The Hanging Tree

Chapter 7: Strung Up

The thunder rolled through the air as the dark, grey clouds swirled in the sky. There is a unnatural chill in the air and the rain is coming down in sheets. The world seemed to know what was happening, it is reflecting my mood as well as everyone around me. I looked around at the black mass gathered around the large hole in the ground where my mother rested in her shabby casket. I wish we had been able to afford something nicer for her. 

Everyone had shown up in the traditional dark colors, but I had dressed myself and my siblings in the brightest clothes that we owned, remembering how much my mother had loved color. I had told myself that I wouldn't cry, that she wouldn't have wanted it that way, but I couldn't stop the tears that now flowed freely down my face as I held my little brother who didn't quite understand what was happening. He had seen his mother, dead, lifeless on the floor, but he didn't understand death, or the she would never come back to us. He had grown used to her episodes when she would shut down on us, but he had never had to learn to live without her as I had. My sister, being a few years older, was sobbing into my fathers pant leg as she gripped him for support. She, at least, understood the finality of it all. My father didn't cry. He just stood still, looking down into the grave with a steely expression, staring with such intensity it was as if he believed he could bring my mother back just by focusing on her with all his might.

Things had changed for us that night. The night she died I understood that I hadn't just lost my mother, I had lost my father as well. No matter how much he tried to comfort me by telling me that it truly wasn't my fault, I knew he would always look at me as the cause of his wife's death, the true killer of the person he loved most in this world, and I couldn't blame him. I felt the same. It may have not been my bullet that stopped her heart, but it had been my actions that had brought it to her chest, and I, nor he, would never forget that.

To my surprise, Builder, Gizmo's avox, had been allowed to come. Perhaps because she had met my mother a few times when we had come for dinner. Most people I recognized, and had known that they would come to say good-bye, Gizmo and his family included, but there were few I couldn't place. But I couldn't feel properly curious as to who they were. I don't think I'll ever be able to feel anything other than this deep sadness and terrible guilt... 

With a flash of lightning and the crash of thunder they threw the first shovel of dirt onto the casket. After a few minutes of heavy labor they poured the last grains of soil onto the mound they had created and slapped the shovel heads on top to flatten it out. Having the grave completed made everything seem impossibly more real. The anguish tripled inside me and it threatened to take over again but I was determined to stay strong for my brother and sister. 

 Gizmo came over to where I was standing, still staring at the freshly lain earth. He took my free hand and said, "Har... I'm so sorry." He must really feel bad for me, using my old nickname from when he was too small to fully pronounce 'Harvester'. "It's not your fault," I said quietly, my voice thick with the tears that I was now attempting to hold back. "It's not yours either," He said firmly. He put his other hand under my chin and forced me to look him in the eye. Something I hadn't done in the last week since my mother's death. "Harvester, I'm serious," he said fiercely, "it's not your fault. She didn't have to go running around in the street and shouting, knowing what kind of attention that would bring on her."

I put my brother down and told him to go stand with Sorter and my father, who was now busy thanking everyone for coming to pay their respects. He took off a little unsteadily, having not had to stand much on his own today, but made it to hold Sorters hand for support nonetheless.

I turned my attention back to Gizmo who was patiently waiting for me to focus on him. "Look, I know she didn't have to come looking for me, but she was out of her mind worried. It's all my fault and nothing anyone says can change that. I killed my own mother," I said coldly. He considered what I had said for a moment, looking around at the well-wishers.