Open Heart {Under Revision}

Chapter 12- In a Handful of Earth

Eight Years Ago...

I was in the moss covered lands of my father's land at Manchester, unable to suppress the heart-wrecking sobs which tore through me. The sky was such a shade of gray that I thought it would bring the world under its shadow of withering light. Not a single bird flew overhead like they used to and even with the frigid greenery before me, I felt myself a traveller in a land destroyed by drought.

As I walked on my feet, feeling the ground perfectly after nearly two years, there was nothing but agony inside me because my head won't stop hurting and neither would my heart. Today, they declared that my freedom was momentarily, and I would soon perish from their failure to keep me steady and breathing.

I heard my mother's voice calling my name,

"Charlotte! Come back to home, now."

Why couldn't she leave me alone?

I searched for the thin, plain-faced steeled woman but instead found my mother's timelessly beautiful visage looking at me with concern.

"You need to come back." She said, taking a step towards me.

I took a step away from her, "No. No...I have to find her. She has to take them back! She has to give them back! I don't want to stand....I can't stand this in MY HEAD!!!!"

Mom's hand latched out and grabbed me, "Charlotte...Charlotte....calm down, calm down..."

"I CAN'T!!! There are voices in my HEAADD!" I screamed, thrashing against her and then, became limp in her arms, falling to the ground with miserable sobs, "She can't leave me like this. She can't leave me with these things...it hurts. It hurts."

My mother dropped down with me, her shoulders shaking, "Why would she ever do this?"

Fine needles of voices stabbed my head and a long high pitched extending whining reverted like a pin dropped on silent room. It was so cruel that I thought my head would burst due to its pressure. And it was not only that, there were other talks too. Talks about life and death and what happened after. And then there was the sound of little fistful of earth, undropped to the ground it was supposed to.

"She wanted to help." I blubbered.

Mother's tone was dead, "She gave you pain."

"Pain erases pain." My tone mirrored hers.

"Not the way you wanted them to be gone."

"They aren't gone. They are still here. I can't see them but I can hear them...echoing and screaming in my head." I said, my knees scraping against little pebbles on the warm-green ground. Manchester was always cold. And cold brought mist. And mist danced over water. I hated that it wasn't cold anymore because there wasn't mist dancing over water.

"I don't know where she went, Charlotte...Dr. Rosenstein." My mother's fingers hesitantly stroked my growing hair which was near neck now, "I am sorry."

Of course. There was nothing else she could say except being sorry because funny, angry and sad people were always sorry. I wanted happy lights in the sky but it was a stupid blend of heated gray, not even allowing the mellow sun to come out. San Diego's skies were the best. They were clear and never forgot to shade their little paintings each day, made differently so that I could remember.

"They all go away.....they all do." I bid back another sob.

"Not you, Charlotte. You cannot. You have to let go of what happened." Mother replied.