Dawn's Rising

Chapter 19; Two Steps Forward, One Step Back

Though her family was overjoyed and continued to pour out their thanks and praise to God for the miraculous change that only He could have done in Kristina's life, not all who saw her radiant and peace filled countenance rejoiced. A pair of hidden eyes peered at the two sisters as they sat so contentedly together. From her crouching position behind a spruce bush beside her Aunt Katrina's house, Hilde stared with intense hate at the little girl that had become the bane of her existence. How she wished that the horrid little creature in front of her had been left on that distant mountain farm of hers, all alone to rot!

She thought back to the events of two days past when Uncle Karl with a weeping Kristina clutched tightly in his arms had brought her father home to them. When Hilde had run up to him to welcome him home, she had recoiled in horror. He was crying, her strong and capable father was crying! Never had she seen so much as a tear glisten in his eyes and now his cheeks were wet with them! As if he walked in a dream, he passed her by without so much as a glance and sat down heavily on a chair. Immediately his whole family surrounded him as Hilde's mother sat beside him, numb with shock. All color had been drained from her face as she took her husband's hand and pleaded with tears of her own spilling free from her green frightened eyes, "Roger, what has happened?"

After a few moments of deafening silence, her beloved father finally answered in a strange trembling voice choked from weeping, "I killed a boy."

At the collection of shocked gasps, Roger looked over at his wife now with pleading in his eyes as if begging her to understand, "An Indian boy was kneeling beside Kristina with a drawn knife and I thought that he was attacking her. Before I could think, the gun was in my hands and I shot him. But he wasn't attacking Kristina. He was her friend! And I killed him!" A new wave of weeping seized Roger and he doubled over with its intensity where he sat. Hilde's mother leaned over his trembling form and wrapped him with her arms as she tried to comfort him as best as she could. None of them had even noticed when Karl and Kristina quietly left their stricken group to return to their own family. At the sight of their weeping parents and the sound of their father's heart wrenching sobs Hilde and all her gathered siblings also began to weep as well, in their fear and concern for their father.

"It was an accident, my love," Ingrid cried out in her need to console her shaken husband. "You misunderstood the situation and made a mistake. The Lord will forgive you."

"You don't understand. I killed an unbelieving boy and sent him into eternity without God! I robbed him of a chance to get to know Christ and gain eternal life, and now he is condemned to spend eternity in Hell! Because of me!"

Now, as Hilde watched Kristina rest securely in her big sister's lap while she was lovingly tended to, hatred coursed through her veins poisoning her entire being with its bitterness. Oh how she longed to make this foul little thing suffer as she had made her and her father suffer. It wasn't her father's fault that a boy was now dead. It was Kristina's fault. Everything was her fault! How she longed for an opportunity to stick a dagger of misery into Kristina's perfect Miss Goodie heart and twist it to make her writhe in torment!

Suddenly, the sound of shattering crockery rang out from Kristina's home.

"Julianna, help! I dropped the milk pitcher and there is milk everywhere."

At the distressed sound of their mother's voice, Julianna hastily set down the bowl containing a few more bites of porridge on the chair beside her and stood up with Kristina still held in her arms. "I better go and help mother. She is likely trying to do everything with Lukas in her arms. He has been fussing something awful the last few days. You should come in too."

"Can I stay out just a little longer?" Kristina looked up at her sister as both her eyes and voice pleaded to her. "It is so lovely to be outside again after lying in my bed for so long. It is pretty mild too, isn't it? When you are finished cleaning up then I can come inside. Alright?"