Mysterious Beasts of Crimson Origins

Chapter Eight

January 11, 1877

Everything is gone. The house I was born and raised in is now ashes and dust. Lorriana and Father won't speak to me or each other. The Wedding is gone, and Armaund probably thinks me dead. All the memories, all the years that we lived in Belgium. America, they say, is a place of opportunity, of hope. I know too well that is it just a place to hide.

A week ago, Lorriana was found suckling to an infant's neck like a leech. She always proclaimed that the younger they were, the sweeter they tasted. The baby let out a mere shriek and the Mother came running.  Lori couldn't make it out in time. Luckily, she ran away before they could do anything to her, but it was too late. They'd already got a good luck her face. We were done for.

A few hours passed and they were already at the door, shouting and screaming profanities and ordering us to leave the house, or they will burn it to the ground. We would not die, for Father wouldn't allow it. As soon as Lori came home we packed what we needed and planned our escape. We would leave through the garden in the back and run through the forest until we found the nearby seaport. We would fetch ourselves a boat and and wherever it landed, we would hide.

 Our cabin smells of mold and bad gin, and it makes me only more homesick. How funny, how I didn't realize what I had until it was gone. The other families on this ship are small and young and so very hopeful and happy but are incredibly poor, at least compared to us. Or compared to what we used to be. The sailors are rude and they love their alcohol. They stink up the place, but we must live with them. It is their ship, after all. Most of them are not young at all, in fact, I think one is the same age as me. What a life it would be to live at sea, with no restrictions. I think they’d laugh at me, if I asked to join. A life of adventure and recklessness is no place for a woman.