Flaming Fairy Tale

Lindsey Ormond

Description

Sent by her family to a mental institution in New York, Fiona Lennox has only the memories of her lover, Chloe Fields, to keep her going.These memories she explores in long, unsent letters to Chloe that she keeps hidden under her bed. Fiona's domineering father disapproves of her sexuality and has tried repeatedly to alter it through psychiatric intervention. Months earlier, seeking to escape his influence, Fiona had found work as a tattoo artist in the sleepy town of Middleton. There she crossed paths with Chloe, a young housewife, and mother. Attraction deepened quickly into a powerful bond, and Fiona's love enabled Chloe to be true to herself at last. Despite guilt at breaking up her family and the threat of a scandal, Chloe bravely leaves her husband for a woman in a conservative Southern town. But no sooner had the couple begun to build a life together, parenting Chloe's two young sons, that Fiona's family descends on Middleton, bringing with them a world of lies, secrets, and hints at a dark, destructive past.Fiona becomes erratic, and as her inner demons emerge in a series of bizarre events, Chloe must face the possibility that her beloved and savior may be the victim of scars too deep to heal.

Sujets

• Romance

Informations

• Publié par: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Date de parution: 04 mai 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781645365334
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 1 Mo

Extrait

A Flaming Fairy Tale
Lindsey Ormond
Austin Macauley Publishers
2020-05-04
A Flaming Fairy Tale About The Author Copyright Information © Acknowledgement Preface Fiona: December 2015 Caged Acting Chloe: July 2015 Equality Fiona: December 2015 Contact Chloe: July 2015 Friendship Fiona: December 2015 Permanent Ink Chloe: July 2015 Choices Fiona: December 2015 Visitation Chloe: July 2015 Fluid Fiona: December 2015 Unsettled Chloe: August 2015 Taking Flight Fiona: December 2015 Interrogation Chloe: August 2015 Finalized Fiona: December 2015 Secrets Chloe: September 2015 Metamorphosis Fiona: December 2015 Willpower Chloe: September 2015 Like Father Like Daughter Chloe: September 2015 The Mural Fiona: December 2015 Privacy Chloe: October 2015 Strength Fiona: December 2015 Paralyzed Chloe: October 2015 Acting Out Fiona: December 2015 Staying Clean Chloe: October 2015 The City That Never Sleeps Fiona: December 2015 Pitch-Black Chloe: October 2015 Spiraling Fiona: December 2015 Daylight Chloe: November 2015 Departure Chloe: November 2015 Truth Relapse Fiona: December 2015 Insanity
About The Author

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Lindsey resides in Ocala, Florida, where she lives with her two small sons. She holds a BA in anthropology from the University of Florida but realized years later, her true calling was making up stories with a common central theme of equality.
Copyright Information ©
Lindsey Ormond (2020)
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.
Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Ordering Information:
Quantity sales: special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.
Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data
Ormond, Lindsey
A Flaming Fairy Tale
ISBN 9781643788357 (Paperback)
ISBN 9781643788364 (Hardback)
ISBN 9781645365334 (ePub e-book)
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020900723
www.austinmacauley.com/us
First Published (2020)
Austin Macauley Publishers LLC
40 Wall Street, 28th Floor
New York, NY 10005
USA
[e-mail]
[phone]
Acknowledgement
I would like to thank the many patient people in my life who have listened to my countless stories, encouraging me along the way to never give up on my dreams.
Preface
“Far greater than all the material possessions in the world is my freedom to choose, my freedom to live and my freedom to be happy.”
The transformation of a caterpillar into a butterfly is in fact a gruesome act of the caterpillar first digesting itself and releasing enzymes to then dissolve all of its tissues. Most people only have the memory of a storybook that shows a very hungry caterpillar’s weekly food intake; then inevitably it turns into a beautiful butterfly at the end. But in truth, not all caterpillars turn into the iconic and gorgeous butterfly that colors our childhood dreams. Maybe we should ask ourselves, “Is that caterpillar still the same being? Does that now-striking butterfly know it was a vile sack of goo before it was born?” Transformations are unstoppable. Nothing remains the same for a lifetime.
Fiona: December 2015

Caged
I wake up and realize this nightmare is in fact my reality. I look around at all four beige walls and feel like a caged animal, once again: just like I felt as a child. There’s nothing on the walls but stale paint. My metal bed is cold and hard beneath my bare bottom. My drab, grayish hospital gown is a clear sign that it is laundry day at Living Waters, the institution that now feels like it may be my permanent home. I can hear someone in the room next to me having a complete meltdown, screaming like a child having a tantrum. I hear the doctor coming, so I lay down quickly and pretend, I am still asleep. I want to wait as long as possible to have to take my daily, mind-numbing dose of medication.
“Fiona?” Dr. Clark asks standing next to my motionless body. She seems to know I am faking being asleep.
“Fiona, please get up. You need to take your medication, sweetheart,” she insists, shaking me a bit to wake me.
Reluctantly, I open my eyes. I have known Dr. Clark since I was eleven years old, and in almost twenty years she hasn’t changed all that much. Though, she is middle-aged now, she keeps herself attractive and fit, with her blonde hair neatly tied back and her square-rim eyeglasses framing her sharp brown eyes. I sit up, frustrated, and sling back all five or so pills, all at once, from the small paper cup, she has brought them to me in. I gulp a sip of water afterwards and open my mouth with my tongue hanging out to prove to her that I have in fact swallowed all of the pills. Though, I’ve been in here a month, the doctors still don’t believe, I will be compliant every time.
“When will my laundry be done?” I ask Dr. Clark as she begins to walk back out into the desolate hallway.
I don’t want to look like a mental patient in my standard gown: the kind that all patients with no family to bring them clothes wear.
I want my own robes.
“In about an hour, the nurse will bring it to you, Fiona.”
I pull out my cardboard box from under my bed after she leaves and begin reading the letters over and over again to myself out loud.
My Dearest Chloe,
Another day has passed that I haven’t heard your voice at all. I am here, in New York City. How are you? Where have you been? How are Kaden and Max? I miss the little dudes, almost as much as I miss you. I’m sorry. I am so sorry for keeping you in the dark for so long. For not telling you sooner what you were getting yourself into. Falling in love with me. I should have warned you. I should have told you I was a disaster. To not fall in love with me. But I was selfish. I wanted you to myself. Because I loved you – because I love you. Have you talked to Trent? I’m not mad at you. I hope you are not mad at me either. I just need to know that you are alright. I just need to hear your voice so I can sleep again. I am not sick like they have told you. I am lying. I am faking it. I want you to know I am alright and I love you. I am doing this for you. To protect you from…me.
Fiona
I tuck the letters away and don’t put them into an envelope. I simply slide the box back under my small metal bed.
“I can’t send them,” I say out loud. “It would be completely selfish of me.”
I sit there, thinking of Chloe: of her delicate face and her golden blond hair, and the way she moves when she walks, and the curl of her smile when I say something funny.
I have to stop thinking.
I decide to wander out into the halls to see if anyone else is awake yet besides my screaming neighbor next door.
The halls are empty. I walk towards the common area and fill a Styrofoam cup with black coffee that tastes like they reheated it from the day before. I sit down at the piano and start messing around with the keys. I bang them loudly. It echoes throughout the whole room. I glance over at the game corner where Marjorie and I usually sit. The large red rug is bare, with no board games scattered about yet.
“Miss Lennox!” A nurse comes in, screaming at me. “Please, Miss Lennox. Everyone is still asleep, sweetie. Now is not a good time to play.”
I smirk up at her and make a possessed-looking face for fun, and she backs slowly away from me as if I might cast a spell on her if she stays.
“Just play quietly,” she insists while walking backwards to her station.
I play, from memory, a song I remember my father used to play for me as a little girl. I hum the tune loudly, not caring if I wake up the entire center. One by one, they start to wander out of their rooms like zombies in an apocalypse. Still half asleep, all in their hospital gowns like me.
We all look the same.
Dressed in the same dull colors, some with their bottoms out, having not even bothered to pretend to wear panties.
“Fiona!” Marjorie exclaims loudly. “That is so beautiful, sugar! Keep playing please,” she says while twirling in an awkward circle next to me, dancing. She is in her thirties and heavy-set. Her sweet, plump face wears the innocent expression of a girl and her auburn hair is wrapped into an untidy, frizzy bun on top of her head. She spins around and around humming the tune, but not on key. She smiles and giggles and just keeps dancing. So I keep playing the same part over and over again loudly. I look around and notice everyone seems very entertained by my simple piano playing. I eventually quit and a persistent “Awwww…” resounds throughout the room.
“I will play some more later,” I assure them before standing up from the old wooden piano bench.
“Fiona, wait!” Marjorie runs up to me as I start to walk back to my desolate room. “Want to play monopoly with me?” She asks me, hopeful.
“Why not,” I agree, and we proceed to the game corner and set up monopoly.
Marjorie asks me to play monopoly almost every day, at least five times a day. I usually agree to play at least once with her. I love to see, how excited she looks, when she wins money or owns a bunch of properties. I can tell, she is imagining it is real life and she is fantasizing about this alternate universe where she exists as a top hat and owns a whole board of