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| A strange tale of abuse and morality. |
SUBMITTED BY: cryptkicker
SUBMITTED ON: January 30, 2009 |
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| TYPE: |
| Story |
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| GENRE: |
| Gothic |
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| DEDICATION: |
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| STORY: |
My imagination has always been somewhat a rampant thing, and my dreams no less so. Sometimes, it’s hard to get out of bed in the morning, not for want of sleep, but for a loathing to leave my dreams. I’ve been to Wonderland and beyond. Someday I may write a book just as Carroll did, but for now, I’ll tell you just one tale. I was only an observer in this tale, one that couldn’t be seen or heard, or in any way interfere with the goings-on. I was simply an ethereal observer, watching as two children toiled,
toiled day and night,
night and day, for their evil aunt and her husband. A usual beginning to a tale, but unlike other tales, these children’s parents hadn’t died in a horrible accident, or by some wicked spell or plague. These parents, horrible parents, had simply left, deserting their children to Fate. The young siblings, a sister and brother, only toddlers at the time, would have perished in the streets if the city-state’s prime minister hadn’t forced the children’s only known relative, a sister to their mother, to take them in and raise them. While the law required this aunt to keep the children alive and healthy, it also allowed her to treat them as she pleased.
As soon as the children could, they were put to work in the aunt’s laundry shop. All day, and frequently into the cold night, the children scrubbed and mended clothes. Patrons of the laundry shop often commented on the small reddish blotches they would find on their clothes. The aunt would only smile and explain that sometimes the rose water used for scenting garments became concentrated and would stain. But as soon as the patron would leave, she would march to the back room and beat both the children for letting their raw little fingers leave blood on her customers’ clothes. So which would have been worse for these poor children? A death on the streets, or a life with this horrible woman.
This aunt, however unlikely, had a husband. He was a quiet man, and not a bad man, with the exception that he did nothing to prevent the children’s abuse. Both he and his wife were peculiarly small, not much taller than a chair, with very large, disproportionate heads. The husband (he was the aunt’s second husband and not really the children’s uncle at all) was a bookkeeper. He maintained and doctored not only his wife’s ledgers, but many of the townsfolks’ as well. His work kept him from the house much of the time.
As I happened to see from my ghostlike vantage one evening; the husband had come home early from his accounting. That evening being Christmas, the aunt had also come home early to oversee the holiday meal. She did not trust the children alone in the laundry shop, so, although it pained her greatly, she brought the two orphans home early as well. So much was her distrust and disdain for the two children, they were not forced to do housework as one might assume. They were not allowed to venture anywhere in the house at all but their small, sparse room. Not much more than a closet really, with one hard cot for the two children to share. So there they sat in the gathering twilight; cold, hungry, wondering if they would be invited to join the bitter couple in the holiday feast.
As the two children sat consoling each other, something blew through the room in the form of an idea, one that had never struck the two children until that moment. And with the softly drifting idea came a burst of raucous wind that blew open every shutter of the house. I can only assure you, I had nothing to do with either. With a clatter of dishes and trays, the cooks and couple downstairs ran about shutting the place up again, while upstairs, ever so quietly, like two soft grey mice, the children lowered themselves out of the open window and out across the preoccupied city.
The next morning, the husband awakened to a screeching noise. It bit into his mind and caused him to stumble into his breeches. Hopping upstairs towards the din, he saw his wife, her hands to her temples, her eyes blazing with fire. The small empty room resonated with the sound coming from her, competing only with the gentle creaking of the window. Immediately, the two set out searching for the children; the aunt, because she refused to allow such impudent brats to run off without so much as a word after all she had done for them; and the husband, because he had absolutely no choice in the matter.
Something I have not found necessary to mention to this point, but you will find particularly poignant at this moment, is the size and functionality of the aunt’s nose. It was a prodigious nose indeed, and on such a large head too. And what an amazing sense of smell the aunt had. If her cook at home burnt her tea cakes, the aunt knew it all the way across town at the laundry shop. So it’s not hard to imagine that following the children was not a difficult task for the aunt. What enraged her was the head start the children had gained while she and her husband had soundly slept. They would pay for this insolence, she marked.
Meanwhile, the children had traveled quite a distance, and felt somewhat safe and relieved. Their nightly sojourn had brought them into the very mountains that surrounded the town. They paused only a moment here and there to catch their breath. Now, with the winter sun beginning to climb low in the sky, they felt sure their sudden plan was a good one. It did not cross either of their minds that they may still be in some danger of being captured. They continued on, with every moment, more surefooted and sure of success. They had no plans for life beyond the trees they could see. They held hands and skipped up the mountain, giggling with mountain air, and smiling fresh mountain flowers.
Until they heard it. A sudden sound behind them caused both of their young hearts to stop. When next they beat, it was with horror and panic. Up, up, up the clear mountain came the sound of breathing, an inhalation of air that could not be mistaken for anything but what it was… scent being drawn into a discerning, cruel, gigantic nose, a nose which sat below two black, narrowed, vicious eyes. The children looked at each other, both lost in fear. Together, without speaking, they knew there was no escape. They had been followed. Not far below them they were coming, the aunt and her husband, coming to steal the children back to the grueling grime of the life below.
Blindly, the children looked for some refuge. They ran first to the right, into a small wood, and then turned and ran left, to a steep cliff that dropped away before them. Finally, they ran up, further and further up the hill. They were young and full of life. The aging aunt and her husband may be able to track them anywhere, but the children would always stay ahead of them. Ahead of them, until their young legs began to ache, and their young hearts began to heave in their small chests. They had come to a small plateau on the mountain face. Someone had built a fence here once long ago. Part of it remained now. A tree had grown into the corner of the fence. In the branches of the tree, a great beehive hung. Giant bees flew in and out of the great hive, unaware and unconcerned of the encroaching humans and their plight.
In nothing more than exhaustion, the boy grabbed his sister and pulled her into the tall grass of the small plateau. It seemed only a moment had passed before they heard the sound again, the sound that made the warm mountain sun on their hidden backs go cold. A great snuffling echoed across the plateau, followed by a not-so-distant voice. They could barely make it out. They had gone in several directions, the voice discovered. There was no time for this sort of tomfoolery, it declared, and quickly commanded the cuckold husband to keep climbing while it searched left and right.
All that could be heard for several moments was the buzzing of the great bees. And then footsteps. Heavy, uneven, they came up the mountain. The children could see in their minds, right through the grass that obscured their eyes, the small curiously large-headed man plodding up to the plateau. Sometimes in life, things pass between two people like sun on a breeze. I saw nothing transpire between the two children; no words, no glance, not even the slightest touch, but they moved as if they had spent their short lives rehearsing for this very moment. From their hidden location in the grass, the young girl suddenly lifted up and pitched a heavy stone at the base of the tree. It hit its mark with a dull thud. The young boy, a stone in his hand as well, readied himself.
With a start, the husband looked toward the tree, the grass at the base of it waving, certainly concealing rascally children. The hive in the branches didn’t concern the husband. He judged it too high up to be a threat, and the thought of his wife’s rage if he didn’t capture the children when he had the chance was more than enough to overcome any fear of a few bees. As stealthily as he could, he approached the fence, slipping through a rotted railing in the old wood. Had his ears been better, he would have heard the children not making a sound less than a coin’s pitch away. He approached the spot the stone had fallen. He raised his hands so that he might grab the children, one with each of his meaty hands.
And at that moment, the boy stood and threw the stone. Catching the movement out of the corner of his eye, the little man turned just in time to see a stone fly well over his head. He smiled wryly. Stones wouldn’t stop him, and now he knew where the children were hiding. He took one step towards the boy when the world suddenly went black.
The stone had hit its mark, square and true. Speeding from the boy’s hand, it had indeed flown well over the husband’s head, and right into the old limb holding the great hive. After a moment’s thought, the old tree gave up its ancient burden, and the hive, and all of its contents, fell right upon the husband’s large head. A maddening hum filled the air. Great bees, disturbed for the first time in their history, arced and needled the intruder. Great bees inside the hive when it fell attacked flesh and bone that suddenly invaded their most sacred of places.
On her way up the hill, the vexed aunt heard something akin to a hysterical dog, plunged again and again with fiery hot pokers. It had a strange sound though, as if it were coming from inside a pumpkin, and yet still loud enough to be heard in the next town over. She marched even faster towards the sound, up and up the hill she went. Just as she crested the plateau, something truly hideous came rushing right towards her. It was large and swarming, and the scream it screamed made her cringe. Throwing up her arms, she tried to push the thing away, but it was moving too quickly and it knocked her backwards. For a moment, she stood on the edge of the precipice behind her, her arms circling in a futile attempt to reclaim her balance, her life, the children she could now see standing in the tall grass. She let out a terrible cry of fury as she plummeted backward down the cliff with the hive-headed monstrosity falling after her. For only a moment, the two screams mingled on the mountain, plummeting down the steep sheer face in agony. And then everything was silence.
The two children stood for many minutes without moving. The sun had not changed, and the grass still waved as it had moments before. But for the children, everything had changed. I could see on their faces, as I could feel in myself, they had not meant for this terrible thing to happen, not at all. They had not meant to cause such anguish for the small quick husband of their cruel aunt. Nor had they really meant for their aunt to fall as she did. Many minutes passed indeed. Some of the bees had returned to the place their hive had been only moments before. They flew about, already beginning to salvage what they could of their destroyed home. Quietly, the children walked out of the grass and away from the small plateau, pausing only to wonder as bees returned to their new hive. |
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