Beauty and the Beast

‘The Hartland Fiend strikes again’-, the Newsreader said in a sombre tone.

‘This morning, the body of Miss Kathleen Dawes was recovered from Edgar Park on the outskirts of Hartland. Her wrists and throat were slit, much like the bodies of every other unfortunate victim that has fallen prey to this madman. This has been the tenth such murder in the last three months and persistent efforts by the Hartland and Redding Local Police to nab this killer have still not shown any signs of coming to fruition. We still await a formal statement from the Chief Superintendent of Hartland Police on this particular murder while the body of the decease-‘

‘Oh child, again!!’- Daphne Morrison said, turning off the television set in her kitchen.

Lorraine Morrison, her daughter, was shaking uncontrollably on her chair at the dinner table. She placed the spoon in her hand back into the bowl of porridge she was eating and quietly left the kitchen.

‘We have to talk about this sweetie!!’-Daphne said, as Lorraine went upstairs to her room.

Lorraine was fifteen, but yet not quite so. She was for want of a better term- mentally challenged for her doctor, ‘mental’ for the people around her, and ‘special’ for her mother.

Daphne was the only friend she ever had, ever since her father passed away in a tragic accident when she was merely three.

Women like Daphne seem to be strong, capable, and very proactive, but only on the surface. This, years of bringing up Lorraine had made Daphne acknowledge. From putting her to bed every night for the last fifteen years to smiling back when Lorraine smiled at her for no apparent reason, to convincing her day after day, hour after hour that when the neighbourhood kids called her- ‘wackjob’, they actually meant she was remarkable.

Lorraine could barely write, and it had taken her years to even learn the little she knew about letters and numbers.

Daphne had accepted her daughter for what she was, but making a cynical world do the same was far too uphill a task, a task she knew she would not succeed in but a task she had assiduously tried to do since Lorraine came into her life.

 Daphne was very worried about how Lorraine had been reacting to the whole affair of the Hartland Fiend.

This mass murderer had been on the prowl for the last three months or even before that, and had been raping and murdering young, beautiful and very unfortunate teenage girls.

Sketches of how the killer possibly looked like had been released and people had claimed to have seen this man doing his sinister work but to everyone’s bewilderment, the local police did not seem even remotely close to apprehending him.

Notices had been circulated to every house in the district about how people should be aware and how they should exercise every precaution possible to keep themselves and their families safe.

Lorraine had been visibly distressed by what this maniac had been doing for quite some time now.

Daphne thought back to when news about his first victim – Janine Williams had been published in the newspaper. Lorraine was staring at the headlines which read- ‘YOUNG TEENAGER BRUTALLY RAPED, MURDERED’, and while clutching the newspaper she began sobbing. 

Daphne had rushed to comfort her but she wailed on incessantly and went upstairs to her room, and locked herself in for several hours. Lorraine used to shed tears whenever she got anxious, which was very often, but locking herself in her room was something she never did.

Her mother didn’t take this particular incident very seriously but when Lorraine did this again when she heard news about the murderer’s fourth victim- Emily Bradshaw, on the television, Daphne was alarmed. 

She knocked on Lorraine’s door, and asked her to open it so that she could talk to her, and explain to her that she was as safe as she could be, with her, but Lorraine was adamant about her decision of seclusion.

Daphne knew her daughter was scared, and she knew how sympathetic Lorraine must have felt for the poor girls who had been killed by this heinous beast of sorts. For a moment Daphne felt proud of the fact that her daughter could feel so much more than the normal people she constantly contrasted herself against could. 

Then when news about the Hartland Fiend’s seventh victim flashed on the television, Lorraine had flung the TV remote out of the window and had marched back to her room, her depression now having transubstantiated into anger at the murderer’s morbid sense of contentment.

Daphne wanted to consult their family doctor on what she should do to help Lorraine deal with this whole issue, but Lorraine hated to go to the doctor ever so often, she hated it because of how other kids at the hospital sniggered when she walked past them.

So Daphne didn’t call up Dr Hawthorne and when Lorraine finally came out of her room she went and gave her a hug and kissed her on her cheeks, and asked her what she should do to make her feel better.

Daphne was helpless, but she knew showers of affection, made more frequent than what she already gave Lorraine would help.

She was wrong and Lorraine did not get better, and the murders got more gruesome and more tragic.

Daphne thought about how depraved the man must be, how he very selectively, chose innocent girls as his victims, snuffing their hopes, their dreams, and their families’ happiness out, presumably without any contriteness.

The fiend and her daughter shared their only similarity in that both of them were incomprehensible.

Today, Daphne had a lot of reason to be very disconcerted. Today, Lorraine didn't just lock herself up.

She was screaming in her room, her shrieks were far too ominous for Daphne to stop tears rolling down her own cheeks as she waited outside her door. She had never been so upset and never had Daphne’s desire to somehow take down the door and help her child, been so strong.

She thought if she should call the doctor, but she knew she had to do something which had a more immediate effect and something which would help Lorraine calm down.

For fifteen long years, Daphne had taken care of Lorraine with a resolve that was astonishing, but today she felt more in despair than ever before.

The screaming waned, and Lorraine opened the door.

‘Do you have an envelope Mamma?’- She asked.

‘Yes, yes sweetie, I’ll get you one’- Daphne said as she quickly went to her room and searched for one.

‘There you go’- she said handing it to her- ‘Tell me if you need anything more from Mamma’- she said giving her a hug.

‘No, I will meet you after some time Mamma, can you leave me alone for now?’- Lorraine asked, her face expressionless.

‘Yes, but promise me you won’t lock your door this time’

‘I will not’- Lorraine assured her.

Her daughter hardly ever wrote and she definitely hadn’t written a letter all by herself before.

 She smiled, left Lorraine in her room and went back downstairs to the kitchen.

 

A couple of hours later, Lorraine came to her with a note in hand and asked her –‘Mamma, can you tell me where the Fiend lives?’

Daphne was horrified beyond her wits. Glassy eyed, she asked Lorraine-‘Why do you want to know honey?’

Lorraine handed her the note, and the envelope.

Dear Fy-end,

Where are you?

I want to meet you.

I know you kill beautiful girls, girls who look pretty and who are sweet.

Then why?

I am pretty, I am sweet.

I thought you would know.

You would understand.

The world doesn’t think that I am pretty and that I am sweet.

I want you to prove them wrong.

I want you to show them that I am no different.

Show them I am, what’s the word- normal.

I want you to – KILL ME too.

Please Fy-end, please.

Love,

Lorraine.

Daphne broke down in front of her daughter.

Perhaps the fiend and her daughter were not incomprehensible after all, perhaps they were merely misunderstood.