A Grim Fairy Tale

Chapter Seventy-One

Charlotte cried the whole time she was carried back to the house and even when she arrived. She just crawled back into bed, pulled the blankets over her, and wept into her pillow. She couldn't help it, there was just so much blood and so many bodies. So many innocent people killed. Was that the world she lived in now? One of death and bloodshed?

Alastor felt awful for her. He couldn't stand to see some many tears stain her face and to hear her voice weeping so much. He wanted to help her, to make those feelings go away, to erase the terror that she had witnessed. She didn't deserve to see anything like that. She was too good, too kind, too innocent.

"Charlotte?" He crept into the room slowly, to check on her. "Charlotte are you alright?"

She could only answer with her tears and cries. He carefully leaned over, his hand softly rubbing her back. It didn't stop her from crying but he couldn't think of anything else to do. 

"I'm sorry Charlotte. So sorry."

"Why?" She finally spoke. "Why?"

"I wish I could say."

With caution, his arms moved around her, to hold her, going at a motion that would give her a chance to pull away if she didn't want him to touch her right now. But she didn't move, so he hugged her.

"But I can say this, I won't let anything like that happen to you. I promise."

He hugged her and stayed with her for a little bit, then he gave her time to herself again. He went into the kitchen and sat down at the table. Millie gave him a cup of hot coffee, fresh off the kettle and he drank it. It was hot, bitter, and black just how he liked it, but it did nothing to change his mood.

"I tried to stop her." Millie said, pouring milk from a pitcher into a cup. "But she was too fast for me. When I finally caught up with her, it was too late."

"Do you think she'll be alright?" Alastor asked her.

"With time, yes. How much time though, I can't say."

"I shouldn't have left. I should have known she'd follow me."

"If it's any consolation dear, she probably would have seen such terrible things sooner or later. We all have to see first hand that evil is real, at some point."

"That doesn't mean she was ready to see it."

"I don't think anyone is. Blitzo  wasn't when he was sold into slavery and then was forced to watch his best friend get killed. And you certainly weren't ready when Striker tried to kill you. But at least Charlotte had the good fortune of witnessing evil as an adult, instead of as a child like you did."

"Yeah but some parts of my trauma, I forgot when I hit my head. Charlotte doesn't have any sudden amnesia to make it all go away. She'll always remember that terrible image, and it'll haunt her for God knows how long."

"It's terrible but all we can do is just be there for her and help her get through it, just as we did for you." She grabbed a kitchen knife and cut an apple into a few slices, which she then mixed in with the porridge she had been cooking on to the stove.

"Millie." Alastor started.

"Yes?"  

"In all the years you've known me, whenever I had one of my nightmares, did I ever mention anything important?"

"Such as?"

"Who my parents were? Where I used to live? Maybe how I ended up looking like this?"

"I'm afraid not. I mean, there were occasions where you would call out for your mother and father in your sleep but you never said their names. You just called them Mama and Papa."