Once upon a time, there was a girl named Emma. She had short, dark blonde hair—almost like a boy's—freckles, and shocking blue eyes. She had a wide face and a sweet little nose, and her mouth was a lovely shape.
She was born in a hospital to careless parents who sent her to a foster home without a second thought the minute after she was born. As a toddler she had wide eyes and rosy cheeks, and she seemed like a harmless, innocent child—but she had a strange fascination with the pain of others. She would, instead of aiding another child in pain, circle him curiously and ask him questions—not “Are you all right?”, but “Why does it hurt?” or “How did this happen?” The foster caretakers thought that Emma was a child prodigy—maybe she was interested in science and would get a degree in medical school at an early age. They were mistaken.
One morning when she was five years old, Emma finished her breakfast at the kitchen table and politely asked to be excused. Then she washed her dishes in the sink and proceeded to go upstairs, only to find the staircase blocked by a pair of eight-year-old boys. They smirked at her and dared her to try and pass.
“Excuse me, please,” Emma said in her adorable five-year-old voice.
“No,” said the shorter of the pair, “you gotta get through us or around us!"
“Stupid!” added the taller.
They had crossed the line. Emma knew she was not stupid. She swung a fist toward the short boy's face. He ducked out of the way in the nick of time.
“Are you gonna fight us, kid?” the pair of them laughed mockingly. Emma threw another punch at the boy, this time aiming for his throat. He coughed as her hand contacted his neck and he fell backward to sit on the stairs. Emma backed down into the entrance hall with her tiny fists held up protectively. The tall boy seemed a little scared, but the short one recovered quickly and stood.
“Oh, that's how it's gonna be, is it?” he advanced down the stairs toward the little girl who had a scary look of blood lust in her eyes. He pushed her and she fell onto her bottom, but she didn't have a single tear in her eye; on the contrary, she looked angrier still. She stood, but no sooner had she done so than the boy wrapped his arm around her neck. The taller one watched with interest—and fear—from the safety of the stairs as his comrade tried to choke Emma. She escaped easily, however, with a sharp bite to the boy's arm. It wasn't hard enough to draw blood, but the boy released his grip on Emma's neck, allowing her to back away.
He charged forward and threw a wild kick at her stomach, but she dodged the attack easily and grabbed his leg. She twisted it by the foot until the boy lost his balance and fell to his hands and knees. Emma kicked him forcefully in the stomach and he dropped onto his side, cringing. Seeing her opportunity, Emma sat on top of him and began to punch him as hard as she could in the face. This wasn't hard enough to do serious damage, seeing as she was only five, but it was enough to draw the attention of a passing foster mother by the name of Ms. Heather.
“What on Earth!” she exclaimed, seizing Emma around the middle. Emma didn't fight back; she submitted like a puppy being scolded by its master.
“She attacked me, Ms. Heather!” said the short boy. “She tried to hit me in the face, and I had to fight back—it's not my fault!”
“I don't care who started it, Michael,” said Ms. Heather. “You should know better. Especially since she's only five—you could've hurt her.”
“Didn't you see?” Michael said indignantly, standing up. “She was punching me! Lookit—I bet I've got a bruise on my face!”
“And she will be going to time-out along with you,” Ms. Heather said with a finality that made Michael go silent.
Ms. Heather carried Emma to a bathroom in the entrance hall and told her to sit on the toilet and think about what she did. Then she led Michael away—probably to the normal time-out chair that was in the corner of the kitchen. Emma, being very obedient, thought about what she did. She thought about the rush of adrenaline she had felt socking Michael in the throat, the power she had experienced being the victor of the fight. She sat on the toilet for quite some time—Ms. Heather had forgotten she was there—until another foster mother came to tell her time-out was over and it was time for morning chores.
Later along in her life when she was ten, Emma was dressing for bed with the other ten-year-old girls in their bedroom and cheerfully discussing the day's events when a boy who had somehow escaped from the boys' wing burst in through the door. The girls who were only half-dressed screamed louder than the others and flung themselves under the blankets of their beds. Emma, with her nightgown yet to be buttoned down the back, ran furiously at the boy and kicked his stomach with so much force that he collapsed on the floor, still laughing at the sight of the half-naked girls. His laughs ceased when Emma continued to kick him while he was down. She grabbed a book—a rather thick volume—from a nearby nightstand and began to beat him over the head with it. She didn't stop when he started to cry, begging for her to leave him alone, saying he was sorry—actually, she hit him harder, until he developed a bad nosebleed.
She finally stood and looked around, expecting the other girls to be cheering her on and thanking her, but they were all silent. They seemed to be rather afraid. Emma glanced around at the girls confusedly, the only sound in the room being the whimpers of the boy who had violated their privacy, clutching his nose. When a foster mother arrived, she didn't seem to care that the boy had escaped from his wing. She called another caretaker on the room's monitor and snatched Emma by the hand—she knew Emma was the one who had hurt the boy; she was standing right next to him and her hands were bloody—and led her downstairs to the headmistress' office.
“What is this?” exclaimed the headmistress, Mrs. Twogood.
“She,” said the foster mother, yanking Emma forward, “was found beating a boy upstairs with a book, and he has been sent to the nurse's office.”
“What were you doing in the boys' wing?” asked Mrs. Twogood, looking shocked.
“I wasn't!” Emma said furiously. “He got into the girls' wing and walked in on us changing!”
“Emma has a history of violent behavior,” said the foster mother, glaring coldly at Emma, who was trembling in anger. “It's about time someone did something about it.”
“What about the boy?” Emma asked.
“For that sort of thing special punishment will be dealt,” said Mrs. Twogood. “But you know the punishment for violence.”
Yes, Emma knew all too well—the foster children called it a number of things. “Violence for violence,” “hurt for hurt,” “an eye for an eye.” Emma winced as the headmistress drew her yardstick out from behind her desk.
“Now, let's not make this hurt more than it needs to,” Mrs. Twogood said. “Just cooperate and it'll be over in the blink of an eye.”
Emma blinked. It didn't work. Not knowing what to expect, she closed her eyes. She'd never been lashed before.
When it was over, Emma felt as though her backside were on fire and knew she wouldn't be able to sit for a few days. Mrs. Twogood pulled Emma's nightgown back down, covering her blazing red back, and dismissed her, tenderly placing the yardstick on the desk as though it were a baby.
The lights in the ten-year-old girls' room were off and a soft glow came from a single nightlight beside the door. All of the other girls seemed to have fallen asleep, but Emma knew better; their breathing was fast and nervous like they expected her to pounce on them. Emma crawled painfully onto her squeaky mattress and flopped down on her stomach, hugging the stained pillow tight.
Another five years passed without incident, save for one time Emma slapped another girl who was bullying a younger orphan, but that sort of thing was common among the foster children. She was lashed only five times.
Now fifteen years old, with long, messy, dark blonde hair, Emma longed to escape the orphanage. So many years had passed with unsuccessful adoptions and she grew weary of the tedious daily routines. Many of her old friends had long since departed the orphanage with new parents, proudly leaving as members of a family. Being adopted was a laughable impossibility; once a potential family had seen her violent records, it rejected Emma without a second glance. The prospect of being adopted didn't appeal to Emma, however; she wanted independence after living under the watchful eye of the foster mothers, old and young. Being alone in the world didn't seem so bad.
It was a foggy Thursday morning and Emma had just awoke; every other girl in the room was dozing peacefully. Unfazed by the dreary clouds that hung low over the orphanage, she sat quietly on the bay window's sill, watching a few seagulls perch on a store's roof not far away. They weren't anywhere near the ocean, but the gulls often hung around Frasier Lake a few miles north.
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