Chariot

She lay on the straw that had been arranged for her, looking longingly through the smoke and to the door that stood open to the bright blue sky. She could feel her friends singing and laughing and shouting. She wanted to be one of them. She wanted to be with them. A sparse cough shuddered through her thin frame and shook her stomach in a way that made her feel sick all over again. The priest had stopped by the day before, examining her carefully after she had first taken ill. He hadn't spoken a word to her, merely granting the small girl a kind smile before taking her mother from the little one-roomed hut. She didn't know what had been said, but she did know that she was furious with the priest. Whatever he had said, it had made her mother cry. She hated that fact. Her mother was a good woman. Why would a man of God make her cry? She wished she knew the answer. Maybe then she could make her mother smile again. Not the tense, brittle smile she had been giving her children, but a real smile like she used to have when their father would still come home.

She rolled over onto her side and felt her stomach churn. She wasn't feeling as sick as she had the day before, it was true, but it was little comfort when she felt as ill as she did. The boys who had come to play with her brother the day before had tossed roses and little bags of herbs on her laughing even as her mother's face had paled even more than when she had spoken to the priest. One of the millers had been passing by and took the boys away. She wished everyone would tell her why such things were so bad. Curling into a ball and resting her cheek on two tiny fists. She wanted to feel better. Maybe if she did than her mother would smile again and those cruel boys would stop laughing.



"I'm afraid," she whispered as her mother held her tight. A fragile hand stroked her thin, rough hair. She had woken up to her mother's arms around her and tears wetting her pale brown hair. Her mother had her very scared even as her brother lay on the other pallet coughing and hacking. He had thrown up at least three times in the time she had been awake and would cry every time that their mother or anyone else who dared to touch him. She bit her lip as she watched him, her mother's soft croons filling the little hut. Fear filled the hut. It seeped into pores, nooks, and crannies. It permeated everything. She could feel it seeping into her very soul.

"It will be alright precious," the tiny woman cooed. "Everything will be alright." She wanted to believe her mother, but she didn't. Nothing was going to be okay. Everything was going to fall apart. It was going to be ruined. She watched as the priest came to the doorway and held up a cross. She watched as he made the sign and began praying. From behind him, someone threw flower petals and dried herbs into the house. Dark words spilled from the man's lips like a thick poison, viscous and acidic. Another tremor ran through her body as she buried her face in her mother's thread sparse gown. There was something wrong. It was all so terribly wrong. Had God forgotten them? Had he turned his back on them? The thought was one that had her on edge.



She woke up and looked around the hut. For the first time in as long as she could remember, the small space was filled with clear air. She looked around and couldn't see anyone. She didn't know how long she had been asleep but she knew that she was alone. She curled into a ball, hugging the woolen blanket close to her bony body. "Momma?" her voice was a soft whisper. She bit her lip as she looked around. She tried to push herself up only to fall back. She wasn't strong enough to move yet. "Momma! Momma, where are you?" Her voice trailed off into nothingness. The air smelled of crushed herbs and the drying flower petals that littered the dirt floor of the hut. Her fingers dug into the hard packed Earth and she tried to drag herself towards the door.

Her arms trembled as she made it to the ground next to the pallet. Outside she could see black smoke curling against the clear blue sky in the distance, a thin wisp of nothing in the air. It stilled her. A cold hand clasped her heart. There was something about that, an acrid smell on the air that had her wondering why she should know it. "Momma..." the girl's voice wavered almost cracking as tears touched her eyes. This couldn't be happening. This couldn't be happening. Where was her Momma? She never left her children when they were sick. And where was her brother? They wouldn't have left her alone would they? They still loved her didn't they?