. His steps did not make a sound and as my phone laid on the ground, I could tell he was barefoot.
“He stopped as the light dimly lit his form. And I saw it again. That fierce look in his eyes. That feeling of murderous contempt. He was the hunter and I was his prey. He had been the one stalking me for months–stalking me like prey. And now that I was in his hunting grounds…”
Violets long nails dug deep into Emma’s palm. She winced at the pain. “Violet, that hurts.”
Violet paid her no mind, only pressing on, “I ran from him then. It was dumb. I should have run to the house. Run around him. But fight or flight kicked in and I ran from him into the woods. Into those damn woods. I was playing the part of his prey. I couldn’t see where I was going, tripping over fallen logs, losing my footing and sliding down embankments, looking back only to see him behind me, closer and closer every time. I felt my breath become ragged. My heart was slamming against my chest. I felt frantic, skittish. I felt weak. I felt hunted. I remember taking one last glance behind me before I felt nails like claws dig into my arms as he tackled me, sending us both tumbling down a slope. When we reached the bottom, he was no longer on top of me, but my arms were covered in blood and my head was aching and throbbing from something I must have hit it on in the fall. I looked around and tried to get my bearings and noticed I was in a clearing when I heard a gunshot ring out and a shooting pain enter my right leg. I screamed in pain and clutched my leg. I saw him in the distance holding a riffel, smiling wickedly. I could see his red eyes in the dark. I rushed to the nearest treeline, half limping, half running, the agony shooting through my body as I ran from him.
I heard him break through the brush at the edge of the treeline. He was sprinting toward me. I tried to pick up the pace but I was beginning to lose feeling in my leg. And then I came through the brush into another small clearing, collapsing to my knees. I didn’t know if I could take myself any further.
Then it hit me. A smell. This horrible horrible smell of rotting flesh. A smell like roadkill on the highway. Like something dead. In front of me were carcusses. There must have been nearly a hundred of them. Some were in advanced stages of decay. Some were down to bones–the flesh picked off by some animal. Some…predator. My dad, most likely. I put my hand over my mouth–it was all I could do to not vomit again. I shifted my weight to the sound of him emerging through the brush. He stood at the edge of the trees with his rifle slung over his shoulder. His red eyes piercing my skin as he stalked forward. “Why?” I pleaded, “Why are you doing this?!” But he did not answer. I watched his hand drop to his leg as he drew that long Bowie knife out of its sheath. My stomach dropped. I really was just prey to him. I wasn’t anything more. Not his daughter. Not a human. Just prey.
“He came at me with frightening speed. I put all of my might in opposition to his. My arms pressed against his as he used both of his arms to try to plunge the blade into my heart. I heard him growling, saliva drooling out of his mouth onto my face. He was salivating, thirsting for a kill. He grunted and growled as he pushed harder. My strength began to fail me, the blade inching closer and closer to my chest. I screamed and kicked, trying to summon every inch of strength I could bring to bare against him. All I could think about then was the stabbing of the deer that night. Over and over again. And how if I didn’t do something. Anything. I would end up like that. Tatters of flesh and skin and bone. Picked dry.”
Her nails drove deeper into Emma’s skin. Emma winced in pain, looking at her palm. Blood began to well up between Violet’s fingernails. “Violet, you’re hurting me.”
“Wait,” Violet looked into Emma’s eyes, “I’d been there before.”
“What are you talking about?”
“That clearing. Standing over something warm. I had a blade in my hand.”
“Violet, you need to let go of my hand.” Emma demanded. But her grip only tightened, blood beginning to drip down Emma’s palm onto the table.
“I took the blade, I think, that first night. I…I joined in, I stabbed it too, didn’t I.”
“Violet…”
“Over and over again,” Violet smiled, for the first time, a full smile. “And the blade was at my chest, was I prey? My dad had become consumed with this rage, this obsession for the hunt. The trophies around us in this clearing was evidence. He thought me easy prey, he thought I would lay down and die. Maybe he thought I would accept it or welcome it. So when I grabbed a shard of bone lying in a pile of rot beside us and lodged it in his neck, a look of genuine shock was scrawled across his face as blood began to spurt from the wound. He fell over after that, his vaunted strength failing him. I took the knife from his hand, and, well, I can’t say I remember what happened after that.”
Violet released Emma’s hand. Emma stood from her seat, holding her hand, applying pressure to the nail wounds on her palm. “Violet, you didn’t…you didn’t uh…”
“Kill him?” Violet stood slowly and pushed her chair in with a deafening screech against the floor.
“It’s hunt or be hunted, no? Despite everything I’ve told you, you can’t possibly think that man is the victim in all this?”
“I would never suggest an abuser and a bigot is deserving of sympathy. No one deserves to be stalked and, evidently, hunted for just being who they are.”
Violet went around the table and approached Emma, sizing her up. And, for a moment, Emma thought she saw something strange in Violet's eyes. A certain fierceness. A certain cold calculation. Emma shook her head and cleared her throat. “End of statement. Thank you Violet for coming in.”
“Thank you, Archivist. Thank you for everything.” Violet said with a smile and turned on her heel and left the room, leaving the door open behind her.
Emma stared at the door for a moment in the silence, then she looked back to her hand which was still bleeding.
“Oh my god, are you okay?” Deven rushed through the doorway to Emma and took her hand. “I’ll get you some bandages–I’ll be right back.”
Emma pulled her seat out and plopped herself down. “Uh, well, Archivist’s notes, I suppose. I’m not entirely sure where to start with this one. I don’t want to diminish her experiences. I am well, well familiar with the sort of struggles we experience on the day-to-day in society being different from others and the sort of target for hate that can generate. I do not want to make less of her experience with these struggles, real, and serious as they are. No one should be a victim to hate–no one. This statement is simply a confession. Violet murdered her father in self defense. There isn’t really anything at all supernatural about that.” Emma paused and looked down at her hand, the blood soaking around the back of her hand in a small pool on the table. “Nonetheless, I’m going to forward this one to investigation. If nothing more than to get more on the ‘what happened next’ of Violet’s story. She was noticeably sparse on the details of the aftermath of her situation. I doubt it would have gone unnoticed to her four sisters or her mother that their father had gone missing on the same night as this party at their house.”
Deven came back into the room to Emma’s side and began wrapping her hand in a bandage. Deven eyed Emma cautiously. Emma rolled her eyes.
“It's curious, though. This Assistant Archivist duly notes something that was a little odd about this statement. And it had nothing to do with the statement itself. It’s hard for me to not notice how different Violet was from when she began her statement to her behavior at the end of the statement. End of Archivist notes.”