100 Things 18/100: Loving and Giving
Title: Loving and Giving
Fandom: Original Fiction
Series: Monday’s Child
Rating: Gen
Word Count: 1,203
Prompt: Dark Bingo Fill: “Deprogramming”
also for Love Bingo Fill: “Polygamy”
Mondays child is fair of face,
Tuesdays child is full of grace,
Wednesdays child is full of woe,
Thursdays child has far to go,
Fridays child is loving and giving,
Saturdays child works hard for his living,
And the child that is born on the Sabbath day
Is bonny and blithe, and good and gay.
Before moving to the ranch, Spring’s life had been empty and pointless and lonely. There had been no love in the house she had run away from, only hurt. When she found Jack Lundi and the family, everything had changed.
Her talent in the kitchen was appreciated by her sisters and brothers. The meals she cooked were enjoyed and complimented. She poured love into everything she made, and it was accepted.
Her love was reciprocated. Her sisters and brothers shared their talents and handicrafts and skills with her. Ben built her a pot rack for the kitchen. Just as it started to get chilly at night Ellen presented her with a blanket she had crocheted. The children made her gifts during their art class.
Jack’s love was the best. He was not hurtful; he treated her gently and touched her softly. He spoke kindly to her and paid attention to her. He cared for Spring in a way no one else had. It had been Jack that had gifted her with her new name, to symbolize her new life with their family, as one of his wives. Her sister-wives were Summer, Winter and Auntumn. Their old names were never spoken upon the grounds of the ranch.
Spring was happy. For three years, she lived with her chosen family, worshiped with them, worked with them, played with them. She shared everything she had within her with her brothers, sisters, sister-wives and Jack.
Then the men with guns had come to the ranch. The hurtful outside world had invaded the place where Spring had walked safely and been part of a family. She kicked and screamed as a man in a uniform carried her away from her kitchen, away from her happy life. Her last glimpse of Jack was when the men with guns had surrounded him as he held little Jeremiah in his arms, Winter huddled behind his back. Then she had been pushed into a car and driven away from the ranch, along with three of the children, River, Hester and Summer’s little girl Lily. They arrived at the big brick building in the city, after a very long car ride. The children were taken away. It was the last time she had seen any of her brothers or sisters.
She was taken to a small room and asked a lot of questions by people wearing suits with badges pinned to them. At first she refused to talk to them because they kept calling her Natalie, her name from the life before the ranch, but then they made threats and she was so frightened that she answered their questions.
After she had spoken to them the first time, they let her shower and gave her a t-shirt and sweatpants to put on, along with a pair of slippers. They took away her clothing in a big clear plastic bag.
Spring was taken to a room that had only a bed and a small table and chair in it. There were no decorations and the window had a grille over it. There was a small stack of paperback books on the table. When the door closed behind her, she heard it lock. She had been instructed to knock at the door if she needed to use the bathroom and that a matron would come and take her.
Exhausted, she curled up under the blanket and slept. The bed was surprisingly comfortable, softer than the one she had at the ranch. When she woke, the guard answered her knock and she returned to the Sleeping Room to find a tray on the table. A carton of juice, another of milk, a bottle of water and a container of oat-circles cereal and an orange; it was her breakfast.
After she ate, she prayed. Then she napped. She ate the sandwich and pretzels that were waiting when she woke. Then she prayed again. After she prayed, she was bored, so she picked up a paperback and started to read. It was science fiction, so it kept her mind occupied until a woman came and took her back to the Question Room.
It was different this time. They did not ask her questions. Instead, they said dreadful things about her family and her sister-wives. The woman in the suit told her that she had been brainwashed by Jack and the others. Spring tried to protest that it wasn’t true, but they kept saying bad things, making up lies about Jack and the other leaders from the ranch. It made Spring angry, and when they called her Natalie again, she screamed at them that her name was spring, and jumped up from her chair.
She was taken back to the Sleeping Room and left there. Her prayers calmed her and made the rest of the afternoon pass quickly. A nap burned off the time until the barely palatable dinner tray came. All she tasted was the salt in the processed food.
A man came to the Sleeping Room after she had eaten; he introduced himself as Doctor Samedi. He sat in the chair as she sat on the bed and he asked her different questions than the people in suits had asked her. He wanted to know about her mother and father and the time when she had been Natalie. He claimed he wanted to help her and that talking about painful things could help to make the pain go away. Seeing no harm in it, she talked with him for a while, it helped to pass the time, and it made her appear cooperative, which was important if she ever wanted to get out of here and back to the ranch.
The Question Room became the place she hated. Every time she went there, the people in suits told her lies. They tried to make her answer questions so that they could twist her words as evidence of their lies. The man in the suit tried to get her to believe that Jack had used little Jeremiah as a shield to protect himself. On the fourth day, they showed her photographs, an offering of proof of their lies. The ranch was gone, it had been burned to the ground; there was no home to go back to. Worse, Jack would not be waiting for her when she left this place. She would never see him again. The photograph of Jack that they showed her made Spring’s stomach roll. She cried so hard that they took her out of the Question Room and brought her back to the Sleeping Room.
Spring cried all through her talk with the nice Doctor Samedi. She told him about Jack and he let her talk and then told her things about grief and that what she felt was normal.
There was no trip to the Question Room the next day, or the day after that, but Doctor Samedi came and talked to her for a long time each day, and still came in the evenings to talk before she went to sleep. He tried to explain kindly about some of the lies the people in suits had told her.
Because she liked him, she listened and tried not to get angry.
The End
Originally posted at http://rinkafic.dreamwidth.org/