Don't go through life, grow through life...
4 summers ago...
Quarrels were commonplace in the farm house. Neyaa would cover her ears and hide beneath the covers of her tiny bed in the attic and recite the names of all of the mearas she had ever known until sleep brought forth sanctity.
It was a morning like any other really. She padded towards the kitchen in her bare feet to help her mother prepare breakfast. Only this morning her mother was not there. The silence in the house was ominous. It was as if she knew already some terrible discovery loomed as she pushed open the door of her mothers bedroom.
The only sound to challenge the silence was the creaking of the hinges. Her Mother lay upon the bed bathed in a beam of light that streamed in through the window as if it were a ladder. Neyaa actually felt moment of relief and smiled, foolish girl Mama was merely sleeping! A child in her fifteenth year could be forgiven for thinking such thoughts, but alas as she ventured closer her earlier suspicion that something was amiss was soon realized. Her mother was not sleeping of course, her eyes were wide open, with neither peace nor life present in them.
Her toes kicked a pillow that lay on the floor interrupting her footsteps, causing her to look down for a moment. She lifted her blue eyes once again to look upon her mother, awash with confusion and denial. At that very moment she felt as if the world was completely empty. What would she do? Her mother was her north, east, south and west, her sun, her moon, her right and wrong, her comfort, her joy, her protector and her guide. Neyaa was lost, alone and arrested by shock. She reached out to her mother and eased her eyelids over her vacuous eyes, she did not like them staring. She then kissed her cold, pale, lifeless cheek and picked up the pillow from the floor and placed it gently beneath her head and whispered “rest now Mama, worry not, I will be brave, I will not cry”.
The sun had snatched back the stream of light that had shone through the window earlier, yet Neyaa still sat there watching over her mother in silence. She had kept her promise and not shed a single tear.
She felt his familiar lecherous gaze linger upon her, sensing the evil that stood within the doorway long before the stench of mead filtered into the room. She did not turn, even when she heard him stumble clumsily into the room. He placed his clammy hand, heavy upon her shoulder and squeezed it. She felt his breath crawling over her neck as he delivered his callous comment in his usual greasy voice “Your mother passed in the night lass, there is no more that can be done for her”. Neyaa shrank from his touch. Henliff looked upon his wife's body without a care. Neyaa cast his hand from her shoulder and turned and faced him with a look of disdain “you will not touch her” she ordered, her voice defiant and hateful. Henliff replied with a violent back hand swipe to Neyaa's face that sent her reeling backwards. His words were as unkind in death as they had been in life towards his wife. His ire was raised further when he could not remove her wedding ring. Neyaa could only look on in horror as he tried to wrench the ring from her finger. There was an inhumane crack of bone yet the ring would not yield. Neyaa rushed towards him grabbing his arm in a desperate attempt to force him off her “You will not touch her” she demanded once more. All attempts to stop him were futile, he measured out blow upon blow until she was knocked to the floor. To Neyaa's repugnance he then took his dagger from his belt and hacked through her mothers finger without remorse, took the ring and flung the bloodied finger in Neyaa's direction. He moved quickly towards her and seized her by her hair, dragging her violently towards her room kicking and screaming before pushing her inside and locking the door behind her.
Neyaa pummeled the door, and pleaded for her freedom to no avail. Eventually heavy from despair and defeat she sank to the floor in the corner of the room, drew her knees up unto her chin, cradled her legs and began whispering the names of the mearas.
Neyaa kept her promise to her mother, she did not cry, but she was so sorry and very ashamed that she could not keep her promise not to be frightened.
