by Marian Unn
Chapter 6
I did not speak on the ride into town. I was overjoyed that my son was alive. Yet at the same time, I was deeply disturbed by his changes. Everything about him was different. He stood taller, spoke harsher, and his now cold black eyes stung everyone who met them, infecting the poor victims with their poison. Merek’s voice was authoritative, which was to be expected of a king, but its harshness was so overbearingly strong! Oh, my son, how did you become this way? How did you survive and become the King at that?! The King! We were but peasants, low and humble, yet you climbed oh so much higher than I could have ever imagined. Yet was such an accomplishment worth such a terrifying change? Was it worth the loss of my only son?
“You seem tired Mother,” Merek said as the carriage rolled to a stop at the front gate of our old home. An extravagant carriage in such a small street must have been a sight to these simple townsfolk. Even as the one inside such a thing, I myself was astonished at its arrival at such a place.
The memories of this place, though many sweet, were so very often overshadowed by the painful ones. As I stepped out of the carriage and began to walk towards the house; all of the many wonderful and terrible memories this place had brought me throughout the years washed over me anew. Each step bringing another to mind; it was as if they had all just happened, not so long ago. From Merek’s birth to Jobel’s death, the recollection of these buried thoughts both kissed and struck me with a renewed force. One of my happiest memories came to me, the day when Merek told me that he and Arabella were to wed. The skies for Merek were clear in those days, and the sun of his smile shined ever so brightly. It was right here in this very spot that he told me, at this very door. I brushed my hand against the splintering wood; the cold from its touch reminding me of another memory, my most painful memory. It was also true that in this very spot that memory resided as well, the day I heard that Merek had died.
What memory, I wondered, would be left this time? In seeing this new Merek, I had little hope for a happy one.
What a great misery it is to be right.
From behind me Merek dared to turn the knob. “You told me you’d wait here forever,” he said quietly, carefully opening the aged door. Upon entering the house, my eyes immediately set themselves on the chair I had knocked over the day I left, the day I received that dreadful news. The dusty remains of the flowers still resting where I had once crushed them, an air of death about them.
“I could not wait for a ghost in such a haunting place.”
“Humph,” he coughed. “Always with your ever so serious humor, Mother.” I looked at him quickly, hoping to catch a smile, but none dared touch his face.
“What has happened to you, my son?” I bowed my head as I said this. Then gripping the chair tight, I set it up and pushed it back to its proper place. “Please, Merek, tell me why you-”
“Betrayal,” he whispered sharply.
“What?” Was he the one who-
But before my thought could finish, he responded with disgust.“I was betrayed by him.”
Sneering at whatever thought had roused his anger; he caught himself and quickly threw it from his visage. “He was my friend. Like brothers we loved each other, protected each other, and lived on through it all so that we could one day return to our families with the honor and pride we would acclaim together!” Shuttering at the anger which had almost immediately resurfaced, he leaned against the old dresser and smashed his fist against it, splitting the wood as he did. The sight of Merek damaging Jobel’s old dresser pained me almost as much as the sight of my own son’s agony. The dresser had been a gift from Jobel to me on our first anniversary. He had handmade it for me, and it was one of the few things of his that I had left. Most of Jobel’s belongings had been sold to feed his lasting memory, to feed Merek.
I placed my hand on his shoulder. “Merek.” I hesitated. “You know your father would not have wanted you to act so-”
“The man is dead, Mother! Jobel is dead!” His eyes were as sharp as his words, like daggers they struck me. Who was this man, this creature so full of anger and hate? And what had he done with my Merek? Trying to sound as authoritative as possible, I stood erect. “Merek Jamels Brunnseth! Since when did you start speaking of your father in such a way?”
“I am sorry, Mother,” he said quietly, “but you speak to me as a child, and I am no longer a child. Although I am young, I’ve more experience than most aged men and I’ve-”
“I imagine you have more experience than a thousand men but you are still my child!” I cried, placing my hand to his cheek. “My poor little boy.” I traced the frown lines of his face. Just as my hand began to slip away from him, he held it close. “I will always be your son, but Mother, I am not a boy anymore. Perhaps I was when I left for the war, but not now,” he whispered, “not now.” His eyes glazed over; looking past me into a world I knew not, into the world in which I lost my boy.
“Merek,” I whispered faintly, “What has happened to you? Please, Merek. Please. Please tell me.”
He never truly told me. All he did say was that this infamous betrayer was his friend and that he himself, with his own hands, he-
“Mother,” he said slowly, his dark eyes unfaltering as they gazed at me, “I killed him.” With that he knocked three times on the door and soldiers poured into the tiny quarters of the house.
“Take it there!” he ordered. The soldiers began to remove all that remained of my home. In silence I watched them strip the room of every ornament, leaving Merek and I alone in the emptiness.
“I heard that Grandfather and Grandmother have passed in my absence.” Nodding slowly at him I could not find the strength to utter a word, all my strength was at the moment being used to keep myself standing and conscious. How could my baby be so direct, so adamant and accepting of such brutality? I knew that with war he would leave a boy and come back a soldier, but to see such an alteration was more than my heart could bear.
With sooted hands, a soldier saluted him, whispering sharply in his ear. “Good” was all Merek said. There was neither pity in his voice nor remorse in his eyes. He said it with a placid face, “There has been a fire on the farm. There are no survivors.”
“Now,” he extended his spotless hand towards me, “will you come with me?” It appeared so clean at the time. Yet it appeared my son, this creature, had murdered his cousins, his aunt and uncle. He had robbed his mother, without a second thought or even a blink of an eye, of her only family left in this world, outside of him. What other choice did I have but to take the spotless hand of a killer who had simply washed the blood from his skin? He had taken my home and now my family all right before me. I could go nowhere else.
“Oh my son,” I mumbled, my knees collapsing under me. He caught me before I could fall, but not before the tears poured down my cheeks. I had tried so hard not to, but I could no longer keep them from flowing. “Oh, my son, what have you become?!”
Return to TOC
