As the Wind Trembles

This story includes death of a child.

She looked up at the tall pines climbing the sky. She remembered when the trees that reached into her view weren’t so still. She remembered when they swayed with a wind that made her sick.

               I have to save one of them, the memory echoed. The deep scratching of gravel loudened in her ears, the feel of it scraping her hands becoming more real. Her heart silenced the thought of plunging back into the memory again. 

              “Hey,” a frustrated voice interrupted. 

              She jumped slightly, tilting her head up to look at the one casting the shadow. Of course, it was him. Only he could sneak up on her.

              “What in God’s name was that?” he asked pointedly.

              She sat up. He was referring to their escape. He had wanted to fight the guards, but she lifted them before they even got the chance.

              “Ryan,” she started.

              “You can’t keep lifting whenever things get dangerous,” he asserted. “Nothing will change if you aren’t in this with us.”

              “Why is this all on me?” she snapped. “Why can’t someone else lead?”

              Stress moved her to start picking up twigs and breaking them as she talked. “We had our run, and we lost. I’m done with fighting.”

              There was no answer. She knew he was staring at her, but she didn’t want to look at him. She was afraid he would be able to see how afraid she was.

              “So, you want Kailyn to do it?”

              She immediately turned to glare at him. Have her son lead the Faction? Force him to do what she was forced to do? To sacrifice so many and so much under the mirage of absolute strength?

To risk his life with the monster that nearly killed him, she thought.

              Her mind travelled back to the painstakingly slow and heavy rhythm of her digging. Her bloodied hands dragging through the dirt as the sunset in the distance created shadows of surrounding trees. The leaves crying in the wind that pulled against her face. Her chest had been shaking as incessant cries spilled out of her mouth. She couldn’t think, couldn’t feel the earth in her hands; but the aching, throbbing pain in her body was too much not to feel. She was burying her daughter. All by herself.

              Raechel closed her eyes and pushed it back down. “No. I just…I’m not going through this again.”

              Ryan peered at her quietly for a moment. “What are you not telling me?”

              She shied away, her muscles tensing. Everything.

He was under the assumption that she had lifted them to some random woods. A forest off the map in the middle of nowhere that meant nothing to no one. But this place…these trees changed her forever. If she told him why, they would change him, too.

              “Love,” he said softly, “our minds have been connected for years. I know when you’re trying to hide something from me.”

              She felt the presence of his mind on the outskirts of her own. She wanted to show him, but she hesitated. Connecting telepathically meant absolute empathy—being able to physically feel someone else’s emotions. Should she share this pain with him?

              “Raechel, you have no right to do nothing,” he was starting to lose his patience. “Thirty years ago, we started all this. The day she leaked you killing that man was the day we fell into this hole. Now, we are the only powered strong and influential enough to take her down, and you agreed that you would do nothing?”

              It was like a punch to the gut.

              “You think I like this?” she yelled suddenly. “Ryan, I made a deal with the Devil, I know,” she stood up. “But I can’t lose him. I can’t lose my son.”

              “Why?” he pushed forcefully.

              She threw up her hands. “Do I even need a reason for that?”

              He peered at her. “Yes. Because you’ve never said no to a fight. You were always the first one to run into trouble, the first one to help those in need. Then, all of a sudden, you surrender and agree to never fight again? Why? What do they have on you?”

              Cries bubbled in her stomach. What did they have on her? Tears streamed down her face.

              Ryan looked taken aback. “Raechel…?”

              She looked into his eyes. He did care for her. And, he did have the right to know.

“I want to show you something.”

              Turning without waiting for him, she headed toward the place. This was it. She was finally going to tell him. She had thought about how this day would go, but it didn’t seem nearly as terrifying as it was now. Every step forward seemed to be like two steps back. She was receding into the past, back to when the sun was setting, when the wind whistled through the branches. The crunch of leaves under her foot became too familiar and the trees started looking the same as the ones in her brain. When she came to a single yellow flower growing out of the ground, she stopped and stared. There she was.

Ryan was quiet. They’d seen enough death to know more than anyone else what was in the ground.

              “Who is it?” he asked quietly.

              She opened her mouth, but the tears choked the words back. She reached out to him with her mind, and he let her in immediately.

              Our daughter, she cried. The weight shifted over to her memory.

Her bitter cries died down as she continued making the grave. She had to do this. So, the other one could be okay. She had to save one of them. She couldn’t lose another.

              Save one. Save one. Her hands dug faster and faster, dirt flying behind her, until she furiously punched the ground. She wasn’t going to lose another. She had to let her go. Right here. Right now.

Satisfied with the depth, she lay on her back, staring at the trees towering above her. The rustle of the wind blowing in their leaves eased a bit of panic. She had to do it now, didn’t she? Taking a deep breath, she wiped her eyes and sniffed. There was a lot that could go wrong with this. She just needed to make sure that nothing she did hurt herself or disturbed the one that was still alive. He had to come out okay. She couldn’t lose him, too.

That thought echoed in their minds from her heart. I can’t lose him, too.

              Ryan locked eyes with her through his tears. From their mental connection, she felt him put the pieces together: the residual emptiness in her eyes, the fatigue, the fear all made sense to him now.

              She looked away, tears scaling down her cheeks. “After she took you away, they did some experiments. I thought that I would be fine, but…I didn’t have the strength to hide my pregnancy after a while. I thought I could for the sake of the Faction, but…”

She felt her stomach tighten. Remembering that far back would be too much.

“They killed her,” she managed to say. “They injected her with some sort of poison. I knew I was going to be fine, but…if I didn’t let her go, then Kailyn would have died with her.”

Raechel hugged herself. “I don’t know how I managed the strength to do it, but I got out of there and ended up here. And this is where I let her go.”

They both stared at the sad flower shivering with the wind. Raechel trembled with it.

 “It’s her birthday today.”