Traitor, Traitor [NaNoWriMo 2013]

The Beginning

I was five when my house burned down. It had been an ordinary day: sunny and full of smiles. My mother had sent me out to draw water from the well in our village.

We lived on the outskirts of the kingdom, the small space that divided the kingdom from the forests around us. Even as a child I hadn't been afraid of the forest. The elders would warn us to stay out of the forests for dangerous beasts roamed there, eager for the flesh of little children. Those stories had never bothered me because my parents weren't afraid of the forest, either. My father taught me how to stay silent and, young as I was, I was eager to learn. He would take me to watch rabbits feed and birds nest if I was silent enough. We never ventured very deep into the forests, but nonetheless, the thrill of blending with the trees never faded. My mother taught me which herbs were alright to eat and which ones would deceive you. Needless to say, I got poisoned often. She would also send me occasionally to pluck fruits and gather flowers from which she would make sweet syrup.

The well was in the center of the village and I lugged our pail to the line of people there already and struck up a conversation with an older lady.

I was returning to my house, trying desperately not to slop water all over myself, when I saw the smoke. It was coming from the general direction of my house, but I was not overly worried. Peoples dry hay caught fire all the time.

The dying sun cast a morose glow over the sky.

It was only after I got closer that I saw which house it was. It took a moment for my innocent mind to comprehend what was happening. Then I darted forward, the pail of water hitting the ground with a force that threw the water out of it.

A mass of people had gathered around the house, but no one did anything. They stood infuriatingly still, watching as the fire took everything away from me. I scanned the crowd frantically, looking for the two faces I desperately wanted to see.

That's when I heard the screams. A high, grating sound that clawed the inside of my skull. It was coming from inside the house. The sound cut through the roar of fire and crawled into my ears, reverberating until I couldn't hear anything else. Hands held me back. I kicked and bit, clawed and struggled to go inside, to save them, but the others wouldn't let me. I remember screaming at them to let me go. I could save my parents. I had to save my parents.

It took hours for the fire to die down. The villagers couldn't get a word out of me. All I could hear were the dying screams of my parents.

I had been steered away by the good people and wrapped securely in a blanket. Perhaps they thought it could shield me from the world for just a little while. Someone even offered me warm milk that grew cold in my tiny hands. They had managed to put out the fire. By then it was too late. I suppose it had always been too late.

I do not remember the rest of the day, but I do remember that a kind woman took me in for the night. She tucked my numb body under a multitude of warm blankets and gave me a comfortable pillow.

I couldn't get any sleep that night. Every time I closed my eyes I would see the fire curl hungrily towards the sky, as if waiting to devour the stars. Every time I closed my eyes, piercing screams would make me snap them open again.

Perhaps it is because I was so young and uneducated about the dangers of the world, or perhaps it was the molten rage and cold fear that were flowing in my veins that made me decide I could stay there no longer. I snuck away in the dead of night, armed with only a dagger I had found and the clothes on my back, and slipped into the forest. Something about the echoing silence of the trees and the mournful solitude of the wind made it easier for me to sleep there.

That was the last those villagers saw of me.

For a long time I blamed them for the death of my parents, but as time passed, I realized they could not have done anything. Maybe if we had been better fed and equipped someone could have saved my parents. Everyone in the village was thin, if not frail. Nobody had the strength to run inside a burning house and carry out two people.