Erlebnisse

And

Yeah, yeah, this chappie ain't finished yet, cool your jets. Hopefully I'll finish it...one....day...

Flames dancing before her, my mother glares at our burning home and I wonder if she did not herself set the house ablaze. Only when I stand a couple feet away from the wreckage does she turn my direction. With a glance down at her sooty hands, she empties the contents into my palms: a few carving tools, her current albeit slightly charred work in progress, and my father's box of autumn leaves.

"He would hardly forgive me if I let them burn. I can hear him chiding me even now."

My mother's calm demeanor makes absolutely no sense. Sea-green eyes distantly take in the scene before her; I can hear the tornado swirling beneath her skin, but her face reflects nothing. Is her entire life not crumbling to the ground before us?

"Mother! Did they hurt you? They did this, right? The soldiers?"

"It's been weeks now. Yes, they came, thought simply because Gidred is gone that they can take away our home. We still live here, do we not? And where is your father? He would surely have several vulgar words for those miscreants had he returned by now." The tears fight to roll down her ashen cheeks, but she does not let them.

"Someone took him away, mother. He did not leave; you remember that, don't you?" I go to hug her, remind her that she still has a daughter. Instead, she steps back and looks at me as if sensing my actions mere minutes ago. Her brows lean together to support the puzzlement in her face.

"You want to mourn, is that it? You think now seems as good a time as ever to pour over our problems and weep and embrace? The backeré is closed; my husband, your father, is missing; and now our house has left us too. We have no time to waste, child; we ought to be on our way to find whatever ditch Gidred has fallen into now. Stand up straight, Missie. Life has no time for bellyachers." And sharp as you please, my strong-as-an-ox mother marches down the hill towards Bren Matthews.