Day 6

The Ravenswing Report

Photo by Luke Porter on Unsplash

Return to Day 5

Thaddeus Diggory

We’ve feasted all day, miraculously, thanks to the traps we set yesterday, as well as what we’ve been able to gather. Lilo even found something to help Ariel’s bleeding, and I’m wondering if she’ll be ready to travel sooner than I originally thought. Her wound looked so deep, I feared it would be a week before it would be safe for her to carry on. But this is a fertile area, and the abundance feels like a gift. I expected the place to feel more… hostile, somehow. Instead, we lit a fire and tended it all day, took turns resting and napping and talking. It was almost homey.

In spite of myself, I’m beginning to feel a certain fondness for both Lilo and Ariel. Their stories remind me of my own, the tragedy and desperation and brokenness playing out in the most predictable and unexpected ways. I still don’t know why they’re here, but I’m beginning to have my suspicions.

I talked about you. I didn’t realize I’d started until it was too late to take it back. It was nice. I haven’t spoken with anyone about you in so long. And these women don’t know me, don’t know you, don’t know any of the horrible things that happened. The horrible things I did. They simply listened, soaking up my words with nothing but compassion and care.

Would they still care, if they knew?

Ariel Irene

I’m starting to make sense of Lilo and Thaddeus’ friendship, I think. Thaddeus spent some time this afternoon talking about his wife and kids, who he separated from (or who separated from him, I wasn’t quite clear) when his son and daughter were quite young. But she would be just about Lilo’s age. Lilo said that her father left before she was born, and her relationship with her mother is… rocky, I guess. So the two of them kind of fill in the holes in each others’ hearts. It’s almost sweet, when I think about it in those terms.

But it leaves me alone, as far as our little camping-out party today. Always the odd one out. I wanted to talk about you. Hearing their stories, I wanted to tell them everything about you, about losing you, about everything I did in the aftermath. But something stopped me. I told them that you died a few years ago, and that it was hard on me when you were gone.

It’s nice, in a way, being in a place where everyone has lost someone. We can’t hide the fact that we’ve messed up: we’re in prison, after all. Getting out of prison?

We’re being given a second chance.

In the thick of it, in the middle of all this insanity, it’s hard to remember some of the things that happened before this place: the trial, the prison, all of it. It feels like a lifetime ago, like a half-remembered dream. I still wonder, daily, whether this whole thing is just a cruel trap designed to save face with the public (you know, with their whole “every inmate is given a chance at rehabilitation” schtick) while saving the prison system the expense and hassle of life sentences. Kill ‘em all off, you know? I was so certain that’s what this place was… until I saw it. It has its cruelties, no doubt about it. But it’s beautiful as well.

Lilo Talei

It was nice to hear about Thaddeus’ and Ariel’s families today. I finally felt like I wasn’t the only one talking, which was great because I think Thaddeus is sick of listening to me. If he’d just talk more, I wouldn’t have to fill so much silence, but I don’t know how to tell him that without offending him. So I just prattle away.

But today I didn’t have to. I’m not sure what got Thaddeus so reflective, but he started telling us about his beautiful wife Elena and their daughter Charlotte and their son Henry, and about how he had started to feel trapped by his marriage and the demands of his family, and so he told Elena he was going to go on a trip, and of course she wasn’t crazy about that, seeing as the kids were only a few years old, and things escalated from there, and eventually he just… left. He told us that he’s still not totally sure why he did it. Said he felt so free for the first few days, but as time passed with no word from his family, the reality began to sink in that he was totally alone. When he did finally come to his senses and went home to talk to his wife, he found that they’d moved and hadn’t left a forwarding address. That was years ago now, I guess, because Charlotte and I almost share a birthday. I don’t remember how that came up.

Anyway, absent fathers got me thinking, of course, and I did end up rambling a little bit about what it was like growing up without a dad, and with a mom who was something of a social pariah. I’m wondering now if that was a little inconsiderate of me—I wasn’t trying to add to Thaddeus’ guilt, but he did get very quiet while I was talking. But then, he’s always very quiet. So I don’t know what to think.

When I finished telling a story about you, Thaddeus broke in and asked Ariel about her family. It was an innocent enough question, but I tell you what, I tensed up like nothing else when he asked it. Trying to bring Ariel into a friendly conversation? After the way she stormed out a few days ago?

But she was surprisingly open. Told us about her sister. They were best friends for years and years, lived together after they’d both moved away from their parents’ house, did everything together. Ariel got really quiet for a moment. I could see in her eyes that she was debating how much she wanted to share, and then she went on to say that her sister was killed in the crossfires of a gang fight one night a few years back. Tears in her eyes as she was talking and the whole nine yards. It must have really messed her up if she’s still so affected by talking about it. She clammed up a little bit then, saying that she hoped her sister would be proud of her for taking this chance at a second chance, after everything she’d done.

It’s hard to see either of them as hardened criminals, although I suppose they would say the same thing about me. Just goes to show you can’t really know anyone, I guess.

Proceed to Day 7

You’re reading The Ravenswing Report, a rapid-fire, limited-run serial from Sara Dietz at Blinking Blue Line. To learn more and access the Table of Contents, click here.