Chapter Text
Ever since she was a child, Willow had seen the shadow creatures. She had quickly learned that mentioning them to anyone would have her branded as mad, perhaps even more so than her love of fire. Which was fine, she thought, because she was mad, but horrible things were often done to mad girls. And the more frightened and distressed and angry she became, the more the shadows would try to hurt her, too.
The shadow man never hurt her, though. She began seeing him a few years after that fateful night at the orphanage. At first it was only out of the corner of her eye, and even when he did stick around a few moments longer, he didn’t say a word. She probably should have been creeped out, but she didn’t really mind him. He didn’t have any giant teeth or spines or claws and he didn’t try to take anything away from her. He was just there sometimes, and she was glad to have someone there.
Willow had been an adorable little vagrant following that first fire, until the cops got her, and she got shoved into the House of Refuge. Willow had only a vague notion of what ‘refuge’ meant, but she definitely knew the House of Refuge did not provide any. More like House of Taking Away My Only Belongings And Hitting Me Until I Stop Doing Fires Which Is Never. It was supposed to be a school, but all she really learned was new and interesting types of crimes explained by her fellow ‘students’.
When she was fifteen, she also learned that she was pretty. One of the wardens cornered Willow and began to touch her in a way that made her want to vomit. Said she should be grateful that someone wanted a greasy little rat like her. She had no matches, no anything, but right at that moment the fire burst forth from her and engulfed him. Good. He should be grateful the end was so quick.
Well, now she was a bigger adorable vagrant with more street smarts. It was fun. She didn’t need anybody. But in the end, she was rounded up like a stray dog and taken to the psychiatric hospital. It wasn’t as chaotic or dirty as the Refuge, but it was cold and harsh. They said she had something called ‘dementia praecox’, and there were injections that made her sleep for days. Most of the time, she was too out of it to light fires or bite the doctors or do much of anything at all. The food they gave her could only be described as mush, which it also felt like her brain was turning into. Her memory was getting fuzzy and scrambled. She knew from her strange aftershocks of physical pain that there were other treatments she was being given while unconscious, but she couldn’t know what.
On one occasion she woke in her restraints and the room was empty. But there, as if it weren’t the first time she’d seen him for years, was the shadow man. He had…teeth now? A smile? He seemed more present in general, in fact. He was still made of nothing, but she could sort of see his face, and see that he was wearing a weird suit with curly shoulders. She’d never seen anything like it. She detachedly noted that she found him attractive, and did her best to stuff that thought into the corner of her brain where she put everything else she didn’t want to deal with. And just then, he spoke to her for the first time.
“Say, pal, this won’t do at all.”
He had a British-y accent, and for some reason Willow found this funny, and she started to laugh.
He reached down with an inky, clawed hand, and just like that, he released her restraints. She scrunched her eyes closed a few times, trying to dispel the headache from her medication. “Wait…you’re…” she reached out, but her hand still went through him. How did he…?
“This is no place for you, my darling.” He was holding something out to her.
In his left hand was Bernie, charred mangled Bernie who had protected her years ago, held together by habit and hope.
In his right hand was something she thought was familiar, but couldn’t place. It was a beautiful lighter, gold edged, with a flower pattern.
“I think you dropped these, firebug.”
Willow smiled as she looked up at him, a mischievous glint in her wide eyes. As soon as she took them, he disappeared, with an odd flourish like a dark lick of flame.
She heard locks spring open all down the corridor. Nothing mattered. Now she could hit the bricks.
A note fluttered down out of nowhere.
YOU OWE ME, FIREBUG
- M
She was beautiful, Maxwell thought. He wondered what she might have been in another life, where she had money and education and a real home. How her inherent charm might have shone through, if she’d had proper nutrition and nice clothing and well-kept hair and no soot smudges that seemed permanently stuck to her face. But if she had all that, she just wouldn’t be Willow. She wouldn’t be the sweet, irreverent, rude, crass, destructive Willow he was looking at right now, in that moment almost as entranced by her as she was by the blaze.