Frostbitten: The Complete Series (35 page)

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE
AN UNEXPECTED TRAGEDY

Olga became unexpectedly pregnant with Hanna immediately after the wedding.

But the pregnancy was complicated.

Because of Olga’s small size and weight, her body wasn’t able to handle the woes of pregnancy. At three months, she became very ill and bed-ridden. Her body began to fail her, and she became increasingly weak.

Doctors kept naively assuring that it was normal for small women like Olga to experience difficult symptoms during pregnancy.

But after Hanna was born, the symptoms persisted. Within days—Olga’s body began to shut down. Francis was an emotional wreck—completely devastated. He spent every dime he had brining in different doctors to try and muster up a solution—but there was none.

It was an inevitability.
Olga was dying.

Unable to fathom the painful death of their daughter, Olga’s parents had one final reluctant idea. They explained to Francis that Olga could be saved, but it involved returning to Russia, and never coming back. Francis couldn’t understand why, but the Pytrovichs would say no more.

Francis wanted his wife to survive more than anything—so he reluctantly agreed to let the Pytrovichs take Olga back to Russia, despite knowing that it meant never seeing her again.

In case Francis’ life hadn’t become difficult enough, his parents passed away just a few weeks later from sudden and unexpected natural causes.

Francis was left raising Hanna alone. He had no money and he had no knowledge of how to raise a child. Life had taken a swift turn.

Like her parents, Hanna was extremely quiet and shy. In her first few years of school, she said nothing at all—even when her teachers demanded she speak. Because of chronic silence, she never made any friends. As kids started to form little friend circles, Hanna found herself left out.

During lunch and recess, she would sit under the school stairs, where no one would see her. Kids started to make up stories about her, and called her “The school troll”.

Hanna’s teachers put the blame on Francis, who was struggling to make ends meet. Forced to work double, and even triple shifts at his work to pay the bills, Francis wasn’t able to make it to parent-teacher meetings, school plays or any of the school meet-and-greets. He didn’t help with homework and he never filled out any of the field trip forms.

Desperate for money, Francis took a job at the local high-security prison, as a security guard—a dangerous job for a new father. Unfortunately, it was the only job that was hiring—because no one else wanted to do it. The only reason the job was available was because an inmate stabbed the last guard to death. Because the prison was so understaffed, Francis often worked well over his scheduled hours.

One day, Francis received a call from Hanna’s school. Hanna’s teachers demanded that Hanna see a psychiatrist about her social anxiety—blaming it on her poor performance.

The psychiatrist was expensive, but Francis wanted his daughter to be normal and accepted—and to not have to suffer through the familiar woes of his own lousy childhood. Hanna began seeing a local therapist about her fear of speaking and socializing.

No matter how many shifts Francis picked up, he couldn’t make quite enough for the mortgage, groceries, the expensive heating bill, and the pricey therapist.

But there was a glimmer of light—a glimmer of a silver lining, anyway. Luckily for Francis, for the first time in forty years, the ban on capital punishment was lifted—the death sentence became reinstated as an attempt to control prison overpopulation. Despite the lucrative pay increase, none of the other prison employees would take the new prison’s newest position: Executioner.

But Francis was desperate, and the money was the solution to his financial troubles.

Francis Wilkinson became the town executioner.

The job was simple—pull the lever to activate the electrical current to the chair. It was a job that took a few minutes every day—for double the income of his usual sixteen-hour day.

But the guilt was twenty-four hours.

It didn’t take long for the local students to learn that the school troll’s father was the local executioner. She was tormented to no end. Even the teachers looked at her with disgust. One day, she opened her locker to find all of her belongings soaked in pig’s blood.

Their house was frequently vandalized. Almost every night they were bombarded with eggs, toilet paper and flaming bags of dog shit—not to mention, more pig’s blood.

One day, Hanna’s “career preparation class” received an unfortunate assignment: Write an essay about your father or mother, and what they do for a living.

When Hanna’s father returned from his day’s work, Hanna began to ask questions for her paper. Francis didn’t want to divulge any details, but Hanna was persistent.

“Just don’t write about my job,” Hanna’s father insisted.

“But I don’t have a choice,” Hanna said.

“Write about something else. Write about your favourite poet.”

“But that isn’t the assignment, dad.”

“Or you can make up a story. It could be fun.”

“But dad—that’s not the assignment. I don’t want to fail. They will fail me again.”

“Your teachers will understand, Hanna.”

“Your job isn’t anything to be ashamed of. You told me yourself—someone has to do it.”

“I lied,” Francis said, starting to get frustrated.

“What do you mean, you lied?”

“No one has to do it—If everyone said ‘no’, they couldn’t force it on someone. No one has to do anything in life.”

“But they’re bad people who deserve it—Right? That’s why you do it...”

“Some are bad—Some could be innocent. None of them deserve it.”

“So why do you do it? Why not do something else?” Hanna asked.

“You’ll understand when you’re an adult.”

“But that doesn’t help me now—for the assignment,” Hanna persisted.

“Fuck the assignment! The assignment isn’t fucking important,” Francis snapped. “It’s just an assignment—it’s stupid and it doesn’t matter,” Francis yelled. “There are more important things in life than some fucking assignment.”

Hanna was silent as she stared down at her feet. It wasn’t the first time she’d heard her father scream in her face. “But I’ll fail…” Hanna began to cry.

“Then you’ll fail. So be it.”

“But that’s not fair,” Hanna said.

“Life isn’t fair,” Francis said as he walked up to his bedroom and slammed the door.

Francis was far from what you would call a patient, tempered person. He was a great father, and everything he did, he did for Hanna—including his less than ideal job. But between the emotional abuse from the townspeople, the guilt from his work and coping with Olga’s permanent absence—things weren’t easy, and it was surprising that his outbursts were as isolated as they were.

Hanna was young and still very ignorant. She loved her father, but she didn’t understand why he was angry with her. The reality was, he wasn’t angry with her. In his moment of weakness, he had just taken his anger out on her. She was in the wrong place at the wrong time, yet again.

Crack! Splat!

As she sat down to try and muster up an assignment, eggs began to strike the side of the house.

Tired of the emotional abuse from the town, Hanna was also feeling angry. Just like her father, she needed an outlet for her frustrations.

She found one.

What she didn’t realize was—her moment of weakness would have dire consequences that would follow her around for her entire lifetime.

CHAPTER SIXTY-FOUR
THE ASSIGNMENT

The next day, Hanna’s teacher thought it would be a fun idea to have all of the students present their assignments to the whole class. Each student took turns standing at the front of the class, reading out the paper they’d written the night before. Each presentation only took a couple of minutes.

Student’s boasted about their perfect mothers and their amazing fathers. Every paper included bits about how many people their parents helped and how philanthropic they were.

Then, it was Hanna’s turn.

Hanna walked up to the front of the class with her reluctantly written paper in hand. Everyone snickered as she stared nervously at the class in silence.

“Read your paper please, Hanna,” the teacher said with glaring eyes.

Hanna’s hands trembled as she looked back down at her sheet.

“Freak!” someone in the class coughed, eliciting laughter from the rest of the snickering students.

“My dad…” Hanna started out slowly.

There was a long silence in the class.

“Hanna please—just read the assignment. Everyone has to do it,” the teacher said.

All of the students began to giggle and whisper to one another.

The young shy girl took a deep breath, legs trembling. “My dad—My dad kills people.”

The entire class turned dead silent.

“He kills lots of people. He kills people every day. He says that he doesn’t have to do it. He says that other people won’t do it, but that doesn’t mean they make him do it. I guess that makes him a bad person. He knows that he is a bad person, but he still does it anyway.”

“Um, Hanna—Maybe that’s enough,” Hanna’s teacher said quietly, reaching her hand out to take the assignment away from the girl.

“He says that none of the people he kills deserve to be killed, and that some of them are probably even innocent, and he knows it,” Hanna continued, unable to stop her pseudo-therapeutic venting. “But he does it anyway, even though he doesn’t have to. He always tells me that people cry on the chair. They cry for their wives, and their kids. He says that sometimes their wives and kids are there, watching him pull the lever, but he still does it anyway.”

“Hanna—that’s enough,” the teacher said again with a firm tone.

Hanna ignored her teacher. “Because of my dad, everyone hates me. He says that it’s too bad because life isn’t fair. But I think he’s wrong, because everyone else’s life is fair. Why can’t my life be fair?”

“Hanna!” the teacher snapped.

“I wish my father was dead,” Hanna finished.

The class was painfully silent. Eyes were wide and mouths were dropped in shock and awe. The teacher stood up and swiftly took the paper away from Hanna. She placed a hand on Hanna’s shoulder. “Hanna—go down to the office right now.”

“Why?” Hanna asked. “I did what you told me to do.”

“I—You—Just go!” the teacher said, unsure of how to handle the peculiar situation.

Hanna walked out of the class with her chin against her chest, past all of the shocked and scoffing students.

“Psychopath,” someone muttered as she passed.

There was one person in the class who wasn’t laughing, one person who felt as though she understood how Hanna felt—Brittany.

Hanna found herself sitting in the office for the rest of the school day. The principal called and left messages on Francis’ phone, but Francis never showed up to face the situation. Hanna’s teacher stood in the office with the principal, and they discussed the situation. Hanna could hear bits of the conversation through the thin office door.

“There’s something wrong with her—I don’t want her in my class,” Hanna’s teacher said.

“I can’t just move her into a different class because you don’t like her,” the principal replied. “That isn’t fair to the other teachers.”

“I’m not saying that. She needs to go somewhere else—a boarding school for kids like her—a mental hospital—anywhere but here. We can’t have this girl in our school.”

“What has she done besides this?”

“She’s just—Freaky. There are some loose screws in her twisted little head.”

“Define ‘freaky’.”

“She just scares me—like she’s always plotting something. I wasn’t that worried about it until today. Now—I’m scared shitless she’s going to come and hurt someone—or worse.”

The principal sighed. “I can see that she’s quiet, but I can’t just expel her because of this paper. I mean—her dad is the prison executioner. She did what you asked her to do. I can give her a suspension, and I can suggest to her father that he look into boarding schools and therapists, but that’s it.”

“I already made her father get her a therapist.”

“Has it helped at all?”

“No. If anything, it’s made her weirder. She’d be better off keeping that creepy mouth of hers shut.”

Tears filled up in Hanna’s eyes as she listened to her teacher talking about her. She never “plotted” and she never thought about “hurting” anyone. She just wanted to be normal. She just wanted to be left alone. Was that too much to ask?

Her father, because of his overwhelming social anxiety, never came to pick Hanna up from school. It was the middle of winter, and far too cold for a little girl to walk home by herself. The school’s principal ended up giving her a ride home.

In the car, the principal awkwardly tried to start some small talk with the emotionally beaten up girl.

“What do you like to do, Hanna?” the principal asked.

Hanna stared silently out the window, watching the falling snow flutter past the window.

“Hanna?” the principal prodded.

Hanna remained silent.

“There must be something you enjoy—Do you play any sports?”

Without turning to look at the principal, Hanna nodded her head ‘no’.

“What about colouring. Do you like to colour?”

Again, Hanna nodded ‘no’.

The principal sighed. “What’s your favourite subject in school?” he asked.

Hanna was silent once again, still trying to contain her tears from her teacher’s sour words.

“Do you like gym class?”

Hanna nodded ‘no’.

“Art class?”

No.

“Science?”

No.

“Do you like any class?”

Hanna was silent.

“What does your mom do for a living?”

Hanna shrugged.

The principal was starting to see why Hanna was such an outcast.

“She doesn’t tell you?”

“She’s dead,” Hanna said firmly.

The principal went silent. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I didn’t know.”

“It’s okay. Neither do I,” Hanna said, before returning to her silence for the remainder of the ride.

As they pulled up to Hanna’s house, the principal noticed a man standing on Hanna’s doorstep. He had a can of spray paint in his hand, and was finishing up a large, red “MURDERER”.

The principal rolled down his window and leaned out. “Hey! Stop that!”

The man turned around and swiftly began to run away, dropping his can on the patio.

“I’ll go let the police know what happened,” the principal said.

“Don’t bother,” Hanna said. “Everyone does it.”

The principal stared at Hanna—beginning to understand why she was the way she was. He looked back out at the house. The tree and the house’s rooftop were covered in toilet paper. Windows were broken from thrown stones and there was spray-painted slander everywhere—on just about every square foot of the home.

“Christ…” the principal muttered. “I’m sorry you have to deal with this, Hanna. No kid should have to deal with this kind of thing...”

Hanna silently sat in the passenger seat.

“I’m going to see what I can do about this. Maybe I could meet with your father to try and come up with a solution.”

“He won’t meet with you.”

“Why not?”

Hanna shrugged. She legitimately didn’t know why. Francis hated talking to teachers—he hated talking to anyone.

The principal sighed. “You’d better get inside. Your dad is probably worried about you.”

There was a cold silence as the winter breeze died down.

“Can I walk you to your door?” the principal asked timidly.

Hanna nodded ‘no’.

There was another silence.

“Why do people hate me?” Hanna asked.

“No one hates you,” the principal lied, trying to console the vulnerable girl.

“Yes they do. You know they do. That’s why you’re treating me like this.”

The principal was silent. “Sometimes people don’t like what they have a hard time understanding. It’s not that people don’t like you—it’s that they don’t understand you.”

“Why?”

“I wish I could say, Hanna. Have you tried asking them?”

“Yes. They just laugh at me.”

“Kids can be cruel. Which kids laugh at you? Maybe I can talk to their parents and find a solution...”

“All of them.”

There was a long silence. Hanna’s school principal unfortunately didn’t have a solution for the girl. He looked back over at the house and all of the vicious slander written all over it.

“I like to write poems,” Hanna said quietly.

“What was that?”

“You asked what I like to do. I like to write poems.”

“Oh,” the principal said.

There was a silence.

“It’s the only thing I like to do. My mom was a poet.”

“Can I read your poems?”

Hanna looked away and went silent.

“You know, Hanna—Sometimes, when life is tough, it helps to vent—but it isn’t always easy to talk about stuff.”

Hanna listened, but she didn’t look over at the principal.

“And when that happens, it helps to have a way to express yourself. If poetry is your way to do that—that’s great. Lots of people don’t have a way to express themselves.

“But an important part of expressing yourself through art is sharing. Art can be very powerful, and with it, you can say a lot more than you can through any conversation. If you want people to understand you—maybe you need to start sharing your work.”

“But if they make fun of it, then I have nothing.”

“You’ll always have poetry, whether they like your poems or not. Don’t let anyone ever discourage you or take that away from you.”

Hanna smiled for the first time in a long time.

But her moment of relief was short lived. The next day, the story of Hanna’s frustrated assignment had gotten around the whole school. As she walked into the school, the halls went silent and everyone began to whisper with one another. Judging and glaring eyes looked down upon her as she walked with her face pointed towards the floor.

Hanna’s locker had once again been vandalized. This time, with the phrase, “Just kill yourself, psycho.”

On her way to class, Kristi Platelle, a notoriously cruel female student shoved Hanna, prompting laughter from Kristi’s buddies. Momentarily popular during elementary school, Kristi was a vile girl.

“Watch it, shitgirl,” Kristi said, prompting more laughter from her mean friends.

Hanna did her best to ignore the cruelty. She would soon find out the origin of the mean nickname, shitgirl.

During class, when the teacher wasn’t paying attention, someone slipped a note onto her desk. She reluctantly opened it up and read it.

“When you shoot the school up, will your dad be the one to strap you to the chair?”

Hanna crumpled the note up and threw it onto the ground. Students laughed at her expense. She’d suddenly become a cheap joke—an easy way for kids to stroke their pre-pubescent egos.

At lunchtime, Hanna went to her usual spot under the stairs. It turned out, her locker wasn’t the only victim of vandalism—someone had left a big lump of dog shit right in her usual sitting spot.

The echoes of the snickering Kristi filled the long stairwell as the cruel chubby girl looked down at Hanna.