THE BEAST

2: Grandmother's House

"Poppy," My mother practically begged over the car radio. "Poppy!"

I tore my eyes away from the endless scenery of forest and panned them on my well pampered, slightly annoyed, mother.

"Could you please turn it down? I have an important client on the phone." Her green eyes pinned me to the passenger seat until I leaned forward and twisted the knob transitioning Lauv into background music. "Thank you." She turned back to the conversation with a flip of her highlighted blonde hair.

"You didn't have to come, you know," I told her and turned my attention back to the endless evergreens that scattered the rolling hills of Essex.

I caught my mother roll her eyes out of the corner of mine but I stayed quiet because this is how it went every summer when we did our yearly roadtrip to see my grandmother. It had been this way for as long as I could remember and I'm sure next summer will be the same: My mother will complain about the tedious car ride, put all of her attention into her workload instead of conversing with her mother, and I will, well, try and lessen the hostility between the two.

"Listen, Maura, I am on the road and I really have to pay attention. Wouldn't want to hit a deer or whatever roams out here." She fauxly laughed, a grimace painting her face as she surveyed the area. I hold back my smile because my mother's detaste to the countryside has never gone unnoticed.

We have lived in the city my whole life, seeming my mother escaped the countryside as soon as she finished secondary school and left for college in the city. There she raised me, even after my father left us for one of his own clients at the law firm. Ever since then, she has buried herself in work and leaving me an empty flat where I continued to spend holidays at when I am home from university.

"Uh huh, yup, okay, buh-bye now, Maura dear." My mother hung up with a huff of air.

"I am surely capable of making the drive by myself. You could have stayed home this year."

"Cut me some slack, Poppy. Just because you're on holiday doesn't mean I am. Someone has to pay for that school of yours."

Here we go.

"Veterinary practice--though admirable when it comes to those little pocket sized yappy dogs-- isn't something I imagined you doing. I imagined you studying architecture or art. You were always so good at building castles out of sticks and coloring me pictures for the fridge."

"I was a kid, Mum."

She straightened her stance behind the wheel and peered over at me while she spoke. "Five or Twenty, you were great. You still have time to change your mind, love."

"Don't hold your breath," I muttered under mine but she, of course, heard.

"Poppy I--" She started but was cut off by the ringing of her mobile. She didn't hesitate in answering it with a tap of her screen on the dashboard. "Sarah Raux..."

I blocked her out the best that I could as my gaze fell back on the fields of livestock roaming the open green fields.

I loved the countryside. Especially in the summer months. Always have, even as a child. I used to love talking to my Granny's horses and feeding the pigs and chickens that roamed her quaint farm. She too, raised my mother alone, and even with the hardship of being a single parent, she managed to uphold her produce and the animals. With my help during the summer, of course.

My best memories were on that farm every summer and that is why, Mum, I aspired to be a vet someday.

We rounded the bend in the road I have come to know as the last monument before reaching Grandmother's house. The stress of life outside of the farm lessened in pressure on my chest the closer we got.

When we reached the stark white house at the end of the gravel road, I was practically bouncing in my seat. My smile grew at the sight of my grandmother making her way down her porch stairs.

I was the first to get out of the car, assuming that my mother needed a second to compose herself before seeing her own mother.

"Poppy, dear!" My grandmother greeted me with a giant bear hug. She patted down my red hair as she peered down at my face with a large smile stretching across her sunweathered cheeks. "You look as beautiful as ever."

She says this every time she sees me. Oh dear, you've gotten taller. Oh honey, your hair has gotten so long. Oh love, you've grown boobs!

"Hi, Gran," I said with a wrinkle of my nose as she kissed it.

"How was the drive?"

"Good," I answered with a slight shrug. My mother opened the trunk of the car and jostled our luggage around as an indicator for me to help. "Same old, same old."

My grandmother gave me a look I have come familiar with when it comes to her daughter and wrapped her arm around me as we walked down the drive to help her.

Their greeting is short and to the point and it makes me uneasy. I have never asked what happened between the two of them but by the snidbits that I have gathered over the years, my grandmother's feeling got hurt over the way my mother left town. Though my Mum didn't mind being alone, my grandmother minded greatly.

As we made our way into the house, Gran's coo coo clocks clucked and cats rubbed against my bare legs. My Mother always joked that the lonelier she got, the more cats she collected. I never found it funny but growing up, I have learned that her crude sense of humor was her way of dealing with the guilt she carried with her when it came to her family.

"There are some biscuits and tea in the kitchen if you are hungry from your travels," Gran offered, bending down and petting a white cat that pawed at her thigh.

I picked up a flakey dessert and savored the sweet flavor on my tongue. "Gran, you really out did yourself with these! What sort of berries did you use?"

"I call them purple plunkers," She answered with a giggle. "I find them far into the forest on my hikes."

Before I could take another bite, the treat is batted out of my hand.

"Don't eat that!"

I gave my mother a look as I swallowed.

"They could be poisonous berries."

"Sarah, I have used these berries for dozens of recipes and never once has anyone complained of being poisoned." Gran now had her hand on her hip and I knew they were gearing up for a fight. That was my cue to head upstairs to my room.

I lugged my cases up the creaky old stairs and found the room I have stayed in for the past twenty years of summer stays.

The room was a light blue with little yellow curtains that hung from the window facing the back yard. The forest looked decilate at the moment but there was something more magical than scary about it.

My mother used to hate that Gran allowed me to play in it for hours as a child but there was nothing either one of them could do to keep me out of it. Something always called me in like a siren to a sailor. I think it was the trees and flowers that covered the ground that drew me in. Like my mother had said, I liked making little fairy castles.

As the sun set, the more my eyes pried at the trees as if I was waiting for something to emerge.

"Poppy, come back downstairs!" Gran called from the kitchen.

I rushed down the stairs to find my mother on her laptop working away and trying to ignore the both of us the best that she could and my grandmother with a wicker basket, smiling at me.

"How about I show you where to find those berries?"