Disgrace

“Well, I would say the pleasure is mine but it really isn’t,” I replied, giving Derrick as much attitude as possible. I didn’t like the way this man carried himself. He was cocky, over-confident, and not a pleasant person to be around. “How did you find this place anyway? Seems like its ancient!” I said, referring to the tunnel we were traveling in.

Derrick ignored my question and kept walking. He then stooped to the ground and focused in on something. I stepped closer and saw he was looking into a small hole in the tunnel that only a mouse would be able to get into. “Why are you looking-“

“Sh. Just be quiet for once.” I did as he said, but I wasn’t proud of it. After about 30 seconds more, a small mouse came out of the hole. I jumped back, not expecting to see anything. The mouse scurried back in and Derrick jumped to his feet.

“I told you to be quiet, damnit! Now you scared him. It’ll take me a good 20 minutes now to talk him back out of there,” he yelled, getting on the blackened floor.

I looked at him curiously. “What do you mean ‘talk’ him out of there? It’s a rat. Rats don’t talk. And I doubt that thing is coming back out. Why do you want a rat anyway? Are you a witch or something?”

He looked up at me and gave me what I thought was a sympathetic look. “You don’t have a clue what a Schande can do, do you?” My heart started beating faster. Could he do what I could? Was he going to kill me now? But I didn’t know anything! How could this man kill me?

“I do too! I just don’t understand what you mean by talking to a rat,” I put simply, my voice wavering from false confidence.

He smirked at me. “First and foremost, Benjamin is not a rat. He is a mouse. He is really displeased with you calling him such a dirty thing. You really don’t want to know what he thinks about you right now. Second of all, where are you from that you don’t know a thing about Schande’s? Don’t they teach you about them in the supposedly normal school that you go to?”

I looked at the ground as he finished. I couldn’t really keep up this charade much longer. But I had to. He had to show me the way out. The less people were knew I was a Schande the better but I had to pretend that I knew what a Schande was and what they could really do. “I live on my own. I don’t go to school so I have no idea what a Schande can do but you are scaring me a little by saying that. Are you going to hurt me?”

Derrick looked taken aback. “I would never hurt a girl. No matter how rude they may be to me.” I smiled to myself and knowing that the dislike was mutual. “On the other hand though, you should be going to school. The Queen demands it of everyone no matter their situation. How did you get out?”

His inquisitiveness was getting to me. “Look. No more questions about me. You basically know my life’s story but I know nothing about you! Nor do I really want to. All I want from you right now is to give me back my bread and get me out of this dreadful tunnel that smells as if a hundred skunks were decaying. I just want to go back to my house, be left alone, eat my bread, and hope that I never have to see you or your awful rat, who supposedly says horrible things about me, ever again. Do I make myself clear?”

Derrick sighed. “You won’t get anywhere in life with that attitude. No one wants a wife who nags and complains all the time.” I gave him the meanest look I could muster. He looked up at me again and simply said, “Follow me.”

“Thank you! Now, so I seem educated, tell me about what a Schande can do?” I asked, hoping that I didn’t totally screw myself over from getting the answer.

“Nope. You don’t ever want to see me again so I am not going to say or do anything until you get your bread and you are out of this tunnel.” Great, I thought. We kept walking on until there was complete darkness.

“Derrick? Where are you? I can’t see a thing!” I put my hands out, hoping to feel a wall or even better, Derrick. As much as I disliked him, he was my only hope for getting out of the tunnel. There was silence though. My hand finally touched something. It felt soft, like fur but it was hard too. Suddenly a light came on.

I screamed as loud as I could and the hundreds of rats that I saw scattered all across the room. Derrick laughed. “I wasn’t going to tell you what a Schande could do. I was going to show you.” Derrick got on the ground once again and all of the mice gathered around him. I wanted to vomit. “What do you want to ask them? They know just about everything.”

“Ask them? Their mice. Animals. They can’t talk even if they did know everything,” I answered,
crossing my arms. Derrick smiled but then focused in on one mouse. The mouse began to squeak. “Don’t hurt him! He’s harmless!” I said, rushing to pull Derrick off the ground.

“Don’t worry Ad. He’s telling me a story about you.”

I froze. What did this mouse know about me? I never saw any in the watch tower. I kept it clean and tidy. Not like I had to but it was nice.

Derrick then interrupted my train of thought. “Your mother abused you?” His face was a mixture of sadness and… anger?

“She didn’t like me much. She burned me and tore off my skin. She wouldn’t let me play with children and I had to stay indoors at all times. But I don’t even know if she is alive anymore so it doesn't matter,” I replied, trying to keep the painful memories at bay. I didn’t want to remember seeing my skin torn off my body like it was paper. I didn’t want to remember those nights when Mother would scrub me so hard that I would bleed and cry yet she wouldn’t stop. I didn’t want to remember the pain of her beating me every time I asked to go outside. I thought I was over it all but I wasn't.

I could tell Derrick saw the pain in my face. “What about your father? Where is he?”

It was the worst question that he could have asked. “My father… I don’t want to talk about it,” I said, holding back the onslaught of tears. My father was a noble man. He was kind to me and helped me heal after Mother’s awful experiments to get rid of the Schande brand on my arm. But when Mother would find out, she would scream at him and he would just sit there and take it. I cried for him every night. One morning, after Mother yelled at him, I woke up and he was gone. Mother acted like he never even existed.

“Oh, don’t cry Adalena. I didn’t mean to upset you,” Derrick said, awkwardly standing there as I let the tears fall. “Um… Here. Here is your bread. I’ll show you the way out after you stop crying.”

“How did you know I was abused as a child? No one even knew I existed! Who else knows about my life!?” I yelled at him, letting the scared little girl finally show through. Derrick looked at me sympathetically but said nothing. “I don’t need your sympathy. You don’t know the pain I have had to go through! You don’t understand what it was like to dread waking up every morning. Just tell me how you know!”

He looked at the ground and began talking. “I know I don’t know what it is like. But I do know what you went through. Being a Schande means I can do things that other people can’t. For me it means that I can understand animals and get information out of them. Gerard didn’t mean to tell me that story about you if it was going to hurt you. He just wanted to show you what I could do.”

I looked at Derrick for a long minute. Then I turned around and left the way we had come in.