Claudia
By Samantha King
The moonlight danced on the river edge, the water lapped
lazily at its edges, the wind had stilled and the crickets had finished their
musical dance for the night. The scent
of grass, wildflowers and the willow floated sensuously in the air. Off in the distance she could hear the crack
and pop of a distant fire, some soldier’s fire, maybe her soldier’s fire. Claudia sighed and looked hard at the moon,
trying to find an answer, seeking the truth.
So many lies had been told, so many stories woven into fact. The truth nothing more than a foggy haze of
memories forced, forgotten and imagined, the questions lingered in her brain,
swirling like a tornado in the dust bowl.
Claudia grew up in a small village called Northwood she
lived with her mother and grandmother.
Her father she never knew. She
had imagined him tall, strong, a long beard and the scent of pine, his hands
gnarled and twisted like the trunk of the old oak. His eyes green and shining
like her own, his fiery red hair kept neat and trimmed. But it was all imagination. Her mother said she never knew him. It was a midnight mistake. Claudia had been a mistake made on the side
of forest for a loaf and his catch of deer; nothing more than a mistake.
Claudia’s mother was a broken woman, her hair stained grey,
her face as ragged as a torn rag blowing in the wind. She had nothing but tatters to wear, her
nails bitten down to the cuticles, her feet, dirty and calloused from a life of
no shoes and hard work. Claudia wondered
if she had ever been a beautiful woman, although her grandmother says she
was. But to Claudia she was no more than
a broken old hag, who took great pleasure in causing Claudia pain.
Tears prickled at the back of her eyes as flashes of torment
and unkind words spat in her direction flooded her memory. Angrily, Claudia swiped at her eyes; grunting
in disgust at letting herself to be hurt by her mother’s actions. She had once heard a preacher teach in the
square that hurt people hurt people.
Claudia had thought so hard about it, her mother, what was her hurt? She
couldn’t speak with her mother, her mother hated her. She had tried to ask her grandmother what had
made her mother so angry, but her grandmother’s soft eyes just drifted away as she
patted Claudia’s hand without saying a word.
Suddenly a screech split the air, at first Claudia thought
it was a fox making a kill, but her skin began to prickle and she knew the
scream came from her mother. The hair on
her neck began to stand on edge, as she strained to listen for more. Had it been no more than a mouse? Claudia
knew it couldn’t be mice were no strangers to the home. Without warning, the scream came again. This time the shriek, was more manic, more
frightened. Claudia knew she should be
running towards the home, but her feet suddenly felt as if they were encased in
two large blocks. She couldn’t move.
When the third scream pierced the air, she was able to shift, her heart beating
so hard in her chest it felt it might burst out at any moment.
“Dear Goddess, please don’t let it be me gran” Claudia
whispered as she ran, gaining speed with each stride.
As she reached the doorway of their modest home, she could
see the lamp wavering, her mother’s sobs, wracking and breathless. A man stood in the doorway, his face white as
that of a ghost. His hands smeared red.
“What in the devil have yer done?” he kept saying.
Claudia afraid to look in through the doorway, she moved in
beside the man, where she saw her grandmothers legs, feet bare, toes curled,
sprawled onto the dusty floor. Tears
began to flow from her eyes, as she turned to run. Claudia looked up to the
man, he looked down at her, his eyes filled with tears, his eyebrows turned in
a furrow of concern, his piercing green eyes boring into the blood on his
hands. Claudia felt her shoulders jerk
back, spinning her on the spot, within inches of her face, was her mothers,
twisted, pitted face, her blackened teeth showing in a grimace. She screamed, Claudia, feeling her stinking
breath hit her face. Claudia recoiled in
disgust and fear, jerking herself free of her mother’s grasp.
“Claudia, me child, it twasn’t me, I swear to yer” she heard
her mother screaming as she ran, running to somewhere, she didn’t know where,
just far away from the murderous woman who hated her.
The piercing green eyes following her steps, in her mind,
those eyes were everywhere, watching her, they had always been watching now
more so.
Runai.
He knew his child, her ginger locks, and shining green eyes
unlike his own. Greta had been beautiful
once, she had been clean, she had even been loving. Runai had loved her. He
remembered holding her in his arms, under the great oak, planning their future,
as he stroked her growing belly. She had laughed, her laugh that caused the fee
to dance with delight and his heart skip a beat. But other men desired Greta;
other men wanted what Runai had.
He remembered the day he had come home to see his woman
broken, bleeding, tears streamed down her face, carving their way through the
blood that oozed from her head. Anger
filled his soul, his eyes that usually danced with delight upon seeing Greta,
darkened into a deep angry green, that of the deepest oceans. His fists clenched so tight he could feel the
nails pierce the skin.
“Who did this” he roared.
Greta let out a scream of fright, and backed deeper into the
darkened corner she had wedged herself, her rounded belly protruding from her
torn dress. Runai knew that he needed to be gentle, but his anger filled him so
much so that he couldn’t find the gentleness in him. He turned to find his axe, as he decided upon
killing every man until he found the one who had taken Greta’s soul. As Greta let out an earth shattering scream,
he turned to see her hands bloody and wet, her legs wide apart, there laid a
child, naked and pink, with hair flaming red.
His heart ached, his child to come into this world at this moment, while
her mother so broken and worn lay in a corner like a beaten dog, and he so
angry and tormented. A small cry soft
and meek uttered from the child’s lips.
Greta’s eyes wide and frightened like a trapped rabbit looked from Runai
back to the child.
With the child’s next cry it snapped Runai into action, as
he run for the door, he saw Greta’s mother coming through. He pushed the woman to the side as he blindly
ran, looking for the culprit that would cause such pain to his once happy
family.
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