The Huntress Book 1 Memories (12 page)

I remained quiet. So did he.

“Say something.” he tells me later.

“What would you like me to say?” I say
slowly.

“For one, you could say that you forgive
me.”

/’If I had known back then the huge effort he
indeed made, not only that I have forgiven him, but I would have
fallen at his feet, thankfully, able to kiss even his shadow. Now,
I'm glad I have forgiven what I did not understand, but I don't
have any gratitude for him. Now, all that I have are those dual
feelings from the start, and perhaps not even those. Back then I
oscillated between attraction and repulsion. Now, it is much more
serious, much more intense. Now, I balance between life and death.
How trivial seem all those feelings and how easy it to judge them
now is! Or perhaps now, as back then, I make the same mistake, the
mistake of thinking too much about myself. Perhaps I’m doing indeed
the same thing. But back then...’/

Then I nodded approvingly.

“I don't even know what to forgive.” I laugh
a little shakily. We've been in that both of us wouldn't we?”

Dane smiles.

“I, for one, at least, I hope so.”

And his happy yellow lights came back in his
eyes, lights that I enjoy.

Away, we can hear fireworks. Colored light
from them reaches up to us.

“Happy New Year!” He tells me.

“Happy New Year! “ I say in return

The worst days in winter are those when,
being snow, it begins to rain. Once, because the snow turns into
the gutter, and once, because the rain is very, very cold. And
unfortunately, it seems that today, when I have to go to Danes home
to meet his family, is one of the days I just mentioned. I think
that the rest of his family might not like me when they will see
who I am. Although, I might as well find acceptance and
friendship.

Remembering last night makes my heart stop
for a moment. It will be extremely difficult for me to face Dane.
Now I really will not have any chance to argue that he’s not my
boyfriend. Not after what happened last night. As I expected, there
are bruised from Dane's fingers on my face and on my body.

“Mom, I have to go for a little while!”

I expect her to reply to me, but I don't hear
any sound.

“Mom?”

I go back to the shelter of cartons and get
petrified. My mother is down on the floor, in an unnatural
position. I get a thrill of horror.

I panic and I do not know what to do. I am
blocked. Then, a wave of adrenaline passes through me.

I lean over her. I get her pulse rate.
Although very weak, I can still feel it. Her breast rises and
lowers spasmodically. She cannot breathe. She has her lips purple,
as well as the color of her face. I haven't the slightest doubt
that if I'm not going to do something, and quickly, my mother will
die. I can't imagine such a thing. I put on her my jacket. Put the
hood on her head and tied it under her chin. It’s raining by the
bucket. With forces I didn’t know I even have, I lift her, and I
put her on my back. When I go out, a wall of cardboard falls. I
couldn’t care less about that.

I have almost collapsed under the first burst
of rain. The frozen water droplets seem thousands of needles
stabbing my skin. I shake a little. From my back, my mother let out
a groan. A pick her again. Her hands, more inert, hang around my
neck, touching my chest. She hasn’t enough power to enclaspe me. I
try to keep my balance and hers, at the same time. I hasten as much
as possible, though it's a pretty large distance to the hospital. I
hear the noise of a car behind me. I pray to stop and take us to
the hospital. But the car rushes past us, throwing a wave of cold
water over us. Several cars pass. No-one stops.

And although I push and I push forward my
legs it is as if they have a will of their own. I fall on my knees.
I am drenched and frozen to the bone. I take the burden off my
back, and I lay her head on one of my knees.

The fateful truth is so obvious that it would
not have to check her heartbeat. That probably has stopped long
ago.

I do not accept that. My mother is not
dead.

I barely lift her and her hands clasped, I
pull her.

“Come on, Mom, help me too!”

With my last power, I pull her, dragging her
through the snow began to have the mud color. But I fail to drag
her more than a few meters. I slid her hands, and then they fall
apart next to her inert, lifeless body.

I crashed on my knees, next to her. Rain
streams down my body, everywhere. It drains my hair, my face, and
my lips. The cold rain is slightly salty. Much like tears. I do not
know if I am crying or not. They can be tears. Or it can be just
water falling on me from heaven. I spasmodically shake,
uncontrollably.

Another car passes near us, and it splashes
us. I cannot judge. I cannot rationalize. And I do not want to do
that. Because if I do, I would have to realize that I was
alone.

/’I don't know if you've ever lost a loved
one in such manner, in a way that you know that you will never see
that person again; that she's lost forever, and you don't have any
power to do anything to change this. I don't know if you've ever
felt a strong desire to howl, to yell, to raise your fists as
injustice, as helplessness. Back then I didn’t think it can be
something worse than that. Now I know that it's possible things be
worse than that. Now. But back then...’/

Then all I could do was to put my wet face on
her inert, cold dead body. I remember that I caressed her greasy
hair, with rather harsh motions. Then I took her head in my arms
and I started wiggling her like a child. I closed my eyes.

I don't know how much time has passed. But
I'm sure it's been quite enough. But not enough time for tears. Did
you ever feel a pain so deep that you simply can't cry?

I feel my heart so hardened, so empty, and so
full of rage against the world, against life, that I feel that I am
nothing more than a robot now.

I feel guilty at the same time.

I wonder if I could have done more for her. I
wonder if, from the moment I realized that she is ill, I would have
been able to do something to save her. My mother was dying little
by little while I was fooling around with my so called boyfriend. A
great contempt against my own kind penetrates my inside. I should
be able to judge the cold light of dawn, and not to blame Dane as
well. But I can’t be so logical, because I need to blame someone
else besides me. I hate him as much as I hate myself. I despise him
equally I despise myself. I am disgusted with both of us,
equally.

It's something odd that strange, real,
earthly things cross my mind, while grief paralyzes me inside.

As in a dream, I recall carrying her back to
the shelter of cardboard. Her lifeless body seemed doubled its
weight. I never lifted anything so hard before. The bright side -
if I may say so – is that I didn’t feel the cold that froze me to
my bone, but I began not only to warm up, but even sweating.

I wonder how I will bury her. Where to bury
her. Somehow unreal, I am convinced that I don’t fully and truly
understand my loss. And I do not want to do this. I cannot call
anyone; I do not have money for the pit, for the coffin, for
anything. Little more anger rises in my soul.

“What's that noise?”

I'm so tired that I did not bother to answer.
When dad saw us, he widened his eyes. In his hand, there is the
usual bottle. For me, it was always a mystery how he managed to get
hold of alcohol. And it probably will remain. He's drunk. He can
barely stand up. He takes a few stumbling steps towards us, but he
loses his balance. I see everything as it would happen in slow
motion. The way he staggers, the way he falls, the way his temple
is striking the sharp corner of the table, drops of blood bouncing,
and the way his heavy body dropped to the floor. I couldn’t close
my eyes. This trivial way my dad just died is incredible, and I
feel a hysterical cackle rises in my throat. I check his pulse.
Nonexistent. I think it’s too sudden, too much death First my
mother, then my dad. Will I be next? Of course, I did not know that
there are more ways to die...

This question gives me, in fact the answer to
the most difficult questions that troubled me earlier, related to
my mother's funeral. Now, there are two of them to be buried. My
eyes fell on the glass of booze.

I know exactly what I have to do. Rain was
transformed into snowflakes. I have all the chances to succeed with
my plan. I take a look around. I have nothing to take with me. Not
even memories. I carefully avoid watching the two corpses.

I spill the bottle and I light a match. As I
expected, everything began to burn. The surroundings are only old
cartons, old wooden furniture. There will be nothing left of the
two dead bodies. The flames were high, consuming everything in
their path. Nothing will show how many bodies were here. Why not
three bodies? Who will know?

The falling snow cannot extinguish the fire.
It will remain only ashes, and nothing will stand facing the fire
that has been raised so high that they are going to touch the
sky.

The smell of burnt human flesh reaches my
nostrils. It is sickening. My mouth fills up with gastric juice.
The cartons in flames grudge ones over others.

It would be better for me to go. Traces of my
steps will be covered soon with a new layer of snow. Even the
wildest beast will no longer be able to get my trace. The flames
will be seen. I just hope that they will be seen late enough. I do
not throw back any glance as I departed. For everyone who knows me,
I will be dead.

I am so far, that I barely see a little smoke
in the place that so far ought to be destroyed altogether. I hear a
howling that makes the entire hair on my body stands on its end.
The most agonizing pain, the most penetrating sound was heard up to
me. I shudder. The sound of it contains too much pain, too much
suffering, it gives you the feeling of such a loss, that you could
never get over.

I stumble over and I throw up spasmodically.
It seems to me that the howl continues endlessly.

It is only now that I began to cry. The roar
I hear forces my explosions of tears.

And I cry until I don't have tears to cry.
And cry until I don't have soul to cry.

I have my mind and my soul emptied. Perhaps
Dane was right when he said that on the inside I am like the
winter.

It's late night when I realize that my steps
brought me to Kyrya and Dom’s house.

“My God, girl.” Kyrya tells me when facing
me.

Now I know for sure that Kyrya and Dom are,
like Dane and his family, not normal people.

“Dom, quickly, take her in the house! She's
frozen and wet soaking.”

I didn't have enough free will.

I remember how Dom took me in his arms like I
was a doll. Then, my memories fade easily. I went into a large
bathtub with hot water, nice, fresh smelling clothes, and warm,
tasty, plenty of food. Through big gulps, I began to talk

“And you’re absolutely sure no one will look
for you and the whole world thinks you're dead?”

I nod approval, while I chew my food,
consciously. I rather feel than see the exchange glances between
the two of them.

“Maybe I will give a tour in there to make
sure.” I hear Dom’s voice. “Although I still think it is a bad idea
what you want, Kyrya…”

“Please, Dom, don't bother me with that. A
want her and period.”

Dom sighs and he goes out the door, leaving
me alone with Kyrya. After a moment of silence, she begins to
speak.

“You... you lost your parents, and I lost my
daughter. Do you want us to be your parents as we want you to be
our new daughter?”

I stop chewing, but I do not drown in shock.
Somehow, today I aged a lot, and I'm surrounded by a wall of
cynicism that even the most powerful bulldozer cannot break
through. What have I got to lose? I will have a beautiful mansion,
fashionable clothing, and I will not know what cold or poverty will
mean. People will no longer point their fingers at me, they will
not laugh at me, they will not yell at me, and they will not spit
their insults at me. Cars will not pass by me and my dead mother to
wet us. My heart tightens. I swing on the chair, back and forth as
to alleviate my pain.

“Well then? What do you say?”

I nodded slowly.

“Lovely!” Kyrya enjoys, clapping her
hands.

Dom appears on the door. Kyrya is looking
quizzically at him.

“She was right. Everyone thinks the whole
family died. And, apart from certain quite repulsive smells,
nothing suspicious.”

Again, I find that part of their conversation
has a hidden meaning.

“Then, if you come across such odors, we must
get out of here.”

“Kyrya, I still believe that...”

The woman makes a hand gesture as if her
decision is taken.

“Tomorrow we start preparations to leave for
the house in Europe. We shall go to France.”

And her tone admitted no contradiction.

It wasn’t the first night that I woke up from
a terrible nightmare in which I saw my mother’s purple face opening
her eyes at me, and raising her fingers at me, reprovingly. It
wasn’t the first time I could see in my mind how she died. Many
nights, over many years, I dreamed of fire, I felt the smell of
burnt human flesh, and I heard that howl of an animal, forever
agonizing, painfully.

/’I
can't sleep nights even now. I rather
close my eyes for few a minutes during the day; because the nights
I got to stay vigil. But my sleep is something so far away, as well
as other human needs, which only sometimes I do long for…
’/

THE END OF THE FIRST BOOK

[…]

And all of a sudden, the face I so hard tried
to forget, the image I was so afraid to remember… Dane’s face
appears clearly in my mind. The memories of him that I tried very
hard to arbor came up to the surface in all their powers. Indeed,
it's a pity. It is only now that I realize that, in a way, I had
hoped that I would see him at least once until I die. I hoped that
I will kiss his lips at least once, until I close my eyes forever.
I have hoped that... we should be able to....