Mother
From Toosigma
this was for St. Alberts... but I think it is TOO dark Mother
A needle pulled it's self threw the pads of her feet. Kierin lay on her back, her tiny feet held up in her mothers lap. “I don't know how she gets out.”
Her mother pulled more festered skin off gently with the needle and covered the area in a rag drenched in hot salt water. Kierin winced as tears silently slid across her temples and into her hair. Frost bite again. just a little, then the skin would rot and come off. Mother always pulled it off as soon as it turned black, in her way trying to prevent infection. Kierin's smallest toes were mishapped and growing deformed from the repeated treatment. As a grown woman Kierin would always question the necessity of the treatments her mother gave. They always involved needles, always involved scolding water with acids or salts. removing the diseased skin, popping pustules, pulling the disease from her body. Every scratch turned into a growing infection. Every infection was treated in the same carefully sadistic fashion. By the time she reached three the screams had stopped, the fight had left her and the only indication of the pain that was being inflicted was her silent tears.
Kierin stood out side in the newly fallen snow, hands raised to catch the flakes as they fell, barefoot, and bare armed in the cold. After her quiet rejoice, she crawled around the corner of the wall of her families home, to a small growth of plants that had wilted and grown brown in the winter's cold. With careful movements and delicate reverence Kierin pulled the seeds out of the crisply frozen pods, placing them softly in her pocket. For the first hour of her work, her fingers and toes ached with the cold, but with time and after pounding her feet against the ground and burring them in a small pile of dirt, the pain faded and an odd since of warmth filled her toes and extremities. Eventually her Mother would find her again, with out her shoes, or jacket. Kierin pulled her fingers through the dirt under the bushes, smelling the earth as she mixed it. The plants were freezing in the cold, even their seeds were dieing, high in the branches in the wind. There was warmth in the soft dirt under the bushes, and Kierin carefully rooted it out and placed each of the gathered seeds. Not much time, Mother would find her soon. The door around the corner opened and her mother stepped out into the snow. The memories of the moment fades from Kierin's mind. Lapsing back to her mother pulling off more skin, hot water with salt. Pain.
Later when summer eventually came Kierin found herself hiding behind an open door, her fingers happily darting in and out of the crack that formed as the door opened and closed. Passing threw in a hurry her brother slammed the door after him, Kierin pulled but it was too late, most of the skin was ripped from her index finger. Her mother meet her with a bowl of hot salt water, and a needle.
Years full of pain followed years full of pain. Kierin found that every cut, every bump, and every minor fever quickly became the source of hours leading onto days or weeks of sadistic torture. Cold remedies were delivered as burning teas, or were so foul as to induce vomiting, fevers were meet with instant and continued exposure to the cold. By the time Kierin reached five she began planning quiet ways of dispatching her mother. Her brother, always the favored child, continued to grow strong without any bizarre physical malady. But Kierin always found him simple to manipulate to her needs. Together they dug pits, planed traps, and carefully, waited... But it wasn't until the family was forced to move to St. Albert's Bay that Kierin found her chance to act. The wind around the boat blew fiercly, the waves rushed in and pushed to boat high into the air... “Get Below!!” Father screamed, how had the storm come so Quickly?
Kierin pretended to stumble her body hitting the railing, “Mother!” She cried out, her hands extending to the woman. Kierins heart pounded as the woman crawled to her, desperately grasping anything she could find to hold on to. “Take my hand Kierin... Please, hurry!” Kierin leaped for her hands, grabbing them she pulled the woman to the railing, and pushed her overboard in one quick movement. The Wretch continued to hold Kierin's hands bouncing against the side of the ship, her legs disappearing under the waves, and suddenly being spat out again, Kierin found herself bent in half over the railing, her shoulder's aching under her mothers weight, and the cold blue of her mother's eyes digging into her soul.
“Help Me!! Someone! my Mother has fallen off” Kierin cried, as she pulled her mothers thumb away from her wrist. “Help me! I can't hold her!” A sailor reached her side just as she let go and her mother disappeared into the water without a scream.
Kierin spent the rest of the night in that spot, braced against the railing, feeling the rain and the motion of the waves. Smiling in the storm, she was on her way to a new home, and a new reality. Her father was given the responsibility of becoming the new Steward of St. Albert's Bay, which would one day be a tittle inherited by her elder brother, or her if she acted quickly...
