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The flower shop is quiet in the mid-afternoon, just the cashier and an older woman stooped over some roses. Patricia inspects the bouquets, slightly uncomfortable in Dennis’s starched stiff clothes but trying to ignore it. A large arrangement sits in a glass vase in front of her, stark white and yellow flowers shooting off vibrant green stems, framed with dark leaves. She takes a pale Easter lily from a cluster, the flower fluted with curling petals and fuzzy yellow pollen balanced on delicate stamen. She holds the straight stem carefully, running her fingers gently over the petals. The bloom is soft and untouched, the picture of purity.
In a way, she hates these flowers. So pretty and untouched. Never been hurt, never been broken. So unlike herself.
Patricia had been born from pain, made to keep the hope that Kevin wasn't strong enough to sustain on his own. My mother won't hurt me if I'm good, my father will come back if I pray to God. She built hope out of insufficient resources, praying to social workers and absent fathers for rescue that never came. Suffering broken promise after broken promise. Kevin’s childhood left her as broken as any of the others. The others at least had the luxury of cynicism, they didn't expect anything to change for the better. But Patricia didn't, she had to keep a smile, stay optimistic and this forced vulnerability left her without any defense. All the soft parts of herself had been carved out by the years and Patricia was left hard and harsh, steel that bleeds. She has run out of saviors and there's nothing left for her here.
The only miracle that ever comes, arrives in the form of a sudden heart attack. Their mother dies when Kevin is 16 and life is no longer a warzone but freedom doesn’t bring her the peace she hoped for. The world has only blurred from hell to limbo, an unceasing grey as the years drag by.
After their mother's death, Patricia turns away from the wider world and in on herself. She never takes the light, choosing instead to make her home in the train yard and the surrounding woods. Patricia curled up in the cold of an abandoned train car, spending stark nights under the false moon of the inner world. A lost thing in the howling wilderness, sending prayers out into the nothing that always went unanswered.
This is the way she had found the Beast. Another lost soul wandering the empty space.
Although, in truth, he had found her and he tracked her for weeks, observing. He knew in the abstract that there were others but he had never had much interest in them until now. This newcomer wears her dark hair bobbed sharply at her shoulders and a heavy shawl wrapped round herself. She exists in the forests like a ghost, always silent and always alone, her eyes wide with a sort of serious serenity. He steps from the trees suddenly one afternoon to greet her. She turns at the sound of dry leaves crackling and her wide eyes go wider. The Beast towers over her, barely human with impossibly thick skin and red eyes. But she doesn’t notice these things at first, she only sees the claws curving from his long fingers. Patricia turns sharply back to run, fear making her clumsy and she doesn't make it far before tripping over the knotted roots of a dark oak tree. She falls hard onto the forest floor, hair tangled with leaves, breath sharp in her throat, still trying to scramble away. Heavy footsteps calmly follow her.
"What brings you here, child?" He crouches over her, sniffing at her. His red eyes partially obscured by a shaggy mane of hair, claws curved on long fingers.
To the Beast, she looks like a child. She is younger than most usually think, she carries a certain severity that makes her look older. But all the same, she's only 25 and she stands just 5'5 with heels on. And shaking on the forest floor, fearful snarl on her lips, she looks every inch her age.
“I-I live here.” This is all she can stutter out although it’s hardly an explanation.
“I’m not going to harm you.” He answers bluntly. He intends to keep his word, he can smell the damage on her and anyway, she will be more useful alive rather than eaten. “Come along.” She slowly come to her feet and cautiously follows, half afraid of disobeying but she’s just as motivated by curiosity.
He brings her back to his den, a cave with a dirt packed floor and offers it as a place to stay. He adopts her, in a way, and she stays once he’s made good on his promise not to hurt her. They’re an odd pair, her so bird-boned and owlish and him, the monster under your bed. But the Beast can see to the truth of her with more clarity then anyone else ever had. He sees the fire in her eyes beneath a demure gaze, the hate that boils in the marrow of her bones, hidden under a calm surface. They are strange soul mates but they're bonded in their hatred of the outside world that had only ever hurt them.
They sit together by the fire late at night, flame crackling and sending shadows around the walls and he teaches her the truth as he knows it. That there is divinity in suffering and that you can find god through pain. That the rage and anger that burned in the pit of her stomach as a sacred thing to be put to use. That the broken are more evolved.
Patricia had spent so long putting her faith in people of authority or the Christian god who always seemed more hypothetical then true. Something so tangibly mythical is of great appeal, the Beast has true power, is truly worthy of her faith. She offers her allegiance to him and they begin to plan their takeover. Patricia is the brains of the operation from the start, forming every piece of their plan with meticulous attention.
They bide their time until a moment of crisis. A coup is really only ever successful when the establish regime is in chaos. Patricia knows all this on instinct, she's a born Machiavellian and she has a great degree of natural cunning. She waits until the incident at the zoo, the aftershock of the incident rattles the system and suddenly everyone is scared and unsettled. She wishes she could tear the girls throats out with her teeth but in a way it's a blessing, it's enough chaos for her to get a foothold.
From then, she has no trouble finding and recruiting who she needs for this. Dennis and Hedwig are both the weak links of the group, a disgraced pervert and a childish annoyance. She is shrewd enough to recognize their weaknesses and play to them. And in a somewhat sickening way, they both want the same thing: for her to play mother. It's a Freudian ugliness that makes sense for Hedwig but is more worrying in Dennis, but whose implications she tries not to think about either way. Although truly, she probably extends more effort then she needs to, they're both so starved for any attention or affection that it hardly takes any convincing from either of them to join her.
From there on the dominos fell easily, Hedwig took control, Dennis made preparations. Patricia choses pretty teenagers on purpose and gives Dennis the task of surveillance, watching young girls is what he would have done with his time in the light anyway, might as well put it to use. She humors Hedwig with praise and affection that keeps him in check. Barry comes up for control on occasion but he is no more then an annoyance.
And now Patricia goes to fetch flowers. It's something of a trial run, she hasn't controlled the body in decades and she has to get through the unreality of possessing Kevin's body. It's such an odd feeling, to feel hunger and fatigue again, to come back from being a ghost.
The bell rings as another customer enters the shop and Patricia is broken from her thoughts, looking back at the lily in her hand. Not really her hand though, this heavy-knuckled man's hand so unlike her own. She strokes the petals gently, trying to practice fine motor skills with this foreign appendage. She decides to buy this bouquet, replacing the lily gently amongst the baby's breath and orange chrysanthemums.
Tomorrow is the day that the Beast is coming and the house has to be ready.
She pays for the flowers and steps back onto the street, a knowing little smile on her face as she watches people go by. The world is ignorant of her, hidden in this man's body, ignorant of the pain she had endured. But they will know of her and of the Beast soon, when she brings salvation, through blood and fire, to the unworthy.