Woman Cult

chapter 15

"Please kill me" she says, her eyes a heavy bag of teary sadness.

She was sat at the table, maids serving portions of food, behind her, a buzz of piterring steps with wooden platters of hot curried rice with chunks of poached snails inside.

Everyone was eating, the guests... Or friends because like her mother, they sought to ignore her and indulge themselves in hot peppery pheasant meat and smoky fish porridge soup.

They didn't. They ate and she wailed silently. She kept her head down.

And soon they piled out of the room to the second buffet room of pastries and cheese and baked turkey with soup.

Now it was just her, her... Mother?... And a plate of brown gravy painted onto the pheasant.

"I... Just... " she starts, lethargic and slow, the back of her throat pulsing from holding back hacking teary coughs.

"You going to have to get rid of Lola. She knows too much"

"What... ", the plate of pheasant a blurry brown of spicy goodness, a goodness that would taste like Ashes

"Get rid of her. Use this". Preye puts her hand into her gown and somehow brings out a tiny bottle.

Iman wants to stand up, wants to get away from this table, wants to go to her room and take lola with her.

Everything is moving too fast. Everything is too blurry. She still doesn't know where her twin sisters went. Surely those two would pop out of the ground and laugh in unison and this cruelty that had been shown to her.

Maybe.

She can't. She has to sit down and listen.

"put it in her drink. Her body must be buried today. By the time we leave here, all loose ends must be tied."

How was this woman sitting down here and casually talking about ending the life of somebody else after ending the life of her children that she had raised for 6 years. 

What level of atrociousness would make a woman who was supposed to be seen as a symbol of purity and kindness stoop to such level of wickedness. 

"Please. I'm on my knees. Let me just dump her. What about her parents? " iman begs, catarrh sliding down her nose, the tear bags under her eyes vibrating to release more pathetic moisture.

This is delicious, Preye thinks as she slowly chews the meat, choosing not to pay attention to such a pitiable display of irritating passion for a girl she just met because if she was to take herself into consideration, what was her excuse?
She herself had to take the life of children that she had raised countless times to serve her master.
She did not understand such an exhibition.

"Her parents have been killed. I took care of that and we are not going back to that house. We will be staying here for a while and then you will be left alone"

"Alone. I don't understand" left alone to do what. She just saw death. She just saw a dark side of her caregiver. She wasn't even allowed to breath and yet more news was being thrust upon her.

"Let me make it quick. I will teach you everything you need to know which isn't much and then you will be left alone while I finally go. No more me staying with you. You will be left alone."
Which to preye was an added bonus, the joys of motherhood was a tiring ordeal that she did not want to partake in any more.

So she would be taught the dirty magic and then her mother would retire... which means she would be left in the house to grow by herself.

After taking the life of the only reason she was so happy to draw breath, another life would be taken too.

"Don't worry. She will die quick"

Die! Why would...

The door opens and in sidles the plumpy beauty that was her girlfriend.

Speak of the devil and they will arrive in an oversized shirt and sleepy eyes.

"Good afternoon ma'am. Iman."
Lola says. She notices the taut strain in her lovers face. The food looked scrumptious, but it seems it wasn't tasty enough to lift the dour mood in this room.

She sits down after she serves herself.

A sickeningly slow five minutes of dainty smacking and a voice...a cold voice that tolerated no arguments or explanations says...

"Give Lola her drink so we can eat properly"

Drink! Mother! She says with her eyes, please! Please!

Her mother replies with a cold look. A frigid glance that bore no room for disobedience.

In the bitter acceptance of her dire fate, she passes the small pink tumbler... Lola's favorite cup that they had packed together.

The only time she looks at Lola is when she signs her death warrant. She never looks again.

She didn't want to look.

She didn't want to hear

But she did hear. The gurgling sound of a throat quickly swelling in accordance with the substance.

She did hear the clattering of the plates to the floor as she falls to her knees in hopes of a solution.

The little girl crawls on the white tile floors with carmine liquid flowing out her nose at the shock...the petrification of her lungs at the turgid kiss of the fluent bane inside her.

Then raising her head to look at her lover, a woman sat with her face awash in anguish, the girl looks at her, both of them holding a tortured gaze. Lola, her life drifting out her nostrils, iman watching, an unwilling spectator.

Lola tries to get up. The only time she does is when her nimble feet gives way at the weight of her struggling to live and then she falls and she doesn't get up

And neither does iman.

Nobody gets up.

Nobody.