Avarice | Sample 10 Chapters

A v a r i c e | T w o

T w o

❝A woman hears feet crunching;

she sees a young lady hunching.❞

MY GRANDMOTHER LILITH LIVED DEEP IN the forest beside the outskirts of our town. It was peculiar that she didn't live with us, but Mother had always told me Grandmother Lilith didn't want to intrude on our large eight-person family. After my older siblings had left the household due to marriage or apprenticeship, I'd asked my mother again why Grandmother Lilith didn't stay with us.

Mother's answer was a simple: "Your grandmother does not wish to live with us."

I would never understand why. Our home was much larger than Grandmother Lilith's small cabin. After all, our home had once carried eight people in it at once. It would be a lot easier on Grandmother Lilith if she stayed with us, but for some odd reason she wouldn't and now whenever I brought it up Mother would glare at me until the subject was changed.

Lilith had constructed a pathway to her cabin in her early days. My family and I were some of the only people that knew about this path, along with Lydia.

Thinking about Lydia had me upset again.

I understood why my mother was as upset as she was. Lydia was just as much of a daughter to her as I was. In fact, Lydia was probably better. Unlike me, my mother only really got to see Lydia's wonderful sides and hear about her from afar. Lydia grew up with my family. My father wasn't really around, so he didn't get to love Lydia like the rest of us.

Sighing, I hunched over, placing my hands on my knees so I could collect myself. I didn't mind doing this chore, even after learning about Lydia's death. Whenever I was depressed about something, as Lydia would know, I needed to take a walk or run errands so my mind could stray from topic to topic and not always settle on what was upsetting me.

I'd never had to deal with this kind of impacting death, though.

I squeezed my eyes shut, bidding the tears to find their way back. Mother had always told me that crying was the best medicine for sadness, but Lydia would always contradict her and say that crying was meant for the weak.

I didn't know who to believe now, but I chose Lydia's side for now.

I let out a shaky breath before pushing myself up into a stand and opening my eyes again.

Autumn was upon us. It was my favorite season, though if asked I would say spring to give off a brighter façade. Or perhaps I would say spring because that was what Lydia would say. At least Lydia had always been honest.

The fall was simply beautiful.

Compared to the spring, Autumn was completely the opposite. Spring was rebirth, being born again and starting out fresh, whereas Autumn was senescence and fading into death. But there was something so tragically beautiful about this slow death that drew me in.

The cold wasn't quite to the point of freezing, but something more than casual clothing was needed. The leaves transformed from their usual green to all different shades, ranging from orange to yellow and even red on occasions. The trees' bark seemed to darken its color from brown to something a bit more ashen.

This was how the forest looked right now, decorated with all sorts of colors. It was stunning.

Grandmother Lilith was strange, as my father put kindly. She didn't want her grandchildren calling her "grandmother" and preferred the very formal "Lilith". This wasn't such a big deal; I knew of many people that had their own children call them by their first name. This was just the beginning of how different she was.