Darkness WHO: MELISSA RIDLEY ; NPCs (closed narrative) WHAT: Back story! WHERE: Kidlington, UK WHEN: June, 1994 RATING: PG-13 for mentions of death, etc
The last time Ridley could remember seeing a fire like this, she’d been five, barely old enough to retain proper memories of it. no linear sequence of events, no perfect recollection of faces or names. What she remembered was the heat. The flames. They were bright enough to force her to close her eyes, even though she was fumbling near the staircase trying to find her way out. She could still hear the screams, feel the heat blistering her skin, and someone reaching for her hand. Screaming for her mother, she’d been hoisted into a stranger’s arms and carried out of the house, wailing hysterically as she was removed from the house. Soon, they dropped her into the arms of someone they told her was “family”, even though she couldn’t remember ever seeing them before. At some point they put baby Angus in her hands, but wouldn’t answer when she asked about Iona. Kian. Mommy.
Of course that strange woman had been family. Aunt Natasha. She had a hooked nose and a mess of dark hair that had served as a pillow for a small, scared child of five to cry into. She’d cooed “It’s okay, Eilidh, I’ve got you” over and over, but it hadn’t helped. Ridley dreamed of that night and that fire until it felt like that’s all it was – a dream, a nightmare. Grew up, forgot, moved on.
Until now.
The church was ablaze. Since it was the only church in Kidlington, odds were the authorities wouldn’t be far behind. “Uh—we gotta go, you two.” Lincoln removed his thick-rimmed glasses to survey the damage they’d done. The stress worn by the Templar clearly had more to do with the explanation he’d have to provide to his superiors; that grim and daunted look of horrified awe. Still new to the field, this had been his first solo work, and his first colossal fuck up. Ridley would never forgive him for it.
He reached for her hand and she shook it off, opting to grab Owen by his shoulders to shake him out of his stupor.
“Kian?” That was all he’d been able to say since they escaped the church. “That was Kian?”
He’d been too young in that first fire. Just an infant, Owen (Angus, then) had no time to form real memories or feelings about his twin sister, let alone his shadowy big brother. That was how she saw it, anyway; even her memories of Kian were foggy and half-formed at best. It was why she hadn’t recognized him two weeks ago when she found him standing over the bloodied body of Natasha, why she’d so freely hexed him, and why she’d requested help from the Council in tracking him down. Owen had always valorized Kian’s memory despite only having Ridley’s weakly-forged memories of a smart-mouthed bully to form his idealized imaginings. But it was the only consistent masculine figure in Owen’s life, and now at sixteen, he was witness to all of that burning into ruins before his very eyes.
“Yeah,” she replied. “That was Kian.”
A force of unbelievable nature was what Kian was. Tall, broad, charming, dangerous and powerful. Ridley still couldn’t believe that one individual was capable of so much, but Lincoln assured her one night when they’d been lying in bed that it made more sense when a witch so easily tethered themselves to a demon. She still couldn’t believe they’d managed to make it out of that church with their lives.
Owen had tears in his eyes, but they did not shed. That was more sobering than the intensifying flames; Owen’s emotions had always flowed openly and without shame. Watching him harness it all like a well-built dam felt like watching something else go up in smoke. Something that she hadn’t realized was so precious.
“Miss Ridley? We really…,” Lincoln gestured to the atmosphere. Over the sounds of crackling wood and crumbling beams, she heard the sirens.
He almost wished they could have arrived earlier. She wished a lot of things had gone differently, that someone with more experience than the green, twenty-two-year-old Lincoln had been sent, that he would have told her from the get-go that it was Kian they were tracking, that she could have been stronger, that they’d never been separated… that they’d all never been born. Lots of unanswered prayers and ignored wishes.
“Owen, come on,” she tried to sound soothing, but her voice was frantic and scared, shouted over the sounds of the fire. “We have to go!”
“What about the body?”
Ridley’s mouth hung open. After a pause, she said coolly, “There won’t be one.”
Not after what she and Lincoln had done.
The three headed for the hills. Lincoln kept casting furtive glances in her direction, her co-conspirator, and she the arsonist. Ridley avoided eye contact. Smoke had clouded her vision anyway, making her eyes water as she tried to outrun the smoke, outrun the heat. Owen ran ahead of them, his long legs carrying him far as the other two struggled to keep up.
Once far enough away, they collapsed atop a hill and surveyed the world below. Firemen and paramedics surrounded the church, controlling the spread of flames. They failed to save the structure, which was likely for the best. Nothing good would ever be able to come out of that once hallowed space again anyway. Smoke filled the clear night sky, obscuring the stars and the crescent moon as though they hung behind a veil. The smell of burnt wood filled the village, spreading all the way to their vantage point. Lincoln sat, cleaning his glasses and muttered in Latin under his breath, as though he was praying. Owen laid on his back and glared angrily at the world which had finally shown him its ugliest face.
Ridley stared at the dying flames and wondered how long it would take before it all caught up with her. She’d managed to survive two infernos by age nineteen; fires which had claimed members of her family as they breathed and grew and spread.