The Confessions of Saoirse Feelen

The evening before:

Dear diary,

The windows are secured. Blinds and curtains drawn. Boards nailed in tight. I checked them once, twice, three times; I’ll check them again before long… I always do. The doors, too; bolted, chained, boarded up. Still, I do not trust them entirely. I feel I haven’t done enough, though I’m not sure what else I could do.

The clock always seems to tick louder on evenings like this as the sunlight slips away and yields to night. It always does. It’s not the clock’s fault, though…  it’s that bitch whispering in my mind: she’s always louder before the change. Crawling just under my skin, urging me to rush, to slip up, to forget.

This morning, I lost the handcuffs. I turned the fucking house upside down looking for them, palms sweaty, mouth dry as cotton. I could feel her watching me from behind my eyes. Smiling. Waiting and surveying her work as I scrambled to recover one of the fail-safes that stalled and decreased the damage of her monthly visit. When I found them at last – under the bed where I swear I did not put them – I fell to my knees and wept at my bedside. She enjoys her tricks. Her little games with my mind.

The gloom of the basement awaits me. Down in the dark, an iron pole awaits me, suspended between ceiling and floor, scuffed and scarred from countless years of struggle. I should replace the cuffs soon. But I know I won’t. I never do, until they break. Then it’s always a scramble to replace them before the next cycle. She enjoys that.

I’ll head down soon. Chain myself like a criminal. In a way, I suppose I am. I’ve hurt people, people I loved. But I don’t do it to punish myself; it’s mercy. Mercy for others, though, not myself.

As always, I face the coming long night alone. But how could I condemn another to this madness? I cannot have a partner, not ever, not a real one anyway. What would I even tell them? That once a month they must lock me up in the dark, no questions asked? That they cannot touch the locks on the basement door, cannot come close no matter what they hear down there? No one would understand, nobody would stay. No one should.

I cannot even have pets; she’s taken that privilege from me. Not since Sam. Poor Sam… it was long ago, but I can still smell him. Still taste the coppery tang of his blood. I hear his whimpers and dream of the fear and betrayed devotion in his glossy eyes, as my puppeteered body loomed over him. Some nights I wake with tears streaming down my face and the taste of blood in my mouth even though I haven’t eaten.

Work will expect me tomorrow. They always do. I will cough on the phone and feign illness, or else drag my body there against my will, every bruise fresh, every bone aching. I doubt it, though. This time is going to be bad; I can feel it. I’ll need time to rest tomorrow. The lying sickens me, but what alternative is there? Recovery takes time. It always takes time.

I’ve never written about any of this before. So why now? It’s getting harder every year, that’s why. I feel her more and more inside me. Whispering, encouraging, and threatening. I wonder if she’s getting stronger, or if I only grow tired. Perhaps it’s both.

I was twenty-five when this began. I am still twenty-five now. I have been twenty-five for ninety years. I don’t know how much longer I can carry her with me.

That’s all for now. My mistress is soon to dominate the dark skies. It is time.

-          Saoirse.

 

The morning after:

Dear diary,

They didn’t hold.

The cuffs broke. I woke up sprawled on the kitchen floor; cheek pressed to the cold tiles, bones creaking and muscles sore.

My wrists were bruised, rubbed red raw where the iron had given way. The basement door hangs from its hinges, split down the middle. I don’t remember leaving, I don’t remember breaking it. But then, why would I?

My heart hammered as I searched the house, fearing every corner turned would unveil some horrific sight. I know she had a chance, she had me. Yet I’m still here in the house. The windows remain secured. The doors bolted shut. My mouth is mercifully bone dry and my clothes – though ragged and tattered – are devoid of blood. No bodies. No gore. Just me and the empty shell of the house.

I was relieved, until I ventured upstairs.

In my bedroom, written in the plaster above my headboard in something dark (not paint, not ink – I won’t ask what), I found the words:

I only need once.

The letters are jagged, uneven, smeared by my own fingers; my messy handwriting, yet not mine. The Wolf borrowed my hands last night.

The bitch is playing with me, that’s what bothers me the most. She was never just hunger, or instinct. She waits, she thinks, even when she’s buried behind my eyes.

Those words resound in my mind. Whispered by a predatory growling parasite. The basement feels useless now. The iron pole, the cuffs, and everything I’ve built to hold her back mean nothing if she chooses to bide her time and slip her leash when the time is right.

Next time, I might not wake up in my house. Perhaps I won’t wake up at all.

I cannot face another month.

-          Saoirse.

 

A new day:

I hardly slept. Every time I closed my eyes I saw those jagged letters above my bed, written in something that still smells faintly of musk if I stand too close.

I scrubbed the wall for an hour this morning. The words are gone now, but I can still see them when I blink. I only need once.

The worst part is how reasonable it sounded in my head when I woke up. For one terrible moment I thought: She’s right. Why fight so hard every month when she only needs one slip up? The thought felt like my own. Warm, almost comforting. That frightened me more than I can put into words.

I’ve started talking back to her aloud. Not shouting, whispering. Like reasoning with a difficult roommate. I tell her she won’t win. She doesn’t answer in words, but sometimes I feel something like laughter, low and patient, rumbling under my ribs.

I wonder how long I’ve been negotiating with her without realizing it.

Ninety years of this. Ancient eyes gazing from a twenty-five-year-old face. I keep thinking about Sam lately. Not just the guilt of the deed. Sometimes I remember the power in my limbs that night. The pristine, predatory clarity. For a few minutes I wasn’t afraid of anything or anyone.

I don’t know which of us is recalling that memory now.

Tomorrow I’ll go buy new chains from the hardware shop. Absurdly heavy ones. But part of me already knows it won’t matter come next month.

I know the truth.

The Wolf’s not getting stronger.

I’m only tired of fighting her.

-          Saoirse.