How to Overcome Childhood (7)
Sister Flora was nowhere to be found.
No matter where she went, she always told us roughly when she would return.
This time she left without a single word, vanishing as if she had never been there at all.
She sometimes played little pranks and hid just to make us laugh, so we tore the place apart looking for her. We still could not find her.
Only then did our faces darken. We finally understood that Sister Flora had left us.
"...I-it's my fault..."
Rhea blamed herself. She said it was because of her. That Sister Flora had been so disappointed she abandoned us. She cried that she wanted to see her again.
Ceria and Claudia both knew that could not be the reason, so they tried to comfort her.
"...What if Sister Flora gets hurt out in the village...?"
Rhea spoke the fear that all of us had already half-guessed. The meaning was obvious.
She was saying we should go look for her. That we should find her and beg her forgiveness.
None of us shook our heads at Rhea's words. If there was any place Sister Flora would return to, it was here. Just as we were precious friends to one another, Sister Flora was our family.
We thought about searching in pairs in case the villagers harassed us, but the others shook their heads. They wanted us to scatter and search everywhere, and if anyone found her, blow a whistle. If we truly could not find her—if we reached the point where we believed she was gone—we would meet at the riverside where I sometimes washed. We still believed Sister Flora would never abandon us. Maybe she had only gone somewhere far away. Claudia suggested we at least leave clean water for her.
"...Ceria, Claudia—you two search around the church first. Rhea and I will go into the village."
I kept it short. We all knew there was nothing left to discuss, so no one answered. We set off on our short legs, leaving footprints across the softly piled snow.
The village was peaceful.
As if our anxiety meant nothing to them at all. The winter festival was approaching, and everyone seemed busy with preparations. Memories of spending the winter festival with Sister Flora rose unbidden.
Back then the Orthodox Church had not yet branded her a heretic, so Sister Flora and the rest of us had walked hand in hand through the falling snow. When people mocked Claudia for being of the Wolf Tribe, Sister Flora had even gotten into a fierce argument with one of her own benefactors. She had said we were all her family, her beloved children, and that even if it meant losing their support she would never let anyone insult us.
We never got to enjoy the winter festival after we were driven out, but we made our own tree from branches inside the church, decorated it with scraps of cloth, and even though it was still the same thin gruel we laughed as if we were eating a real feast.
"...Where are you...?"
The words slipped out before I knew it. Everything felt like my fault. Rhea kept saying it was hers, but I knew the truth. It was mine.
We were only children. There might have been people who would have helped us. I was the one who got scared and acted like an idiot and led us into the slums. I was the one who made Sister Flora cry, made her hurt, made her raise a switch against the children she cherished so much.
I should have acted like a child. Instead I tried to act like an adult and tore Sister Flora's heart open. The thought hurt so much that I ran even harder.
Warmth drifted between the crowds preparing for the festival. The smell of good food, the sound of people laughing. I almost wished Sister Flora had abandoned us and was laughing somewhere among them.
But she was not in the village. We pushed all the way into the center, searching desperately, and still found nothing.
"Have you seen Sister Flora? Please, tell me! A-anyone who saw her...!"
I shouted, and without meaning to I started to cry. Worry had become anxiety, and anxiety had become terror. People began asking worriedly which sister we were looking for—until the shopkeeper I had once stolen from appeared and pointed a finger.
"You little thief! Get the hell out of here!"
At the word "thief," every gaze turned cold. Even though most of the people this deep in the village did not know me, it was enough. Sister Flora had always said that if you did bad things, they would come back to you someday. Maybe this was the price for all the bad things I did just to survive.
I stumbled away, still sniffling. I had thought I understood adult feelings and thoughts, but it was useless. I was still just a child.
Like a child who had lost his parents, I wiped my tears and walked through the crowd. Village girls giggled as they came up and shoved me in the back. I almost fell, but I stayed on my feet.
"Hey, you're looking for that sister, right? No— the heretic?"
At those words it felt as if a shaft of light had fallen from the sky. When I turned, the sun was behind them so that a halo seemed to float above their heads. Yet their faces were shadowed, their eyes full of hatred and anger.
"She said she needed money because of you brats, right? That bitch probably went to the slums. What else can a heretic do except sell her body? When we told her, she actually looked happy to go."
"...W-what did you say?"
Blood rushed to my head. The slums were full of people who did not fit into society. They would never welcome Sister Flora. If she ran into a pimp she might be forced to sell herself on the spot. The whole reason I had left with Rhea and Sister Flora in the first place was so that Rhea would never end up like that, no matter how we grew up.
"Why? Why would you do that—why—!"
I shouted without thinking. Men who looked like the girls' lovers started walking toward us. I wanted to scream at them. What had Sister Flora ever done that was so wrong? Why did she have to suffer? Why did they hate her so much? But if she really had gone to the slums, there was no time. We might never find her.
Thud— thud—!
I turned back the way we had come and ran for the entrance to the slums. Only then did the scenery match the situation we were in. There were no festival lights here. In the dark alleys, people frozen to death lay here and there. The laughter of the outer world had been replaced by curses and the raw, animal sounds of lust.
"...S-Sister Flora—!"
The moment I reached the slums I started calling for her. Even if the people who used to live with us recognized me and tried to kill me, I did not care. I would rather they beat me if it meant they would tell me where she had gone.
"Sister Flora—!"
I shouted again and again, but no one in the slums answered. They only smirked. Of course they did. Looking for a sister in the slums?
I felt relieved instead.
No—I forced myself to feel relieved. Sister Flora had never come here. She had simply left us. Thinking that made it easier to breathe.
And then—
"...Ah, so that kid the sister said was starving is this little bastard."
A prostitute's voice. I ran to her and begged, crying, praying that even a little warmth still remained in her heart. The woman frowned, pulled me close, and whispered.
"She's dead."
Dead. What was she saying? The words were so impossible that tears fell with a soft plop.
"I didn't see it myself, but the male whores said they dumped her outside. She got raped by a noble. So get lost already. Don't get the customers all worked up for nothing."
There were only a few places in the slums where nobles stayed or visited, so I ran deeper in. Suddenly my body and clothes were yanked into the air and slammed into the ground. I could not breathe. It hurt so much that tears leaked out.
I screamed that I only wanted to find Sister Flora, that I only needed to see her face—but the man guarding the alley gave the same answer. Sister Flora had been beaten so badly she could no longer take men. So they had thrown her outside.
"...Ugh, hhk—, h-hhk—."
While I sobbed the man kindly told me they had dumped her in the forest. There was nothing kind about it. He snickered that she had probably become food for wild animals by now.
My body shook. Tears blurred everything. From the village to the slums, from the slums to the forest—I walked again.
It was bitterly cold. It felt as if I were naked, as if the snow were touching bare skin. As if thorns were piercing every part of me, as if someone were crushing my skull underfoot.
When I reached the place the man had described, there were traces. A difference in height among the piled snow. Blood.
Looking at those traces, I thought maybe Sister Flora was still alive, and I ran for a long time. I ran and ran and ran and ran.
Fwee—.
A whistle sounded. Far ahead I saw the children standing... no, kneeling.
I sprinted. Between Ceria, Rhea, and Claudia lay Sister Flora, collapsed naked, covered only by a few rags. White semen had frozen and clung stickily to her skin. Her face was swollen from beatings. Countless red lines scored her pale flesh.
"...Sister Flora."
I went to her and pulled her into my arms. Her breathing was faint. The children had been sharing their body heat, but she was already far too weak. One eye had gone milky white; the other was so swollen it could open only halfway.
"...Ah. Ri... Riel..."
The moment Sister Flora saw me—even though she must already have cried again and again in front of the children—she cried once more. Just as she had stroked my head the day the villagers beat me, this time she took my hand. There were two gold coins in it.
"...Riel—. Rhea—. Ceria—. Claudia—. I... I'm sorry—."
Sister Flora had been violated. She had gone to the village to earn money for us—just as I had once gone to the slums. Because of us she had been raped, her purity stolen, beaten until she was dying more wretchedly than anyone.
"I'm sorry—. Truly... for leaving you like this—. I'm sorry..."
None of us could answer her. If we answered, it felt as if she would die. Then Sister Flora forced her body upright with the last of her strength.
Her bare body, her breasts, every inch of her skin was exposed, and the white snow touched her flesh, but she did not care. Just as she always had, she opened her arms. We naturally went into that embrace and held her. Tears fell onto our hair.
"...I'm sorry for making you unhappy. I'm sorry for being a heretic's daughter, truly—."
Sister Flora slowly leaned to the side.
"...I really did love you. My little ones—. One last time—, for my little ones, a prayer..."
She spoke the word she always used for us—"my little ones"—and then she moved no more.
"My little ones" was what Sister Flora's own mother had called her.
"Sister Flora, S-Sister Floraaa..."
Ceria sobbed.
"U-uaaaah—, n-no—, nooo—. Why—, I hate this, Sister Flora, I hate it, I hate it—!"
Claudia shook Sister Flora again and again.
"...U-uhhk—, h-hhk—. S-Sister Flora—. W-we love you too. Y-you have to answer us—. S-Sister Flora—."
Rhea told the already-dead Sister Flora that she loved her. Tears streamed down my face, but I could not sob.
"...Let's bury Sister Flora beside the church."
The moment Sister Flora left us, the snow stopped. The sun came out. A pillar of light filtering through the dark clouds shone down on her. For some reason that pillar of light followed us all the way to the church.
We cleared the snow and somehow dug into the frozen ground. Not one of us still had unbroken fingernails. We cleaned Sister Flora and placed the things she had always loved on one side of the mound of earth.
Then, looking at Sister Flora bathed in that pillar of light, we offered the prayer we could have said any number of times while she was still alive.
Please let Sister Flora go to heaven. Please let her be born into a world where she does not have to take care of us, and live happily.
Thud—, thud—, thud—.
We covered her with earth. We needed a gravestone, but none of us could write properly. Rhea and I just put our heads together and managed to scratch out a name.
Flora.
A wooden marker bearing only that name was driven into the ground with a soft thud. Ceria, Claudia, and Rhea had cried so much they could only sob now. They had cried until no more tears would come; even with their eyes open they looked as if they were closed.
We held one another. We comforted one another. There was nothing else we could do. Then I felt Ceria and Claudia trembling, so I spoke.
"...I promise. I'll protect you somehow."
I did not want to force them to say the things they were afraid of out loud.
"...Let's look after each other. Let's stay together for the rest of our lives. Let's keep other people from coming between us, and no matter what happens, let's live only for one another. For Sister Flora. For us."
I wanted to make sure Sister Flora would never have to worry about us again.
"...We're childhood friends, after all."
When I spoke the words of the promise, Ceria held out her ring finger—the gesture Sister Flora had taught us for making a promise. We all linked our little fingers and swore. Claudia even hooked her tail.
That none of us would leave. That we would stay together forever. We made a covenant, a promise denser than anything else.
The way to overcome childhood was simply to trust one another and care for one another. Just as Sister Flora had loved us, we had only to love each other. What Sister Flora left us was the heart that looked after one another.