Wild Rose (Short Story)

Chapter 6

A stair creaked under my foot as I made my way down.

"Is that you Elisa?" my mother called.

"Yes, mama," I said back.

"Where do you think you're going at this time of mornin?" She asked as I finished my descent.

"To the town hall for the benefit like you ask."

"That doesn't start till ten. Now tell the truth."

"I am really," I tried to look hurt that she didn't believe me, "I am going to help Imogene set up."

My mother looked skeptical, "Is that so? So if I were to ask Caroline where her daughter was, she would say with you?"

"Yes, Frank Hebert's son also asked me to help," I played my cards and prayed.

It worked. Mother got a gin so large on her face she could have swallowed the Mississippi River.

"Well, in that case, hurry on."

I nodded a thanks.

"Isn't that nice dear. Our little girl may just be on her way to marriage," my mother said to daddy.

"Yes, very nice," daddy said opening the newspaper.

Creeping along the riverbank, I searched for Augusta. My view was abstracted by hundreds of roses that covered the bush and petals that blanked river like blood as they were carried away by the river's flow.

I spotted him a few yards downriver sitting on a rock. His eyes locked with mine dark and calling me. He was the one. The one who would finally take me away from this place of false smiles and fiend courtesies.

"You came," Augusta said as I approached.

"I will always come."

He stood up from his spot by the river. "You will?"

Augusta has not moved from where I stood by the river. So I closed the distance between us.

"Yes, take me away from this place. Show the lands you have told me about. I want more out of life than what this town has to offer me."

His hand moved a strand of hair that had fallen in across my face. "Do you see so those roses down there?" He motioned to the low hanging roses over the river.

I nodded.

"You are like those flowers. So full of life and beauty. You deserve better than this."

This was it. I was finally going to free. Truly free. His lips light pressed against mine.

He broke the kiss.

A muttered word.

Then I saw the rock in his hand.

This is where my story ends and my legend beings. It's strange how when you die you lose all rights to the life you lived. It's not your story to tell anymore I suppose. But if you ever see the wild roses that grow down by the river, tell them my story. They all looked so sad as I lay dying among their thorns. Tell them it was not their fault that my fingers bleed. Well, the sun has set, and my time is up, but I am not gone. I still walk those banks trapped by the swirling waters that washed away my blood.