Ander - Part 2: Subchapter 27
27
"What do you mean you're pregnant!?" Father bellowed. Sarah expected him to blow his top, but this was going a bit overboard, even for him. "You can't be pregnant! You know how I know you can't be pregnant? Because if you were, I would have to kill you! You're still alive, which means I haven't killed you, which means you can't possibly be so stupid as to be pregnant!!"
"Father, I -"
"You shut your mouth!"
"Markus! Calm yourself!" Mother said, her hands folded in her lap, as always.
"Tell me to calm down in my own house..." Father grumbled. He got up and paced from one end of the living room to the other, constantly muttering under his breath.
Sarah knew something like this was bound to happen when she sat them down and confessed her condition, but she was hoping it wouldn't get so bad before she even got to the worst part. She considered simply blurting out that the father was a mythical Wolf Chieftain living on the other side of the mountain, but it would probably be best to wait a little.
"Are you sure?" Father asked.
Sarah nodded.
"How sure are you?"
"Quite sure."
"Gods give me strength," he muttered and thumped his head against the wall.
"How far along are you, deary?" Mother asked.
"Don't call her 'deary!'" Father interjected from his spot against the wall. He seemed to have turned his back on the whole messy affair, at least for the time being.
"Um..." Sarah fidgeted in her chair. "I think it's been about... five and a half months?"
"So twenty-two weeks, give or take?"
She nodded.
"Dammit girl!" Father said. "That means you'll be laid up during the harvest month! You really know how to screw us over, Sarah. Oh, but wait! That's what you're good at, isn't it? Screwing Foxes over!"
"Markus!"
Ignoring his wife, Father rushed over and planted his hands on the arms of his only daughter's chair, leaning in close so that their faces were less than a foot apart.
"Who was it!?" he screamed in her face, his eyes crazy with anger. Sarah had never seen him like this, not even when chasing after a lazy worker with a rod in his hands. That was strictly business. This was something else entirely. "Answer me, girl!" The legs of her chair started to tap against the floor in a frenzied melody as her father shook it up and down in his rage, making the whole world quake before her eyes. The shuddering vibrations made her feel sick all over again.
"It was that Damian fellow, wasn't it!?" he screamed, spittle flying from his mouth. "I saw the way you looked at him! You think I'm blind but I see everything that goes on in my house!"
"No, Father!" Sarah said. She had her head turned away as far as it would go, until it was pressed right up against the back of her chair, but it didn't make any difference. She couldn't create any distance with her father looming over her like this. "It wasn't Damian!"
"Then it was Michael! That sneaky bastard! I let him inside my home! Was it him!? Answer me, dammit!"
"Markus, please! Can't you see you're frightening her?"
"Oh, she has no idea what frightened is yet, my love. But she'll find out soon enough! Won't you, Sarah dear? You look at me when I'm talking to you!"
He seized Sarah by the muzzle and forcefully turned her head so that they were looking each other in the eye. "Well!? Was it him or not!?"
"No!" Sarah said, fighting back tears. More than anything else, she didn't want to cry in front of her parents like this, but the way he was shouting at her it felt like she had regressed to the age of a little pup again, a pup who had been caught doing mischief. "It wasn't Michael."
"Then who was it!? You better tell me right now or I swear by my Living Soul I will beat the answer out of -"
"It was Kadai!"
Everything stopped.
Her father stopped yelling and shaking her chair, so that was a plus. That crazy look in his eye was gone too, replaced by a frown of equal intensity.
"Ka-who?"
"It was Kadai," she said again, barely loud enough to hear.
Her father leaned back, rising up to his full height. He looked down at his daughter and said, "Who in the name of all that is holy is 'Kadai'?"
"He is... um..."
"I don't know any 'Kadai'!" He turned to Mother. "Laura, you know any 'Kadai's'?"
"No," she said.
This is exactly the part Sarah's been dreading. What if they didn't believe her? Or worse still, what if they did?
"And what the hell kind of name is 'Kadai' anyway? That doesn't sound like a proper Fox's name."
"Well, Father... that's because he's... um... not quite a... you know..."
"Not quite a what? Not a proper Fox? You're damn right he's not a proper Fox! Going around knocking up my only daughter! I'll kill him!"
"No, what I mean is that... he's not actually... erm... a Fox at all."
"Then what the hell is he?"
"He's..." Sarah looked from her mother, sitting perfectly still, so trim and proper, yet so concerned, to her father, so angry it looked like his fur might catch fire any second.
"Well? Spit it out, girl!"
"He's a... Wolf..." she whispered this last word so softly there's no way anyone could have heard it, and she cursed herself for being such a coward.
"Come again?"
"He's a..."
Just say it and get it over with!
"Speak up, girl! You speak up right now!"
Say it!
"Sarah, I swear -"
"He's a Wolf!"
Silence descended upon the room once again, much deeper than before.
What's done is done and can't be undone.
It stretched out like a blade between them, a silence so total she could hear the wind outside blowing leaves against the windows, their faint scratching driving her insane.
"I met him a year ago," Sarah stammered, desperate to break the silence for fear of losing her mind. "He lives on the other side of the mountain. I- Please understand Father. I didn't plan for any of this. I didn't even know it was possible! I just -" she looked to her mother for help, but she was in no condition to provide any. She stared at her daughter in disbelief, her mouth slightly agape, but her hands still folded neatly in her lap, same as always.
Sarah's frantic mind tried to come up with some excuse, anything that would pardon her from the responsibility she now faced, but it was pointless.
She was responsible. She knew that. There's no point in denying it, and no way to excuse it. What's done is done and can't be -
"Father? W- Where are you going?"
Without a word, he turned his back and made for the front door. At first, Sarah thought he was so angry that he had decided to go outside to cool off. His true purpose never even entered her mind until he reached for the five foot long wooden rod mounted above the doorframe.
"Markus?" Mother said, almost unclasping her hands in her panic. Sometimes Sarah thought her mother believed all the problems of this world could be solved by being prim and proper, and that included sitting up straight and minding your manners at all times.
And why on earth was she thinking about something useless like that when her own father was staring at her with murder in his eyes?
"Father?"
"You have brought a curse upon my house, Sarah," Father said. He was gripping the rod so tightly she could actually hear his hands twisting against the wood even from across the room, itching to throttle. The soft brushing they made was the scariest noise Sarah had ever heard in her entire life. "It's bad blood, Sarah. Bad blood..."
"I'm sorry, Father," Sarah said, drawing her knees up to her chest, trying to shrink away in her chair. "I'm really sorry! Just please don't -"
"Bad blood will out, girl. Always..." Father slowly crossed the room, one deliberate step at a time, that horrifying brushing noise of his hands wringing against the rod growing louder and louder.
"Markus, that's enough!" Mother said. "You're scaring the poor girl!"
"I will not have bad blood in my house..." It was like Father couldn't hear her. His eyes had gone blank, as if he was no longer looking at his daughter, but at a problem that needed fixing in the harshest way.
Sarah couldn't stop staring at the rod; the way her father kept twisting it, with his wrists moving back and forth and the tendons standing out in his forearms. There was a nick near the top where a piece of wood had gone flying off after connecting with a sleeping farmhand's back.
Sarah had seen her Father use that rod many times, but he had never raised it against his own blood. Surely he couldn't? No matter how badly she had screwed up, her father would never do that, would he?
She believed this on the surface, but deep down inside she said a silent prayer to the gods. She asked them to protect her and her unborn baby from the darkness she could see welling up inside her father. She prayed that he wouldn't raise that rod...
As it so often happened, her prayers went unanswered. She watched in horror as Father raised the rod high above his head so that it almost touched the ceiling.
"Bad blood will out..."
Sarah covered up instinctively, but not her head and face. No...
She covered her belly. If the gods wouldn't protect her child, then she would just have to do it herself.
She closed her eyes and waited for the inevitable swoosh of the rod slicing through the air, the burning pain as it collided with her flesh, tearing open her skin, maybe even breaking bones. She wondered where it would hit first. Her arms? Her legs? Her face? She wondered how many times Father would hit her before he got tired, and if she would still be conscious at the end.
She wondered why Father hadn't struck her already.
She carefully opened her eyes, still not taking her arms away from her belly, and looked up.
Father still had the rod in the air, but he wasn't the only one holding onto it anymore. Mother had grabbed it at the height of his backswing, her trim and proper mannerisms put aside for now.
Sarah had never seen her defy her husband over even the smallest little thing, and now, after twenty years, she does something like this?
"That is enough, Markus," she said, her voice completely flat and emotionless, betrayed only by the slightest tremble at the end.
Father looked at her, his murderous gaze unchanged. "If our daughter is lying, then she carries the bastard pup of some nameless Fox in her womb. If she's telling the truth, she carries a monster!"
"She carries your grandchild!" Mother screamed. "That is the only truth you need concern yourself with!"
Father shoved her back in her chair, wrenching the rod from her grasp. "That thing," he shouted, pointing it at Sarah's belly like a spear, "is not my grandchild!"
"And what of Sarah!? Is she not your child? That you would raise your hand against your own daughter is just... it's awful, Markus!"
"Maybe if I hadn't been so lenient with her all these years, we wouldn't be stuck in this mess! Spare the rod, spoil the child! How true..."
Sarah considered just getting up and running for the door, but she didn't know if she could get past him. She has always been a little afraid of her father, but she's always known that he loved her in his own, special way. But the way he was looking at her right now... there was nothing but disgust and loathing. No love at all. He would do it. She had no doubt of that.
"Spare the rod, spoil the child... Bad blood will out... Spare the rod, spoil the child... Bad blood will out..." Father chanted this as he raised the rod above his head for a second time.
Sarah hugged her knees to her chest, trying to protect her middle as best she could while her tail curled uselessly around her ankles. She wanted to close her eyes, but she couldn't stop staring at the tip of that rod, almost brushing against the ceiling.
"Do you intend to kill her, Marcus?" Mother asked. "Because that's exactly what you'll end up doing if you strike her as she is now!"
Father hesitated. "What?"
"Open your eyes! She is with child! At least twenty-two weeks! Do you have any idea how dangerous this is for her? If her baby dies and the miscarriage fails, its corpse will rot inside of her! Is that what you want? Do you want to watch your daughter suffer and die by your hands!? Sarah was stupid, yes, but there's nothing we can do about that now. What's done is done and can't be undone. But what you're about to do, that hasn't happened yet. That can still be stopped. But Markus, if you hurt my Sarah, I swear I will never forgive you. That baby is not a monster. You are!"
Father gripped the rod, his arms shaking in anger, his breathing heavy. With a furious scream he swung it down, right at Sarah's upturned face. She could see it fly towards her in a blurred line of brown, carrying every ounce of her father's darkness in its tip.
"Markus!"
It missed her head by less than a finger's breadth, passing by so closely she could actually feel an errant lock of hair blow away from her neck. The rod slammed down against the floor with a crack so loud it stung her ears, the impact so forceful the tip broke off and spun through the air. She heard it bounce off the wall behind her and clatter to the floor, all this with a faint ringing in the background.
Sarah sat perfectly still, as if paralyzed. She didn't think she would ever be able to move again, not even if somebody came along and set her chair on fire this very instant. All she could do was listen as the broken tip rolled its way along the floorboards, softly clacking against each gap between the planks until it finally came to rest.
Father straightened up, looked at the broken piece of wood in his hands, and then threw it against the wall with all the force he could muster. The clattering sounds it made was like an echo of its child, but a thousand times worse.
This was too much for Sarah. She simply couldn't stand it any longer. Still all curled up with her knees drawn up against her chest, she closed her eyes as tightly as she could. Rocking back and forth, she had them shut so tightly that ghostly images started to appear behind her closed eyelids; phantom splotches of red and green in the black.
She listened to her father's footsteps cross the room, then the sound of their front door opening. Things were quiet for a while, with no sounds save for the ringing in her ears, then the door slammed shut with such force she could feel the gust of wind ripple her fur.
Okay, Sarah. Okay. Just keep it together. That was bad, yes, but it could have been a whole lot worse. First, you're going to open your eyes. That's the first step to... whatever comes next. You don't know what that is, but you know you can't go on unless you open your eyes, so let's just start with that for now, okay?
Okay.
Sarah opened her eyes. The room seemed very bright after squeezing them shut for so long. She could see her mother sitting in the chair opposite, her hands folded neatly in her lap, but her face had none of its usual composure. She was staring fixedly at a spot on the floor next to Sarah's chair, and she looked to be on the verge of tears.
Sarah slowly leaned to her right and looked down.
There was a long, splintered crack in the floor where Father had struck it, running along the grain in a slightly curved line.
What's done is done and can't be undone.
Seeing that crack in the floor brought it all home; the reality of her situation. Her breath caught in her throat, and she realized with some alarm that she had been holding it in since she had closed her eyes. She meant to take a calm, soothing breath, but what she produced instead was a wavering sob.
She couldn't help it. It was like that crack somehow summed up everything bad about the last year and a half, her father's anger being the least of it all. Kadai's bitter betrayal, the sadness of their time together in the pass, the gaping hole he had left behind in her heart...
No, it wasn't just a hole. It was a great big crack, just like the one she was staring at right now, a gaping chasm she thought she had closed forever.
Well, it was open now, and all those feelings she had tried so carefully to bury in the past, where they belonged, now came pouring out of her, and she was powerless to stop them.
Tears ran down her face, long overdue, carrying the weight of all their brethren who had been denied up until now. Each gasp for breath was cut short, turning them into sobs that tore through her burning chest like jagged hooks. It felt like she was about to suffocate, like she was literally being strangled to death by her own sorrow and she would just cry and cry until she died.
And then Mother was there. Sarah didn't know when she got up, or when she crossed the room, but she was there, folding her arms around her hitching shoulders, hugging her close.
"There there, dear, it's all right," she crooned, stroking her daughter's hair. "Everything is going to be okay."
"I'm sorry, Mother!" Sarah wailed, crying into her mother's dress like a pup. "I'm so sorry!"
"It's okay, dear, you don't have to apologize."
"Fah- Father ha- hates me!" Sarah managed to squeeze out between the sobs wracking her body.
"Your father doesn't hate you. He loves you. That's why he became angry. Because he loves you so much he doesn't want anything bad to happen to you, that's all."
"H- He almost- He almost-"
"He didn't!" Mother said, her harsh tone taking Sarah by surprise. "That's all that matters. He didn't. Now don't you think on it anymore. Understand?"
Sarah nodded, her haggard sobs finally coming under some kind of control.
They held each other in that awkward position for quite a while, long enough for the wet patch on her mother's dress to grow cold. Then, "Mother?"
"Hmm?"
"Do you think it's bad?"
"What is, honey?"
"You said... Father didn't want anything bad to happen to me, and that's why he became mad. That must mean he thinks this is all bad. But what about you? Do you think this..." Sarah's hand crested the now familiar curvature of her belly, "... is bad?"
Mother sighed. A long, tired sigh. "I won't say it's good, Sarah. But, as you know, what's done is done and -"
"Can't be undone," Sarah finished for her, feeling a whole different kind of sadness descend upon her. She's been feeling so many different kinds over the past few months she was amazed there were still varieties left undiscovered.
"The situation is bad, yes, and you went about it in a bad way. But..." Mother took her by the shoulders so that they could see each other eye to eye. "The life you carry inside of you? That can never be a bad thing, Sarah, because it's a part of you and you are my precious daughter."
Just when Sarah thought she finally had her tears under control, she could feel a new wave threaten to wash over her, building up in her eyes and nose like heat in a furnace. "I love you, Mother."
"I love you too, deary," she said, fishing a handkerchief from her pocket. "Now, dry your tears, honey. I promise you we'll find a way through this, don't you worry. Everything will work out all right in the end, you'll see. Okay?"
Sarah took her mother's handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes with it. "Okay."
"Good. Now go on upstairs. You must be tired after all this..." she hesitated, trying to come up with a suitable word for what 'all this' was, but in the end she just let her voice trail off into nothingness.
Sarah nodded. She was indeed feeling tired, and all she wanted to do was go to her room, lock the door and fall into bed, maybe stay there for the next seventy hours or so. She estimated it would take at least that long for Father's temper to cool down.
If ever.
She got up, her legs feeling like strips of wicker, and slowly made her way to the foot of the stairs.
_The stairs you nearly threw yourself off of... _
I know.
Sarah tentatively touched her belly again, but her baby hasn't moved since that heart-stopping incident a while ago.
Although she really didn't want to, Sarah glanced back at the crack in the floor. It looked even worse from over here, with sharp splinters of wood sticking out on either side like teeth, and the broken rod lying next to it in two dead pieces: one large, one small.
Suppressing a shudder, Sarah climbed the stairs, one very careful step at a time.
That thing about a baby dying and then rotting inside the womb? It can totally happen, and it was pretty much a death sentence in the days before modern medicine.
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