Winter's Children

January 23rd, 1992

  I watched as the girl was pushed into the room. She was winsome, her hair dark and curly, her light brown skin dotted with freckles, her large doe eyes dark with fear. I closed my eyes, the darkness suited my mood, and I envisioned crisp autumns and cinnamon, snow fights, and poppies. It was always cold here, the sepia walls teasing my utter powerlessness. I yearned for death. It was the only way I could live. The girl trembled. She ventured over, crimson scratches over her arms. Holly walked over, talking to her in the velvety voice that was like bells. Dove walked over to the girl, she had found bandages in the closet of the shed. We were rationing them, but we figured she needed them. Great. Five girls were kidnapped and forced to live in one room. Time here always passed like water, dripping spitefully, drowning those who question its power. Words had intense power, you could kill someone with words. Words were a double-edged knife, they could harm or enlighten to the truth. Both made everybody miserable. Our life here was like a record, it just played over and over until you wanted to end it. I looked at the girl. Her hair wasn't ratty yet, her spine didn't stick out like mine did. We had a shower, and we did get fed, but we all took turns taking showers, and we all had to share small amounts of food.

"I'm Holly," Holly told the girl. "What's your name?"

"Gwenny." She uttered, shaking. She was shorter than I was, after being basically starved for two years of my life, I was 5'4 and 89 lbs. We did get a scale. We told him if our weight got too low.

"I'm Dove," Dove told more the wall than Gwenny, her curly hair ratty. Holly held my bony, ivory hand, her eyes hardened emeralds, her smell of silenced orchids. I traced my fingers through her sepia hair, stared into her ever sanguine eyes.

"I'm Tory," Tory uttered, her sable, angled eyes without any gleam. Holly glared at me, an obvious signal for me to introduce myself.

"I'm Adelaide." The words escaped my mouth quickly, like the shy kid they made be in the school play as a sick joke.

"I know you're scared now, Gwenny. We will find a way out." Holly promised, but it was hollow.

February 18th, 1992

Gwenny laid down next to me, she was only fifteen. She slept, it was still dark out. I could barely sleep here, maybe three hours a night at most. I watched to see if he came in, I figured the five of us could kill him if we needed to. I never knew I could kill anybody until I had somebody to protect. The moment Holly was thrown in here with me I knew I could kill the man who did this to her. I had been here the longest, since I was seventeen. I was nineteen now. In a few hours, Dove woke up. She smiled at me. Dove was eighteen when she was taken. She had been here the shortest amount of time, besides Gwenny. Only four months. Holly got taken right after I did, she was sixteen. Tory was the oldest of us, she was taken when she was twenty, she was twenty-one now. I wrapped my fingers around Holly's, her winsome aroma surrounding us and encasing us in safety.

March 3rd, 1992

"When I first got here, I faced terrible drug withdrawal," I confessed. "I hallucinated, I hurt myself." Holly held me close and for a moment, I was safe again.

"Where were you when you got taken, Gwenny?" Dove inquired softly.

"I was in a parking garage because that's where my mom told me to meet her after I got out of school, it was my birthday." She spat bitterly. "My mom was going to pick me up, but she was late. He grabbed me by my hair, and I blacked out."

"Who did you guys used to be, like, before?" Tory asked, her eyes nostalgic with reveries of the past.

"I used to be an artist. I was really good. Then, my mom left, and about a year after, I was taken." Holly said.

"I used to be like, really popular. I used to be a cheerleader, can you believe it?" Dove said quietly. "But, then. Well, you know." I could see the look in her eyes, like an old woman looking at old photos that had yellowed at the edges, coffee stains and all.

"I was going to be valedictorian." I smiled. "I had great grades and everything. Captain of the debate team, ivy league accepted. Everything. The day I was taken, I was messing with drugs. I was under so must pressure, it seemed like an excuse. But any way you wanna say it, I wasn't thinking straight. That's how he took me." I knew our lives weren't perfect before, but they now seemed so much better by comparison. "What about you, Tory?"

"I was going to get married. I was really into violin, but I thought all that could wait." She reflected. "I was walking home, it was horribly rainy, but I told myself I loved the rain. I wanted to be the beautiful wife who loved the rain. It was really, really dark and windy. And I haven't smelled the rain since." She was sobbing now. Her dark, wide eyes and ratty chesnut hair made her look somber, distant. We ate in silence, Holly stroking my hair, my head on her shoulder, feeling warm but remote.

"I was a poet," Gwenny spoke gently, as if she was afraid her voice might break something. "I wrote about a lot of things but mostly suffering. I knew nothing of suffering until now." Her hair was ratty now, her spine stuck out. We probably looked like mannequins from the outside, frozen, quiet in our imprisonment.

September 18th, 1992

"Today's my birthday," Tory said solemnly, a portrait of silence. I smelled lavender and lemon, I saw a page burning. It was us all, her birthday burning, becoming trivial. That's what this place did, made everything become trivial.

January 18th, 1993

I tasted the wind, I heard the piano, smelled the orchids. I saw Holly, her aroma becoming intoxicating in the wind. We danced. I awoke, my head lying next to her's. Gwenny had fallen asleep next to us, she had become closer to us than we ever thought she would. I remember her doe eyes. I looked at Gwenny, she opened her large eyes and smiled, she smelled like rosemary.

January 23rd, 1993

He had died. I knew because he'd stopped giving us food. Tory was already dead, she'd starved a few days back. Dove had killed herself, didn't want to wait it out. We were winter's children, smells and ice warmed ice, a grave of flowers. Our tears adorned tiaras. I smelled orchids and faded into the eternal aroma.