Sins of the Mother | Sunday Short

Happy Sunday

I haven’t posted a short in a while, so I decided to sit down and just write and see what happened. The following is basically the outcome.

Hope you enjoy it 🙂

Also, keep your eyes on this blog. Some big news is coming this week…

---

The waters below beckon but I resist the call to let go. Death is too easy. I deserve to suffer for my sins.

I stride away from the cliff, towards the town that was my birthplace, that has forbidden me to ever return on pain of death. How can I refuse such an offer?

My brothers are the first to see me and they curse my foolishness. They hate me for what I did but they love me too. They don’t want me to die. They convinced the Council to exile me, saved me from execution the first time. I feel a moment’s remorse, but it is not enough to halt my march.

Arman sees me next and his eyes express amazement then glee. He makes for me but my brothers block his way.

“She has returned. Now she must die.”

“She hasn’t crossed the boundary yet,” Jacob, my elder brother, declares.

“Turn back, Rebecca,” my younger brother, Esau, warns me.

I step over the town line, defiant. Arman cheers and calls out: “The Murderess has returned. To death! To death!”

The villagers come. Once friends, once neighbours, they thirst for my blood. I cannot blame them. Two corpses rot beneath the earth because of me. And by no accidental happening. I would be clamouring for blood too.

My brother cannot stop them all and, at last, Arman breaks through. He seizes my wrist and yanks me towards him. “My brother will now be avenged. And my nephew. Bitch.”

I hold my tongue. They will be avenged and my life will end. It will be painful, but then it will be done. And perhaps I will be able to see my husband and son again and beg for their forgiveness. If I had not killed him, the Onslars would have. At least they died quickly. Mine will be a slow death, a necessary punishment.

The first stone hits my head and blood drips from my brow. It will not be the last cast. And they will throw more than stones.

I am dragged to the center of town. Blood oozes from my bands and feet. Somewhere along the way, I lose my robe. Bared naked, my body bears the marks of their hatred.

It takes near four hours. But then it is done.

When I awake next, I am lying in a bed with my husband. He looks to me and smiles.

“Good morning. Good dreams?”

“I can’t remember,” I lie and rise up. Six times, this dream has burdened my mind.

I rush from our room to the nursery. The sight of my sleeping son calms my racing heart. He is less than a year old, but I love him with an infinite depth that cannot be measured in years.

I watch him for a long time to reassure myself that he is not dead, that he is unharmed. I don’t know why I dream as I do, but I know with the greatest dread that something bad is coming.

And I have to stop it.

FIN

May inspiration flow like ink upon your quill,

Faith 

©Faith Rivens. 2016.