the devil watching over me

Chapter 1: Gracie

Third person POV

“dinner’s here you dirty b***h” as she heard a steel plate sliding the cement floor towards her. She didn’t look up till she heard the sounds of the footsteps fading away. When she felt like it was safe, she slowly lifted her head to see if anyone was present. Seeing no one she quickly took the plate she was given and gobbled down the food which consisted of only a stale bread and some boiled eggs. She started coughing because of eating too fast and drying her throat.

“gracie sweetie slow down… here some water” she looked up to see jasmine holding out a glass of water. She quickly took the water from her hand and gulped down the water.

Jasmine was someone who would come to visit her time to time. Gracie didn’t know anything about her except that she was a maid working for the man who locked her up.

After she was done, she rubbed her hands on her dress which looked more like a rag.

“sweetie don’t do that. That’s dirty” jasmine scolded.

“im not clean” was her short blunt reply.

Jasmine’s eyes looked something that gracie could only come to as ‘pained’.

“are you hurt?” she asked. Thinking it must have been something as physical pain.

“no dear, I’m fine. Don’t mind this old lady.” Jasmine said as she brushed off the bread crumbs from gracie’s mouth.

Gracie now sitting properly facing her old nanny, she noticed the wrinkles that has formed over the years. She doesn’t even remember the last time she was outside.

Both gracie’s and jasmine’s head turned to look outside the cell as they heard a footstep approaching.

“oh, my dear I have to go. I will come back later.” jasmine got up to walk but before walking away she looked at gracie again. She pitied the poor girl. She saw there was no hope for her. No one was gonna save her and she couldn’t do it too. She had a family to protect and couldn’t risk the danger it will cause if she tried to help her. She scurried away quickly.

Gracie looked her go away. She couldn’t put what she should feel at the moment. Should she be grateful that she came to visit her? But how do you even feel grateful? She didn’t even know that feeling. She brushed away the thought when she realised it was no use thinking or trying what she just didn’t feel.

She walked towards her small single bed and sat down, the bed which looked like it could break any moment. Luckily for her she was thin as a twig and her weight didn’t cause any suffer to the weak bed. She looked at the small window of her cell room which was big enough only for her head to go through. She stared at the sunlight pouring through it. She closed her eyes and tried to remember the last time she was outside. The last time her feet touched and ran through the grasses. The last time she felt the wind hit her face and her body. The last time she smelled the earth and the rain. She couldn’t remember properly. The memories were too vague. She did remember playing with her mom watching her beautiful eyes and her laugh which she still remembers were music to her eyes. She remembers her mom chasing her on the beach as she ran giggling and building sand castles. She tried to remember the feeling of the sand around her feet when she sank her feet on it but she couldn’t remember it. Everything was too vague. She sighed. How many days, months and years have passed? She starts wondering. How old was she now? How did she look like? Was the world outside same as she remembered it?

Gracie lays down on her bed turning on her side and putting up her knees and she holds her knee dearly. Every memory she had were too vague except for the day when she turned 7. She wished and prayed that like every other memory, this memory too would go away but it didn’t. it was all too vivid and caused her nightmare almost every night of her life as long as she could remember.

Her mother had returned from her work and gracie cheerfully ran up to her. She was excited because she was turning 7. She remembers thinking she was a grown up now that she turned 7.

“how stupid of me” she mumbles as a tear leaves her eyes. She remembers it was only her and her mom the whole 7years of her childhood. Her mom used to home school her, during the day when her mom went for work, she was in the house all alone. Her mom told her to look after it and she took pride in it that her mom depended in her. It made her feel like she was a grown up and was helping her mom.

That day her mom had come home with a vanilla cake with her, it was her favourite. Cakes were a luxury for her. Even though she was young she knew they were poor and her mom couldn’t afford to buy cakes whenever she wanted. She was a good kid. She remembers being so happy. They sang the birthday song together and she cut the cake. She remembers being very content and happy with her old life. Just as she was about to put the cake into her mom’s mouth the door barged open. She never got to finish her birthday cake or the birthday celebration with her mom. Everything after that happened at a very fast pace. Her mom held on to her and she was wailing her cries out being scared from all the commotion. She was pulled away from her mom. Gracie screamed and struggled. Tried to scratch the big hand that was holding her but she stopped when she saw a man draw out his gun and shoot at her mom in the middle of her forehead. She couldn’t process what was happening in front of her eyes. She saw her mom’s lifeless body on the floor in the pool of her own blood. She fainted after that.

When she gained her senses, she looked around to find a small bed, a small window, a small hole which looked like a thing for her to release her excrete. Three walls and a wall of iron rods. It was a cell room. she remembers being so scared and crying and crying looking for her mom. She still couldn’t believe that her mom was dead. She couldn’t accept it. She kept wailing and crying.

“shut up you f*****g b***h” a man came holding something which looked like a whip. But it just intensified her fear and she screamed more. After that all she could remember was pain, the man didn’t hold back or had any sympathy for a seven-year-old kid. He kept lashing and beating her till she bled and passed out from the pain. It was a horror for gracie. For many days she kept crying and getting beaten up but after weeks when she realised that her crying wasn’t gonna take her anywhere and that no one was gonna save her. She stopped. She accepted her fate and stopped speaking or crying. The man still came time to time to abuse her and beat her up but the tears stopped flowing out by now. Her yes had become dry. She later realised that the man was taking his anger out her because on many occasions he used to tell her things while beating her up.

She found out why she was locked up and why was her mother killed when jasmine came to visit her. She was scared of jasmine at first but she got used to her after few weeks.

During one of jasmine’s visit gracie asked her, “jasmine why am I here? And why do you think the bad men killed my mom?” jasmine had hugged her and cried.

“oh my poor child, you have gone through so much and you are going to go through so much.” Jasmine cried hugging gracie.

“your mom used to work here as a maid, like me. Your mom became pregnant with the man we were working for. She knew that they would not let her have the baby if they knew about you so she ran away. See, she loved you dearly and wanted to have you.” Jasmine told her.

“so, my father killed my mom because she wanted to have me?” gracie asked in a low voice. The fact that she has a father shocked her but the fact that her father killed her mother left her with tears again which she thought were dried up and would never come out again.

“he’s not your father gracie dear. He’s a very bad man and he’s a very scary one too. Im so sorry that I can’t do anything to help you. Your mother was very good friend. A very kind woman and she didn’t deserve this.” Jasmine sobbed.

Jasmine didn’t go further into the details and nor she wanted to hear anything too. After turning seven all she knew was pain which was inflicted upon her on almost daily basis. She had scars on her arms and back mostly since she always curled herself up like a ball when she took the lashes from the whip. There were numerous times when she almost died of sickness but somehow always survived.

Now laying down in her bed she searches for any emotion that was left inside her. Pain that she knows of, ‘fear’ she knew, ‘hunger’ she knew, that was it. She succumbed to the sleep that build up not knowing her life was gonna take a U turn.