Sweet Satisfaction (Purple UGC Winner 2014)

Sweet Satisfaction - Fifty-Four

Fifty-Four

Looking around the bleak, mosquito-infiltrated room, I could understand why the four girls had seized the opportunity to acquire some liberties. However, I was still angry that they had used my mother’s money for that purpose, and that they had stolen it, when I thought they were my friends. Like Bobby and Susanna, they had stabbed me in the heart, and created this hollowness inside me, this depression which made me question the point of my existence.

I fingered my newly blackened hair forlornly, jumping backwards onto my heels as Ludmilla walked into the room, surveying me icily.

“Get up. The Mantoba awaits us.”

“The what?” I said, scrambling up and hugging myself, trying to protect myself from her, my brother’s murderer. She opened the door further, to a tremendous roar like the one reported outside Trafalgar Square when the war against Germany was officialised last year.

“That.”

*****

“Nombre, años, nationali-” (Name, age, nationali-)

“Elsie Isabella Knowlbodye, seventeen, English,” Ludmilla cut in.

“The defendant can speak for herself.” I squirmed. The other girls and I were ‘on trial’ for apparently dishonouring the law of Katchatchawen the 1st (the present chief being Katchatchawen the 19th.)

We were seated in no ordinary chairs; at the end of the arms were round circles which bolted around our wrists, rather like the stocks back home in England. A great wooden stand was filled with villagers opposite me, and there was a special ‘bench’ for the ‘against y defence committee’ and the judges. Ludmilla stood beside me, her presence making me feel uneasy.

The two Marias and Rain had had their trials in their native languages, so I had no clue what had been said, as Elizabeth’s had been before I had come out of the house. I didn’t even know what I had done, they were the ones who had stolen my purse. If anybody, it should’ve been Ludmilla ‘on trial’, as a murderess.

The manacles sprung open at the turn of a key, and I was hauled out my seat and chained to a post around my neck, which forced me to look at the judge, Katchatchawen, in the eye, so he could tell if I was lying or not. I writhed, looking around me. This was completely insane. What if I was found guilty, what would happen then?

Nausea bubbled in my neck a few minutes later, because the ‘against committee’ had just presented their reasons why I should be hanged at sunset that night.

“I haven’t even done anything!” I screamed, trying to wriggle out of the chain, wriggle away from that crazy village with its crazed people. I turned my head- and saw it; Reaurez’s version of Tyburn Gallows.

My breathing became even faster. This was no barbaric joke; these people truly believed I was guilty of so many stupid things. The danger Ludmilla was going to warn me of would never reach me. I would never see Mother or Mary or John or Bobby or Susanna again. They would tear themselves to pieces when they heard that I had died. I would never get justice for my brother’s death, or see my unborn baby sibling, or have children of my own.

I was sobbing so hard. Sweat slid down my painted face as my body heaved.

“Guilty, my chief.”

There was uproar from the crowd. My heart missed a beat, jaw dropping down. This couldn’t be happening. There must be a reprise, I thought desperately. John would come and save me, surely? Oh John, my darling John, who I had actually learned to love.

The villagers were hissing and booing, and sobbing in tune with me, as the chain was yanked from me and there were men grabbing hold of me and my friends and pushing us through masses of protestors.

“Our Queen, our Queen!” They cried. Claustrophobia had me in its clutches as my lungs gasped for oxygen, and I choked on the smoke. Smoke?

The crowd surged forward, and I caught a glimpse of the Mantoba area on fire. Ludmilla suddenly appeared, and swung me up into her arms.

“Put me down!” I yelled, but she clamped her hand over my mouth. Legs kicking, desperate to live, she ran off with me into the village. I was fighting to breathe, fighting like Benjamin,  and I wondered if she was going to kill me too. My eyes widened; how stupid had I been?

That’s when I realised that she wasn’t going to tell me of the danger I was in. She had already told me, that first night: Natalya had been let out of prison. She was leading me into the danger. Ludmilla was the other danger.