These Streaks of Blood

33

"Joyce," her mother sighs as she enters the tent.  

Joyce feels tears prickle her eyes. She runs at her mother, embracing her probably more forcefully than she should have in her weak state.  

"Mom," she whimpers. She hears Hillie sniffling behind her.

Her mother looks awful; her hair gray, wispy; her form so thin that it's a wonder she is still alive. She looks like a skeleton, a haunted ghost of the strong woman she once was; the woman that raised Joyce and Jonah, who did not have nearly enough time with Hillie as she should have.

Lucy reaches out a shaky hand and pushes Joyce's hair back from her face. "It's all okay, sweetheart. It's going to be fine."

Joyce feels rage rise up in her like a tide. "No, it's not okay. What happened to you, mom? We thought you were killed in that raid--"

Lucy shakes her head quickly. "I wasn't, clearly. And I don't think I want to talk about this right now, Joyce. I haven't seen you in... God, how long has it been?" she asks, her voice filling with horror.

Joyce pushes her lips together to hold back a strangled sound. "You've been gone since Hillie was a baby. So, around eighteen years," she states weakly.

Lucy blinks slowly. "So long..." she whispers, and her expression grows blank, unresponsive. Joyce shakes her shoulder, calls out her name a few more times, but her mother is lost in her thoughts.

Joyce fears that she will never be the same.

Just then, Jonah comes bursting into the tent, his ax slung across his back, safely nestled in his homemade leather sheath. His gaze lights up when he sees Lucy and notices her mouth moving, but abruptly dims again when he doesn't hear the words she's saying.

"Mom?" he asks, walking forward. Lucy blinks and turns in his direction. Clarity returns in a harrowing rush.

"Jonah?" she breathes, and a moment later, extends her arms. "Oh, my baby boy..."

Jonah swallows hard as he walks into her arms, giving her an awkward pat on the back. Joyce understands how he's feeling; confused, tormented, angry. Someone did this to their mother. The monster she was screaming about; he made her like this.  

"Mom, please," begs Joyce, and Lucy turns to face her again. "You have to tell us where you've been. We deserve to know!"

Lucy looks at her two oldest children in agony, and she opens her mouth to speak... but only a sob comes out. She raises a finger and points somewhere behind them. Joyce whips around, but sees nothing but Hillie-- Oh.

"Is that... are you..." Lucy stammers, her pale eyes wide. Joyce frowns, looking upon her face. Her mother used to be beautiful, and now she is just a shell. Her eyes used to be hazel, a comforting mix of green and gold... but it's as if the years have stripped the color from them. Stress, that's what all of this is. Stress, pain, bad living conditions. Joyce intends to figure out just what her mother has been through, and by whose hand.

Hillie steps forward, eyes locked on the mother she was deprived of in her childhood, her adolescence. "Yes," she says, answering Lucy's unfinished question. "I'm Hillie. Hi, mom."

For a long while, they can't get anything else out of their mother. She's hysterical, every word she tries to utter overwhelmed by her sobs. She rocks Hillie back and forth, most likely imagining her youngest daughter the only way she had known her; as a baby, a simple child without the capacity to understand anything around her. All of her children put up with it for a while, not wanting to break their mother out of her fantasy too quickly, afraid of how she would cope. But eventually, Joyce grows impatient. She always has been the most impulsive of the three.