(-closed-) TW - all kinds

The sensation of cold was surprising. She had been walking for a long time now, walking in a single coat in the Moose Jaw cold of February. Any normal human being would have frozen long ago but she wasn’t normal. The huge gaping emptiness inside her reminded her of that with every step.

Her last clear memory was the two letters. One left where it had been written, the other sent to Carmel, addressed the other person she had disappointed over the years. As much as she wanted to go home, back to Dad, back to Clara, back to her room and be that little girl who hid under her blankets safe from the world, she knew she couldn’t do that. Facing the world was not an option right now.

She didn’t deserve a blanket right now.

So on she trudged in the cold, her fingers slowly turning blue because a charm could only keep you warm for so long. Her lips cold because one could only be kissed for so long, her heart broken because… Because she’d deliberately left half of it behind. Now she had nothing but the snowy path ahead, and she was going to walk it until she reached somewhere. Never one to apperate and having left the Spider back at the apartment, there was little choice too. And braving the obstacles this way, well it was something to focus on, something to help move from one step to the next. She hadn’t stopped, hadn’t bothered to rest.

Knowing she couldn’t sleep anyway.

Day merged into night which merged into day again, hard to tell in this weather. She passed roads, lanes, was approaching a freeway, her dull sense of direction informed her. Despite walking, she had no destination, no plans, certainly to home to go to. Perhaps her body would just give up in a few hours and she would kneel right there on the icy road, succumbing to hypothermia. There were no plants here to help her, just miles upon miles of ice. If there was life underground, it was too far to reach, and the young woman too exhausted to try.

The headlights crept up slowly behind her, the driver taking care not to skid his wheels on the ice. At first, he was given little thought. Another traveller with a place to go, with a home to be at, with people who missed him. He probably had children, and a wife, and they all sat down to dinner every day by a cozy fireplace as the snowstorm raged outside. He had no business in her life, he would go on.

But it appeared he driver had other plans for after a few minutes, she heard the distinct sound of he truck horn. “Hey Miss, you there, need help?” A bushy bearded face appeared out of a steamed window, the small dark eyes looking at her curiously. “Mighty cold out there for a walk, give you a lift?”

The witch shook her head; she couldn’t keep him from his children and his nice dinner. She would be dead soon anyway. “No thanks,” the brunette rasped, barely audible. Not having spoken in days, her voice showed it. Her usually slender frame rattled in the cold and the ends of her hair were frozen and brittle with flecks of ice and snow. “I’ll manage.”

“No offense, but you don’t look like you’re managing” the driver replied suspiciously before ducking his head back into the truck. The full beard appeared a moment later, as did a thick arm covered with hair. “Look, here’s my driver’s license, I’m not some creep okay. I’ll give you a lift into town, drop you by a shelter or motel or whatever. What you do after that is your business okay?”

The teen shook her head weakly but he was already getting out of his car, the heat spilling out of the vehicle welcoming enough to render her speechless. Numbly, she stepped up into the truck, her small frame easily fitting on the long seat she shared with the driver. The man got in after her, the man who, according to his driver’s license, was a Harold Swanson, 42, of , Commonplace Regina.

“What’s your name kid?” the driver asked a few minutes into the drive, clearly not content to spend the journey in silence. The witch remained quiet, hoping he would get the hint. He did not. “I’m going to keep asking until you answer, you know.”

Only one name came to mind as she pondered his question, the only name that mattered. .

“Newbury. Azalea Newbury.”

“Hey Newbury, order up,” the cook yelled, making her look up from where she was absent mindedly rubbing the same glass for a good five minutes. The inn that had been her temporary living space for the past two weeks boasted a café that would not have passed any kind of health inspection. As it was, the place functioned mostly akin to the watering hole of random travellers. No one stuck around long enough to complain, no one even stuck around long enough to experience the indigestion from the food.

Upon first arriving at the shabby place, she had been asked for identification, something the girl had not thought to bring along when she’d left her previous life behind. The manager, a woman of God who understood that sin was unavoidable, did have her defining lines though. So while a reedy teenaged girl showing up with an adult male, no identification and no money to pay for her room was okay. Mrs. McGuire refuses to let on board a junkie. One hastily assembled drug test later, the brown haired witch was deemed satisfactory and given a room barely bigger than the back of Mr. Swanson’s truck. It had also helped that he had vouched for the girl, for reasons unknown to the vouchee herself.

The matter of payment was settled when Mrs. McGuire prodded and poked until she found out that her new “guest” had had some experience as a barmaid. The “café” was far from a bar but it served the loose definition of food and Mrs. McGuire was not in the habit of paying her employees fair wages. It wasn’t bad really, the work kept the young witch’s hands busy, gave her some kind of structure and at the end, there was a bed to crawl into and not sleep. She had gotten to know most of the vermin that resided in the walls, she had even named some.

What she hadn’t done was try to invigorate the sad excuses for plants in the vicinity. Every time she neared a potted plant, an uprooted bush or a wilted flower, her body would respond with sharp pangs, pangs that were hard to explain but that locked Leafy and the rest safely inside her. Just as well, this establishment was Muggle as could be, and she had no wand with her. Along with the rest of her life, she had left that behind too. Not that she’d been very good with it anyway.

“Newbury!” the cook shouted again, making her drop the glass and head of to the counter. Picking up the plate of what was once fish and chips, she made her way to the only diner in the café, a dull realization forming as Harold Swanson’s familiar face and beard swam into view.

“Hey Kiddo, you okay?”

The brunette nodded setting down his food. He was a kind man. In another world, she would have warned him not to eat this food, she would have slipped him a glass of wine on the house, she would have chatted with him about his wife and children. But in this world, the witch cared for very little, even acknowledging the kindness of strangers.

“Was on my way to Manitoba, figured I’d stop by and check up on you,” the man tried again, ignoring his plate of food. The young woman did the same, ignored the food that is. Ignoring things was getting easier and easier lately.

“Are they working you too hard, you look like you haven’t slept in days?”

The brunette finally looked up at that, lifeless chocolate eyes taking in his concerned expression. The visible part of Mr. Swanson’s face was culored in genuine confusion and sorrow for the child bent on such self-destruction. “I can’t sleep,” she offered shortly. “Medical condition.”

“Really, ever?” he asked, nonplussed, the cold food getting even colder as it lay ignored on the table. But the brunette was done explaining. With a quick “will there be anything else?” she had left him to his devices and moved back to her corner of the café, picking up the same glass she had been cleaning before the cook had interrupted her. She didn’t notice her impromptu friend leave, didn’t return his wave, didn’t hear him calling on her to take care of herself.

No, the next thing she heard was the cook coming out the kitchen with a mug of warm beer. “Cheers love, you get your clean bill of health today,” he said, offering her the glass. The waitress shook her head, refusing the drink. Not to be deterred, he bought the mug to his own lips. “I’ll have it then, no point wasting good beer,” he added, over exaggerating the quality of the drink entirely by referring to it as “good”.

“Clean bill of health?” she finally asked when the words sunk in.

“Results of your drug test,” he answered casually. “Mrs. Mc G sends them out to a lab in the big town, just makes people think we have the technology here to find out if you’re clean. Most junkies run away before even trying so she was sure you were clean. We’ll know for sure today though.”

The witch made no reply, she had never been on any drugs, on that count as least Mrs. McGuire had nothing to worry about.

“Pregnant?”

Only that one word registered over the long tirade Mrs. McGuire was on. There were other words, many other words. Mostly to the effect of her kindness being repaid with betrayal, the sin of bearing child out of wedlock, the casualness with which the youth of today committed the crimes of fetal murder. But the young brunette wasn’t paying attention to any of that. The sample they’d sent off for the drug test… The reports couldn’t be right. If she... If there was a chance…

What had she done..?

“I have to go…” she managed, however her body refused to comply, her feet too weak to stand on, her arms too numb to hoist herself up from the chair, her heart beating too erratically to make any sense. Desperately, the witch focused on a small hanging plant by the window. Not a shade plant, her brain supplied automatically and yet it had been left by a closed window for too long. But there was always some kind of life… Wasn’t that the first rule, there was always some form of life even in death?

Focusing on the plant, the slight teen tried to connect, only for a shooting pain to streak through her body, making her fall back in her chair.

“Please Mrs. McGuire, she looks unwell,” Harold Swanson’s voice pleaded with the livid manager. He too had been summoned to witness her humiliation, having stayed back in town from the rancid food he’d partaken in the previous day. She should have warned him about the fish and chips.

“She has to go,” Mrs. McGuire agreed, ignoring the plea for mercy. “We don’t keep her kind here. Next thing you know she’ll be suing her for whatever ungodly state the little bastard’s born in. You brought her here, you take her back.” the words were directed at the truck driver who, judging by the looks of it, had not exactly come to terms with the situation himself.

“Mrs. McGuire please, where would I even take her?”

“Moose Jaw,” the witch interrupted, stopping the argument.

“Throw her in a ditch for all I care,” the manager interjected, making her position on the matter clear. Half an hour later, the brunette was seated once again in the truck that had brought her here. Harold Swanson now seemed more in control than he had earlier, even managing to give Mrs. McGuire a glare as she muttered something about not running a charity for sinners.

The truck took its time starting, there had been snow last night. More snow. But the wait was unimportant. When the driver stayed quiet, his young passenger could close her eyes and pretend to rest. He never stayed quiet for long though.

“Who’s in Moose Jaw?”

“Family,” the young woman replied. For the first time in her life, she had family, a biological relation to get back to.  He really had given her all that she’d ever wanted in life. And now she had to go back and do the same for him.

The truck wheezed on, slow against the weather despite the clear, deserted highway they were taking. How many hours had it been? Two? Three? Time had long since lost it’s meaning to the young witch now seated beside the burly driver, his coat thrown over her knees big enough to function as a blanket. Apparently he carried a spare for these situations. The bad attempt at a joke had nonetheless made the brunette crack a small, unwilling smile. How often did he pick up strange women on the freeway for that spare coat to come in handy anyway?

The carton of milk that he had handed to her as they’d waited for the truck to heat up enough to move was now almost empty in her hands. It had taken a while for the vehicle to unfreeze, the gas pipes warming up the engine just enough to feed it the patrol it needed. A lifetime ago Azalea had been warned of what Canadian winters (and even springs) did for vehicles, ensuring she kept the spider as warm as she did any of her plants in the colder months.

As warm as he’d kept her every night.

“Drink up, kiddo, we won’t reach Moose Jaw for a good two to three days,” Harold instructed, his gaze focused on the windscreen. He had insisted that nothing worked like milk when it came to going to sleep. He didn’t understand, no one had ever understood them anyway. Perhaps that had been the problem? The teen shook her head, lifting the carton to her lips regardless. He had insisted, and he’d said it was good for the baby. She now had to start eating and drinking for two.

The idea that there was a life inside her was still new, still alien enough that she would forget every few minutes and then be reminded by a painful twang or by something the bearded driver said. Far from being repulsed like Mrs. McGuire, Harold had gotten over his shock remarkably quickly and now didn’t mind asking about her condition. The questions that had followed included if her parents knew, if the father knew, if she wanted the child. All of them had only been answered with either a nod or a shake of her small head. Luckily he hadn’t insisted on her talking.

And yet something kept niggling at the back of her mind, something was very wrong.

“And that was my first snow storm that bad, I could have snuggled a bear for warmth I could have. Nearly set the old truck on fire,” he chuckled, his stories only serving to alleviate his own boredom, she supposed, his passenger certainly not entertaining enough to contribute to the conversation in any way. Interestingly enough, there were no stories of wife and children. Perhaps she’d been wrong, perhaps he didn’t have any? That would explain why he had time to devote to the wellbeing of random street rats.

“You didn’t eat,” her mind supplied sluggishly, her eyes getting heavy. Perhaps it was the lonely stretch of road, the all-white and grey view, the steam that glossed over the windows, hiding her from the rest of the world. “Fish and chips… I wanted to warn you... But you didn’t eat.”

“Three there love, finish your milk,” he replied jovially, his words coming from a distance. She may not have been able to sleep but perhaps this was what sheer exhaustion felt like. It seems slowly, her body was shutting down, her legs curling in on her, her hands clutching on to the coat blanket with its musty smell. It was only her mind that struggled against all odds, trying to frantically keep her awake.

“You didn’t…leave…” she managed, her words slurring now. The truck had taken longer to start because it hadn’t moved in weeks. If he had only been in town for one night, and hadn’t needed to stay due to food poisoning because he’d never eaten… he’d never left….

“You cold kiddo?” he asked, and her sleep addled brain registered his tone had gotten colder, almost as if to physically personify the questions. Azalea couldn’t bring herself to answer but felt something warm tossed her way regardless. Grabbing for it, the teen buried her face in the warm thing, feeling fine hair tickle her skin because she realized what it was.

Her chocolate brown eyes flew open in shock, red from both the lack of sleep and fighting against whatever drugging agent had been in the milk. Without his big bushy beard, Harold Swanson looked completely different. His weak chin lay exposed to the world, his missing teeth more apparent now. The eyebrows, Azalea assumed, were also false and without them, his eyes looked small and beady.

“Told you milk helps with sleep,” this time, the American accent was painfully clear, as were his words for no sooner had her eyes opened then they were closing once more. Her body had already given up, now it was just the matter of her mind shutting down completely.

“He… He’ll find me…” she managed just before her mind surrendered into oblivion. No matter what happened, he would always find her. And that Azalea knew no matter what state she was in.

“We’ll see about that,” the man styling himself Harold Swanson with the help of a stolen ID and a fake beard growled beside her, jerking the steering wheel sharply to the left and banging the girl’s head into the door for good measure.

April 2013

She was never alone.

Her captor came and went, the life slowly growing inside her she tried to hide as much as she could. And then there were the other girls.

At first none of them spoke, simply tried to be as quiet as possible when Harold Swanson came down the wooden steps, the fresh smell of snow and wind the only hint his captors would have of the outside world. The tense moment in which he chose the body for the night and left the others in peace. As suffocating as it had been to feel his large frame on top of her, pushing her roughly when she whimpered and attempted to curl in on herself, it was even worse hearing him do it to the woman beside her, not four feet away.

And all the while, she couldn’t sleep.  The silent screams in the dark basement and her mind were too much and in the moments when he knocked her about in his haste for a release, sometimes she mercifully sunk into unconsciousness, waking up later only to reach for the slowly growing child inside her, praying this would not reach the pure life within.


“Is that his?” The voice sounded far away though it couldn’t have been, there was no room. Perhaps it was just because she’d began to lose focus on reality. It was easier really to not fully understand what was going on. The teen found that if she ignored everything in the world and remained focused only on protecting the only thing down here that mattered, she could sometimes make the world not swim in front of her eyes. Her gaze had adjusted to the darkness but she doubted she ever would.

Numbly, she felt herself shake her head.

“We don’t do names here, I’m M.” M was possibly the oldest captive, one who had fallen out of favor for a while now that there were younger, better girls to replace her. Once the teen had heard a story about M being Harold’s second ever catch, she’s been in this basement over fifteen years and was now a point of sentiment for the insane man who lived above.

“Well, who’re you?”

That was a good question? With the blanket of pain and sorrow that reality had taken on lately, her previous identity had been left behind. Once upon a time there was a girl who lived in Carmel California, then she lived in Moose Jaw, then she lived no more.

“J,” she replied hoarsely from her position on the ground. Her broken ankle hadn’t been mended, hadn’t been seen to at all. She doubted anyone had even noticed. Information from a former life presented itself, about how useless that ankle would forever be if not seen to shortly but there were more important things to consider than her own wellbeing.

“You know he won’t take you to a hospital right?” The words were enough to make her blood run cold, the sensation registering with a sharp pang of pain she never knew she could feel again. Even as the brunette let out a whimper, clutching her growing stomach protectively, she knew M’s words were true. Of course he wouldn’t. He hadn’t gone to all this trouble to get her here only to take her to the hospital for the delivery, especially of a child that wasn’t his own.

Without proper care, the baby wouldn’t make it…

Her baby wouldn’t make it….



The darkness continued, as did the pain.

But the worst of it all was the fear.  

She found out how they dealt with a death in the “family”. S had been the chosen one for the night. S slept two girls away from her but she had nightmares so J could always hear her. Everyone could hear her. Sometimes she envied S’s ability to still have nightmares despite the fact that they all lived in one. What could be worse than this?

S had been brought in young, M had once told her. When she was only thirteen. To S, this was more a way of life than a sentence. She had also suggested S would be the perfect candidate to pitch the idea of taking J to the hospital post coitus. Harold wouldn’t say no to the girl he’d practically raised.

S had also lost two children to the monster so she understood.

As it turned out, Harold could say no to his little girl, he could also bludgeon her to death. The warm spatters of her blood were everywhere now.  The body had remained with the small group for three days before the smell had started bothering Harold upstairs and he’d gone to dump it. Enough time for the girls to divide S’s few possessions among themselves. J got an old maternity dress.


“Quick, she’s bleeding,”

“We’re all bleeding, bitch. Why the ruckus?”

“No, M, she’s bleeding down there. She isn’t big enough for the baby and she’s bleeding!”

Some scuffling sounds, a gasp or two, hurried questions all swimming in and out of her consciousness. Giving up on reality meant understanding very little of what was going on in it. Everyone had begun to notice J wasn’t “all there” recently. Some pitted her, some envied her, they too would have given anything to not be “all there”.

“We need to fix her up, she keeps bleeding and the baby goes!”

Something seared across her skin, a scream trying to leave her mouth but finding itself blocked by a dirty hand. Of course they had to make sure she didn’t scream, didn’t wake up the monster above. The pain increased, and her mind wavered once more until, at last, sweet unconsciousness took over once more.


She knows it’s a girl.

It’s her little Mimosa.

And she knows he will find her

“Don, stop,” M pleaded, throwing herself between the young mother and her angry captor. “Don she’s just a baby, she won’t cry no more, I promise. Right J, tell him the baby won’t cry no more.”

The young mother simply sat still where she was, holding the wailing infant to her chest. Somewhere in the periphery, she would have appreciated M’s help if she was aware of it. But she could make no such promises. Mimosa had been crying since she’d arrived into this world, early, malnourished, underdeveloped and highly breakable due to her unusual birthing method. To make things worse, the mother had almost died during the delivery and the husk that was left could not produce the milk the baby needed.

It was M who had first noticed the mother’s distress, relayed only in small whimpers as tears slid down her cheeks, watching the baby’s arm twist at an impossible angle. A broken bone at such a young age could be fetal, in Mimosa’s condition even more so. The girls had bandaged the baby up as well as they could but that hadn’t solved the problem.

“If she doesn’t shut her hole, I’m going to give her a binky,” Harold Swanson growled, ramming M across the shoulder to move her out of the way. The older woman went down with a resounding thud, the kind that ensured she wouldn’t get up for a while. The kind J herself had experiences many times over the past months. Her ankle had never healed, making it impossible to stand up now. As a result, the teenager usually crawled her way around the small room, taking help from others to stand on one leg in dire conditions.

“Let’s look at it shall we?” the man leered, making J hold the baby closer, her diminishing frame going tout with tension as the monster neared her baby. Summoning all the will she had in her, the brunette shook her head. “No!” It was rare that she spoke words these days but he was coming after the only thing she now cared about.

“No is it,” the heavyset man asked, his beady eyes lighting up with cruel amusement. He hadn’t touched her since the birth, leaving her for dead the first few days until informed that against all odds, she had lived and was slowly gaining consciousness. “We’ll see about that.” In one swift motion, the infant was ripped from her arms and thrown somewhere she couldn’t see, her sense of hearing automatically reaching to pick up the sound of the thud, of the sound of little Mimosa crashing into a wall or a cupboard and losing her short life forever. But even as Harold climbed on top of her, roughly pushing her dirty hair and bruised face back towards the wall, J heard no such sounds.

Instead, the baby landed on the soft heap that was M, whimpering quietly in the corner.

And thankfully, the crying continued. It gave J something to focus on as the captor drove himself inside her again and again, depleting the last of her ability to stay connected to the world.


The heavy snows had begun, making Harold’s visits more and more scarce as he found it difficult to drive through the bad weather. Either that or he was scouting for his next victim. In any other situation, the choices would be repulsive but to this particular group of broken women, it was life. K and M said it was the weather, S and C claimed there would be a new friend for them soon. J said nothing, she never did anymore.

“You know, we can’t keep calling her “baby” forever,” M suggested in an attempt to draw J into conversation. It was a good attempt. “What name should we give her”

“G?” Suggested S. “For Gloria, that was my little sister’s name.”

“That’s a stupid name,” K interjected. “We can call her J2 after her mother,” another attempt to get a response from the mute brunette.

“You bitches are sick,” M reprimanded. “Don’t be giving her a name like ours. Why’d you want her to grow up like us?’

“But M, she’s here with us. She will grow up like us,” K pointed out, not unkindly. “How long do you think he’ll wait before he starts fucking the baby too?”

The thought sent a violent shudder through the mother, making her tighten her grip on the child. Mimosa had broken another bone yesterday, proving that she couldn’t even be held too roughly for fear of injury. There was much J didn’t care to weigh in on in the world, but her daughter’s future was the sole exception. She would never be like this group of women.

“Mimosa,” she finally spoke, the one word let out almost like a dying woman’s final breath. Her child’s name was Mimosa, and she would live to see sunlight.


Harold had been back once, and left half a dirty shirt behind for C to salvage into some form of a new baby blanket. The girls had worked to fashion something resembling a needle and then looked around in the dark for rags that could be repurposed for colorful threads. In the end, the result was neither as clean, not as colorful as anyone would have liked but it was better than nothing.

An off white baby blanket and badly shaped cap, with the words “MIMOSA” threaded on in maroon, yellow and purple as there hadn’t been enough of a single color to make up the full name. It was the single moment of Joy that J experienced in captivity as they girls revealed their efforts and dressed Mimosa in her new makeshift attire. The cap was a little too big but M assured everyone that the baby would grow into it. Silently emphasizing the fact that the child would live.

M was right, the child lived even if she did not. It was the same blanket and cap Mimosa Harrington was found in almost a full year later, found wailing beside a skeletal woman with dirty brown hair drawing her final breaths under a crushed basement ceiling.

Mimosa is one today.

The captives have managed to scavenge more thread and fabric to add the word “Harrington” beside the much bigger letters of her first name. The last few letters were simply scrawled on in dark ink by a broken pen nib. Not that it matters, as long as the words are legible.

J knows it won’t be long now, she can feel it in the remainder of her bones.

Her Mimosa is about to be free. And J is about to die. All of them are.

Except her daughter, she will live to see the sun.


The cold has set in, Harold is away.

The foundation has been weakening for months now, her humanity given up for one last effort to connect with her roots. Her literal roots.

The pain has been overbearing for a while now, making her shut out the world because her screaming would scare the baby. It would also invite their captor down into the basement. He had started looking at Mimosa with open greed these days. The only way to keep the child safe was to keep her unclean. Anything to ward off the monster who lived upstairs. It had been M’s idea, and J wished she could thank the older woman. But J couldn’t speak, she couldn’t move, she couldn’t eat.

And she most certainly couldn’t sleep.

Perhaps it was a good thing Mimosa would leave soon. She was being looked after by others as it was, her mother close to useless in her current condition as she lay curled in her spot like a corpse, focusing only on the roots that grew deep beneath the foundation of this lonely house.


It happened while Harold was away, the first small tremor that was easily mistaken for the old house shaking on its beams and stilts. The winds got rough this time of year, the snow was worse. The basement was colder than usual making everyone huddle around J as she was the only one who could no longer move on her own. J did not once feel guilty of killing them all.

Their kindness had proven deadly.

Mimosa was at the center of the huddle, with plenty of bodies to shield her when the need arose. Another ominous crack sounded throughout the foundation, making M look up in worry. Perhaps a storm was building up outside, she reached to lay a protective arm on the small child who, despite the atmosphere, was fast asleep.

The third creak came with the sharp icy blast of wind, a crack in the walls somewhere, the first breath of fresh air they’d taken a lungful of in a long, long time.

No one had the strength to move as the ceiling came down, the house collapsing in on itself from what could only be later concluded as a rotting foundation. All bodies caught mid-motion, moving forwards to defend the little girl in their midst.

The last thing J heard was the sirens, the red and blue lights over Mimosa’s cries. No doubt the child had fractured another bone from being shoved unceremiously amidst the groups of bodies. Her cry would be the beacon that would bring the rescuers over.

That would get her daughter out of the cold and back to her family.

Reality wavered in and out of her consciousness as warm hands took the crying baby away, everything faded as a man’s voice announced that they all looked dead, than another shouting that one was alive. Something about radio-ing for back up and then… the remainder of the house collapsed on top of her.

It was peaceful really. If not in life, he would surely find her in death.