Eva's Sins.

LXXVII

„Life is like a hunting dog: it stubs its fangs into the enemys'throat when they less expect this."

  „I met Audrey more than 40 years ago," Alice Huntington started her story while she and Christine were on a bank that was deeply entering the sea, but which was also high enough to be considered dangerous in case one would have fallen off it, for he wouldn't have only sunk into the water's depths, but also break into pieces, hardly hitting the small rocks seen at the bottom of that hilly and cliffy wall.

  At their feet, bathing from the depths of the sea those rocks seen everywhere around that bank, the tormented sea was acting up, splashing around with foamy water drops, with drops of hatred and of longing, for namely off that bank Audrey Thorn fell about 40 years ago, and the witness of that falling has been a young girl, who barely turned 15.

  „Her huge desire to rule the world and be the queen of everybody killed her eventually," the old lady murmured, staring at the noisy gulls seen floating above the white waves of the sea. „And the worse enemy of her has been the love, for Audrey fell for a forbidden man, someone who wasn't her husband."

  Christine, who was staring at a blind spot at that moment, at the sea that was stretching all over in front of her, said nothing, for even if she knew that her mother vanished somewhere long ago, she had never expected that namely the sea has been her grave eventually, for Audrey Thorn always hated the sea and namely the seawater received her into its arms and covered her body with its soft and cold cloth of water eventually.

  „Yet... I don't understand where from you know all this, Mrs. Huntington," muttered Christine eventually, still staring at the gulls and at their fabulous flight above the foamy water.

  „Because I've been Audrey's friend. Yes... we've been friends," said Alice, barely heard, and a painful sigh came out of her chest. „At least this is what I thought then: that we were friends. But... I understood later that I've been so blind having trust in your mother, who actually destroyed my life eventually, splashing my soul with mud and leaving me broken inside."

  Finally, Christine could take her glance off the gulls and stare at the old lady's face. Thus, she saw Alice's eyes shining because of tears. And she has been so amazed to find out, so suddenly, that her mother had had friends once. „Why?" Christine eventually managed to ask, after minutes in a row of watching in silence the playful game of a strand of hair, pulled from Alice's bun, which was moved back and forth on her forehead by a playful gust of wind that was blowing from the sea. „How could my mother destroy your life, if...?" she suddenly shuddered. „Have ever been part of the „Red Ants?"

  Alice Huntington smiled instead and her sad smile, somehow filled with sins, said a lot of things, even maybe not all true, because... „no, Mrs. Bircham. I've never been part of that devilish organization, even if I had the chance to enter it. Yet: life forced me to accept the hug of the sins and be part of them."

  „To be part of the... sins?" asked Christine confused. „What do you mean?"

  „That I blindly trusted friendship and love. And... my rackless desire of being famous and rich made me accept a pact which I shouldn't have ever accepted."

  „A pact with my mother?"

  „Yes, it's true what you said, for... maybe you don't know this, but I loved once so much. But... the young man who conquered my heart was poor while I was dreaming about fortune and family."

  „Something he couldn't offer you."

  „Exactly. Yet, even so, I was more than prepared to give up on my dream to live in luxury only to have him by my side. But... it was not to be. Thus, Bardain eventually left, leaving me alone with my unfulfilled dreams."