The Truth

"Hey--are you OK?" I shouted in my most fatherly voice.

It was a shock when she turned to face me. She was very much not a child and I was the one who was lost.

"What the hell do you want?" She was about the height of a six-year-old, her hair improbably white- blonde, her eyes calculating. I couldn't tell you what she was wearing only that she curved as a woman should and seemed keen that the most casual observer might notice.

"I'm sorry. I thought you were... someone else..."

Her gaze was stony, "And how many four foot blondes do you know?"

I shrugged and laughed a little nervously. This was not what I expected. "And what are you doing hanging round playgrounds for anyway? A man your age..."

I could feel the heat in my face, the flush of shame. It wasn't what she thought. I wasn't like that, but I couldn't explain.

"My mistake." I said and turned to walk away. The problem was I couldn't; my feet wouldn't move.

My first thought was that there was some trick involved - probably involving a camera or a mobile phone. Someone had superglued the ground and this blonde was some kind of lure for a 'you've been framed' kind of trap. I looked around discreetly, but I couldn't see anything. I couldn't afford to be a YouTube hit; my ex wife was doing her best to ruin my reputation as it was. She'd use any excuse to keep me from seeing Liam. Maybe I could complain to some toothless watchdog or other. Maybe I could get it taken down.

The woman walked towards me. She had an awkward gait, as though there was something wrong with her hips. As she got closer I could see that she was much less attractive than I'd first assumed. Her face was vulpine and her lashless dark eyes curiously shaped. I swallowed hard when she spoke to me.

"So. Why are you lurking round children's playgrounds?"

I knew I should have got a dog. No one queries anything if you have a dog. A couple of pounds of slavering, pooping canine on the end of a lead and, provided it isn't a Rottweiler or a Pitbull, you are automatically marked as a straight-up bloke. Carry a tennis ball and a couple of those little 'poo-bags' and you get an instant upgrade to law-abiding, silent-majority, good-guy status. That's what put me off actually. The way you had to carry plastic wrapped crap around in your hand, while it was still warm and malleable, while it still stank: not for me I'm afraid. I couldn't do it.

My mouth opened to explain that I liked to stretch my legs after a day in the office, that my route took me this way, that it was lovely evening and this was public space. The words were on the tip of my tongue, but they never launched themselves off it. I could not speak: I had literally been struck dumb. Now I was wondering if I'd had some kind of stroke. I remembered an ad on TV. Was I supposed to lift my arms or something? She looked at me pitilessly.

"You were going to lie," she said and stretched her mouth into a semblance of a smile. I could see that her canines were sharp as a dog's. It was late evening and she wore the long shadow of the kids' slide like a cloak around her thin shoulders. Her bones were slight as a bird's and up close and horribly personal, the smooth, pale flesh of her partially exposed breasts looked hard as a snail's shell; nothing about her was soft or womanly. At that moment I knew that she had done this to me. That I was not having a stroke but that she had somehow trapped me like a fly in unseen web. I tried to apologize, to beg her to release me but she had stopped my mouth and tied my tongue. My lips moved but no sound emerged.

"When you can speak the truth you can speak," she said. She sounded bored. Another uppity woman, expecting to gain the upper hand. I wanted to hit her. I wanted to smash the meaty bulk of my right fist into her plain little face, I wanted to stamp on her slender stem of a neck and smash her.

"And none of that either," she said. I could barely hear her as my spine was electrified with pain. I couldn't breathe. I couldn't see. I would have fallen but the same force that held me rooted to the spot kept me upright and in agony. It didn't last long and when I could see again she was grinning at me, a feral cat that had stolen somebody else's cream. " You see. I don't care what you say but it has to be true." She leaned towards me so close that I could smell her. She was unexpectedly fragrant; roses on the cusp of decay, powerfully sweet with the promise of corruption.

"It's Liam--my kid. I used to bring him here... before she left." The words gushed out in fits and starts like bitter water from a rusted tap.

"Why did 'she' leave?"

"She was a discontented bitch--I wasn't rich enough for her."

"That's not true now, try again." The pain came from nowhere like a hard punch to my jaw. I tried again.

"She never could keep her knickers on. No man wants another man's leavings. Is that enough of the truth for you?"

The small blonde's face was stony. I doubled over with a pain. When I spoke again it felt like I was vomiting, an involuntary spilling of only partially digested matter, like my guts were emptying themselves for her inspection.

"I hit her." The words pooled there, steaming on the kiddy-safe tarmac, like something anyone would avoid.

Of course it sounded worse than it was - one open handed slap. I lost time my temper that was all. Not worth all the fuss Jill made of it: she drove me to it. A man can only take so much nagging. I did my best I was a good provider, food on the table, stupid sized mortgage duly paid, holidays abroad, the whole thing and it was never enough. I wouldn't have strangled her - I just wanted to get her attention to get her to shut the hell up.

"And the child?"

"Nev..." my voice died in my throat. I tried again '"N..." The woman's eyes were dark as coal and hard as flint.

The truth: "Once. Not hard. He was doing my head in. I just lost control. I wouldn't have hurt him. I love him." I'm a good Dad he just needed to learn.

She seemed to consider that and as I watched unfurled a pair of veined, translucent wings from a carapace on her back. I don't know how I'd not noticed the very obvious hump on her spine nor the strangely segmented nature of her bare arm.

"I can't keep up the glamour for long," she said by way of explanation. I watched her blonde hair turn a hag's grey and her body twist and change into something too disgusting to describe.

"You are not a pedophile?" Her voice sounded strange, which was scarcely surprising as I wasn't sure which bit of her now triangular head corresponded to a mouth. I shook my head violently.

"But you do abuse children?"

"No!" Her wings glinted golden in the dying light. They were beautiful and I kept my eyes on them to avoid engaging with the detail of the rest of her.

"I was hired to catch abusers," she said. "I am here to punish them. Are you one of them?"

I could not form a denial, or rather I tried but the 'no' got caught in my throat, a great gobstopper of gristle, choking me. It took me a moment but I got there.

"Yes." I said softly.

"And are you afraid?"

I nodded.

"Good. You may go."

"But what is my punishment?" I knew there had to be one, that this creature before me was some kind of demon of destruction, that I could not escape unpunished.

"You will see. You will lose what you most love."

I thought about Liam and Jill and I cried out. "Please don't hurt my family, please I'll do anything. I'm sorry I really am. Please don't harm them!'

She folded her rustling wings.

"I said what you most love..."

She turned her back on me then. I watched as her grey hair turned white-blonde again. The roundabout which had ceased to turn throughout our brief encounter, screeched in complaint as she set it turning once more and rattled the chains of the swings. As she walked away I heard her whisper,

"Your manhood."

THE END

Bio: Nic Browne is an established YA/children's genre writer branching out into adult fiction.

E-mail: Nic Browne

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