Forsaken: The Chosen Trilogy - Book One

Chapter Two

The Six Sacred Elements:
Fire, Water, Earth, Air, Light, Dark

KRYSSA

The Rose Farm, Northwestern Valory

14 Llares 565A.F.

It did not rain the day we buried our mother. I remember thinking that it should, that it wasn't fair that the whole world wasn't weeping with us. But the sky remained painfully blue, the sun blazing down as our father gently lowered our mother into the grave he had dug for her beneath the ancient Teminar tree that grew outside our front door. 

We waited for long minutes, but he didn't try to stand, or to cover her. He merely sat, staring at our mother's cold, still face, until at last Janis picked up the shovel. She filled the grave in with soft dirt until our mother was finally hidden from view, but even then our father didn't move. 

I watched in silence, Reyce sleeping fretfully in my arms. Lanya stood beside me, holding the hands of the twins, and Brannyn stood just behind me, close enough that I could hear his quiet sobs. 

When Janis was finally finished, we stood in silence, our heads bowed as if in prayer. But I didn't pray. The Gods had taken my mother from me, killing her with her own vision, and I hated Them for it. I no longer cared about the dreams of being special or Chosen, no longer cared about having some grand destiny. I was sad and angry and wanted my mother- and she was dead.

Janis began to sing, her voice broken and off-key as tears streamed down her cheeks. 

"Wind, wind, blow me down,
Cast my ashes all around. 
Rain, rain, fall on me,
Drown me and my misery. 
The light has gone away,
And I am left alone, afraid.
So rain, rain, cry on me-
I will never be free.

"This wind and rain that bring me down
Are all the hope I've ever found, 
And ashes fall all around
As I lie here without a sound.

"Oh, rain, rain, wash away
My pain; take it far, I pray.
And wind, wind, blow me high
So my ashes touch the sky.
And sun shine down on me
So I may finally be free-

"At last, I am finally free."

My father sobbed brokenly as Janis' voice trailed off. She turned away, her hands wiping futilely at her tears, and motioned us inside, leaving our father alone to mourn.

565A.F.-566A.F.

It is a sad truth that, in the aftermath of great pain, it in our nature to seek out the darkness, for we think that we will find healing there. But it is in the darkness that we forget there was ever light, and grow shriveled and ugly in the shadows where we cannot be seen, twisted into something horrifying in the wake of our tragedies.

Certainly, that is what happened to Malachi Rose.

Only Brannyn and I were old enough to remember what our father was like before the madness took him. The others remembered nothing of the happiness we had when our mother was alive, of the joy and laughter that had filled our home before it became a prison. They did not remember when our father had loved us. They only remembered him as the monster he became.

It took years to build to that point, of course. In the days following our mother's death, Malachi continued to sit by her grave, refusing to eat or sleep or speak. His eyes were dead and empty when we approached him, his face slack as he stared through us. He frightened us, and so we avoided him. I think now that it was probably his wish to die there, to be buried beside his Adelie, but he lacked the courage or the energy to take his life by violent means, and thought to achieve it by apathy. If it was not for Janis' stubbornness in finally forcing him to eat, I think he would have succeeded.

Even now, I am not sure if that wouldn't have been better.

Within a week, it became apparent to Janis that Malachi's despair would take longer to overcome than our farm could afford, and so she stepped into his place, ordering about our two hired farm hands and running our home in her brisk, efficient manner. She was a strong woman with a forcible personality, and I loved her, though it was tinted with resentment. I missed my mother, and I didn't want anyone to replace her, though Janis never truly tried. It was not until I was much older that I could at last appreciate the enormity of the choice she had made, but by then it was far too late to thank her for it.

The days dragged into months. Father didn't move. Janis ran the farm. Brannyn and I learned to chop wood and wash laundry as Lanya watched over the mischievous twins and our infant brother Reyce. The wheat and corn grew tall in the fields, and in the autumn the farm hands harvested it. Janis paid them, and took what was leftover of our store to the nameless village a mile down the road to sell.

Then winter arrived, harsh and bitter. Somehow, Janis managed to force our father into the house before he froze to death. He stank so badly it made my stomach clench, but Janis insisted that I help her bathe him. We washed him as if he were a child, scrubbing months of grime from his skin. We had to change his bath water three times, but at last he was finally clean, if no less starved and broken. His eyes were empty and lifeless as she dried him off and dressed him again, staring through me as I burned his filthy clothing in the fireplace.

Janis led him to his bed, and he remained for the rest of the winter, apathetic and catatonic, until spring finally came and the snow melted. He returned in the middle of the night to our mother's grave, and Janis was left to continue running our farm and our lives with her firm, confident hand.