Page 5 of Prodigal Son

Perhaps it was because she didn’t speak. Or maybe it was because she and Dane weren’t Amish. But deep down she knew it was something else.

Secrets were whispered in silence, and many times things were said around her without thought, on account of her staying so quiet. She crept into homes as smoothly as a spider and silently stayed in shadowed corners so not to get in the way. Often times, they forgot she was there.

Except Grace. Grace never forgot her presence and always seemed to know exactly what she was thinking. Cybil didn’t mind. She was used to not having privacy in her mind. Her brother, Dane, often plucked ideas out of her head. It was a gift he’d always had, one she’d grown used to over time.

Deep down, she feared Dane fit in on the farm more than she, and sooner or later they’d make her leave. But she had nowhere to go. Her mother and father were gone. Her grandmother wasn’t coming back. She only had her brother, and there seemed something very fleeting about their time left together. She sensed it in her bones, a ticking time bomb that followed the beat of her heart.

Anna’s screams penetrated the walls of the towering home and rattled the rafters. Cybil slipped across the threshold without making a sound as something shattered on the second floor. Clinging to the wall, she sidled deeper into the house. Chaotic voices crashed together like thunder upon thunder in the eye of a storm. Whatever was happening upstairs was bad.

Another scream from Anna and Adam yelled, “Do something? What’s happening to her?”

Gracie sped down the stairs and raced into the kitchen, moving past Cybil so fast the hair hanging free of her bonnet lifted in the wafted breeze. She only knew it was Grace because she could smell the rosemary soap she used in her hair. A second later, she raced back up the stairs, holding what looked like a basin of water and towels.

Doors slammed and more screams followed. By the time Cybil made it to the second floor, the tension vibrated through every pore of her body and rattled every crack of the house.

The bedroom door stood open, and Cybil stared in horror. An expression of searing pain stole across Anna’s face as she breathed raggedly. Her bloodied hands gripped her protruding belly as her knees crashed into the planked floor. She thrashed, her body buckling backwards as the screams continued.

Gracie held a compress to Anna’s chest, but she wouldn’t still. Blood spilled from her eyes, nose, and mouth as she screamed with unrefined agony.

“Do something!” Adam shouted, his white shirt soaked through with blood as he cradled her on the floor.

Cybil’s shoulders pressed into the cold plaster wall. It was as though an invisible attacker ravaged Anna’s body.

“My baby!”

Her devotion to her unborn child was both startling and beautiful. Cybil wondered if her mother had fought so honorably in the end. Was this Anna’s end? The sheer abnormality of the situation warned it might be, and she was suddenly sad for Adam.

“What’s happening?” he shouted, smears of his wife’s blood marring his skin as panic welled in his eyes and his strength waned to that of a little boy’s.

He reminded her of Dane when they found their mother in the woods. She didn’t blame her brother for his fear. She had been equally afraid and learned that day that boys don’t contain panic the way girls do. Cybil swallowed hers down. At first it was deafening, then immobilizing, then repressing. Her sense of responsibility in the matter became a ubiquitous crime that would sentence her for life.

“I can’t get through to her! She’s blocking me!” Gracie screamed, pressing sheets between Anna’s legs. “There’s no blood here.”

Anna’s back bowed, her feet pointing and her limbs stiffening as more blood gathered on her skin.

“I don’t understand!”

There was a rare cold comfort in seeing adults confused by life. A disturbing hint that she might never make sense of it all, but also a reminder that Cybil wasn’t alone in her confusion.

“We have to protect the babe,” Adam shouted. “Ainsitch, hold on to me. We’re doing everything we can for you. Tell us where there’s pain.”

“It burns!” Annalise gasped as scrapes ravaged her skin and blood pooled at her chest, soaking her clothing and weakening her fight. Her arms protectively cradled her protruding stomach. “My baby!”

“It’s not the babe, Anna. You have to stay calm.” Gracie ripped open Anna’s gown. Blood bloomed on her skin as she arched off the floorboards and screamed. “The blood is coming from somewhere else! Tell us where it hurts, Anna.”

“Everywhere! Make it stop!”

Adam’s face paled, whiter than bone. “Dear God…”

Anna’s voice cut off with a gurgle as if she were drowning. She wheezed and choked for breath. The absence of her screams caused more alarm than her words ever could.

“Breathe, Anna! Breathe!” Adam gripped her shoulders as more blood spilled from her chest and her face went pale.

“Where is it coming from?” Grace pressed her hands to Anna’s chest, trying to stop the flow of blood.

Cybil’s vision blurred as she pressed her spine into the wall, shrinking as far back as she could. Why had she followed Gracie here? Why wasn’t she leaving? She couldn’t pull herself away from the horror. Everything inside of her needed to stay and see that Anna lived. Or know exactly how she died.

Their fear spiked the air with palpable adrenaline as the brutal attack went on. Anna thrashed and screamed as if her soul were trying to break free.

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