The blade felt heavy in her hand. It was small dagger, dipped in some poisonous substance that Scarlett -- ten years old, and snooping around her father’s office -- didn’t want to identify. She could only tell it was poisoned because of the faint traces that had been left behind. Not her parents’ work, if she had to guess. She had no way to be sure. She could only guess, because her parents were pure perfectionists.They wouldn’t leave behind traces of anything.
She could tell that it was coated in something because of the way it looked. There was a slight gleam to the knife, if turned just right, that showed traces of the liquid. Poison, she assumed, because what else would her family dip a knife in? Holy water?
In her mind, the ten year old ran over a small list of poisons in her mind. She only knew about a few of them, having heard her parents and siblings talking about them. She’d taken down a few notes about the ones that she could remember, filing them away for later use. (She hadn’t realized that, in a normal family, there was no later use for poisons; hadn’t realized that no ten year old should have such an extensive knowledge of poisons. Normal families didn’t talk about poisons, at all.) After a moment, she settled on belladonna. She’d once heard her brother say that poison-tipped arrows were coated in the substance. If someone were to dip a weapon in a poison, it would be belladonna.
Having reached that conclusion, she was left to wonder one thing: why would her father have one of these in his office? She was fairly sure his clients were hiring him to file or defend against lawsuits and evil guys, not kill people.
“Scarlett?”
The little girl whirled around, hiding the knife behind her back as she smiled innocently. “Hi, daddy.”
Her father gave her a quizzical look as he entered into his office, closing the glass door behind him. “What are you doing in here?”
“Kenny and Mel were busy after school, so they told me to walk here.” It wasn’t a lie. When her older siblings had dropped her off at school in the morning, they had told her to walk to the law firm, and to just wait in her dad’s office until one of them could pick her up. It usually wasn’t a problem, so long as she stayed in his office and didn’t get in the way of anything. She had been doing it since she was old enough to make the walk from the elementary school to the law firm -- which was about a block or two, give or take -- and no one really minded her coming. She had even made friends with a few associates and partners in the year or so she had been coming.
Her father nodded slowly, giving her an odd look. “What are you hiding behind your back?”
Caught. “Nothing, daddy,” she lied, clenching the knife tighter behind her back. She was careful to keep her grip on the hilt, not wanting to accidentally poison herself.
Cade’s look changed from curious to unimpressed before he made his way towards her. With a sigh, he crouched down in front of her. “Scarlett Elizabeth. Show me what’s behind your back.” Unable to resist -- she hated when he pulled the full name card -- Scar hesitantly showed him the knife she was hiding. His jaw tensed when he saw it. “Why do you have that?”
“It was on your desk--”
“I know where it was,” he cut in sharply, and the young girl winced. “But why do you have it? Why did you pick it up?”
And wasn’t that the question of the day? She bit her lip, shifting on her feet. “I...”
Cade’s expression smoothed over into the type of blankness that tended to terrify Scar. Her family was good at hiding what they were thinking. She could never tell if she was getting a hug or a punishment when they did that. Deciding that her punishment would probably be lighter, she tried to hand the knife over, but he shook his head. “No. I want you to look at it. What are you holding?”
“...A knife?”
“Observant,” came the sarcastic reply. “Try again.”
Scar glanced down at the knife in her hand, looking at it for a long moment. “It’s a weapon,” she answered. “It’s a knife, covered in atropa belladonna; also known as nightshade. This way, the knife wound doesn’t have to kill the victim; the poison will.”
“Is the purpose of the weapon to kill?”
The obvious answer was yes. Why have a knife, if not to kill with it? But it was more than that. Her father wouldn’t have asked if the answer was that simple. ”No,” she decided after a moment. “A weapon is a tool. It only kills if that’s what the person holding it wants.”
Seemingly proud of her answer, her father nodded, a small smile on his face. “And what is the purpose of this knife?”
“To kill,” she answered without missing a beat. “If you didn’t want to kill someone with it, you wouldn’t have poisoned it.” She turned her gaze to the knife, then back to her father. “Daddy, who did you use this knife on?”
“A bad person, sweetie. Now that person is dead. And that isn’t something to be taken lightly.” Which, clearly. She was ten, not stupid.
“Then why did you kill them?” None of it made sense to Scarlett. You weren’t supposed to kill. Killing was wrong. It was in the Bible, and there were laws against it. It was the kind of thing that was on the bad TV shows that most kids her age couldn’t watch. It was the kind of thing that her dad put people in jail for. So why would he do it? Why would anyone do it?
And why did she feel so number about it?
“It had to be done.”
(Did it?)
“This person had hurt a lot of people,” he explained, and she took note of how he spoke to her. He was speaking down on her. Hiding information, lying about something, giving a half-truth. But she wasn’t allowed to question it. She was never allowed to question it. “It’s what our family does, Scarlett. Your mother, your brother and sister, me, your grandparents, aunts and uncles... this is what we do. We take down the bad people before they can hurt anyone else.”
It was something that Scar didn’t feel the need to question. She was positive that her father was telling the truth. All of that ‘adult business’ that everyone in the family but her seemed to be in on, the talk of knives and poisons and arrows, the extensive libraries -- it all added up. But one answer only brought forth a dozen more questions. “Am I going to do it?”
A small smile crossed Cade’s face. “Yes, you are. It’s about time you learned about it, anyway.” He tapped the knife in her hand with one finger. “Why don’t you hold onto that? You can’t show anyone, or tell anyone. You can’t say a word about what I’m going to tell you to anyone who isn’t family. Do you understand?”
“Yes, Daddy.” No. Why couldn’t she talk about it? If they were doing the right thing, why was it a secret?
Standing back to his full height, Cade lifted his daughter into his arms. “Scarlett, there will be times when you question yourself, and your family. But always remember that what we’re doing is what’s best for the world. They aren’t ready to handle the things that go bump in the night. But you are, right?”
Maybe. She didn’t know what things really did go bump in the night. She had no idea what she was ready for. But she was ten, and would’ve done anything to get answers. So she hid her lack of certainty and nodded. “Yes, Daddy.”
And when her father spoke again, everything changed.
