BLOOD ON THE GRASS

BLOOD ON THE GRASS

“ Here, Johnny gave it to me…Oh , he is still a fierce hunter, with him these beasts have no escape. It is wild, but Johnny assured me that it is very good to eat, especially if cooked stew. Of course, it needs to be skinned” Peter said, laying the dead rabbit , that he held by its hind legs, upside down, long stretched out on the table.

“ Ah, don’t ask me to skin it” Sharon said, who, already at the only seeing the poor beast killed , had felt invaded by a dull malaise. She went  to the window , which overlooked the road. Beyond the road meadows and fields spread. That rabbit…it had been the dead rabbit that Peter had brought home that had reminded her (of) what had happened in a summer many years ago. Sharon was then a little girl of nine years, who habitually went to walk through the countryside .around her house, in the company of other little girls of her same age.

One July afternoon Sharon, together her friends Grace and Cynthia, had taken a long walk through the countryside . The three little girls had come to the Red House, a small cube-shaped house, which stood isolated at the foot of a great oak. In the village there were those who said that fairies lived in that little red house, and those who claimed instead that the Red House was a home for witches and sorcerers.

It had been in the meadow in front the little red house that they had seen that blood.  When they had crossed the meadow, leaving behind the Red House, and starting to come back , Grace had noticed a clump of grass, all tangled up with a dark substance ( matter), which seemed also sticky. Only when they had looked closely at that tuft of grass____and they could glimpse some points of red into that dark matter____they were able to realize…but it was blood. At first they thought that probably that blood was of some animal which had been killed,and they went over. But after a few steps they saw that there were other tuft of grass veneered with that dark and sticky matter, which was blood. They , although with some reluctance, also touched that dark matter, and it left on the tips of their fingers also the red.  Indeed there was a lot of blood, too much blood on the grass of that meadow.

Then they had decided that Sharon and Cynthia would remain  there, in the meadow, while Grace would  go home to inform  their parents about ….that blood on the grass, and she would come back there in the company of, at least, someone of their parents.

As soon as Grace had left the meadow, she met Richard, a middle aged man , who lived alone and raised cattle, calves and pigs, but even goats and sheep. The man  had stood in front of Grace, close to her, just as if to prevent her from continuing to walk. He, without Grace saying him anything, had   gone to great lengths to convince her that oh, the blood she and her friends had to have seen in the meadow before the Red House, oh, who knows what little girls such they had thought….oh, but that blood was only blood of a rabbit he had killed,yes, a wild rabbit. Then, assuring Grace that there wasn’t at all nothing she had to worry about, Richard had forced, rather than convinced, her to desist from going home to talk with her, their parents about THAT BLOOD, which, oh, was only rabbit blood , on , why make her parents worry only for some rabbit blood?

He  , as well as had forced Grace to go back, with him, to her friends, who had remained in the meadow, waiting for her coming back. Then he had repeated even Sharon and Cynthia that the blood on the grass of that meadow was the blood of a rabbit he had killed.

“ All that blood from the killing of one rabbit?” Sharon had asked. And  then Richard had  told that he had not only killed a rabbit, but he had also skinned and shelled the beast there, in that meadow

Not that Richard  and what he had told them had convinced and reassured the three little girls. He  and what he had told had rather frightened them. Sharon, Grace and Cynthia had told their parents both of the blood by which the grass of that meadow was soaked , and of Richard, of what the man had told them about that blood. Their parents had consulted and they had agreed that they had to notify the police. Of course, but wouldn’t they have gone in person to see the blood on the meadow first? Since it was already almost dark, they had decided that the following morning they would go to that meadow and soon after they would notify the police.

But that night a fire destroyed the Red House and the surrounding vegetation, even the grass of the meadows that Sharon, Cynthia and Grace had seen was profusely blooded. Among the rubble of the Red House  two charred little bodies were found. They seemed bodies of children, whose identity could not be established, given the conditions in which their bodies had been reduced. But people couldn’t help but think of the two children from a nearby town who had recently disappeared.

Sharon’s , Cynthia’s and Grace’s parents decided to inform the police of what their children had told them : the bloody grass in the meadow and the explanation  Richard had given, indeed he had wanted to give, about that blood.

Richard was questioned for a long time at the police station. Meanwhile the people of the village had started to talk about him with suspicion. They all seemed to think he was guilty not only of the fire that had destroyed the little Red House, but also of the killing of the two children whose bodies had been found horribly charred.

Richard was also questioned in the following days by the police. His home and the stables of his animals were also searched. But he was not accused  either of the fire ____for the night that the Red House had burned down  he had an iron alibi____or of the killing of the two children.

However in the village people continued to believe him guilty, and they tried to avoid him , so that soon there was a void around him.

A few months later Richard was found dead in the calf stable.  They said that it was an accidental death. He had fallen to the ground while caring the calves and his animals had trampled on him.