6

                                        

                                              

We all hoped in difference—some for a final rest, some peace, some a glimpse of something inexistent, some an eternal sleep, some a greater abyss than this, I, not knowing. 
 Mum has been dead for a hundred and twenty-seven years, I'd lost count so now, twenty-eight. It happened on the night I asked Racheal to take the unnamed child. Mum wouldn't let it slip, she curled on the bathroom floor, blood filling the cracks of the cold tiles. Her tears mixed with her blood, a clear mist. William wouldn't leave her side. He laid next to her, body and soul moulding together and they remained until they were gone. 
Dad buried all three a month later. He feared they'd be alone so their casket was made of big, thick glass so no one would see. Not even the dead. 
Dad knew and then, the visits stopped. 
Mum's letter would be the last I got but still, it came every year and yet, the contents remained a mystery. Dad's visits likewise. 
 At the end of every year, the clocks turned, raking the convent, the woods, and everyone back to the very beginning. 
I, two months away from arriving. 
Racheal remembered. She always did. She was a part of myself. 
Everyone's pictures were gone. They were unchanged and would change as the months drew on. 
I remembered. I've had my pictures for years and years. It was a curse. To remember, to know, to understand but never to understand. To live every year as a failed attempt at freedom. 
 Some days went at a wind speed, passing by eerily. Those were the silent years, the years when the convent was ever so at peace. 
But every year was different, the same beginning, and similar endings but never the same. 
 The years made it fresh, the gnawing like awaking in a hot quiet afternoon, the air still, the earth asleep, a hollow pit in my heart, eating away at my soul as slow and intentional. 
 A pain that wasn't ever to be described or it'd be deemed frail. 
No one was to understand but myself. Not Racheal, nor Father Benedict even after he got his pictures. On the fleeting years he did. 
Stephanie understood, as much and little as she could. And it cost her dearly but she too understood it was a deserved gift. 
The cold that swallowed the pavement I was sitting on seeped into my skin, hardening it. 
I sat too often, watching, knowing, waiting for another feeble year to pass then came another and another. 
 Was it ever to end? 
Patience and persistence had kept me sane, but that too was running thin. This was to be my last if I couldn't stop the clocks from turning. 
Knate stumbled through, pleats of dark smoke dried on his rough skin. He avoided my gaze. 
I stood and followed, hastening to meet his quickening pace. He always ran like he too could see the demon I kept hidden. 
 Father Benedict saw it too.
"Where did they take you?" I asked as I cut ahead of Knate. 
He hurried past, his left leg dragging behind. 
"It isn't real, all of it." I tugged at his shirt, bringing him to a halt. "I've been there and it isn't. They put it in your head but that doesn't make it real."
Knates body tensed, the moist air sweeping past, carrying the smell of burning wood. 
 The black cloud weaved past, faint sunbeams dancing, creating hopeful light shows. Knate reached his left hand out, stretching and limping in an attempt to catch the sunbeams but it was faster than Knate who chased after it but remained still, than myself who remained grounded in place. 
His chest deepened, dragging fast breaths as he stared ahead, watching the sunbeams stray farther. 
The trees watched, branches rustling in frail harmony, snickers to failed attempts at hope.  
My chest tightened, stringing tears. This I let fall, hot tears burning my cheeks down to the crows of my neck. A log rested in my throat, threatening to suffocate me. 
Knate threw his head to his side, eyes clouded with tears that begged to be freed, fist balled to keep the storm from brewing. "If you've been then you've seen," his voice tightened, the words leaving in croaks. 
My hands reached for him but my legs wouldn't move. 
"This convent," he looked forward and shook his head. "It's alive, we are alive in it. Can't you feel it? Don't you see it? Having hope is a punishment." 
With that, he limped down to the creek and out of sight. 
The air tightened as the calm breeze that kept me grounded pulled me to the ground, briskly with care. Thin, tall grasses engulfed me, each weaving way to let me into the ground. 
 I lay on my back to the soil, watching the clouds. Birds as I imagined flew past, sun rays as bright basking down, dried leaves rustling in the air and the industrial noise that came from the distance all danced around the still. 
All a fragmented imagination.