The Fallen Queen (Winner of the Write Way Award 2013) #Wattys2015 #MyWattysChoice #Featured

Chapter 3: The Ogress (Part 1)

Something inexplicable reigned over the house where I grew up. The house, like I have already mentioned, was over a century old, and my father repainted it countless times in brown and white. Only a few sunrays seemed to be able to warm up the house’s mood. And whispers were constantly heard, no matter if it was day or night.

The people from our village thought our house was haunted. It is true that the front yard, decorated with spider flowers, bellwort, and asylums, gave our house a delightfully macabre look. Only a few visitors dared to step onto the rocky trail leading to the front entrance of our home. Most of those visitors were my dad’s friends, longtime friends from when he was still a boy. His friends used our garage to hide merchandise that they later sold or smuggled across the Canadian border.

We lived in front of the local cemetery. Behind us was the river. The river froze in winter, overflowed the terrain in spring, and slowly returned to normal as summer approached. To me, the river was magical. There were trees and plants lining it. During the summer nights, we fell asleep listening to the frogs croaking and crickets chirping along the river, lulled and comforted by their beautiful night songs.

Between our walls, a war was going on. It was not the kind of war that uses firearms. Daddy did have a hunting rifle, but I never saw him use it. He never hunted again after Jeremy, Audrey, and I were born. The war that took place in our home was a war with words, screams, fists, and tears.

My mother, whom I had considered a weak being who required my protection since the day she cried in my arms, had turned into a bloodthirsty monster, an ogress. I did not understand what happened. It did not make any sense. Where was the logic in all of that? If she was so fragile and so sad before, how did she become so controlling and so angry? Maybe a wicked witch cast a spell on her. A wicked witch with a crooked nose, green skin, and red eyes—and red hair too, why not?

Yes, that must be it. My mother had to be under a spell, I was certain. She would not have converted into a monster voluntarily. Something had happened to her; she seemed to have no heart. She seemed to hate children. She seemed to hate us.

“Look, Mother! I made you a drawing. Just for you!” I said to her, presenting my priceless piece of art.

“How sweet!” she answered in a husky voice. “I know just where I will put it.”

“Where, Mother? Where?” I was so excited. I wondered what special place my mother was thinking of.

“Guess.” A sly smile appeared on her face.

“In your bedroom?”

“No, try again.”

“In the living room?”

“No. Try again.”

“I don’t know. Where?”

“In the toilet.” She paused, erased her smile from her face, and continued, “I’m gonna use it next time I need to wipe my ass. Do you understand? I don’t want anything from you.”

She made her hate very clear. But it got worse.

The bedroom was dark. It was her bedroom, another room the sun refused to protect. The wooden walls and floor gave the room a rustic air—very suitable for an ogress.

She was yelling at me from the kitchen. I hid myself under her bed. I heard hollow, steady, terrifying sounds. She was coming. The stairs cracked under each one of her footsteps. She was near. I recoiled away as far as I could under the bed, my shelter.

“Where are you, Marie? Marie!” she roared, her face red with anger.

Her disheveled hair fluctuated between blond, brown, and red. She looked like a lioness. She was hunting me down like I was her prey. She wanted to kill me. Kill me for pleasure. She hated me.

“Come out, you piece of shit!” said her hoarse and familiar voice. She was mad.

She turned the corner. She was in the hall. In the darkness that reigned under the bed, I could not see her, but I could hear everything. I heard the booming sound of her footsteps grow louder, echoing.

“Come on, come out! You know the longer you make me wait, the worst it will be for you!”

On her way, she threw the sheets and pillows from Audrey’s bed onto the floor.

It was true. Sooner or later, she would find me. But I was too terrified to move. Her shadow had already entered the room. She crouched on the rug beside the bed. She knew exactly where I was. I closed my eyes and blocked my ears with my hands. I held my breath. My heart pounded faster, then faster still and harder.

A hand grabbed one of my legs and pulled me out from under the bed. An amused whisper came out of her mouth. She smiled pitilessly. Her knuckles hammered my skin, my body. I tried to protect myself the best I could. I stopped resisting when she took her belt off. There was no escape. Soon the dark invaded my head and my ears were filled with a continuous buzzing. I fainted. I felt dead.

I did not know what I had done to deserve such punishment. Thus my question later, when I regain consciousness and felt the time was more propitious.

“Mother, what did I do wrong?”

“You don’t remember? You went to see your cousin.”

“My fiancé?”

“Yes, your cousin, Walter.”

“But it doesn’t bother him that I visit him.”

“It bothers me. I told you not to go.”

“Why?”

“You just do as I say.”

She hit me because I went to see my fiancé. Nonsense. I was going to see him almost every day to tell him how much I longed for him and was happy to see him and I never received such punishment before.

Nevertheless, I could say I was lucky. I was not the one my mother hit the most. That title belonged to my little sister. I do not remember her doing anything that bad either. She just cried a lot. And when my mother hit her, she cried more. So that did not make any sense. Why is it that my mother did not understand if it seemed so clear to me?

When my father was away on his fishing trips, we were all scared. We were afraid to sleep because we thought she might come into our rooms and hit us with a belt. Each time we heard a metal sound, a clicking, we thought it was her coming.

Some days she hit us; some days she did not. There never seemed to be a reason to it.

So I concluded that every time she hit us—my brother, my sister, and I—that it was because of all the hate and anger she felt towards us. She felt she should let us know. She hated the fact we existed and were in her life. She blamed us for her sadness. She constantly threatened us that she would leave us and that we were going to be miserable without her.

My normal reaction would have been to tell her to leave and to let me reign over my kingdom peacefully. But I had feelings for the ogress. So, instead of hoping for her to leave us, I hoped she could love us. I hoped she could see how beautiful and good we were.

In fairy tales, the heroines are always saved with love. Usually, by their true love’s kiss. Maybe my mother could be saved by our love.