 Posted: Tue Nov 20, 2012 7:00 am
She had little ones now to be thinking of. One night had changed it all for her and though she hadn't thought out just how to break this all to Kadar yet, a discussion she was oddly dreading and even the thought of it left her feeling out of sorts. dirty and tainted with the thought that this could likely drive a wedge between them and scare him off to find some one else to flirt with. She had found resolve in the conclusion to a decision she'd once sought to discuss with a friend. Without getting to talk to Adofin, she had her answer to everything in the knowledge that her offspring would need their father close by.
She'd left early that morning without so much as a whisper of where she was going, only a note to Kadar that she wouldn't be able to make their meeting that day. She had returned to clean up and clean out the home she'd known as a little girl. It was time that she move on in life, face the ghosts of her past and go through all that had been left upon the death of her father. As she entered the village of her birth, she looked around. Oh she'd seen it plenty as she grew just less and less as she ran from the reminders of her father's end.
She took soft steps as she made her way through the streets and back allies till finally, she stood before the house she'd grown up in. A shuttering breath exited her half parted lips as she eyed the building. Memories like ghostly images of her father chasing her around the front of the house flooded by her mind's eye. She closed her eyes tight against it trying to will the emotions flooding through her from surfacing all at once. Anger, sorrow, happiness.. How could she have still felt anger for what had happened? Had her father not shown the greatest love in life? His health had faded and gone after the passing of her mother from illness. It was like seeing the light go out in her father's eyes when he laid to rest his beloved.
The feeling of cold metal on her hand jarred her mind back to the present. She hadn't realized she'd moved at all during that time. Yet there she stood, hand on the door knob. Turning slowly, she opened the door which creaked from years of being left alone. Carefully she walked in and looked about the dimly lit room. Dust covered everything. She'd need to clean it up if she was going to sell anything.
Closing the door behind her, she tucked her hair behind her ears and rolled her hair into a bun, staying it with a few hair pins she'd found after walking through a few of the small rooms. Looking around, she pursed her lips together taking slow even breaths as she tried to keep her mind on one thing at a time. So long as she did that she could handle this. Walking over to the windows, she opened them, letting light flood into the room before taking a dust covered sheet from a table. As the dust was disturbed, it billowed into a cloud that moved for the window. Still she moved from one covered surface to the next pulling sheets off them as she went and setting them by the door.
Snatching the broom from it's near forgotten corner, she set to work sweeping the floor into piles and out the door. Taking the pile of sheets, she left the house and snapped them into the air one by one, shaking them out as she did. Bigger puffs of dust rose into the air till she was satisfied the dust was mostly off them. she left them in an empty basket to wash later once she had collected everything else to wash.
Once everything had been dusted, she started rifling through things, sorting them into piles of things she'd like to keep and things she could sell with the house. It was then that she drew her attention to a small wooden trunk in the room that had been her parents. Slowly, she opened the trunk to see what was hidden in it now. Papers, dried flowers and something that looked akin to an over cloak for cold nights. Moving the papers aside, she lifted the cloak up and out of the trunk eying it carefully. She recalled cold winter nights that her mother and father would wrap her in this cloak on their way to and from places.
Tears stung at her eyes threatening to spill down her cheeks and run rivulets through the dust that had now settled on her fur. Squeezing her eyes closed once more, she willed herself to keep it together. Setting the cloak aside, she peered back into the chest. The corner of a wooden picture frame peeked out behind what she assumed must have been her mother's veil on the day she and her father had been united as a couple.
Carefully she moved the veil aside. There at near the bottom of the chest was a painting, face down from view. She lifted an eyebrow as she peered at the back of the painting. 'Strange.. I don't remember mother having any paintings.. Maybe it's a portrait of father when he'd still been a young man.' She thought as she reached down and slowly lifted it up. A slip of paper fell from the painting as she moved it. Reaching down, she picked up the paper, setting the painting down carefully to prop against the chest, and read the inscribed words.
"My dear sweet Lakshmi,
If you've found this then it means my illness has run it's course, Your father has passed, and you have taken to looking through my things. Know Your father and I loved you dearly and wanted only the best for you. I'm sure you have several questions and sadly we cannot be here to answer them for you directly.
By now I'm certain that since you've found this letter that you're wondering who the little djinn's are in the portrait. They, my dear, are your brothers. Twins born to us when you were very little. It was after this we found I was ill and we were forced to give them up. Fear not they are well in the hands of a dear family friend. I'm sure you're asking why not send you away a swell.. but sadly, you were not susceptible to catching my illness where as your brothers could have. I'm sorry for the pain we have caused you but if you want to find them.. seek them in the capital, that was where they were sent. They went under the care of a close family friend so look with him first.
Your loving mother."
Her eyes were wide with disbelief. Quickly she re-read the words on the paper over and over again till she eyed the portrait. Carefully, she lifted the portrait and flipped it to look at. Sure enough it was a painted portrait of her mother and father both young and healthy looking and she was there a child along side two smaller, younger boys that so clearly took after her father with their eyes. It was almost too much to take in all at once. How could she have ever forgotten playing with the young boys? No memory was left of them yet here they were in a portrait clear as day and a letter that labeled them as her kinsmen.
Would that she could, she'd have dropped everything then and there to start this ghost hunt, for that was most certainly what this seemed like. But she couldn't, not yet.. she had two young ones that needed her attention as much as could be given them to care for them. And she couldn't do that if she allowed herself to be swept up in this wild goose chase before she could do what needed to be done. No, she'd finish her task of her home coming and return to the two lamps that needed her care while she looked for a more permanent form of lodgings in the capital. Then and only then when she had permanent lodgings would she try to seek answers. And even so, she couldn't let herself get swept up in only that one goal.
She worked long into the night, catching a nap as she could and burning the oil in lamps to give herself light to work by. Still she worked and slept or ate as she needed her mind heavy on other things and she continued to sort and divide possessions all that day and the next as well. She'd keep thinks that she could move on her own. rugs, candle sticks the portrait and some other family heirlooms some how with knowledge of two brothers missing for so long still being out there she couldn't bring herself to toss out too much or put it into a pile to be sold with the house. Selling the house at all now seemed like she'd be cheating her brothers out of something.
Truth, they'd been gone so long she didn't think they'd even know of her. Still it seemed to her that she should try to find them let them know they weren't forgotten and what became of their parents. Now that she mulled this over and over, she sat on the floor, dust still thick on the fur of her hands, and thought. Pushing herself up, she looked around the room. "I can't.. I just can't.. Not till they've had a chance to see and say good bye.." she'd have to keep the house a little longer.
She washed up in a wash basin, ridding herself of the grime that had collected on her. She tucked the portrait under her arm and carefully, she left the house once more clean and looking better than it had when she'd first come. She locked the house up and stashed the key in the pouch she had at her belt before leaving the village, returning to the capital to resume her look for a permanent residence there.
~FIN~
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
Reply
