Bodel
My gut ached. It ached more than I ever thought imaginable. I was doubled over in pain with sobs pouring out of me - as that is all that physically could fall out. If my guts and the rest of my insides could fall out too to signify the pain I was in, they would have - for most of every day for the next chunk of months that went by. I didn't know how long it had been or who had come by to offer condolences. All I could think about was the eternal pain that I would carry around forever. The aching and yearning to have my baby back in my belly, just so that I could carry him again and keep him safe. To turn back time would be the ultimate gift. My other baby was asking me constantly where his brother was and that just made it worse. Every time that his chubby little fingers would curl around my hand, "Mamma where is brother?" My heart would tear in half all over again. Actually, forget that. My heart would tear into a million tiny pieces that could never be put back together again. Every single time, his sweet little words would send me off into another round of sorrowful mourning. I couldn't be the mother I needed to be to him when I was like this, but I was unable to pull myself out of this hell that had become my life.
As I lay by Bear on another night like the last eighty, he tossed and turned. I didn't sleep. How could I? My baby was no longer with me and my other baby was missing out on my full love and affection because I couldn't give what I didn't have. My heart was empty and broken. My heart ached. The pain carried through to my weary bones, which were getting more and more brittle as time went on, but I couldn't find the will to nourish my body with food.
"I miss you." Bear mumbled, breaking my thoughts apart like a bolt of lightning searing through an empty sky. I turned my head toward him. It had been treacherous on our relationship. I opened my mouth to tell him that I missed him too, when he spoke again, his words shattered my already beyond repair, heart. "Sage..." The word was almost inaudible, but I heard it. How could I be so stupid to think he had forgoten her, even now that he was married, his son was... I couldn't think that word anymore. It was too hard on my fragile body. I say body because I didn't have a heart anymore. That had been ripped out and stomped on over and over by him and now the gods were punishing me again. Would I ever escape their punishment? It was all my father's fault for tricking Bear into marriage. Any hope I had left, Bear had just killed it. I cried so hard for the rest of the night that my body heaved and my other baby woke from my loud cries, though oblivious to my sleeping husband.
When the morning sun rose and my tear soaked eyes were touched by its burning rays, I squinted harshly, shielding them from the horridity that was morning. When I managed to open them wide enough to look around, I noticed that the boys were gone. I must have fallen asleep somewhere in between crying episodes and morning. That night, my tears fell like rain and I decided that I never wanted to go through a storm like that again. I rolled my feet to the side of the bed and rubbed my face, trying to somehow wipe away the last three months. My hands fell to my side and I looked ahead of me, and that's when I saw it. Just ever so slightly, sticking out from under Bear's bed - we had not shared a bed in some time, was the edge of a leather bound book. I got onto my knees to retrieve it, pulling it from its hidden place. It was brown leather with string wrapped around its middle to keep it shut. I tugged at it, unraveling its contents, until it was out of hiding. I had never seen this book before. Curiously, I turned the pages as secret after secret filled the room.
"That night was one of the darkest nights of my life. I was pulled deep into the ocean and exposed to things I had never dreamed existed." It read. Wide eyed, I read on, "I made a fool of the mer that had tried to save my life." Secret after secret unraveled like my misfortune, but I couldn't stop reading. "Her hair was icey and lush. Her skin was so translucent it was almost purple." Thoughts of my baby lying in the river shot into my mind and I slammed the book shut - tears pouring out again. I heard footsteps and quickly scrambled to my feet to put the book back. "Bodel," Bear's voice came into the tent before he did. "I brought you some food. The other women have been asking about you. They want to know when you will be coming back to help with the chores." His voice was gentle as he sat down next to me, placing the food on my lap and a hand on my back.
My throat started closing at the suggestion that I go back. My tears fell heavy into my food and Bear sighed. "I will leave you to eat." He said, exiting the tent. I sobbed, throwing the food aside. I longed with every fiber of my being, to have a husband that cared about me enough to stay and hold me while I cried away the pain; a husband that wouldn't be asking me when I would be going back to chores after my baby had died. Of everyone, he should understand since he lost his baby too. But, he didn't love me, and a father was never as attached to his children as a mother, for he could always have more, well into his old age, he could remarry or have children to a slave, but me, I would be too old to bare more children, and I carried those two and had attachments to them, more than he could ever understand.
I wiped away my tears and bit my lip. I needed to know what else was in that diary. I flipped it open again, "She had a run in with another Mer. Her skin was darker and her hair was like a lake of fire. Colors of the sea match none that I have ever seen in my entire life. And her father... well that was another story. The hair from his face was a shade of silver that was more vibrant than armor in war and his chest was carved out with muscle... or stone, I can't decide, but a mer's skin is not like ours, I know that for certain. When my icy Mer held me tight to her, her skin was hard like steel but It warmed when I shivered." "Mamma?" a little voice interrupted. I hastily shoved the book underneath me.
"Yes, little one?" I pulled his little body toward me by his hand, pulling him into an embrace.
"What is that?" He tried to pull at the book with his free hand that was by my side.
"It is nothing. What is it?" I asked kindly, pulling his hand away from the book.
"Father asked what you were doing." He looked at me with wide brown eyes that I once found so endearing in his father.
My eyelids hovered over my closed eyes as my anger began to build. "You can tell him that I am doing chores."
"But he is looking for you." Daries persisted.
I pulled myself up, "Run along, I will be behind you." As he left, I tucked the book back under the bed and left the tent.
The entire day as I did chores, I watched Bear and wondered how well I actually knew him. He had so many secrets that I was determined to uncover, page by page, I would begin to know him the way that a wife was supposed to know her husband. As I rung out clothing, visions of mermaids flashed in my mind. And as I washed my son's hair in the river, chiseled mer-kings swam around in my head. Every chance I got to go back to the tent and read more, I did. "When you see a mermaid, with their long nails that follow their slender fingers, and their chests, that sculpt out their midsection in waves, leading to their shimmering tails that would outshine any jewels known to man, you gain an appreciation for the womanly body. But when I say that, I mean that mer are the example of what a woman could be, if a woman were perfect." I choked at the word perfect. If I could sink any lower into my depression, this would have me at a deathly rate. "And their lips... I could not breathe when I witnessed her lips. The only woman on earth that I believe to come close to the unworldly beauty of an immortal beast is Sage." And there it was. The mention of her. The name that I hated more than anything right now. If she was here right now, I would tear her to pieces for stealing my husband's heart; and for most of all, not taking it and claiming it before I could, because now I had to be stuck with a man that would never love me.
I read on, "With every beat of my heart, "Sage, Sage, Sage." The morning sun burned my sleepy squinted eyes. I hate the morning. It reminds me of how I don't have her." The tears ran full flowing as I pushed away the hateful thoughts and stomped back to my chores. Throughout the day, I cried as horrible thoughts rushed in and out in unforgiving waves, just like the ocean he claims to love so much, and the woman he regrets not loving when he had the chance.
