Daffodils

The silver glow of the waning moonlight in her eyes steadily faded with the approaching dawn. Untangling her long, dark hair from the snags and limbs, she pushed past the rhododendron thickets as she climbed the muddy river bank. She could see her breath as she tried to blow warmth into her frigid hands. Slowly, she made her way into the clearing, onto flat soil. 

The bright daffodil blossoms blanketed the gray, misty landscape. She knelt down on the soggy ground and caressed one of the cheerful yellow petals.  The frost on the forest floor began to dissipate in the soft morning light. She watched as the forest awakened to the elusive sunlight rising above the towering cliff on the other side of the river. She plucked eight blossoms and reluctantly trudged toward the center of the clearing. Brushing away a pile of leaves and twigs, she uncovered eight granite stones. 

Seven of the stones were small and inconspicuous, lined up in a neat row. One was large, standing like a sentinel in front of the smaller ones. She gently placed a daffodil blossom at the front of each stone. The feeling of a warm hand taking hers was comforting but fleeting, as she knew it was a fading memory. 

She shed a tear that dropped on the daffodil blossom at the head of the largest stone. With a pit in her stomach, she stood still. For a moment, the rocky current of the river and a wind gust billowing off of the cliff face was all that was heard.

The memory of her mother’s soft, textured, warm hands faded with each soft gust of wind. If only she could reach out for those hands now that she has grown stronger. Now, finally, with the physical strength to pull her mother ashore from those violent floodwaters. The sound of the river current haunted her memory of that night, stealing her fond recollection of her mother’s hands. 

The humble gaze of desperation in her mother’s eyes as she could no longer hold on to the tree branch was branded into her consciousness. The gasp she gave when she was slowly losing her mother’s hand, finger by finger, to the rushing waters still whispered inside of her. The same emptiness from when she saw the rushing current wisk her away and claim her was all too familiar. 

She fought bitterly to understand. Her mother, of course, wanted her daughter to live on. Yet, the thought of her mother giving her life up to let her continue living filled her with guilt. Even before the flood, she was the child who lived. She wondered what her siblings would have been like had they’d been given the same chance at life as she. At least she had no memory of the fevers, the sweats, and the chills that took her brothers and sisters. That would be too much for one woman to bear. 

She wondered how her mother so bravely handled the grief of her children passing in quick succession, succumbing to yellow fever. Perhaps with the grace and fortitude that she maintained through all tribulations. The kind that her drunken father didn’t have when he left for safer, more predictable lands. The thought of her mother’s courage retrieved the comfort stolen by the thought of the violent, rushing water. She knew that her mother had no further skills to teach her, but she could still seek her wisdom from within. 

Quietly stepping away from the graves, each footstep gave a slight crackle from the soft brown leaves. She headed back down the river bank and up to a small outcropping. She proceeded over to the trap that she had set early that morning. Captured by it was a small rabbit squirming and struggling for freedom. It had started to gnaw on its ankle in an attempt to escape. 

She reached for her mother’s old pairing knife while gripping the rabbit by the scruff of its neck. Careful not to let the creature bite her, she gave it a smooth incision that allowed for blood to drain out of its throat. She watched as the rabbit slowly stopped thrashing and squirming, becoming peacefully still. 

She glanced over the horizon. She must’ve lost track of time because the sun was beginning to set over the west ridge. Though the amount of daylight gradually increased each day, late winter sunlight deep in the gorge was still sparse and unforgiving. Such were the ways of the land of the noonday sun. 

She waited for the final drops of blood to dribble out of the rabbit’s neck. She then held the rabbit’s hind paws down onto the ground with her boots and removed its skin by carefully pulling upwards on the incision flap, revealing a bare carcass, just as her mother had taught her. She cut around the excess skin and let the organs out with her knife before sauntering back to her cabin with her catch.

The cabin door creaked to a close behind her as she entered. She lit a candle and placed it on the rough-hewn table in the cabin's center. Night had fallen when it was still late afternoon in the lands beyond the gorge. She poured water into a cast iron pot and struck a match to light the kindling in the stone hearth to allow the water to boil. She then chopped up onions, potatoes, and herbs carefully grown in the garden her mother started ages ago. 

Taking the rabbit carcass out of her bag, she couldn’t help but stare into its lifeless eyes. Had the poor creature been a mother, too? A fleeting tinge of grief befell her, but she then remembered what her mother taught her about the circle of life. The rabbit was allowing her to survive another day by giving up its flesh. She should be grateful for the rabbit. After quartering the rabbit’s meat, she added it to the simmering pot on the hearth.

Done eating, she relished in the comfort of her meal, confident that her mother was looking down on her proudly. After picking up from supper, she found company in the warm crackling fire in the hearth. The flames shot up with the occasional snap that released a frenzy of sparks dancing up the chimney. 

Content, she began to prepare for bed when a sharp pain came across her lower abdomen. She tried urgently to search on the shelf for a remedy, only to realize that she didn’t know of one. Clutching her stomach tight, she began to feel dizzy. She stepped outside for fresh air and stared into the night sky, with the moon's silver glow entering her eyes. She started to sob silently at first, then uncontrollably. The distant trees by the daffodil field swayed gently in the breeze. There was still wisdom out there that only a mother could bestow.