The
Great Mother
Copyright 2014 Beth Reason
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Table of Contents:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
About the Author
More Books by Beth Reason
Chapter 1
The world roared back to life.
One minute she was still hovering in the shell-shocked haze of numbness and fog, and the next there was a clear, loud, almost familiar noise. Her brain heard it, then heard it again. A signal was sent from her internal command center, the first time that had happened in well over a month. "Listen!" her brain screamed. "Wake up and listen to that!"
So she did. She listened. She stopped moving the feet she didn't recognize as hers on the empty roadway and listened. She strained. She held her breath and hoped. A faint cry could be heard, a sad, thin mewling. And just like that, the world started again. Blood coursed through her veins. She could feel her feet pound on the pavement, was conscious of her body racing towards the noise. She pumped her arms to give herself more speed. She had to get there. It was the only thing that mattered.
The crying grew louder. She rounded a curve in the road and her tired body had to slow. Weeks of improper food and sleep left her weak, her lungs burning and begging for a break. She leaned on a fence post and doubled over, fighting the urge to throw up. Would she have anything to throw up? Had she even eaten that day? She had absolutely no idea.
The wail began anew and she looked up, wiping the sweat from her brow. The noise was coming from a barn, the door slowly waving back and forth in the breeze. It wasn't a baby. It wasn't a person. No human made that kind of noise. It was clearly just some animal. Some dumb, stupid animal, and she had to choke back bitter tears.
"God damn you!" she screamed across the barnyard.
The animal moaned again and she swiped the tears from her eyes. She should move on. She should keep walking. Where the hell was she, anyway? She looked around, really looked around for the first time since...when? She was in front of a farm. It wasn't a familiar place, but it wasn't exactly unfamiliar, either. With the red wash on the large, classic barn, and a two story white farm house, it could have represented any of the dozens of small farms in the area. She looked around and couldn't see any road signs from where she stood. She could be anywhere.
The animal's noises grew more frantic. Whatever it was heard her and was begging for her attentions. She looked across the overgrown field to the barn. The animal sounded so desperate. She sat on the fence and twisted, bringing her legs over, then hopped off into the field. As she neared the barn the familiar smell of rot washed over her with the breeze and she turned and crouched low to the ground, covering her mouth and trying to hold back the bile. No wonder the animal was screaming. He was stuck in there with something dead. She'd scream, too.
She pulled her shirt up over her nose and stood, steeling herself against what she might find. No, not might. What she knew she would find. There would be something dead, at least one something. It was a barn, so odds were good it would also be large. Large, dead and rotting. The flies would be buzzing. The flesh would be falling off. The puddle of gore underneath would be moving with maggots and worms and rats. She swallowed hard and forced herself forward.
The great barn door creaked. She placed her hand on it and simply stared for a minute. Was that really her hand? It was caked with dirt. There was a muddy swipe where she had just run it through her tears. And blood. She was sure that was blood under the broken nails. Was that really her hand? When was the last time she washed?
Another bleat, this time tinged with excitement and urgency. The animal inside knew she was close. She pressed her lips together to keep as much smell and nastiness out as possible and pulled the door the rest of the way open. The humid odor slammed into her, welcoming her with the all too familiar wall of death her automaton self had met over and over. She turned from the barn and ran around the corner, needing the wind to blow directly into her face, to clean her lungs. She gulped the fresh air and willed her legs to stop shaking. The animal in the barn wailed a constant plea, and with a hand on the side of the barn for support, she worked her way around to the back, hoping to find another way in.
There was a back door, a push style one that didn't appear locked. "Hold on," she yelled to the panicked animal. She braced herself and heaved, sliding the door open so easily that she stumbled. As soon as it was open, the bleating was very loud, right near her. She squinted in the dark until she could make out stalls. She assumed she'd find a horse. Instead, she found a small bull, young, thin, and scared. He looked at her with big eyes and something inside finally cracked. With a sob wrenched from deep within, she lurched forward and threw her arms around the excited, terrified animal.
Something was alive. Something under her arms was breathing. Something was moving and making noise and had a heartbeat. Something else lived. And that something else was licking off the salty tears that tumbled down her face.
Wind swirled through the large barn from one side to the other, taking the smell of rotted death away from her. After pulling some hay close to the little bull, she looked around to assess. The barn was definitely new. Several pens stood completely fresh, with neither animal nor hay. Construction materials were stacked in a corner. The floor under her feet had minimal wear. She took a tentative step away from the bull and he started to bleat again around the hay he ravenously chewed.
"Don't worry. I'm just looking around," she said. It occurred to her as she carefully stepped forward that she couldn't remember the last time she talked to anyone.
"Anything," she corrected. A bull was not a person.
There was a familiar buzzing coming from the other end of the barn. She pulled her shirt up over her mouth and nose again and wondered what she'd find. It was a cow. Or a bull? She frowned. She wasn't a farmer, how in the hell should she know? It was a huge, rotting animal a few stalls down from her little bull.
Her bull?
Yes, she told herself. My bull. She looked around and knew she either had to get the rotting animal out of there, or get the bull somewhere safe. How could she get the rotten carcass out? She walked back to the bull. He still chomped the hay like he hadn't eaten in weeks. Maybe he hadn't. When had she?
She supposed the easiest thing would be to take the bull away from the cow. She had no idea how to do that. And where would she even take him, anyway? She wasn't a farmer, but didn't bulls need barns? They did. She was sure of it. She glanced out the door up towards the farm house. Turning back to the bull, she slipped her back pack off and placed it in the corner of his stall. "I'm going to go check out the house. If it's shit, we're not staying." She hadn't even realized she was going to make a plan until the words popped out. It felt right to be deciding. It felt powerful. It felt whole. She patted the bull on the rump as she passed and walked toward the house.
Upwind from the barn, she couldn't smell anything but damp earth and wet leaves. Away from the snarfling noises of the bull wolfing down the hay, and the buzz of the flies around the rotten cow, she
couldn't hear anything, either. There were no signs of life in the farmhouse. But there were also no signs of death. She walked up the steps of the porch and stopped at the door. It was locked, but like the barn, also looked new. The white of the house was vinyl siding made to look like classic white wash. The doorknob was shiny. She opened the screen and the spring didn't even squeal in rusty protest. She lifted her hand to knock and then stopped.
Should she knock?
Her knuckles waited for her to make up her mind. It was ridiculous. If anyone was alive, they would have taken care of the bull. But she'd never once in her life entered someone else's house without knocking. Her mama raised her better than that. If anyone was alive she'd have heard them by now. Farmers all had guns and warned people to "git" if they got too close, didn't they?
Years of habit forced her hand before she even realized she had made up her mind. The raps instantly felt silly as they echoed in the silent land. This was not the world she knew, she reminded herself. She tried the shiny doorknob, once again noticing her dirty state, even more apparent against the pristine newness of the brass. It was locked. She stepped back and let the screen bang shut. She didn't know exactly where she was, but she knew the general area. She'd been raised nearby; if not in that particular town, then in one very similar. She couldn't possibly have wandered all that far. If she had to bet on it, she'd place her money on the back door being unlocked. She told herself not to be disappointed as she walked around the corner of the house on the wrap around porch. At the back door, she tried the knob and smiled to herself as it easily turned.
She pushed the door open and stood just outside. "Hello?" she called. She had to be sure she wouldn't be shot. She waited for the echoes of her voice to die down. "I'm coming in your house," she called, taking a step forward. When she was met with nothing but her own fading voice, she stepped in further. "I'm in now. I'm not armed. I don't want to hurt anyone, I'm just looking around." Nothing but dust motes stirred in the tomb-like home. She felt something relax a little inside.
The breeze kicked up and a brown leaf rolled past her across the floor. She turned and shut the door, then inhaled deeply. She smelled paint. She smelled plaster. She smelled new plastic and fresh wood. But she did not smell death. She gave the room a good look. It was a large kitchen. The appliances were sparkling. The faucet in the sink glimmered in the afternoon sun from the window. There were labeled boxes on the counters and one cupboard was open, showing stacks of glasses and plates. Someone had been moving in.
She walked around the center island of the kitchen. A new house. She had never lived in a new house before. She idly poked in one of the open boxes labeled "pots and pans" written in magic marker. The pans inside were also new. Shiny. No signs of scorching on the bottoms, no signs of use. New. It was all new.
She walked into the next room, a dining room area. It wasn't as bright, and she automatically flicked on the light switch. The lights came on. It took her three steps before she stopped and turned around. The lights came on. The lights still worked. She looked at the lamp, her mind needing more reassurance. The lights still worked. She had just assumed that would all be done, like everything else. She turned and went back into the kitchen with purpose. That light switch worked, too. She reached over and twisted the handle on the tap. The water ran clear and clean.
With an excitement she hadn't felt in forever, she raced back to the dining room and looked around. It was a large, central room, with four rooms and a little hallway branching off in different directions. There was the kitchen, a den area, and two small rooms she thought looked like home office spaces. The lamps that had bulbs all lit up as she raced through and tried them. Lights! She didn't know if she'd even checked the lights anywhere else as she had wandered. Her conscious brain just assumed they stopped working.
She stopped with the thought. Had she even tried to turn on the lights anywhere else? Had she even slept in a house? She had no idea how long she wandered around. The last clear memory she had was getting up from the final grave she dug and telling herself she had to leave. She had to. She had to get up or she'd join the rest. And then, she didn't really remember anything. How long ago was that?
There was a tv set up in the den area. She walked to it and pressed a button. It came on, but nothing she did brought up any channels. She didn't even know if it was hooked up to cable or not. She shrugged. It was worth a try. She went down a little hall and found a bathroom and another door. When was the last time she peed in a toilet? She went simply for the familiar novelty. As she stood to flush, she caught sight of herself in the mirror and stopped.
Who the hell was that? It certainly wasn't her. The face was different. Filthy. Thin. Gaunt. Haunted. She leaned forward, a macabre fascination at the stranger staring back at her growing. She made faces and watched. She could feel her cheeks lift, could feel her lips stretch across her teeth. It was her. The stranger was her. And yet... She sighed. Maybe a good washing was what she needed. There was time for that later.
She went to the other door in the hall and found it was a small linen closet with another door at the back. When she opened that one and flicked on the lights, she was pleasantly surprised to find a very nice looking stair case leading into a well lit basement. At the bottom of the stairs, she found herself in a large, open, half-finished basement. There was wood paneling on the walls, a pool table in the corner, and another bathroom. A room was blocked out in wood framing and half-walled, and it was clear whoever was building the house was planning on having another usable floor, not simply a basement. The drywall, buckets of putty, and paint to complete the job were piled neatly against the wall by a saw, saw horses, and other tools of the trade. The ceiling was dropped and low and she felt like she was in some secret cave, a comfy hideout.
Satisfied and intrigued with what she'd seen so far, she made her way back up to the first floor, then continued up the wide staircase to the second. As her hand gripped a deep, wood banister, she realized that whoever was building this house had money. The top floor yielded a master bedroom, another bathroom, and two small bedrooms. Aside from the very basics of furniture in the master bedroom, the only other room with anything in it at all was a room with an empty crib. She stood over the crib and stared into its emptiness. There was no bedding, and the mattress still had its store plastic and price sticker. There were bags from stores in the corner, new items, new clothes, new toys and little blue booties. New and so tiny and forgotten.
She picked a bib off the top of one of the bags. The tag said it was from a high end baby store. She ran the soft terry cloth over her cheek and closed her eyes against the sudden slash of pain. This house was supposed to be someone's life. This house was supposed to be someone's beginning. The farm was supposed to be this baby's future. Was he ever even born?
She put the bib back in the bag with reverence, as if the ghost of someone who probably didn't even get a chance to exist was watching. She trailed her hand over the warm golden wood as she passed the crib. At least he died somewhere else. At least it was only his things that stared back at her. She would never forget the one body of a baby she buried. She would never forget the way the dead little toddler watched as she wrapped her up and put her in the ground. She shuddered and pulled the door closed as she stepped in the hall, shutting out the memories with the ghosts.
She made her way back to the den and sat heavily on the plastic covered couch. It was new. It was all so new. No one lived there, they never got the chance. No one died there, they never marred the possibilities with their stench. It was new, it was clean, cleaner than her. She sat there for nearly an hour, simply taking it all in, trying to piece together the last month. Or was it a month an a half? It couldn't have been much more than that because there were still some trees with leaves, even if they were deep orange and ready to fall. She knew she walked away. And then kept walking. Days were blurred into days and she couldn't even remember the basics. What did she do at night? What did she eat? Where did she go
during the day? There was a pervasive numbness that clouded all memories until the bull called to her. "Wake up," he had said. "Wake up and come find me."
She was awake. She was awake in a new house. She was awake in a new body and a new, silent world. She was awake in a new life. The decision to stay was already made. All she had to do was figure out where she was. And how to get the cow carcass out of the barn. Oh, and how to get food. And to wash, definitely wash. And to get clothes. And winter was coming.
Once awake, her mind churned. Instead of the overwhelming sorrow and pain at what was lost, she began to feel the power and possibility of what she had now. She got up off the couch and looked around the house. Her house. For good or bad, she'd stay. She'd regroup. She'd figure out the new life fate forced upon her. She had a house and a bull. She took in a deep, shaky breath. It was a start.