Ancient Wounds Pt2
I can cast my mind back to a few months ago, where I crouch with you by the fire and you’re bawling your precious heart out. I hold your head to my shoulder and whispering in your ear that things are not as terrible as you are screaming them out to be.
“They know about me!” you sob nails grazing my back as you hold onto me as if for the very breath within you “they will find us”
I lace your hand with mine and bring your sight to my own, thumbing the tears that flow in unforgiving streams away from your beautiful face. My bam, my love, you are so young and the weight of your early years with me takes a heavy and costly toll upon your fragile and careless mind. How deeply I adore you.
“Bam, look at me” I hush you a kind smile warming my otherwise cold visage “Never will they touch you, never will I allow any harm to befall you, my angel…my love..”
It was there that I held you and cared for you through the shadowy confines of that unsettled night, keeping you close to me at all times, as if you would vanish from me should my gaze drift from you for but one single moment. Understand my darling, that I am no fool, I know full well how hurtful men can be. They seek out the different and wish to weed them from the garden of their perfect world, just like they had with my mother…
……….
It was around the mark of my twelfth year whence all began to shift around us. My best friend Dyre and I had been exploring the new fallen snow one winter afternoon, when another of the boys in our town had joined us baring tidings of some upset.
“I had heard cries from around your house, Ville” the young boy, Mikko, had spoken “there is a commotion and I think it best you return at once”
It was with a great deal of worry that I did so, and in my haste I had tripped several times across the icy ground and scrapped my threadbare knees for the awful wonder of what could be conspiring around my house. Sure enough as I skidded my way about and around the dirt paths near my home, and under the cattle gate that was very much broken, I witnessed a number of people outside my door.
“My son has been speaking of witchcraft!” called one burly man, whom I knew to be a fisherman of the downwards Oulu river at my father who was defensive in our doorway. I gathered mother to be somewhere by the hearth with Jesse safer within.
“As has ours! They sing in the fields and conjure devils!” a woman in a grey dress and apron scorned waving an accusing finger at my father “It is your boy who has brought this upon us all, our children are falling ill because of him!”
I watched from the old cattle gate in entwined feelings of bemusement and worry as my father cursed them and stepped out into the crisp air to confront the rabble of our neighbours.
“Away with all of you!” he sneered spitting at the fisherman “my boy has not been influencing your own, Ville knows not to speak of devils!”
Once the unruly mob had departed from around my cottage some time thereafter I took up the courage to go inside, as I past the threshold I merely looked up at my father and gave him a half hearted, all be it sincere smile. It was not until some time quite later when we were all gathered round our humble oak table for supper, that the matter was continued in my presence.
“Ville,” my father had muttered as if it were to be kept secret from all other ears but my own “have you been speaking evil in the fields with the other boys?”
I was taken almost off guard by this subtly seeming yet profound question, so much so that I choked a little on the slither of meat I had been in the mist of consuming previous.
“No papa,” I admitted in all honesty, my eyes filling up with the heat of tears at the insinuation that I was the cause of my fathers grief. My small fingers whitened under the tightening grip I held on my knife, as if crushing it with my young hands would dismiss the conversation in wake of another interest. Although my eyes were now focussed on the floor under the table, I took note that my mother-who had been tending Jesse up until this point-was now biting her bottom lip and looking toward my father. After a few minutes silence between us four, save Jesse, she spoke-
“Son,” she instructed simply and soft “take your brother and put him to bed, stay with him until I come fetch you, please”
I was uncertain as to why she wished me to do such a task at the time, but all the same I obeyed, for I did not wish to cause anymore trouble.
Taking Jesse up from my mothers arms and into the small, bare room of our bedchambers and closing the thin creaking door behind me, I waited patiently. When my brother was to bed, I crouched down by the door, resting on the uneven doorstep and listened to the conversation now being initiated in our kitchen. I took keen interest in the way they paced up and down as they spoke, and how they took care to keep hushed, for I could see them now from under the door through the dust.
“Kari don’t be harsh with Ville, please..” mother pleaded.
“Silence woman, do not think for one instant that this was not your doing!” shouted my father suddenly slamming his fist down against the table, at which I flinched behind my hiding place “do you forget it was for the same accusations we found ourselves coming here in the first place? You will sing to the boy no more Anita, he is not far off a man now and should conduct himself in such a manor befitting”
My mother sighed and I saw now that she had been crying quietly. She came closer to my father and placed her hand upon his shoulder in reprieve, to which he softened and took her hands.
“Wife,” my father breathed as if regretting the harshness in which he had scolded her “I ask this of you for the boys, for if it weren’t for your skills I fear that we would not have been blessed with either of them. Be loyal to your boys Anita, keep them safe, sing to them no more I beg of you”
“As you wish” she nodded.
It was now apparent to me, as I lay in bed that night listening to the family of owls that took residence outside our window, that it was unwise to take anything away from the hearth lessons with my mother to the fields. I needn’t have thought so, for after that night there were no more hearth lessons, or stories, or songs, or drawings. Not ever again.
------<3
Hope you enjoyed :p posting really brightens a miserable day xx
“They know about me!” you sob nails grazing my back as you hold onto me as if for the very breath within you “they will find us”
I lace your hand with mine and bring your sight to my own, thumbing the tears that flow in unforgiving streams away from your beautiful face. My bam, my love, you are so young and the weight of your early years with me takes a heavy and costly toll upon your fragile and careless mind. How deeply I adore you.
“Bam, look at me” I hush you a kind smile warming my otherwise cold visage “Never will they touch you, never will I allow any harm to befall you, my angel…my love..”
It was there that I held you and cared for you through the shadowy confines of that unsettled night, keeping you close to me at all times, as if you would vanish from me should my gaze drift from you for but one single moment. Understand my darling, that I am no fool, I know full well how hurtful men can be. They seek out the different and wish to weed them from the garden of their perfect world, just like they had with my mother…
……….
It was around the mark of my twelfth year whence all began to shift around us. My best friend Dyre and I had been exploring the new fallen snow one winter afternoon, when another of the boys in our town had joined us baring tidings of some upset.
“I had heard cries from around your house, Ville” the young boy, Mikko, had spoken “there is a commotion and I think it best you return at once”
It was with a great deal of worry that I did so, and in my haste I had tripped several times across the icy ground and scrapped my threadbare knees for the awful wonder of what could be conspiring around my house. Sure enough as I skidded my way about and around the dirt paths near my home, and under the cattle gate that was very much broken, I witnessed a number of people outside my door.
“My son has been speaking of witchcraft!” called one burly man, whom I knew to be a fisherman of the downwards Oulu river at my father who was defensive in our doorway. I gathered mother to be somewhere by the hearth with Jesse safer within.
“As has ours! They sing in the fields and conjure devils!” a woman in a grey dress and apron scorned waving an accusing finger at my father “It is your boy who has brought this upon us all, our children are falling ill because of him!”
I watched from the old cattle gate in entwined feelings of bemusement and worry as my father cursed them and stepped out into the crisp air to confront the rabble of our neighbours.
“Away with all of you!” he sneered spitting at the fisherman “my boy has not been influencing your own, Ville knows not to speak of devils!”
Once the unruly mob had departed from around my cottage some time thereafter I took up the courage to go inside, as I past the threshold I merely looked up at my father and gave him a half hearted, all be it sincere smile. It was not until some time quite later when we were all gathered round our humble oak table for supper, that the matter was continued in my presence.
“Ville,” my father had muttered as if it were to be kept secret from all other ears but my own “have you been speaking evil in the fields with the other boys?”
I was taken almost off guard by this subtly seeming yet profound question, so much so that I choked a little on the slither of meat I had been in the mist of consuming previous.
“No papa,” I admitted in all honesty, my eyes filling up with the heat of tears at the insinuation that I was the cause of my fathers grief. My small fingers whitened under the tightening grip I held on my knife, as if crushing it with my young hands would dismiss the conversation in wake of another interest. Although my eyes were now focussed on the floor under the table, I took note that my mother-who had been tending Jesse up until this point-was now biting her bottom lip and looking toward my father. After a few minutes silence between us four, save Jesse, she spoke-
“Son,” she instructed simply and soft “take your brother and put him to bed, stay with him until I come fetch you, please”
I was uncertain as to why she wished me to do such a task at the time, but all the same I obeyed, for I did not wish to cause anymore trouble.
Taking Jesse up from my mothers arms and into the small, bare room of our bedchambers and closing the thin creaking door behind me, I waited patiently. When my brother was to bed, I crouched down by the door, resting on the uneven doorstep and listened to the conversation now being initiated in our kitchen. I took keen interest in the way they paced up and down as they spoke, and how they took care to keep hushed, for I could see them now from under the door through the dust.
“Kari don’t be harsh with Ville, please..” mother pleaded.
“Silence woman, do not think for one instant that this was not your doing!” shouted my father suddenly slamming his fist down against the table, at which I flinched behind my hiding place “do you forget it was for the same accusations we found ourselves coming here in the first place? You will sing to the boy no more Anita, he is not far off a man now and should conduct himself in such a manor befitting”
My mother sighed and I saw now that she had been crying quietly. She came closer to my father and placed her hand upon his shoulder in reprieve, to which he softened and took her hands.
“Wife,” my father breathed as if regretting the harshness in which he had scolded her “I ask this of you for the boys, for if it weren’t for your skills I fear that we would not have been blessed with either of them. Be loyal to your boys Anita, keep them safe, sing to them no more I beg of you”
“As you wish” she nodded.
It was now apparent to me, as I lay in bed that night listening to the family of owls that took residence outside our window, that it was unwise to take anything away from the hearth lessons with my mother to the fields. I needn’t have thought so, for after that night there were no more hearth lessons, or stories, or songs, or drawings. Not ever again.
------<3
Hope you enjoyed :p posting really brightens a miserable day xx