The Sacrificial Daughter (31 page)

The chain came back and around, wheeling over Jesse's head. She drove it in a sharp arc, straight at the top of John's skull. Foolishly he just stood there with wide, shocked eyes. He didn't even raise his arm in an attempt to block the blow.

"Stop!" a voice bellowed in the cool air. It wasn't a boy's voice. It wasn't Ronny. A man with authority yelled that word.

It was Mr. Daniels. Had it been any other teacher Jesse would have killed John regardless of their presence. However, Mr. Daniels had been, in the slightest way, nice to Jesse and she felt a flash of shame at the thought of him seeing her spill John's brains out onto the snow. She pulled her swing and the chain whistled across the front of John's face.

"What's going on here?" Mr. Daniels demanded, his toad like face pulled tight in his anger. Instead of answering the teens all went silent. John and Jesse only continued to stare at each other. For her part, Jesse would sooner take her eyes off a viper at that distance.

Tina was the first to regain the use of her tongue. "Jesse...she was going to hit John with that." She pointed at the lock and chain.

"What were you thinking, Miss Clarke?" Mr. Daniels asked. "You could have killed him."

Jesse smiled so small that only John really saw it. "Yes," she answered.

"Is that all you have to say?" the teacher asked, flabbergasted by the chill in her one word reply.

"Will it really matter what I say?"

"It might matter to the police!" Mr. Daniels said.

Jesse shrugged. "They were coming to kill me. It was four against one…I have the right to defend myself."

Tina was quick to deny this. "No. Mr. Daniels we weren't going to do no such thing. All we were going to do was...was..."

"Have a smoke!" John finished the lie. He backed away. Despite the cool of the morning, a sheen of sweat lay on his neck.

"Yeah, and she went all psycho," Ronny said, reinforcing the lie. "We were just gonna..."

Mr. Daniels interrupted, "Don't give me that! I saw you. You came up here looking for trouble and I think you most certainly found it."

Ronny wasn't going to give up his lie so easily. "No, it wasn't like that. We didn't want to smoke on school grounds and..."

"Stop. I don't want hear anymore lies." The teacher's hand went up in Ronny's face. "I know what I saw...I just can't believe it," he said eyeing Jesse as though he had never seen her before. Jesse refused to look at him. She knew that if she did the little squiggle of shame that had begun turning in her belly would grow.

Mr. Daniels shook his head. "All of you to the principal's office." The teacher put his hand out for the chain. "Miss Clarke?"

Reluctantly she handed it over.

With the teacher striding along next to her, sighing every few steps, it was an unpleasant walk down to the school. Every student turned their every head and all eyes were on the group. As they passed by the whisperings began.

No one attracted more attention than the girl in the black. With her beaten face, her torn and blood stained clothes, and the hard cast to her eyes, she looked as if she had just come from a war zone. No one wanted to catch her gaze, and if a student did, he was quick to turn away.

An incident such as theirs changed the rules by which principals normally lived. There wasn't the usual agonizingly long wait, at least not for Jesse's attackers. They were seen relatively quick. Through the door, Jesse could hear them taking turns adamantly denying anything beyond looking to have a cigarette, all but Amanda who kept silent. The other three in turn then went on to describe how psychotic Jesse Clarke was. How, out of the blue, she had tried to kill John with her chain.

When they trooped out, John and Tina gave her a look that spoke of future pain, while Ronny and Amanda kept their faces down to the carpet. Jesse thought that she would be next. Instead, she was surprised to see Mrs. Jerryman, Mr. Irving, and Ms Weldon go in.

Their discussion with the principal was much more low-key and nothing could be heard from the other side of the door.

After twenty minutes, Mr. Daniels poked his head out of the principal's office. "Miss Clarke? Come in, please."

The instant she stepped in, Jesse knew she was walking into a kangaroo court. Her guilt had been decided already. There was an empty chair in front of Principal Peterson's desk; she was loath to take it. Just behind it on a couch, three in a row, were her most hated teachers and the idea of them breathing down her neck repulsed her.

She stood just to the side of the desk and raised her eyebrows. "Yes?"

The principal seemed nonplussed by her opening word. "Yes? You act like you don't know why you are here?"

"I'm here so you can know the truth. I just don't know why they're here," she answered jerking her head in the direction of the teachers.

"The
truth
?" Mrs. Jerryman spat out as if the word sickened her. The principal gave her a quick glare.

"First off, I do want to hear your side of the story, Miss Clarke," the principal said. "I asked the teachers to attend because they know you better than I do and I want our little session here to be as open and honest as it can be."

Having teachers in the room was not normal. She could understand the presence of Mr. Daniels, since he was a witness, but the other three spelled trouble. And what did he mean by 'open session'? Jesse had been to enough of these little meetings to know that ordinarily they were private proceedings. None of this made sense to her.

Yes it does, but you haven't put an ounce of thought into it.

Jesse turned to look at the three teachers. They were clearly, visibly, obviously upset. Way too upset. Their outrage was palpable. Strange. Did they care so much about Jesse and her injuries to get this worked up over?

Not hardly. They were sending a message with their feigned ire, and it explained why they were there: they didn't trust Principal Peterson to make the 'right' decision. And the principal's desire for an open proceeding? The principal was afraid of the mob. He wanted a sanctioned outcome, so he wouldn't be at odds with his staff.

Jesse closed her eyes and sighed; the pain in her body matching the pain in her soul. "My side of the story?" she asked. "There is only one side, the truth."

"And what is truth?" Principal Peterson asked, folding his hands beneath his chin.

"Those four attacked me last night, they beat me..." Here she turned and showed off her injuries. "...and left me for Harold Brownly to find. This morning they came at me again and threatened to do the same thing, so I defended myself with that." She gestured at the sixteen inches of heavy chain and the over-sized lock. "My bike lock."

Behind her, Mr. Irving snorted. "That's not a bike lock. Those are inch long links...you could tow a car with that."

"Nevertheless it's what I used to lock up my bike." Jesse
had
used it to lock up her bike, just not very often. The truth was that she needed a weapon that was also not a weapon. She needed 'plausible deniability' for just such a circumstance as this.

"We'll get to the chain in a moment," the principal said. "Do you have any proof that you were attacked?" When Jesse gawped at him in disbelief, he added, pointing at her face, "Besides all of that."

If it had been Jesse looking at a prison sentence for attempted murder, cleaning up the crime scene down by the berm would have been the first thing she would've done that morning. Yet the tape and the blood had still been there at half past six. Was it still there now almost three hours later? Very unlikely and with each passing minute the chances dropped precipitously.

"You shouldn't need any more than this," she answered pointing at her face. "Unless you think I did it to myself."

"Without any evidence, all I have is your word," the principal replied.

"You have more than that," Jesse said. "You have eyes that see. And in your heart you know the truth."

Mrs. Jerryman chimed up from the couch. "I've known John Osterman since he was a baby. We all have, and he may not be an angel, but he's never been accused of doing something like this before. My heart tells me to believe him over some girl who walks around these halls as if she's better than everyone else."

Peterson sat back, looking tired despite the early hour. "Do you think you're better than everyone else?"

"Those are her words, not mine," Jesse replied.

"That hardly answers my question," he said. Taking off his glasses, he began rubbing at his temples. "On one hand I have known trouble makers and on the other a girl who looks, by her bruises alone, to be telling the truth. But without proof...I don't know."

Ms Weldon stood and walked around to stare down her long horse face at Jesse. "Let's say there was a fight last night. I don't know if I blame John." She said to Jesse's amazement. "Mrs. Jerryman is correct. Jesse, you walk around here as if there is no truth but your truth...or your father's I should say. That everything stems from him and that we should be happy with the pittance that he doles out. I warned you. Three times, I warned you to be careful how you spoke and how you acted. But you wouldn't listen. Your ideas are dangerous, Jesse. They are too black and white, and I can see how they would incite anger. If John Osterman did anything at all, he was probably provoked."

Jesse didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She had never asked to defend her father; it had always been pushed on her. In growing fury she kept silent.

"Well?" the principal prompted. "Did you incite him in some way?"

"If I did, it was by telling the truth," Jesse replied, unleashing her anger. "And if he is so easily incensed by the truth that he becomes dangerous, then he should never leave these halls. He definitely won't pose a danger with what passes for truth here."

A gasp and then a glaring silence followed this, but Jesse didn't blanch away from it.

"Let's get to the chain," Principal Peterson said letting out a long breath. "We have rules in place about weapons in school. They are in place for everyone's safety."

"The safety of the criminals perhaps," Jesse said. "Without my chain I wouldn't have been very safe, would I? Either way it's not a weapon, it's a chain and a lock. I know I'm allowed to have a lock for my bike, I just didn't know that there was a restriction on its size. Can you show me in the school handbook where the prescribed gauge of the chain is written?"

The principal looked to the teachers and they looked to each other in silence. Finally Mr. Irving said, "You can play amateur lawyer all you want, Miss Clarke, but the fact is you used it as a weapon. In the handbook it clearly states that anything that can be construed as a weapon is illegal."

"I have a right to defend myself, correct?" she asked the economics teacher. "When I'm attacked by four people, should I defend myself with only those things that
can't
be construed as a weapon? An eraser? A piece of chalk maybe? Or would that be too pointy in your view?" He stood to reply and his smug look was enough to drain away the last of Jesse's energy. Before he could open his mouth she said, "Forget I asked. Pass your sentence and let's be done with this."

But the masquerade ball!

Her voice of reason sounded a lot like a voice on the verge of crying. The ball wasn't going to happen, not for her. She had promised her father that she would be good and she had failed him. His word was law and he wouldn't renig no matter how much she pleaded.

"That's all you have to say in your defense?" Peterson asked. Jesse refused to look up. Her fate been decided long before that moment, and no words on her part would change it. When she didn't budge, the principal rubbed his hands as if they pained him and turned to his teachers, "Well? Should she be given in school suspension? Three days?"

"No that would be a waste with holidays so close," Mr. Irving said. "And besides that seems hardly the punishment for assault with a deadly weapon."

Mrs. Jerryman nodded emphatically. "We should turn her over to the police. This is a criminal matter and not really up to us to decide."

Peterson's eyebrows went up at this, yet he said nothing to it. Instead he addressed another issue. "And John and his little gang? What do we do about them?"

"About last night, it's their word against Jesse's. Unless some sort of proof is given, who do we believe? Maybe she had done these things to herself. It's not unheard of," Ms Weldon answered. "And about this morning...who knows what their intentions were. Yes they might have been going up to those woods to cause trouble, but we can't see into their hearts to know if that was true or not. I say let them go until we go more answers."

Jesse had conflicting feeling about all of this... she wanted to either vomit or faint.

The police took an hour to arrive and one minute to cuff her. Thankfully the principal's office was so close to the front door that only a hundred or so students got to see the spectacle of her being led away. It could have been worse, but not by much. The officer, big, thick, and blonde, sporting a nametag that read P. Jorgenson, didn't wait for the late bell to ring and the halls to clear.

"Your father is waiting for you down at the station," Officer Jorgenson said, climbing into the front seat of the cruiser. "And he is all sorts of pissed off."

"Uh-huh," Jesse grunted, not really caring. James Clarke had done all this to her and there didn't seem to be much more that he could do. "So how are you related to Amanda?"

The officer glanced down at his nametag seemingly surprised that Jesse could read. "Oh, we're cousins from at least two different directions. Ashton's pretty small."

"It's small, really? I didn't notice," Jesse said, squirming in the back of the car. As they had left the school, they had passed through a crowd of students and someone had hawked a good-sized loogie at Jesse. She was trying to wipe it out of her hair onto the seat next to her. "Oh! Dang it," she moaned.

"Cuffs too tight?" Jorgenson asked. He knew they were. As if she was some sort of dangerous criminal he had cinched them down as tight as they would go. It wasn't the cuffs that had her groaning. Sure they hurt, but it was her ribs, torqued they way they were, that were killing her. "Assault with a deadly weapon...we don't get many of those around here," he said, as though that had been the reason for the tight cuffs and not how his family was involved with her.

"Really?" Jesse replied, rubbing her head on the seat, like a dog. "I hear you get at least one every year like clockwork. You'd think someone as big as Harold wouldn't be so hard to catch."

The officer's blue eyes narrowed. Jesse didn't care. She really didn't care about much of anything. A minute later they pulled onto the street that held both the town hall and the police station. That was when she saw something she did care about.

Harold Brownly. He entered a building right across the street from the police station and with him, looking tiny in comparison, was an officer holding a shotgun. The sight of the Shadow-man sent a tingle running all along Jesse's skin and voluntarily, she slunk down in her seat

"Whoa," Jesse whispered, as her heart took to thumping in her chest. Then louder said, "Did you catch him? What's that building?"

"No, we didn't catch him," Jorgenson said irritably, pulling up to the front of the dinky station. "That's his shrink's office."

"Wait," she said just as he was climbing out of the cruiser. "He's got a therapist? And what's with the cop with him?"

Jorgenson got out of the cruiser, squeezing his heavily muscled body sideways to do so. When he opened her door he answered, "It's court ordered. He got a DUI a little while back and the judge thought some therapy might be all that's needed." Clearly Officer Jorgenson thought the judge to be an idiot.

"And the cop with him?"

"The
police officer
is there because ole Doc Becker is a chicken. Come on. Watch your head."

"Oh! Ow, ow, ow!" He had pulled her out by her elbow and her ribs hurt so bad she came close to crying.

"Gonna play games in front of daddy?" Jorgenson asked in a hushed but nasty voice.

Jesse shook her head and wheezed, "No...broken...ribs." She could barely breathe now. He had her by the arm and was lifting up on it, gently but excruciatingly. Quickly, he lowered her arm.

"Oh, sorry. This doesn't hurt, does it?" he asked, taking a loose grip on her coat. She shook her head, breathing in light gasps. "Your father's in the first interrogation room, he wants to talk to you there."

"No. Just take me to a cell. I don't want to see him."

The officer looked shocked. "My pleasure," he said. "It's where you belong anyways, trying to kill a kid like that."

Jesse said nothing to that and was led through the small building and placed in an empty cell. Before she got there, they were all empty. Her cell held a cot, a sink, and a toilet. It was all she needed. Immediately she went to the cot and lowered herself down as gingerly as she could. She knew it wouldn't be long before her father came, but she was tired and a nap sounded like the best thing. She didn't get a nap just then.

James Clarke was suddenly at the bars to her cell door. "I called your mother," he said as way of introduction.

Unmoving, Jesse replied, "I don't have a mother. I have humanity's paragon of vanity...and narcissism. She demands the world's approval and adoration and she gets it. It takes lots of money and sacrifice, but she gets it every time. And as long as she has your money and me to sacrifice, she'll always get it."

"You don't mean that."

"You love her so blindly that you don't even know her," Jesse replied from the cot. "Her only concern is how my arrest will affect her. How it will make her look in everyone else's eyes."

"I'm sorry you think so poorly of her. And me? What do you think of me?"

"You? You are the worst absentee father possible," she said. "You're not absentee enough! And when you do happen to come around, all you do is mess up my life. You expect me to obey all these rules, yet you never explain them. And you have all these ridiculous expectations of me and impossibly high standards that no one can attain. You seem to forget that I'm only human."

"Do you want me to lower my expectations?"

Now Jesse moved, slowly, grimacing she climbed to her feet. At the sight of her father, she suddenly
felt
. Since she had walked into the police station, she'd been in a dead zone—her outsides were wooden while her insides were hollow. Then she saw her father. Rage bloomed, vibrant and black within her breast.

Jesse jumped at the bars and gripped them as if she could pull them apart. Her week's worth of misery came out in an impassion plea. "Here's what I want. I want you to listen to me!" she demanded. "Listen to me...you destroy this town! Take it apart. Let the banks repossess everything! You said that without you the town was doomed...let it be doomed."

At first when she had sat up, he looked shocked at her appearance but as she made her demand his blue eyes turned sad, while hers were a hot red. She couldn't stop blinking them.

"You're right I can destroy them," he said evenly. "They've built their town on a foundation of sand and smoke. But truly is this what you want?"

"Yes!" she screamed and tried to reach through the bars to grab him, but he was a step away, untouchable for the moment. "The people here aren't worth your effort or my sacrifice. They aren't worth a single tear," she said, though her fevered eyes were filled with them. "Sign whatever law they want...pass all their ordinances and let them build their own little hell right here, where they can rot away in misery."

Her father stood for a time contemplating with his chin down and then said, "How badly you've been treated is appalling and it's because I love you so much that I will do this for you,
but
..."

"No buts just do it!" she shrieked. Her words echoed back to her.

In sorrow James gazed at her cut and bruised face and saw the pain in each of her tears. "
But
you have to tell me, are you willing to lay all your pain on the people of Ashton? Are you willing to destroy all their lives?"

"Yes, they are hating, evil people."

He pierced her with his glance, looking right into her soul. "All of them? Think, Jesse. Have you been treated wretchedly by every single person in this town?"

Immediately she conjured up the image of Ky and for a second her heart thawed. But then she remembered that Ky hated her and had thrown her out into the street and had told her that she was the last person that he'd be friends with. The memory was fresh and full of pain.

She started to nod her head, yes at his question...but then Carla Castaneda's pretty but so sad face came to her. "There is one person that hasn't been mean. A librarian." Could Jesse cause the lady more misery? She felt her head spin.

James brows came down. "Only one? Maybe I should let this town bury itself in..."

"There's also this girl from school...Sandra," Jesse said interrupting. "She's been nice to me. Or as nice as a person can be in this town."

Her father considered. "Two? That's nothing. I would destroy the town for that few. If you could give me ten names, maybe not."

Another face popped into her head. "I forgot to mention this girl...Emily...and there was also Allison and her two friends." There was also Mr. Daniels, he had been good to her, and it wasn't his fault what happened to her today. His son was probably nice too. And Ky...not Ky! But Ky's father appeared to be a good man. And then there was Gordon, the boy whose water was going to be shut off by the town and Mrs. Spiros...

"There might be more." She had a sense of unraveling within her. It was as though her insides had been wrapped in twine and a thread had given way. Her anger unwound along with it. Jesse couldn't hurt these people.

"Perhaps thousands more?" her father asked with a knowing look in his eyes. On this however, he didn't know.

"Not thousands. No way are there thousands of good people in this town," she said wiping her face on her long coat.

"Yes," her father replied. "There are, but many have gone astray. I wish you could look outside yourself and see them as I do."

Jesse felt her ire kick back in. "What do you mean? I see all their hate and bitterness and petty crap. I don't need to look outside myself to see that."

"Perhaps that's true. But you need to look outside yourself to see how they are bound together like no other town," James Clarkes said. "You can't see the love they have for each other...for their homes, for their families, for their neighbors. It's there, but you can't see it. Not yet."

"I can't see it because it doesn't exist."

"You can't see it because you are nothing but a mirror," her father explained. "All the hate that comes your way, you reflect right back outward. All the anger, all the misery that surrounds you is reflected back. That's all anyone ever sees when they look at you."

"You don't know how it is for me," Jesse wailed amidst a fresh wave of burning tears.

"Of course I do because it's the same for me," he said. "In the bad times they hate me and curse my name, but what happens when things go well?"

He paused for her to answer, but she didn't say anything. She abruptly realized that she was missing something. Her father was hated as much as she was, but in the end he was always adored...why?

"I'll answer that," he said in reply to her unspoken question. "Because I never change. I am that I am, regardless of who is around me. But look at you."

Jesse looked down at herself and saw the dried blood, the dirt, the tears stains, the torn clothes, the bruises and lacerations, the cuff marks, and the jail cell. Her father was the exact opposite. He stood tall and neatly attired in a tailored suit and he looked fresh as if he'd had a great night sleep.

"You're an adult..." she started to say.

"No, that's not it at all," he said cutting across her lame answer. "The great difference between us is that I've learned to forgive and you haven't yet."

Jesse was struck dumb—or very nearly so—only small odd sounds escaped her mouth as she struggled to protest this bit of lunacy. "Look at me!" she demanded. "Do you think that forgiving anyone could have prevented this from happening?"

"Yes I do. You've painted yourself into a cell for goodness sakes. Think back to the very first moment that you felt hate here in Ashton."

Jesse's brows creased as she thought back. It was only four days ago but it felt like a month. "Um...I was at the public library and the librarian said something rude about you firing people..."

He cut in, "You know better. I don't fire people; I only cut budgets and make suggestions...go on."

"Well, that was about it. I said something in kind back to her and that was that."

"Thank you for standing up for me...but how did that replying in kind work out for you?"

Jesse was silent. It hadn't worked out at all, the librarian had only become more hostile. James went on, "It didn't work out, because it couldn't. When hate bounces back and forth between two people it only grows and there is no room for anything else."

"Forgiving the librarian is one thing, but what about all this?" she asked pointing at herself. "I was attacked and I don't think forgiveness would have helped...wait!" A sudden ridiculously shocking thought came to her. "You aren't about to tell me to turn the other cheek!"

James smiled and then laughed. "You are so astute! I love that about you."

"No!" Jesse said, dumbfounded. "This is the real world I'm talking about. People attacked me. Do I let them..." The memory of her tied to the tree came to mind and it sent a shiver down her spine. "Do I let my face get kicked in? Do I let Harold Brownly smash my head open with a hammer? And while he's at it am I supposed to sit there waiting patiently in hopes he might see that I'm really not so bad?"