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

Chapter 22: Childhood

Let me know if you can read this chapter. There seems to be a problem with Wattpad and people can't see the chapters after Chapter 10.

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The world was bigger and stretched far beyond Sainte-Anne-de-la-Rochelle, Quebec. Through the windows of the small, gray, four-door Chevrolet, my mother watched cities, villages, and forests pass before her eyes. She marveled and thought the road would never end. They had already been driving for several hours and for the five-year-old child trapped in the back seat between her princess sisters Emma, Agnes, Hugette, and Suzie, it almost seemed like a lifetime.

            The family wanted to spend their holidays at Lake Crystal. The girls were ready to go swimming in the cold water of the lake. They already had on their flowered swim caps and were fanning themselves against the scorching North American summer heat.

            Their father eventually stopped the car near the beach in front of a shop where he bought ice cream cones for everyone.

            "What a delight! What a treat! Daddy is so nice!" Angie said.

            It was a beautiful day. The warmth of the late day sun shimmered on the lake, the sweetness of ice cream melted in her mouth, and the smiles on her family's faces. This was a unique memory, a memory she would cherish dearly. For it was the only positive memory she has of her father. It was also the first memory she has of him.

            Her other memories of my grandfather were of a totally different color. Instead of sunshine and happiness, she remembers the blackness of a night sky. Her father usually passed his weekends with his friends and brothers playing cards, gambling and drinking away his week salary. After losing everything, he was drunk and angry with the world, with his family, with himself.

            The artificial light reflecting off the windows stopped Angie from seeing the stars. No one would dare to look out the window to verify their existence anyway. At night, many scary things prowled around the house. Jeanne told the story of the Bonhomme Sept Heures to daugthers. Every evening, at seven o'clock sharp, he appeared looking for children to put in the big bag he carried. Some people thought he killed the children to eat them afterwards. No one knew for sure what he did with them—none of the children he caught were ever seen again.

            Thus, every evening at seven o'clock, the children ran towards the house, neutral territory from the Bonhomme Sept Heures. None of the girls wanted to be devoured by this monster.

            It was also around that time that Charles would return from the barn and sit at the table waiting for Jeanne to serve him supper. Once satisfied, he would leave the table and go to his rocking chair. He chewed tobacco and downed a few glasses of gin. Once tipsy, he would begin to ruminate about his usual stories and laugh to himself.

            "One time I went to get my mother-in-law with my car. There were potholes on the road. The old lady bumped her head on the ceiling and fainted. I had to stop the vehicle to get some snow and put it on her face for her to wake up. Ha, ha, ha!"

            He told that story every night, and every night he laughed about it. After he was drunk enough, he would decide it was time for him to go to bed. His obedient wife would immediately follow him.

            It is said that when the cat is away, the mice will play. It would make sense then that once the parents were in bed;  the children, were free to do whatever they wanted. This usually meant playing records.

            Emma had a passion for that strange box from which love songs used to escape. She could spend hours listening to it with rapt attention. This fixation exasperated Angie of course because she wanted to play with someone, and one must obey to the queen's desire. They say the mice will play, not listen to music and dream of a prince in shining armor.

Angie began to frolic and then to gallop here and there. But none of her sisters paid her any attention. Instead, Agnes and Emma remained motionless beside the small square box.

            A splendid idea crossed her mischievous mind. What if I sang louder than the radio? she started singing softly, but she soon gained confidence and increased the volume of her voice. She got the attention of her sisters for only a brief second. Unsatisfied, she decided to jump up and down on her sister's bed while singing as loud as her lungs would allow her. The reaction that resulted was not the one desired. Instead of finding it funny, Emma began to scream.

            "Shut up! I can't hear anything!"

            "La, la, la!"

            "Stop! Let me listen to my music!"

            "Hi, hi, hi! Dance, dance, dance."

            "STOP!"

            Soon, they heard heavy footsteps in the hallway. She had awakened our father. The bedroom became silent. Only the melodious voice coming out of the radio disturbed the atmosphere of fear. She felt her royal joy leave her body at that same instant, giving room to fear: the monster was awake.

            Charles appeared in his old, woolen pajamas, his face wrinkled like an old bulldog, angry at being awakened.

            "You're not able to be quiet?" he barked.

            He grabbed me, the youngest child, by the neck and knocked her against the wall repeatedly. She could not breathe and her two sisters watched her miserably. They felt sorry and powerless. For a brief moment, Emma thought she should have paid attention to Angie instead of ignoring her. She felt as if it was her fault that their father was hurting her little sister.

            "Always fighting with each other. Not able to get along. I'll teach you a lesson and you will learn to shut up!" continued the dog.

            My grandmother's silhouette appeared at the door like a guardian angel.

            "Enough, Charles. Let her go to bed...and you too, girls. Go to bed."

            Several times Jeanne had put herself between and them, her daughters and her husband, when he became too violent. She purposely stood between the animal and his prey although she was well aware of the danger of removing a bone from a dog's fangs, especially if it was a mad dog.

            Angie considered her mother a holy martyr and she felt she could never thank her enough.

            Indeed, in many respects, Jeanne was remembered as a saint. She was a woman who had great sympathy for people, she felt sorry for any grief felt by relatives or strangers. She also had a lot of intuition. If someone felt ill or sad, he or she could not hide it from her. She knew something was wrong. You could not lie to her.

            Of course, she was also overworked. She could also get angry.

            It was a winter morning and it was relatively cold in the country house. Even if there was wood in the stove, the house was always difficult to heat. That morning was very normal when Emma and Angie pulled a fight over something silly, as was so often the case. This time, they fought about who would finish the jar of jam before going to school.

            Having lost the battle against her sister, Angie ran to the barn to complain to her mother. Seeing her daughter barely dressed for the temperature, Jeanne punished her by hitting her with her belt.

           Years after, she still thinks that punishment was too harsh for what she had done. She also felt sad for having displeased her mother. This was a feeling she never felt for her father because it seemed as if he had no interest or empathy for his children. So in this sense, she does relate to me. It seems as if she saw her father the way I saw her, and her mother as I saw my father.

      I feel I understand my mother better now. I do feel that the way my parents treated me was unjustifiable in many regards. They treated me similarly to the way my grandparents treated my mother. My mother never seemed to have understood me, but I feel that my mother is deeply sorry. She wanted to be loved by her children, but had a hard time loving herself. She feels guilty about my death but she is again to focused on the pain to love my brother and sister well. She is not able to give them what they need yet. I still have to protect them. All of them.