Return Of the Fallen. Rita Vetere
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...six years old. A skinny little girl who played in the dirt behind the old lean-to shed near the farmhouse. Every now and then a stray chicken wandered by, scratching at the ground in search of something to eat. The farm where she and Mamma lived was isolated, miles away from the nearest town. Such a funny name for a town, she always thought...Oskaloosa.
Lunchtime had come and gone and it was nearly time for supper, but Israfel had not yet had breakfast. Nor had she asked Mamma for any today—not after she’d woken this morning to find Mamma sitting on the porch, bible in hand, her pretty dark hair all askew and looking at Israfel out of the corner of her eye.
Israfel knew what that look meant. She’d do well to steer clear of Mamma today. Whenever Mamma started out looking at her all sideways like that, before the day was over, Israfel usually ended up on the wrong end of the leather strap that hung on a nail just inside the cellar door. Being hungry was nothing compared to what might happen if the wrong thing came out of Israfel’s mouth when Mamma had one of her spells.
Israfel did what she usually did when Mamma went strange. She tried her best not to exist. Sometimes it worked. Sometimes she’d get off without a strapping. Other times, she’d go to bed not only hungry but covered in welts from the leather strap as well.
As she played in the dirt with her little shovel, Israfel wished fervently it was Sunday instead of Saturday. On Sunday mornings Mamma left her alone, departing early to walk the five miles to town to attend church. Usually she didn’t return home until late afternoon, and Israfel could breathe easily for a few hours. Mamma never took Israfel to church with her. She told Israfel once that she’d probably be struck by lightning and burned to a crisp if she ever tried to enter a church, on account of she was a “’bomination”...whatever that was.
“Israfel!”
At the sound of Mamma’s voice, Israfel’s head snapped up, her pulse pounding at her neck.
“Israfel... You’d best mind me, girl.” Mamma lowered her voice. “Come out from wherever you’re hiding, you little heathen.”
Real fear sloshed over Israfel at the words. Things always got really bad when Mamma started calling her a “little heathen.” It meant she’d read the bible again. Something in it always seemed to make Mamma mad at her.
“Don’t make me look for you,” she heard Mamma say in a voice that meant business.
Israfel peeked around the corner of the shed and spotted Mamma standing close by on the other side, her face turned up to the summer sky. Her intense fear did not prevent Israfel from thinking how pretty Mamma looked in that moment with the brilliant sun shining down on her. Mamma was beautiful. On the outside, anyway. Then her mother lowered her head and, turning, spotted her.
Suddenly, Mamma didn’t look so pretty anymore. Her eyes narrowed to slits and Israfel felt the bad intent in them from where she stood. Mamma muttered something else then, but all Israfel caught was “...should’a killed you long ago.”
With a start, Israfel saw it was not the leather strap Mamma clutched in her hand, but something much worse. At the sight of the large butcher knife her mother carried, Israfel took off like a pistol shot, her heart pounding like hooves. She did not run back to the farmhouse. Instead, she headed for the gravel road, which she knew led to town, hoping to outrun her mother and find help. Israfel’s considerable instinct for survival told her if Mamma got hold of her today, she would not live to see the sun come up.
Almost two miles down the road, straining for breath, Israfel looked over her shoulder again. She kept telling herself not to look back, but couldn’t seem to stop herself. Mamma, running on bare feet, her thin cotton dress flying out behind her, was much closer than the last time she’d checked. Still brandishing the knife and yelling at Israfel at the top of her lungs, she showed no signs of slowing. Israfel didn’t understand most of the stuff Mamma shouted, but she understood one thing perfectly. If Mamma caught her, she was going to use that butcher knife on her, probably much the same way she used it on the chickens on those rare occasions she got it in her head to cook a proper meal.
Israfel conserved her breath for running and didn’t scream. Not, that was, until she felt Mamma’s hand grasp the back of her dress, tripping her and causing her to fall flat on her face in the gravel. Then she screamed loud enough to wake the dead and didn’t stop. Mamma flipped her over in the middle of the road and straddled her, pinning her to the ground. Israfel screamed and screamed, even though she knew no one was around to hear, or come to her aid.
Mamma raised the knife high. “Shut up, you little mongrel. You think I like doing this? Not me wants you dead... It’s him.” The hand not holding the knife pointed to the sky.
The crazed look in Mamma’s eyes only caused Israfel’s terror to increase. She yelled at the top of her voice, her heart bursting with fear as the knife hovered dangerously over her.
At that moment, a spray of gravel struck the back of her head, accompanied by the loud blaring of a car horn, drowning out her screams. Mamma looked up, momentarily distracted from her task. Israfel squirmed out from under her, wriggling like a worm. As she crawled away on hands and knees, she ran smack into the chrome grill of a car, which had stopped just behind them on the road.
The man who jumped out moved toward Mamma, thunderclouds in his gray eyes. Mamma got to her feet and faced him without flinching, the knife still clutched in her hand.
“Put it down,” the man said without raising his voice.
Mamma stared at him as if he’d just landed from outer space. “Best mind your own business, mister.” She tightened her grip on the knife.
The man moved close to Israfel, who had gotten to her feet, and placed a protective arm around her shoulders. She had never been touched by a gentle hand before in her life, and the simple gesture felt so comforting, she stopped hitching in her breath and regained her calm.
“Put the knife down. Or I’ll put you down.”
The air between them grew thick with tension as they continued to glare at each other. When Mamma still didn’t let go of the knife, he said, “I don’t want to hurt you, but I will if I have to.”
Mamma narrowed her eyes and remained silent, but stood her ground.
“Where is the child’s father?”
On hearing his words, Mamma’s face changed abruptly. A dreamy, faraway look flitted across her eyes, and a shivery sigh escaped her. “Gone away,” she whispered. She looked up at the sky when she said it, and brushed her hand gently across her cheek in a gesture of a remembered caress.
Her eyes turned hard again, lit up by a spark of anger, and she stiffened. “It was an arcane who fathered her. He spoke sweet words, like manna, but they were false. I did wrong. I know that now.” She pointed at Israfel. “There stands the fruit of my sin.”
The man looked incredulous. “You think you’re doing God’s work in killing her? Is that it?”
Israfel saw Mamma’s eyes widen at the man’s words. Then Mamma sneered. “You don’t know nothing.”
“I know I don’t condone the slaughter of children,” he replied in an angry voice.
“She’s not a child!” Mamma shrieked. Her face contorted in rage. “She’s an abomination—one not suffered by God to live.”
Without warning, Mamma lunged at the man, the knife once again upraised. Israfel cringed in anticipation, but in the next instant, the man grabbed hold of Mamma’s wrist, twisting it. Israfel heard the snap of breaking bone. The knife clattered to the ground.
When he released her, Mamma no longer seemed angry, only deflated.
The man stared at her with disdain. In a low voice, he said, “I ought to kill you here and now for what you were about to do. But I won’t, for the child’s sake. Leave now, and I’ll allow you to walk away with your life. The girl comes with me.”
Mamma