Fanfiction: Origin - Part Two
Faith passed the time watching some Saturday morning cartoons on TV. She especially loved the crazy antics of the Roadrunner and Wile E. Coyote, and luckily for her, she was able to see one of their adventures before she was interrupted by a knock on the door. Getting off the couch and flicking off the TV, she went to the door and listened for a moment before speaking.
“Who is it?” she asked politely, just as her mother had taught her.
“It’s Mrs. Matthews,” came the warm-hearted reply.
Smiling, Faith instantly unlocked the door and let her favorite teacher inside. Even if her mom did come home unexpectedly, surely she wouldn’t mind that Mrs. Matthews had come to visit. Jesse had met Mrs. Matthews only one time, at the second grade Back to School Night two years earlier, but she had been impressed with the teacher’s quick wit and kind manner. Naturally, she knew nothing of Mrs. Matthews’ true purpose. Faith made sure to lock the door and then led Mrs. Matthews to the kitchen table, where they sat down.
“Did you make it here okay, Mrs. Matthews?” Faith earnestly asked, folding her hands together in front of her. Luckily, the red mark on her face from last night had now faded to the point where it wasn’t even noticeable, so she wouldn’t have to answer embarrassing questions.
“You can call me Lindsay if you like, Faith,” the teacher replied, placing her little bag on the table with a dull thud. She started rooting through the contents, looking for something specific. “I have something here for you,” she said, removing her hand from the bag. “It’s an early birthday present. Here, take it.”
Lindsay Matthews extended her hand and dropped the present into Faith’s tiny hand. Bringing it in for a closer look, Faith saw that it was a tiny necklace, with a gold cross attached. She had never seen anything so shiny before; it was beautiful.
“Thanks, Mrs.—I mean, Lindsay!” Faith gave one of her biggest, brightest smiles, and for a few moments, she was the happy child from years past. “This is awesome!”
“I’m glad you like it. Keep it safe, though, because it’s real gold. Twenty four carat,” Lindsay said, winking. Rarely had she seen Faith so genuinely content; beneath the smiles and laughs had always lurked a hint of melancholy, the tiniest flicker of remorse. But now, when she looked at Faith, beaming with pride at her new present, Lindsay saw a regular child, undisturbed by her tragic home life and poor economic circumstances. Being an agent for the Watchers’ Council, Lindsay lived comfortably in a small suburb only a few minutes away from the main Boston area, and the fact that Faith’s apartment was awfully small was not lost on her. “Do you want some help putting it on?”
Faith nodded enthusiastically, and Lindsay got up from her seat and went over behind Faith, pushing her dark, pretty hair out of the way in order to secure the necklace. When the teacher sat back down, Faith was still smiling radiantly, probably because she’d never received such a precious gift. She kept grabbing the cross and bringing it up so she could stare at it, amazed at how it sparkled.
“What does it mean?” Faith asked, forcing herself to let the necklace drop back around her neck so she could make polite eye contact with Lindsay. She had seen crosses before, naturally, but religion was not something that Jesse believed in, so Faith had never been exposed to an actual explanation of what the cross meant.
“The cross?” Lindsay replied, pushing some hair away from her face. “It’s just a religious symbol, but I guess you could say it represents victory of life over death, of good over evil…something like that. For you, it’s going to serve a very important function, more important than whatever extraneous meaning is attached to it.”
Faith gave a confused face. “Extraneous?”
“Hmm…well, if something is extraneous, it isn’t an important part,” Lindsay calmly explained, wanting to take the conversation slowly. It wouldn’t be beneficial to rush Faith into too much knowledge too fast. “Your new cross is going to be very important in your life, Faith. Do you remember when I told you that inhuman creatures exist?”
Faith dutifully nodded, temporarily forgetting the shiny cross in an effort to learn more about the scary thing that had pursued her last night. Lindsay, making sure she had Faith’s absolute attention, continued:
“That cross is like poison to the creature, Faith. It doesn’t seem like anything special to you and me, but the creature will be frightened by it.”
“So…the cross is a weapon?” Faith asked, reexamining it with an intent stare.
“Not exactly,” Lindsay said, reaching around her own neck and taking out a silver cross necklace. She expertly unfastened the latch and held it out in front of her so Faith could see. “It’s more like a defensive object, something that can help you escape. Hopefully you’ll never have to use it, but I should show you, just in case. If you see the creature again, take the cross in your hand and hold it in front of you, like this.” She grasped the cross by its tiny base and held it straight out across the table. “That should keep the creature from coming any closer. If that doesn’t work, you can always press the cross against the creature’s skin, which will be extremely painful for it, so much so that it should leave you alone.”
“Okay, I can do that.” Faith struggled for a few seconds with her own necklace, but finally removed it from her neck and held it out, just as Lindsay had done. “Like this, right?”
“Perfect. Now—”
“Can I ask a question?” Faith interrupted, gently placing her necklace on the table instead of trying to put it back on.
“Sure. There’s more we need to talk about today, but I’m here to answer any questions you may have. Your safety is my first concern.”
“Does the creature have a name?” She paused for an instant before continuing with other questions. “Are there more than one? How come not everyone knows about it, or them?”
Lindsay gave a small laugh, always amazed at Faith’s fantastic propensity for getting right to the heart of any problem by blatantly speaking her mind. It was going to be difficult to keep information from her, that much was certain. The situation was still delicate with Faith, and burdening her with the full history of Slayer lore would probably be too much for her young mind to comprehend. Lindsay didn’t doubt Faith’s intelligence in the least, but there was only so far that a child’s mind could go, and besides, Lindsay was not about to completely steal what was left of Faith’s childhood by immediately putting her on the path to becoming a Potential Slayer. After taking a few moments to consider how best to answer Faith’s queries, Lindsay began her explanation.
“All right…the thing that chased you is known as a vampire, and—”
“Oh!” Faith exclaimed, her eyes lighting up with excitement. “I’ve seen those on TV! There was a movie on a while ago about vampires, I watched the whole thing. You have to, like, chop their heads off or hit them in the heart with a wooden weapon, right?”
“You’re really not shocked by the fact that vampires are real?” Surprised by Faith’s constant acceptance of the concept, Lindsay was quickly beginning to realize that her previous expectations about this conversation were unfounded. She had fully expected that Faith would be unable to deal with the fact that vampires were reality, not fantasy, but as it was, Faith appeared to be answering her own questions at a blistering pace.
“Should I be?” Faith innocently replied, grabbing her necklace from the table and putting it around her neck with some difficulty. “I think aliens are real, too, and maybe werewolves, but I’m not sure. Are they?”
“Um…” Lindsay was at a loss for words. A nine-year-old girl was asking questions that startled a woman three times her age. “I’m not sure about aliens, to be honest, but you’re right about werewolves. Those are real. How do you know so much about these things?”
“TV.”
“I see,” Lindsay returned, silently glad that the television had made her job a lot easier. If the shows on TV helped Faith become comfortable with supernatural concepts, then so be it. “But doesn’t your mom want you to watch cartoons instead of shows about vampires and werewolves?”
Faith turned her eyes down for an instant. “My mom isn’t home very often anymore,” she admitted, sounding sad. “Sometimes I come back from school and I don’t know where she is. She doesn’t tell me where she goes. So I’m home by myself a lot. I can watch whatever I want on TV when that happens.”
“Oh. Well maybe this will cheer you up.” Reaching forward into her bag once more, Lindsay removed a small vial of clear liquid. There was a sticker on the front, depicting a cross. “This is holy water. Do you know what that is?”
Taking a moment to formulate a hypothesis, Faith responded, “It’s…like the cross? Poison for the vampires?”
“Exactly.”
“So I can splash them with the holy water, and they’ll get hurt?”
“Right again.” Lindsay placed the tiny vial on the table directly in front of Faith, who immediately snatched it up and began examining it to see if it didn’t contain some sort of characteristic that would distinguish it from normal water. Not finding anything, she put the holy water back down on the table, and Lindsay continued with her explanation. “So you know that vampires can be hurt by your cross, and by your holy water, not to mention decapitation and—”
“What’s… decapitation?” Faith asked, pronouncing each syllable separately.
Lindsay smiled before saying, “I think you described it as, ‘chopping its head off.’”
“Oh, okay. Yeah, I know that one.” Faith was glad that she was learning so many new things today, especially if those things would keep her safe from the vampire-creature. “What else?”
“You already know that any wooden weapon to the heart will kill a vampire,” Lindsay answered, making sure she covered all the details, “and the only other things that can kill one are direct sunlight and fire. That’s why you’re safe during the daytime, because a vampire can’t go into the sunlight without being dusted.”
“The movie on TV told me that, too—wait, ‘dusted’? What’s that?” Faith scrunched up her face in a tiny mask of perplexity.
Thinking that perhaps she was advancing the conversation too far too fast, Lindsay guardedly replied, “Well, when you kill a vampire, it will turn to dust and disappear. You don’t have to kill any vampires, though, Faith.” In her heart, Lindsay realized that no matter how well-versed in the weaknesses of vampires, no human child would ever be able to match the superhuman strength and agility of the undead. All this information was only supposed to instill wariness in Faith, to keep her out of danger at night, but it seemed to be having the exact opposite effect. “In fact, killing a vampire is very difficult, and I don’t want you to try, all right?”
“But I want to,” Faith argued, leaning forward and actually making Lindsay sit back in surprise. Faith stared unflinchingly at her new mentor and gave three staccato sentences. “I’m not scared anymore. I can do it. And you’ve told me how.”
“Faith,” Lindsay began, feeling that she was quickly losing control of the situation to a fourth grader, “listen to me very carefully: stay away from vampires. If you see one, you run. Don’t even try to fight, because they are vicious, soulless creatures that would have no problem killing you before you could even blink. It would be wise to fear them, especially now, before you’ve had any training.”
Deconstructing the argument into its respective pieces, Faith’s young mind took a moment to focus on the one thing that seemed most interesting to her.
“Training?” she asked, her beautiful brown eyes showing an intense fascination with the concept.
Instantly knowing that too much had been given away, Lindsay decided that it was time to end the conversation. “That’s something we can talk about later, Faith, but I have some things I need to take care of right now. Keep your holy water in a safe place, and don’t tell your mom about this, okay?” It was absolutely essential that Jesse didn’t figure out that her daughter was being schooled in the ways of the supernatural; given her more recent inclinations to use violence against Faith, Jesse would probably react first by not believing any of the facts, and second by lashing out against her daughter for telling “lies”. So it was imperative that Faith keep her newly-attained knowledge to herself for quite some time. “Will you do that for me?”
Somewhat disappointed that there appeared to be no forthcoming explanation regarding whatever training was supposed to occur, Faith muttered, “All right.” Then she remembered the nice necklace and quickly reversed her mood, thanking Lindsay several times for her generosity.
For her part, as she stood up to leave, Lindsay was just a little scared that Faith seemed to have such a thirst for violence at such a young age, but then again, that was to be expected, considering her physically-and emotionally-scarred home life. Gazing at the tiny apartment, Lindsay found it hard to believe that so much abuse could occur in such a small space. It looked like a thousand other apartments, but this one was different, haunted by the unrelenting ghost of domestic violence and child abuse, a broken home in a broken city. How anyone could beat a child was beyond Lindsay’s comprehension, and thinking about it too hard made her physically sick, so she turned her head back towards Faith.
“One more thing before I go,” she said, crouching down and taking Faith’s small hands in her own. “Vampires can never harm you as long as you’re inside this apartment, so don’t worry. The only way they can enter private property like this is if they’re invited, so be very careful from now on of who you invite inside, okay?”
Faith nodded, wanting to please the woman who had done so many nice things for her today. The two exchanged goodbyes, and then Lindsay was gone, leaving Faith once more by herself. Collecting her holy water from the kitchen table, she took it into her room and began searching for a suitable place to hide it, a place where her mom would never accidentally find it. Not as if Jesse usually cared enough to even enter Faith’s room, but just in case, it was probably wise to hide it somewhere extra-safe. Having finally decided to stuff it into her pillowcase on the bottom side, so it would face the mattress and not the ceiling, Faith checked her clock, noting that it was almost noon.
Needing some time to mull over her new situation, she let herself fall down on her bed, closing her eyes as she landed softly. True, initially she had been terrified of the vampire; she had seen it do impossible things, and it had killed a man, not to mention almost killing Kelly, too. There was good reason to fear a creature that was nearly impervious to normal weapons. But now that she knew exactly what a vampire was, and how it could be hurt, she felt her fear dissipating, only to be replaced by a sort of slowly burning anger towards the thing that had nearly destroyed her last night. She had never been more frightened in her life than when she was running in those dark, nightmarish alleyways, and she resented the fact that the vampire had been able to make her feel that way. Chris and Jesse were mean sometimes, but they didn’t try to kill Faith or her friends, so they were infinitely better than the vampire.
As a result of her knowledge of the supernatural, Faith also realized that she now feared the wrath of Chris and Jesse much less than before. Whether they would admit it or not, they had helped make her into what she was: a little girl who was slowly learning to be fearless. Unnatural burdens had been placed on Faith from a very early age, from her near-poverty, to her mother’s often-unkind actions, to physical abuse, and now to the reality of the undead. Each one of those things had contributed to her personality and to the way she viewed the world. Her innocence, while not fully shattered, was in danger of becoming so. She had already experienced what she considered to be the lows of life, and that thought plagued her every single day.
But she was not immune to disappointment. She feared being let down again and again by Jesse, feared being forgotten and left all alone in the empty apartment for another day, feared that no matter how hard she worked, she would never be able to make her life work properly. Faith no longer feared anything physical; she only feared the emotional, the ethereal realm of feelings and love and heartache that she knew so well. Jesse could not offer the kind of comfort that Faith most desperately craved, that of an attentive, caring mother, and that continued to cut hard into Faith’s mind, reminding her constantly of the one thing that she wanted but could not receive.
At least the vampire was a true enemy, truly evil. Jesse walked in a grey area, an invisible line between right and wrong. Faith loved her mother, and could even forgive the brutal nights filled with verbal daggers and punishing abuse, but the cycle was beginning to wear dangerously thin. Was there a point to try so hard in school if Jesse didn’t care? Was there a point in trying to be the perfect daughter when the mother’s own imperfections clouded the relationship to the breaking point?
Faith had no answers to these questions. She could hate the vampire. She could love her mother. She could hate Chris. She could love Kelly. But her life still did not feel any more complete, any more organized. It was still a jumbled mess of emotions and fears…and there didn’t seem to be a solution.