Salamander

Chapter Four: Afternoon Tea, Alan's abuser?

The carriage rolled along the sandstone path under the centered sun. We passed Malgory’s home, beginning to ready his and his son’s horses for the journey down to the beach. When he saw us pass, he waved, grinning with content.

            Yet another non-threatening father.

            It hadn’t been easy to stand up from my wheelchair and climb into the carriage. Mr. Falker had offered to carry me on, but I had declined after stating that I did have full, yet impaired, mobility of my legs. My wheelchair, the prison-on-wheels, was set before me in the carriage, periodically rolling forward and jabbing me against the side of my leg. The two girls were in the middle of an intense game of patty cake, and Mrs. Falker was sitting beside them, staring out to the ocean. She and Mariam were dressed in her best; Mrs. Falker in an elegant, purple dress that hugged at her waist and snaked all the way up to the top of her neck. Every inch of the gown was embroiled with detailed stitching, mainly consisting intricate swirls and flowers. The neckline just below her jaw exploded outwards into a mesh-like fabric at least three inches long. Mariam’s dress was more simplistic, but just as dazzling – white and green fabric that rippled down from the tight-fitting torso to the very bottom of the gown. It surrounded her lower body similar to that of an upside down umbrella, and when she sat down, the dress went high enough for her plain white stockings to be revealed. She held my hand in an attempt to comfort me, but I couldn’t help feeling a little bit guilty at the fact that I had lied to her about my injuries. What would her reaction be if I decided to tell her?

            “Listen,” Mariam said. “I get in fights with my sisters all the time.”

            “I know it’ll pass over soon,” I lied yet again. “My father can just be a little . . .” I gesticulated my hand in small circles, trying to think of the appropriate word. “. . . eccentric.” Not a complete lie.

            “Oh, in what way?” Mariam asked confusedly.

            “He can be unpredictable,” I explained. “Eccentric, as in, his reactions to everyday complications can make him react in very bizarre ways.”

            “Really,” Mariam said as if she understood, but I could detect the ounce of confusion in her voice. “Your father doesn’t come across as eccentric, at least to me.”

            “Well, you don’t have to live with him,” I said a bit harshly. When I saw the hurtful look spread across Mariam’s face, I quickly corrected myself. “I didn’t mean that in a condescending way.” I let out a breath. “It’s just that he purposely acts differently in front of people outside our family.”

            I paused. Why was I giving her all this information? If I continued to talk like that, I feared that I would eventually slip and tell her about my father’s abuse. I bit my tongue as if that could somehow stop me from talking.

            “Huh.” Mariam looked onward, though there wasn’t much to see when you looked in that direction, for her father was sitting at the front of the carriage, blocking over half the view. He held the reigns of the two horses tightly in his hands, constantly adjusting them within his white-gloved hands. We were now passing through the thin forest of palm trees, the path no more than a break in the moss that took over most of the undergrowth.

            The carriage passed through a stream of light that broke through the foliage above. It caught the skin on my arms like a spotlight, making me realize for the first time since I had run away that my body was completely covered in filth. Not to mention the odor that seemed to cling to me like house flies. “I should’ve bathed,” I said. And then I noticed that my clothes weren’t even appropriate for an occasion like a Coronation Festival, without the added fact that they too were covered in filth. “And changed.”