Unexpected Earth

Chapter One - A Mother's Love

"Hello?"

A child's voice cried out in the cold forested rain. "Is there anybody out there? I need help", the child squeaked and coughed once more. Thunder crashed and rumbled as a little old woman could be seen outside tending to the few cattle she had. "Who's there?" she asked with a shaken voice. She looked around curiously and went back to brushing a cow off. "I'm bleeding out and I'm lost, please help me", the voice called out to her. "I need you to come closer, I'm stuck", the child cried out again and this time it pained the woman to ignore it. The lady slowly walked toward the edge of the woods with an empty pail and a walking stick. "Where are you, little one? If you seek help, I am here", she replies. A someone crawled out of the brush to the edge of the field. "You're not a child!" The woman gasps out. "You poor dear. A young lady like you shouldn't be out wandering. Tell me, what's happened to you?!" The girl had gotten up and staggered over to a tree, revealing that she had been caught in vines and had appeared to have a gunshot wound both on her side and her shoulder. The tear in the shoulder had been opened up so wide that it showed tissue and bone. The old woman carried the girl to her home in a wagon.

As the two arrived to the home of the old woman, the girl was still conscious and surprisingly alive. The old woman placed the girl on the ground while sweat and blood from the girl ran down her arms. "That's ghastly, idn't?" the lady says as she prepares a warm wash rag. The woman dabbed the girl's wounds and sewn the tears back together with a thick needle and thread. "This may not do much, darling, but it'll do for now. Try not to move at all."

"What's your name? Mine's Edna," the old lady tries to start small talk. "Name's Carol Apostol, I'm from-" Carol went silent. "I-I don't know where I'm from..." she continued. "All I remember was running from a couple of boys and falling straight down a bank after feeling a sudden shock of pain. That's when I met you and your cattle". Edna looked at Carol and had a look of wonder drawn on her face. Carol's half-naked body laid still on the hard wooden floor as it was still storming. Edna had wrapped Carol in some bandages and gave her some soup. The two sat in front of the fireplace and calmly continued conversation. "I do remember this", Carol pulled a chain necklace from her pocket. It had a small bone attached to it and it was burning hot. "Nobody can touch it except for me. I had a curse put over me supposedly and then I ran before I was gonna be killed," Carol said quietly. She hugged onto Edna, "Thank you for that, I really needed the help." Edna hugged back and proceeded to sit silently, holding back a smile and tears, as she had been widowed and lonely for years on end. It felt like a billion years of pain, fear and loneliness, until now. Now she had Carol to spend her time with.

She wasn't alone anymore.

Twelve years later, was 16 and Carol had turned twenty-eight. She was always so busy caring for Edna's cattle and learning to clean certain things such as washing the floors and the slaughter rack where they'd kill off cows and use their meat for their food supply. Edna had turned sixty-four and she was getting weaker and weaker. Carol and Edna had a special mother-daughter bond. Edna loved Carol as her own because she wasn't able to have a child. Her husband, who had died when she was seventeen, was buried beneath a great oak tree in the far side of the meadow that she owned. Carol left flowers where his head lay every season.

Carol was an orphan from the town miles away. Nobody wanted to care for her and not a one person knew anybody in relation to Carol. It was like she came out of nowhere, an outcast from the start. She joined boys' gangs and started leading them to robbery, gangbangs, and they'd occasionally steal from the adults of the town. She was never caught until 1661, when a couple of young men had hunted her like an animal. Carol was accused of using black magic and it led to becoming serious enough to where she had threats directed toward her. Never has Carol felt this kind of love from a woman such as Edna. Carol would do anything for her.