Page 66 of Enthralled

You’re not seeing rightly.

You’re not seeing rightly.

“Damned right, I’m not!” I bellow and raise the sword over my head, hewing downward in a powerful stroke. The mist parts before me.

I stop.

A picture appears: a vignette seen as though through a foggy glass but slowly clarifying. I see a warm hearth, a dancing fire in the grate. I hear the gentlecreak-creak-creakof a rocking chair, the click of darning needles. And voices. Low, sweet, giggling voices. Those come from the two figures on the floor in front of the hearth. Children, a boy and a girl, seated together. The boy’s head rests on the girl’s shoulder, and she holds up a book which obscures her face, but which gives me a clear view of the title:Adventure Stories for Boysby G.H. Godswin.

A breath shudders from my lips. Slowly the rest of the image comes into view: Mama, rocking away in her chair, focused on her handwork, while her two phantom children giggle and read together. I cannot hear the words, only the tone of their voices. But I can see them clearly now. I see the bruises on Oscar’s face. I see the tension in Clara’s jaw and around her eyes. I see the careful smile on Mama’s face, the smile which reveals no true emotion, that refuses to let any unwanted expression stain her careful mask.

“He suffered because of you, you know.”

I inhale sharply. When Mama speaks, her voice is clear, unlike the voices of the children on the floor. She goes on rocking, but I know she’s aware of me and my silent observation. The rest of the image seems to fade, as though she and I are the only two real things in this place.

“He suffered because of you. You didn’t protect him.” She lowers her work, lifting her face and turning toward me. “You should have been stronger, Clara.”

She isn’t Mama.

She wears Mama’s soft lavender gown, her brown hair coiled in a neat bun at the base of her neck. But her face is deathly white, and black threads dangle down her cheeks from the raw, bloody stitches sealing her eyes shut.

“I know you,” I whisper.

“It’s your fault he’s dead,” she says, still smiling, still rocking. “You weren’t enough for him in the end. You failed him.”

“I know you,” I say again. “And . . . and I see you.”

The apparition’s smile grows. “You’re not seeing rightly,” she says gently. “You’ve never seen rightly.”

“I know,” I answer. Tears form in my eyes, spilling out onto my cheeks. “You’re right. I never have. I never saw . . .you.”

The image around the fire fades more and more. Red mist closes in around us, enveloping the children, muffling their voices as they read together. But the woman goes on rocking, her features hollowing out, melting away into the haggard, monstrous creature with the lank black hair and the sunken cheeks.

But I shake my head. “No, this isn’t right either.”

I drop my sword. It melts away into nothing the instant it leaves my grasp. Unarmed I step forward, kneel before the rocking chair, before the hideous Noswraith. She hisses at me, revealing bloody teeth. I don’t flinch. Not this time. I reach out a steady hand and slowly, delicately, begin to pull the stitches from her eyes.

He really loves you, you know.

No one else understands him.

We have to care for him. Who else will if we don’t?

The words echo in my head even as the wraith’s mouth remains bared in a terrible grimace. I don’t respond. I pluck those stitches free, one after the other. The Noswraith’s face screws up with pain.

Finally her eyes blink open. Two large, brown eyes, surrounded by pin-prick wounds that seep beads of blood. But the face is no longer hollow, pale, and haggard. It’s a young face, full-cheeked, with a round little nose and a rosebud mouth. A face far too young to bear such fear, such guilt, such shame. She’s a child. Just a child. Trapped in this house, believing if she could just find the right thing to say, the right thing to do, the right way to be, she might be able to fix what’s broken.

“It’s time to see rightly,” I whisper. “It’s time to see who you really are.Clara.”

Blood and tears pour down the child’s cheeks. She shakes her head.

“You are strong,” I tell her. “You are brave. And you were placed in an impossible position. You’ve made many wrong choices, for there were no right choices to make. There was nothing but survival, day after day. Survival and the choice to love those who did not deserve it. To love and to pretend to be loved in return. Because as long as you pretended, you could go on surviving.”

I reach out then, take the child in my arms, pull her from the rocking chair and into my lap. “You don’t have to pretend anymore. I’m here now.” I press a kiss to the top of her dark head, which rests against my breast. The child is so tense in my arms, so uncertain and afraid. But I hold her tight. “I love you, Clara. I love you, and I’m proud of you, and I will protect you. I will fight for you. You don’t have to keep on fighting. Not anymore.” I close my eyes, tears falling freely. “I wasn’t ready before. But I am now. I’m ready to be what you need.”

Tension melts out of the child’s limbs. She begins weeping, softly at first, then loud, hiccupping sobs. Tears and blood soak the front of my bodice.

“We are so much stronger than we know,” I say, rocking her back and forth. “And we will learn from our mistakes. We will break the cycle and we will grow. We won’t stay here in this house. It’s time to come out.”

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