An Attempt At Fiction...

She stood on a high outcropping of the stone quarry that existed before her memories began, admiring the beauty of the water, a peace enveloped her that had been absent for a very long time.

The cliff where she stood was high and the water's depth had been guessed at over a hundred feet.  People used to dive and swim here but that, too, was long ago. 

The water called to her weakness, promising a release.

She sat, crying into shaking hands while she reviewed her life and saw only emptiness.  As the sun dipped below the horizon, she discovered she held no desire for life to continue.  There has been love and laughter, but that too, was long ago.

The dark waters beckoned as she slowly walked to the edge, stepping off the cliff as easily as stepping down one step of a long stairwell. She exhaled as much as possible before the water closed over her head, drifting down, she inhaled deeply.  Liquid cold filled her lungs with no effort from her to dispel the water.

Her eyes remained open as she slowly sank.  Peace, at last, and in her death, she realized she was no longer alone.

She Liked Dogs.

Her husband thought it was cute that all the dogs came to her and so he indulged her with this attraction he labeled a weakness.

Each stray seemed to know where she lived and gravitated there, pulled by some unseen force that placed them in her yard and on her doorstep. She welcomed all and fed and cared for them as if they were her children since she had no children to call her own.

Things began to change as the marriage grew older. The dogs, the husband once thought were cute, now angered him. He would return home from work and any dog close was bound to be injured, one way or another. The wife did not like this but kept her own counsel and trained the dogs to leave the room when the husband came home in one of his terrible moods.

The husband watched. It seems his wife and the dogs could communicate with no movements, no words, as if they could read each other’s thoughts. She rarely spoke with her husband any more…she rarely spoke at all. This made him angry; the dogs were taking something from him.

One evening the husband came home. The dogs were wary; they could sense he was more angry than usual. As they curved away from him and moved aside, they seemed to group protectively, silently around the wife. As the husband approached they growled, one or two, just a low growl, just a small warning…no harm would come to their leader.

Infuriated by even a hint of aggression from the dogs, he did not react but chose to leave instead…and drink. Returning home, he found his wife in the bedroom alone and locked the door behind him.  He wanted to discuss the disrespect she had shown. He punched her to make his point; he slapped her to make her believe…and did both, again and again.

She heard the dogs coming down the hall. They scratched at the door, trying to reach their leader, their queen. He laughed as he reached down to grab her hair and drag her to her feet. Slipping in the blood and tears that had pooled on the hard wood floor, he fell, striking his head against the bed. It dazed him and allowed her time to reach the door.

The husband heard his wife, as the door opened, speak softly, speaking the first word he had heard in months.

That word,

that request,

that command was…

”KILL!”

It Was A Long Night...

as the mother rocked the baby in her grandmother's rocking chair, the only real chair in the small cabin.  Mustard poultices, hot steam, baked onions...nothing seemed to help...the fever remained along with the death rattling cough of the croup.

She kept adding wood to the fire in the hand laid rock fireplace she and her husband had made when they raised the cabin.  And she rocked and rocked, the baby wrapped in the quilt her mother and grandmother had made.

Tears slid quietly down her cheeks as she wished her mother or grandmother were there to tell her what to do to save her baby, her only baby, her precious baby girl.

Her husband had left to bring the nearest neighbor who knew something of doctoring but that was miles away and it would be morning before he returned. For now it was just mother and child, rocking and rocking and praying.

The sounds of the racking coughs tore each fiber of the mother's being, thinking, if only I could take the sickness and let my child be well.  The silent tears rolled down the mother's cheeks as she stared into the fireplace... rocking, rocking.

The mother dozed in her exhaustion.  A voice woke her, a voice she hadn't heard in years, how could it be? She heard, "Child, I am with you."  She looked around the room and saw no one.  She must have been dreaming.  It was the voice of her grandmother, gone all these years, how could she hear her voice?

Then she noticed something else...there was no coughing from the tiny bundle she held.  Oh, God, No, please, no!  She frantically removed the quilt and felt the baby's forehead...not hot anymore.  She leaned closely and heard the sweetest sound on earth, a baby's breathing as it sleeps. The fever had broken!  The worst had passed. 

The cabin was quiet.  The only sounds were the crackling fire, the baby's peaceful breathing, two women  humming and the rocking chair...rocking, rocking, rocking.

As We Sleep

It was an old house in old times.  The time when a bedroom was just that and you were lucky to have a bed above the floor.  This small room held two iron bed frames with barely room to walk between them. The beds had coil springs with piles of string quilts and a thick feather bed atop them.

Two people lay close together in one bed, adults by their shape under the covers.  The second bed held three children in varying sizes. The sounds of sleep were all that was audible in the cool moon lit night within the house.  Outside, the night was sprinkled with winter sounds.

The smallest child awoke.  She opened her eyes, letting them adjust to the dark and to the moonlight streaming through the only window.  Something wasn't right but she couldn't decide what it was.  She raised her head to check her mother and father as they lay asleep, all was right there.  Being the smallest, she slept in the middle of the bed and knew her sisters lay close. 

Yet, there was something, she couldn't shake the feeling. Only five, she may be getting a touch of "The Gift" like her mama had. Mama could "see" when she was little too.  Mama could tell you company was coming long before the dogs could hear.

The small child raised up onto her elbows and looked at the night framed by the window.  It wasn't time to stoke the fire in the cook stove and she didn't need to attend to personal business so what had awakened her out of a sound sleep?

As she lay back down, her gaze was drawn to the foot of her bed...some one was there, standing.  It was too large to be Daddy and she could still see they were in bed.  Who was it?

The figure stood and did not move but she could hear a different breathing, different from the sleeping breaths around her.  She thinks, if I cover my head, when I look again, it'll be gone. 

She quickly tugs the quilt Grandma had hand stitched over her head and remembered what Grandma had told her.  Grandma said, if you ever fear something, ask "In the Name of God, what do you want?  If it is evil, the goodness of God will keep it away".  The child, while saying this over and over under the covers also remembered to pinch herself in case she was dreaming.

She slowly lowered the covers just enough so one eye could see...it was still there!!!  The moon light from the window was not enough to show any detail, just a shadow figure standing, breathing, watching...she covered her head again.  The night passed.

With morning, the mother and father awoke and stoked the fire to warm the house.  While the father did the milking and other chores, the mother prepared breakfast.  After calling the children to eat when the biscuits were done, two children ran in bare feet to warm by the stove.

A call of "Sleepy head, day's awastin'..." brought no response. Checking the bed, it was empty.

The search lasted for days but nothing was found except for one very large bare foot print,  pointed toward Rock Holler and the deep woods.

The Touch...Part One

The midwife knew at her birth, there was something special about this girl child.  It was not mentioned as the child was cleaned and laid in her mother's arms.  The Truth would show itself in its own time.  That is all the midwife needed to know and it made her smile as she carried the wash to the kettle heating in the side yard.

The birth had not been easy.  There were times the midwife doubted, just for a moment, the whole thing would end well.  Now, she hummed under her breath with the excitement of the future as she busied herself with mothering chores around the birth room.

The crisp November moon shot a beam through the uncurtained window, the midwife took this as a sign.  The beam had traveled across the room and now rested, embracing the child in its light.  There seemed to be equal light emanating from the child but no one saw, because the family rested after the long hard earned entrance into this world.

Years had passed since the birth of the girl child.  She grew in beauty and in grace.  Evey person who met this child felt the better for it and could not tell the why.  The midwife, still in her life, knew what treasure was growing and contented herself in the watching of it.

The child was a child of light.  It was in her eyes and her hair and in her hands.  Not only were people drawn to this magical child but so were the beasts of burden and the beasts of night.  In a world where pets had not entered yet, the working animals, the food animals, the wild animals were also drawn to her.  It did not strike the child as odd when in her play,  a deer might enter the glade and lay down beside her.  At night people had seen a lone wolf circle the tiny cabin and slip away in the darkness having caused no harm.

No questions were raised at the oddity of this.   The times made these things acceptable.  The entire settlement loved this child of light and did not think it strange that the animals sought her company also.

Time passed as it always does.  The child was growing into a young lady....