Chapter Text
“Papa! Papa!” Eleanor’s gleeful cries echoed through the small house in the bayou of New Orleans, Louisiana. She ran from her room and through the screen porch of the house. The patter of her feet ceased as she skidded to a halt just at the edge of the dock. She eagerly scanned the water, eyes quickly finding the light from Papa’s lantern in the evening shadows. He waved to her, a wide smile gracing his sharp face.
Papa took a delicate step from the boat and Eleanor smiled with excitement, nearly crumpling the paper in her hands. Papa smiled back at her and extended a hand, allowing the 5-year-old to grab his briefcase and race back into the house.
As soon as she placed the briefcase on the kitchen counter, she turned around and presented her crumpled paper to her father.
“I drew for you!” the girl squealed excitedly, shoving the papers in her father’s direction.
“So you did, my dear,” Papa glanced at the drawing he was presented with. “And what a lovely drawing it is.” He smiled somewhat distractedly and took the paper in his hand. “Is this a horse?”
“No Papa. A deer!” The little girl rolled her eyes with annoyance. Obviously it was a deer.
“Oh! My, of course, how silly of me!” Papa chuckled slightly. “Quite unusual colours for a deer, firecracker.”
“It’s for you! You like deer, and you like red, so I drew it for you,” Eleanor explained patiently.
“Oh, how lovely darling. I’ll pin it up in my bedroom and admire it every day,” Papa said, patting Eleanor’s head. “It’s a beautiful work of art.”
“Papa, my hair!” Eleanor wrinkled her nose and fluffed out her curls, blushing slightly at the compliment.
Papa hummed in acknowledgement, smiling down at his daughter. “Well then, I believe supper is in order?” Eleanor nodded enthusiastically.
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As soon as supper was finished, Papa washed all the dishes, all the while humming a lively radio tune. Eleanor changed into her nightclothes and climbed into bed, grabbing her favorite book and placing it at her side. As soon as Papa walked in, she patted the book and smiled up at him hopefully. Papa sighed but picked it up, sitting next to Eleanor and reading in soft tones until the girl’s breathing evened out.
That was the last time Eleanor Bourdeaux saw her father alive.
⛧─── ⋆⋅☆⋅⋆ ───⛧
Eleanor keeps her eyelids tightly closed to avoid being blinded by the red glow that peeks through them. Strange. She hasn't had that dream in years. She shudders at the memories of that night, the one that changed her life forever.
5 year old Eleanor jolts awake at the sound of three distinct knocks on the porch door. She crawls out of bed slowly, listening for her father’s footsteps, but instead hears unfamiliar voices from outside.
She walks slowly down the hallway and past her father’s room, the door slightly ajar. As soon as she reaches the front door, hands curled tightly in her nightgown, the knocks come again, even more insistent. Whimpering, Eleanor wrenches open the door.
Standing in front of her is a man she has seen once or twice before, dressed in the sharp uniform of a policeman. The man, around her father’s age, squints down at her and addresses her as Eleanor. He explains that he knew her father well, and smiles gently at her when she says she recognised him.
He asks her if her father had mentioned where he was going or what he planned to do, but he hadn’t, and she tells the man so. He asks again and again, more insistent every time, but Eleanor just shakes her head. Her father had told her never to talk to the police. This man seems alright, since he knew her father, but she doesn’t know the answers to the things he is asking her.
When the man finally sighs in resignation and tells her to gather her things, Eleanor is only happy the questions are over. He puts a large hand on her shoulder and rubs it gently, saying that her father would be away for a while and that he’d asked for him to take care of her in the meantime.
Eleanor meticulously packs herself a week's worth of clothes, her boots, and her favourite book. Then, sleep still heavy in her eyes, she follows the policeman back to his boat as he sets out for the nearby town.
A week later, the policeman, now known to her as Uncle George, breaks the news. Her father had been shot dead that night. Whispers around the town told her more; a hunter mistook him for a deer in the dark and fired, going right through his forehead and lodging the bullet in the back of his skull. She throws up the first time she hears those words, dry heaving against the tile bathroom floor with hot tears on her face for what feels like hours while Uncle George crouches behind her and rubs her back. She had known loss before, but never like this.
Her father’s absence carved out a gaping hole in her heart; one that she never fully recovered from.