"Mom, do you need help?" Shona enquired her mother who watered with water can the flowers in flower pots.

"No, thank you, honey! You are so kind but thank you anyway." Valerie responded after watering the last pot with flower as she turned to Shona, folding her head with a hand that caressed her soft braided red hair.

The little girl couldn't help as her broad, amorous smile grew, saturating on her face as she felt her mother playing softly with her hair. Then with her other free hand she left the water can on the grass as she fanned her sweaty, heating face as the summer days in Boston weren't bearable at all. They were far from relaxing. They were mostly like tiresome. 

"You are so beautiful, Shona! Do you know that, my girl?" She looked up at her hazel eyes with love and warmness. Her smile grew significantly as she admired her daughter's face. Running her fingers through her scarlet red scalp. 

In the interim, Shona nodded her head as she agreed with her mother. A grin flashed on her ruddy face. Her heart molted after hearing such heartwarming words. 

Valerie leaned down as she pecked a kiss on her warm temple, without taking her eyes off her adorable face. In the meantime, she crouched down as she took the young girl in her arms as she dangled her tiny ones around her mother's back, pulling her in a tight and warm hug. The both females shut their eyes as they relished the maternal, platonic and spectacular moment together. As a mother and a daughter. Their pounding hearts in their chests beat along as they united. 

"Never forget how much I love you my beautiful girl!" Valerie said in velvety voice as she stimulated Shona's self-esteem. "Never!" She kept on. 

Meanwhile they heard a masculine voice, waiting patiently on the fence door as she scratched his head.

"Valerie and Shona!" Frank evoked as he saw the both females who momentarily broke off the hug, a smug smile spread across his lips. 

"Let's go welcome your uncle Frank!" Valerie rose as she offered her hand as Shona took her hand into her petite one, walking up to the fence door as they were beyond excited to behold him again. 

Frank was visiting the single mother with her second grader daughter almost every day as he deliriously likes the amiable females and spending a handful of hours with them. He's going to be murderously busy in the imminent months when the school begins in the early September.

***

"It's always pleasure to speak to you Val, you know?!" Frank stated rhetorically as he sipped his ice tea, consequently leaving it on the coffee table as he seated on the right armchair whilst Valerie sat on the left one, propping her elbow on her stark thighs as she held a cigarette. The young maid was dressed up in black with one shoulder short sleeve top and retro denim shorts. 

"Yeah, I really enjoy your company, Frank!" A guturral chuckle escaped her naturally rosy-coloured lips. Her hazel green eyes met his after she blinked after taking a drag off her cigarette. 

Whilst the both adults were speaking to each other in the living room, Shona was playing outdoors, relishing as she kicked a ball in the yard as she was sufficiently considerate. The sun rays entered through the opened window in the living room as it sun light bathed the room. 

"Are you actually serious you are going to work as a security guard in my daughter's school, right?" The Russian-American lady took another puff off her cigarette as dim escaped her nostrils and mouth, diffusing around her surroundings as it reached the former cop's tender nostrils as he preferred to ignore the tobacco's stench, refraining from coughing. 

"Of course, I do." He responded valiantly as the red-haired arched an eyebrow, in the meantime he couldn't help, howsoever, bursting out a laugh as he noted his hostess's reaction as she joined him. Shortly after their laughter, the middle aged man sipped the cool beverage again as he sensed his throat soaking as the ice tea gushed down in his body, ressurecting it from the summer's searing weather. A confounded grin curled up in the corner of his mouth. "Why do you ask when we discussed it days ago?" Frank questioned scoffingly.

"Because you can change your decision anytime. No one couldn't be that mutable and take steady decisions." The young woman explained wisely as she placed her cigarette in the glass ashtray. 

"Yeah, you are right. There are some times when people change their decisions not because of their erratic character. It's essentially because due to bunch of reasons that have affected their lives or might affect them in volatile way."

"I cannot argue with you, Frank. Everybody has their own reason why they might change what they have decided earlier."

"Absolutely!" 

"Frank?"

"Yeah?" He enquired as he wiped the perspiration of his eyebrow. 

"Would you like a cigarette?" She offered him a cigarette in gracious way.

"No, no, thank you, Val! I quit smoking long before to work as a security guard where our friend worked with me." He didn't want to sound coarse as he rejected a cigarette from his hostess, explaining to her his genuine reason. 

"Oh, that's a pity!"

"Whatever!" Frank wanted to end the discuss about the smoking as he sipped in a gulp the ice tea, subsequently his body revived even more. It was such an overwhelming sensation for him. Shortly before continuining with talking to Valerie, he licked his lukewarm lips. "Is Shona experiencing any kind of issues in school?" 

"Be specific!" Valerie replicated tentatively as she pursed her lips.

"For example bullying?"

"Yes, she does. I mean, the girls are bullying her for being an alien and old-soul. They call her like that." The young lady paused as she took the cigar in her hand, puffing off it as she closed her eyes for a while, relishing the dim encompassing her like a barrier. "Let's not forget, they have took her notebooks and it took her minutes to get them back from their venomous claws." Valerie couldn't resist its urge to share with Frank the vicious story behind the daily school day of Shona. Moreover, she was irritated sensing the heartaching feeling of her child being bullied and tormented mentally by her infantile and blunt peers. She slapped with her single free hand her bare thigh.

"Oh, that's horrible! Why they do that?" 

"They know from somewhere I am a lesbian and raising my child without a father. They have noted almost every time whenever I take Shona from school after she finishes her classes that...I am the only person who looks after her without needing a further explaination on the question:..." She inhaled heavily as she cleared her throat after taking the final drag off her cigarette, hence, stubbing it out in the ashtray. "Where's the Daddy of this girl?" Then a sarcastic, raspy chuckle escaped her mouth, raising shoulders as she imitated in bullies' voices. 

Frank narrowed eyebrows after hearing the poignant story as he was pensive. It was scarcely believable for him such an excellently taught and raised child by a single mother to be treated as an inferior. 

It was particularly true that Shona was being bullied in school. Since she was a first grader, the first school days passed incredibly normal as she befriended with other children, besides Kit's ones as she has a small, inner group of friends. As the October days approached, the majority of her peers especially the girls noted something eccentric in the young girl. They even commenced with the rumours as they turned out to be true that she hasn't got a father and her mother is a homosexual. They attempted to degrade her though she ignored them and she complained to the teachers about their malicious, derogatory demeanor towards the red-haired girl. The bullies who messed with her, took some of her items without her direct permission in a matter of minutes as they were turned safe and sound to Shona. The teachers did their best to prevent the bullying, in spite of it halted for a couple of days. Afterwards it continued and continued. 

"I hate to hear it. She deserves much better!" Frank face palmed as his forehead rested on his palm. He wanted to do everything for his friends and protect them though it wasn't simple. His exasperation aroused up as his boiling blood in his veins of ire that was unendurable.

"Yeah, I wish they respected her at least. But it doesn't ends until I continue."

"Go ahead!"

"They call her weird because not only because of me. But also they thought she is an old-soul, thinking it for something terrible at such age as she's way too young to be mature and speak wisely and properly than her peers. And that's why they don't want her near them. Even in their games."

"I see!" The security guard wiped the nape of his neck with a hand as he stretched his strong arm. He sounded very livid. Very livid due to the children's abusive behaviour over a peer, who prones to be more mature and grows up with a lesbian single mother and the absence of a parent from the opposite gender. "Look what, Val! The immature kiddos will be always nothing but little demons who never understand the much different and odd children."

"That's right! When they hopefully grow up, they will realize how dumb they used to be."

"Exactly! Nonetheless I can promise you something which you may truly appreciate." Then Valerie's hazel eyes widened overwhelmingly. A complacent smirk contorted across his lips. "When the school year begins and If somebody dares to bully your daughter, otherwise, I will stop the bullies from messing up with her." Meantime, the young woman's grin loomed on her fresh, shining face as contentedness and pride glistened in her hazel green pools. "I promise, Val!" He kept on. 

***

"I didn't know this priest is nothing but a pathetic loser." One of the inmates' jubilant shout was sufficiently audible for the young priest as he strolled in the dim lit hallways of the asylum, heading up to his office to recover from the vigorous apprehensive that overtook him and his conscience. 

"Yeah, Cally played her own cards right without letting him to have the first and the last word in the same time!" A second patient gloriously commented as he discussed with the other inmate about the conflict that took its place in the common room. 

"Cally is our hero!" Third mentally ill patient yelled contentedly as their hysterical laughters filled the common room with gleeful, more abstract atmosphere. 

"Urgh, assholes!" Alexander grunted as he muttered, heading for the third floor, mouting up the "Stairway to Heaven" with efforts as he felt beyond disgusted and loathsome as Cally's grasp by his collar degraded him. 

As soon as he went upstairs as he walked up to his office, he storm off inside his office, shutting the door as the juvenile monsginor went over his desk as he seated, litting up a cigarette, in fact, to calm his nerves after the brewed storm between him and the supernatural patient a few minutes ago. His heart pulsated heavily in his ribs, unable to utter anything after his strength was drained by Cally. After he took a puff off his cigarette as the cigar abided between his plump lips, he slammed with a fist the desk as the files bobbed, squawked furiously.

On one hand, he blamed himself for being incapable to stop the inmate who was not only physically and mentally potent, but also letting himself being demeaned in front of the inmates who laughed in his face as he was nothing more than an abject joke. On other hand, he was exceedingly outraged as he wanted to avenge on her as he enforces crude sanctions against the inmates, who opt to deny his authority as an administrator of the mental facility. 

The gloomy secrets that the older lady exposed behind his past and his deeds were far from adequate. They drove him insane to next level. It was too late. Everyone in the madhouse already knew about him more as their glimpses are going to be even more scornful. Their faces grimaced, embodying its grotesque disgust of the young man of the cloth. Harsh and paradoxal comments are going to flood his mind as they assault him with a scourge of insults. 

He never funked anyone or anything. Alexander was always a courageous, obstinate and persistent man with tough cookie and manipulative personality. Unless he confronted with Cally who clashed him by uncovering his profoundest, uninviting secrets' core as he got abhorred more and more by the inmates he should be responsible for their care and so forth though the staff's deficit. 

"Alexander Stanley McKenzie, don't give up! These inmates are nothing but garbage. You will find your ways to deal with them emotionally these days." An echo reassured him as his head leant down on his wooden desk, smelling the tobacco stench that reached his nostrils, inhaling eagerly its dim. 

***

"Mommy, Mommy!" The twins screamed gleefully in unison as they rushed up to their mother who tanned on the bright, igniting sun, moving down the sunglasses from her eyes as she wanted to have a better look at her children's drawings.

"Mom, look what we drew!" She took the drawings in her both hands, scanning them quickly as she couldn't help as a broad, content smile flashed on her mildly tanned face. 

Her hazel eyes beheld such multicolored in variety of colors drawings such as red, green, yellow, brown and so forth stained on the sheet of papers as she shifted her gaze to the twins, planting them feather, affectionate kisses on their aglow cheeks. 

Whilst the twins stood in front of their mother, Timothy taught Agnes as he carried on with educating her about the most ordinary objects in the nature. He still had her in his secure, loving arms.

"Wow! Sweethearts, they are so wonderful." She gave them the drawings as she couldn't take her mesmerized eyes off them, folding their heads beyond ecstatically. Her heart melted once she saw her eldest daughter drawing the entire Howards family together. "Aww! I love them from the bottom of my heart!" She placed a hand on her chest as her smile glowed on her face. 

"Thank you, Mommy!" 

"You don't need to thank me. I love by the way you express your love and emotions in that way." 

All of a sudden, Timothy turned to the twins and Jude as he held Agnes whose hands playfully, idly pinched his father's creamy cheeks as the youngest Howard giggled inwardly. He walked up to them as his chocolate eyes fixed on the both drawings as he was in awe to see how talented were they though their childish compositions, illustrated on mere blankets with crayons and pencils. The twins turned to Timothy and Agnes as the youngest child put a thumb in her mouth, sucking it uneasily as her hazel eyes were darted to the paintings as she liked them. 

"Daddy, do you like them?" Tristan posed the question blissfully as a coy smile formed on his face.

"Oh, darlings! They are lovely. How to not like them!" 

"Thank you, Daddy!"

"I am so proud of you, Ellie and Tristan! And when we get back at home, they will be stored on the fridge." Timothy stated proudly his final decision as he crouched down to the twins, kissing their cheeks and temples as he did the same with Agnes. He didn't want to behold his little sweet angels unstrung. 

***

The night hours dawned on the horizon after the inmates had a poor-quality, nauseating dinner, it was their time to go back in their cells for extra good night sleep how the juvenile priest determined at last. 

"Come on, Lesley! Go back in your cell!" One of the guards gathered the inmates as it was high time to get back in their cold, somber and desolated cells where they are supposed to spend their long, unnerving and fatiguing evenings. He shouted at the middle aged woman to go back in her cell as she entered, whilst Cally was escorted by one of the nut house's security guards, guiding her to her cell in the hallway of the women's wing. 

Without hesitancy and whining, Lesley, one of the Briarcliff's wretched souls mousily stepped in her chilly cell as she didn't want any bland, heated conflicts with the guard. 

The patients' wails were unfurling like plague in the entire corridor as Cally had an ideal idea for tonight. To escape from the dull walls of the asylum. She was determined to gain her freedom as soon as possible. Not only she loathed this place and its abominable and aggravating conditions, but also its administrator. Father Alexander Stanley McKenzie. Once her plan works out as she plays her cards right, hence, she would never turn her back to the past as she has no intentions to return ever again in Briarcliff. 

"The poor they!" Cally looked around her surroundings that encircled her as diabolic fury glistened in her amber eyes. In the interim, she thought to herself as she rued them for being locked up in a madhouse where they didn't really belonged as a lunatic rulled. 

"Father McKenzie will pay for his own deeds on judgment's day!" Other thought popped up in her mind when the guard who escorted her as he guided her to her cell, was unlocking with the old, rusty key the door until she charged her head without his acknowledge through gritted teeth.

"C'mere in your cell, Call-" The older guard who unlocked her cell, fell on the ground as he grabbed his wounded spot after the black-haired lady bumped her head into him as her irises from amber into moon yellow ones. She peeped down at the flumped guard for last time, yelping in sore pain. "Aaaahhh, you foul bitch!" He hissed through irritated undertone as she began to scramped to the door, leading to the lobby with the "Stairway to Heaven", whilst the injured guard laid on the floor and a swarm of security guards commenced running after the riot.

The young woman was sprinting and sprinting as she slammed the door for the women's wing cells, mounting down swiftly the stairs breathlessly, without giving up in her hopes. Her breathing was severe with each passing second as the guards were already out of the women's wing, sped up as they held their batons.

"You won't escape from here, Miss!" 

While Father McKenzie was whistling inwardly to himself with shut eyes on the second floor's general hall, suddenly he opened reluctantly his sapphire blue eyes as he casted a glaring, sustained gape to the mildly older lady who fled from the second floor, clutched firmly his teeth.

"Get her! She mustn't escape!" He commanded with possessive, strident voice. 

As soon as she stepped down on the first floor, she aimed to the institution's exit, passing efficiently, seditiously the guards who currently yelled at her:

"Hey! You cannot escape, lady! You have been warned!" 

As black-haired woman's heart throbbed steadily in her frail chest, fleeing the demolishing, ancient facade as soon as possible, she proceed with her breathless, restless running, murderously stomping the grass with her shabby, lost its sheer white color, muddy slippers, mulishly increasing her running speed as she went through the ruined fence gates that once secured its facility outdoors until the conditions exacerbated with the years as Briarcliff no longer belonged to the church. Cally's face was vapoured in sanguine color of bush and lack of energy though she didn't give up that easily. She continued her destination until her tracks faded away as the guards even Father McKenzie lost a track of her. The guards were not only sluggish, furthermore they were clumsy unlike the daredevil woman. 

Once her figure was no longer visible in the woods, nor in the facility's monumental yards, sea of guards reached to the stairs as they gave up, wiping their sweat out of their glowing foreheads, sighing frustrated.

"Gosh, she escaped!"

"We missed her!" A second frustrated security guard groused. 

"Oops! We are so screwed by Father McKenzie!" The first one cautioned desperately. 

To be continued...