Dabble #4
For as long as I could remember, it had always been that way. Once a year; for a month, my mother would hide me inside my room with no contact outside. She would only come out to take our food and other things that I have asked for.
“Ma, why do you lock me this time of year?” I asked when I heard the echoing sound of my bedroom door closing.
My mother walked towards me and knelt down to look at me straight in the eyes. She put both of her hands on my shoulder as if she wanted me to look nowhere but her eyes. Though, she hadn’t had to do that. Because once I looked at her eyes, I could never look away. I was always captivated by the love I could see in them.
“I do not lock you, my dear daughter. I merely want to have you all by myself,” she answered with a smile that could fend away all my sadness. “I have missed you during the time I was away. And so, to make up for that lost time, we shall spend it together here in your room,”
Then, after the month spent inside the room, she took me to the meadow in the woods behind our land like she always did. She would take me there to play with me all day. She said it was because I had been coped up inside for long that she wanted to show me the beautiful flowers. And there, I was indeed surrounded by beautiful things and by my mother’s love.
“Ma, look at these!” I happily pointed to her the two butterflies that were resting on one of the big flowers. She smiled at me and told me they were beautiful before she started coughing and I finally realized that she looked fatigue.
When the moon had taken its place up in the sky, my mother walked me back to my room. But—it was then that I noticed that Ida, the old woman who usually greeted us back home had not.
“Ma,” I called and she looked down at me with a smile. “Where is Ida? She always greets us when we get back. Have we come home so late? Is she asleep?”
The smile vanished from my mother’s lips as her eyes suddenly became teary. She stopped and knelt in front of me, a sad look tainting her beautiful emeralds. “Ida is in her eternal sleep, my dear child,” she answered before her tears had started to fall and my own eyes misted as an unfamiliar pain pierced my heart.
That night, I knew I had fallen asleep crying. I could not even remember when I had gone back to my room but I woke up in my own bed. With a couple of sniff, I removed the heavy blanket that was covering me and walked out of my room to find my mother.
“The lady had been ill ever since the harvesting,” I heard a woman whispered to her cohort as I passed by and I couldn’t help but to stop to listen.
The other woman nodded. “Who would not be?”
“Yes, especially that she have been so close to Ida,” the first one continued.
“Khlaminea!” a voice shouted and I jumped in fear.
I turned around to see my father walking briskly towards me and I heard the women quickly ran away to hide from his wrath. My father had always been a scary man. Never smiling and never laughing, he walked with a fearsome look in his eyes.
“Pa?” I answered hesitantly.
“Your mother is looking for you,” he announced sternly. “You should have not gone to the meadow yesterday! She is too weak to play with you!”
I quickly ran towards my mother’s room and saw her lying on her bed, looking paler than she did before. I clasped her hand in mine and she gave me a smile. I could still see the love in her eyes yet they were dull by a look of tiredness.
“Ma,” I called softly. “I am sorry that I had not realized you are ill and played ‘til night at the meadow,”
She shook her head at me. But—even that simple gesture seemed to have taken a lot of her strength as she coughed hard. She raised her free hand and caressed my cheek with her thumb. “It is not your fault, my dear Khlaminea. I wanted to play with you. So, do not blame yourself, my dear daughter,”
“But—ma!” I started to protest but she started to cough once more and I helped her drink some water when she had recovered.
She gave me a smile that made her glow despite that she looked so weak. “Remember, Khlaminea, you have to be strong and remain kind as you are now. I wish for you the courage I have never had and stand up for what you believe in, my dear daughter. Always remember, follow your heart and you will do no wrong in my eyes,”
My mother had fell into her eternal sleep a few weeks after. The pain that I had felt when I heard Ida was gone was nothing compared to the pain I had felt when my mother had never woke up. It felt like someone was stabbing my heart repeatedly.
And despite that she was gone, I continued to wait for her to sing me a song each night and read me stories. I still lock myself inside my room for a month each year until my father had ordered me to stop when I was nine.
“It is about time you know about ‘Harvesting’. I had told your mother plenty of times that she would not be able to hide it from you forever. And look what you had become; an ignorant,” he scolded as he told me to come with him to the agora.
At the agora, I saw the helpers standing in the middle. Some of them were crying, some were holding onto each other as if afraid to be separated, and some had a look of defeat while the nobles and free folks watched at the side. And as the town priest walked to the wooden stage, there was a sudden fear in the air.
The priest had said plenty of things I could not understand. He had mentioned how the people that are chosen for the ‘Harvesting’ should be honored to have been chosen by the angel Piora—that they were important in keeping us safe from the claws of the disgraced Lagorio.
He started calling names. And all those he had called had looked like they wanted to run but two men holding a sword escorted them to the stage. Their families cried for them. I could not understand what was wrong. If it was an honor, why would they be crying? And their eyes full of fear while some nobles and free folks cheered.
As the priest finished calling names, I realized that all the ones that had been called were helpers. The priest said some additional things like how their sacrifices were not going to be forgotten before each of the people he called was killed in front of us with the sound of the cry of their families and the celebrating laugh of the nobles and free folks surrounded the air.
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