Aura

by Abraham, M. A.

  "Did you have no intention of telling anyone about your plans Aura?"

  Her eyes fell and her cheeks flamed, she clutched at the straps of the backpack in her hands and refused to answer.

  "I see," her father replied as he acknowledged the fact that she was not about to give him a voluntary answer. "I believe that means a no, is that right Aura?"

  She still refused to answer, shrugging her shoulders and turned an even deeper shade of crimson.

  He shook his head at her in disappointment and, after a short period of awkwardness, began again. "I realize that the area is fairly safe Aura, but someone would have been bound to have noticed that you were gone sooner or later and would have worried, did that never occur to you?"

  Her gaze rose to meet his at this and in sudden irritation she asked. "So who would have missed me father?" She then swallowed convulsively and, on a calmer note, explained her outburst. "Nobody would have noticed or have even cared that I was gone. Mother would have even welcomed my absence. Nor am I dramatizing things, this is just the way things are." She ended with a long, deep sigh.

  "That is not quite true Aura," he defended his wife. "You mother loves you very much."

  She frowned at him. It was no less than what she should have expected. "Think about it father. If you give it any amount of thought at all you will agree with my observations."

  That was the problem, he realized, deep inside he did agree with her, for it did seem that her mother did resent her. It was, to his way of thinking, the woman's main flaw, because, other than the way she treated her own child, she had been a perfect wife and mother to him and his children. He decided they would be better off, at this point of the discussion, if they talked about some other, more neutral, subject.

  "As I remember Aura, those ruins are quite a way from here. Would you like a hand setting up? I have a little extra time this morning. I will give you a ride over there, and I could spend a some time with you. If it is all right with you, that is."

  She smiled as she nodded her consent. "I had thought to make two or even three trips to take everything I wanted. This way I will be able to do it all at the same time. Thank you father." The relief in her voice was shown plainly on the expression on her face.

  "Three trips Aura?" He asked inquisitively.

  "Well, I did mean to make sure that I was fairly comfortable as well as provided for."

  "That sounds more like Monica, not you Aura. How long did you plan on being gone anyway?" He hated to sound suspicious, but he couldn’t help himself. He was!

  She just shrugged a shoulder as she answered noncommittally. "Two, three weeks or so."

  "Somehow Aura, I think someone would have noticed that you were missing in that amount of time. As it is, I am glad to know about it. I will spend some time with you now, helping you set up your camp, then I will check up on you from time to time as you work. It is the least I can do."

  "Why?"

  The question was asked innocently enough. Aura just took it for granted that she would be on her own. No one had ever taken the time to check on her before, why should they now?

  To make things simple, her stepfather replied: "Because I like my tea, and nobody makes it better than you do. There is a price to my vigilance, you know." He did not want to tell her it was because he cared and felt it was past time someone showed her that she did matter.

  Aura took the joke in the mien it was intended and teased back. "Perhaps it will do some good for me to be gone, even if it is to be missed for my talent at making you your favorite beverage."

  "It would help your mother to miss you a bit as well."

  "Father, mother has plenty of time to miss me. I am only home for the summer holidays. The rest of the year I spend at school, or helping out at the hospital. I am not even home for Christmas."

  He nodded sadly as he conceded her point. She had a valid complaint and he hated to admit it. He did, however, find something new out about her, something he would talk to her about as they sat about drinking their tea. He had never heard about any training or studies or time spent in the hospitals before. It was a possibility of course. The convent did service a small sized hospital that was connected to the grounds. Aura could have spent a lot of time there for all he knew.

  They moved on, loading her camping gear and supplies into the boot of the car then she ran back into the house, calling, not too loudly, back, as she raced up the stairs. "Only one more thing father and I will be back." She returned a few moments later with Roger.

  Her step father laughed his amusement and commented: "I think you will be well guarded Aura, I will not have much to worry about. He is not only very protective of you, he seems to be very fond of you as well, if snakes are capable of such feelings."

  She smiled as she stroked the head of the snake wound about her torso, and answered: "I never did thank you properly for him, and I suspect how much you probably had to go through to get him for me. Mother made it very clear to me what she thought of the idea of your buying him."

  "She feared running into him in other parts of the house."

  "I know. I have attempted to keep him contained so nobody would have any complaints about him. Roger really has been a very good snake."

  They left, taking the next hour and a half to get her campsite set up with her pop-up tent and portable, but primitive, cook stove. She never went on any camping expedition without her little hibachi. After everything was set up to her satisfaction she started up a small fire and boiled some water for their tea.

  "Did either of the girls, or your mother, tell you about the party we are giving on Saturday night Aura?" Her stepfather spoke, giving himself an opening to approach her about her way of dressing and how he planned to change it, and her, a little.

  It was not as if she dressed shabbily or had ever gone about dirty, but she needed dressing up. He wondered how she would react to his offer to help her find her true inner self.

  Aura gave him a blank look then shook her head. "Why should they? I never attend their parties." She replied as if stating a fact.

  "I know and I think it is about time things changed about the house."

  "Somehow I have a feeling this is something we might be sorry trying father, perhaps we should pass on this idea."

  "Well I do not happen to agree, so I want you to do me a favor, nor do I want to hear that it is impossible for you to do so. You went to the same finishing school as the girls and I know you are capable of doing what I am about to ask."

  He waited for her to reply and she watched him as their wills clashed. She did, owe him a favor, and some sort of allegiance, she supposed. To repay what she felt a clear and definite debt, she pushed her feelings of impending disaster aside and conceded, albeit with severe reservations.

  "All right, for you I will give it a try."

  "Good," he knew she would not back out after giving her word. With Aura he could count on that. He then began to fill her in on his plans. "I am going to pick you up on Saturday morning and we are going shopping. That is the first order of business. After we are going to go to the stylist your mother and stepsisters frequent in order to transform you. I have had a suspicion for a long time that beneath that neglected exterior dwells an untouched and hidden beauty. Now I will know for sure."

  "Father, this is a mistake." She warned him once more, feeling a need to voice her misgivings.

  "I disagree. Give me a chance to prove to your mother that she has been wrong about you all of these years Aura." He pleaded as if looking desperately to bridge the invisible gap between mother and daughter.

  Aura said nothing as she watched him rise to leave, but she sadly shook her head as she rose to see him off. She picked up her snake and walked beside her stepfather in silence, then stood as she watched him drive away, after bidding him a fond farewell.

  When he was out of sight she gave a sigh, as she spoke to her snake. "He will never accept things as they are, will he? It would make no difference to mother if she could s
ee me looking beautiful, she would just rather not have me alive in the first place."

  Tears burned her eyes as she set Roger on the ground to go his own way. She had never told anyone how, when she had been eight, her mother had, in a fit of fury, told her exactly why she hated her. She looked like the man who had loved her mother, then left her. She had found herself with child shortly after he had gone and she had been left alone with his child. As they shared the same coloring she had become, for her mother, a living and constant memory of the only serious mistake she had ever made in her life.

  It had hurt, this declaration of hate and the brutal telling of it by her mother. Aura had hidden in her room and cried, her child's heart broken to discover that her beautiful perfect mother could never love her. Nor had the revelation ceased to cause her pain, making her feel the stab of her rejection all over again, as if it had been repeated each time she had cause to remember it. Matters had not changed between mother and daughter over the years to indicate that they might. Though Aura never seemed to stop hoping that they would.

  True to his word her stepfather reappeared four days later to take her shopping and to have her restyled for the party. Aura cooperated on everything, anything to make him happy, except for the hairstyle the beautician had wanted to give her. The woman had suggested that they cut over two feet off of her hair. There was no damage to the lengths of her hair to warrant such a sacrilege, for, to Aura, that was what it would have amounted to.

  Aura walked into the party, amidst a few gasps of surprise, on her stepfather's arm. At the boutique she had chosen a white satin gown to wear. He approved of her choice. Modestly styled and impeccably cut, the dress shone through the sheets of waves and curls that was her released hair, like a beacon shining through the night. Her stepfather had taken one look at her loosened hair while she was at the hairdressers and had insisted that she wear it that way.

  It had been years since he had seen her hair hanging free and he had been impressed, not only with its length, but also with the way the golden and auburn highlights had complimented the dark tresses. He had always loved how her hair had hung in ringlets, waving down to the small of her back, shining and healthy.

  He had further complimented her ensemble by purchasing her an amethyst and diamond necklace, which now hung like a pendant around her throat, clasped behind her neck by an eighteen carat gold chain. Matching earrings nestled in her ears and a matching ring encircled her finger, completing the effect he had hoped to make. The jewels had been a last minute purchase when he had heard that she had no jewelry to wear as an accessory to decorate the gown. His own daughters had never had that problem, as he knew that their jewelry cases were full to the point of bursting.

  Her mother had taken one look at her, alerted to her presence by the combined stunned looks of dismay written on her step daughters faces, then she had bore down on her daughter, hissing at her in hushed tones as she reached her, so the other guests would not hear what was being said.

  "Just what do you think you are doing? You look like a cheap tramp." The sneer in her voice was as pronounced as the venom of her words.

  Aura looked down at the pristine whiteness of her gown in hurt confusion and dismay, and her stepfather rose to her defense, as he noticed her obvious inability to deal with the attack on her own.

  "I brought her, and I think her attire more than circumspect, much more so than the gowns worn by my own daughters if I might say so."

  He heard the angry intake of breath his wife took and a moment later, felt the searing heat of her wrath as she turned on him. "She is disgracing the whole family, clutching at your arm as if she had hopes of becoming your next mistress, or has that already happened?"

  Aura listened to the cruel cutting words and let out a choked sob. She should never have agreed to her stepfather's suggestions, she had known that they spelled disaster.

  Now her mother would leave him no peace until he promised never to help her again in any manner, which was something that did not bother her anyway. She could take care of herself if she had to, she was quite sure about that. After all, other people did it. What she did care about was the trouble she had caused by allowing herself to be led. It was a mistake, she vowed, one she would never make again.

  Hearing the beginnings of what could turn out to be a huge argument between her parents, Aura turned and ran out of the house. She did not quit running until she reached her camp. There, she changed, slowly folding her dress with care, and placed it into the recesses of her packsack. She then took the article and dropped it into the hole. The opening, which she had almost fallen through earlier, and which had peaked her curiosity in the first place, had turned out not to be a dungeon as she had thought, but just the remnants of a collapsing underground cave.

  She climbed into her tent, where she soon became claustrophobic, then crawled back out, dragging her sleeping bag with her, deciding to try to sleep in the open. The weather, however, soon put a stop to that idea as it began to rain. In exasperation she picked up all of her belongings, supplies and gear and threw it down the hole. When that was done she dragged her tent over the opening to keep it dry and slipped down into the cavity to dry off and change her wet clothing.

  Using her lantern to light her way she pushed her possessions aside and spread out her bedding. She sat on top of the pile of blankets and cried. It was, she decided, probably the perfect end to one of the most horrid days of her life. Cold, hungry, tired and feeling as if she had been kicked in the teeth, she crawled into her makeshift bed to curl up so she could go to sleep.

  There was going to be serious changes made in her life, she promised herself. Starting tomorrow things were going to be different, and if she never returned home again she doubted, very much, if she would miss it. She felt Roger as he slithered closer to capture some of the extra heat her body gave off, and, a short time later, she fell asleep to dream a troubled dream.

  CHAPTER III

  Aura was not the only one to make a vow that things were going to change. Her stepfather shared the sentiment. The difference was that he had not been content to wait until the morning. As soon as the party had ended, a celebration that had taken half the night, he called a meeting, which was not a well-received notion. If they could spend most of the night partying, they could afford the time it would take them to listen to what he had to say.

  He waited until they were seated and then began to speak as he angrily paced back and forth. His stride was short, his tone clipped and his gaze cold as ice. He doubted if any of his family had ever seen this side of his character. Well, it was past time they had a taste of what he could really be like. He had put up with enough of their ignorance.

  “I have never been so angry, so disappointed or so disgusted in my life. Your actions were totally unwarranted. The worse part of it was that you have done this to your own sister. Have you any idea the harm you have done to that child? And you,” he pointed at his wife, his arm shooting out in her direction as he did. “Your own daughter and you have undermined her self esteem so much she can do little more than skulk around. She is little more than shadow of who she could be. I knew you were capable of being petty and even cold-blooded but I never thought you could do something like this. ESPECIALLY. TO. YOUR. OWN. DAUGHTER.” He yelled, but he wasn’t finished.

  “Selfish. The whole works of you. Not a thought in your heads for anyone else but yourselves. How could you do this to your own sister?” He turned on his daughters. “You have degraded her, made her unwelcome in her own home. I won’t say you took her mother’s affection from her, I doubt if that ever existed.” He turned to his wife and asked. “Why did you even keep her if you hated her so much?”

  He kept turning from his daughters to his wife. He was so angry his face was flushed and his eyes appeared to shoot sparks. He accentuated his words with gestures, pointing his hands from person to person. No one dared speak a word in defense. There was no defending their actions. They knew what they had done. They had kno
wn years ago what they were doing and they had done it anyway. It had gone on for so long they had thought that they had gotten away with it, after all, their father might have accepted Aura, but no one had ever asked them whether they had. He could see their thoughts in their eyes. Well, he decided, they might not like what he had to say, or what he was about to do, but they would damn well learn to live with it.

  “Things are going to change around here. I am not going to keep standing by and watch you destroy a worthwhile person. Aura is every bit as special as any of you. She is a beautiful girl with feelings and dreams like anyone else. I refuse to stand by and watch as you continue to tear her apart. She has rights, just like the rest of us. She deserves to have a home like anyone else. From this point on she comes home for Christmas like you do. She gets presents, as she deserves. You will treat her as you would any other member of the family, I will not tolerate anything less. Not anymore.”

  Glaring at the three women before him he snarled. “Do. You. All. Understand?”