Portions of this post may not be suitable for younger readers. Discretion is advised.
If you or someone you know is a victim of violent crime, report the information immediately to your local law enforcement agency and seek out counseling, information, and assistance at local social service organizations for victims of violent crimes.
This work is fictional. Any resemblance to actual situations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.
September 23
Katrina,
Just as nature interacts so that all of its elements are tended to, people are dependent on each other as well. But, unlike nature, people don’t always accept their responsibility to the rest of the human race, not understanding the true impact one can have on another, unconcerned with the effect that they have an another life.
Someone, saddened for any reason, walking down any street anywhere, can be cheered simply by the smile of a stranger passing by, the nodding of the head of a clerk, or the bright eyes of a mother carrying her child. Everyone, even strangers, affects other beings around them, silently or loudly changing thoughts, feelings, and perspectives. To someone pondering death, the smile of a stranger on the street may change their mind and erase their plans. To someone content or happy, the lost expression in the empty eyes of a stranger may turn happiness to sadness or fear. To someone feeling unlucky, seeing someone overcoming his or her own difficulties can change the feeling of misfortune to fortune, to possibility. It’s all related, interconnected.
But, when the apathy for the value of the lives of others sinks to its lowest form, when the lack of concern for any other is gone, the result is violence, violence at its worst, violence in an undeniably evil form.
I was twenty-seven, and yet I did not recognize Hell walking up the drive to The Oak one Sunday afternoon. Disguised as a man with a smile upon his face, evil walked up to me and I recognized it not. But, then, the drink can cloud the eyes, the judgment. Perhaps if I had not been at Joe’s Tavern that Friday or any Friday before, evil never would have seen me, found me, sought me out, and broken the sanctity of The Oak. But, then, perhaps I was the one who had broken the sanctity of The Oak long before that day.
As children, the boundaries of The Oak were as a fortress that evil, sorrow, and pain could not break through. The trees stood guard, their limbs pointing to each other of any possible intruders, intertwining their branches to prevent entry. But, the trees were under the careful watch of a good man, a good leader, our Father, and reckless had I become with the emotions and thoughts that were allowed passage through the front gates.
The Oak seemed empty of people that day, a lazy Sunday afternoon that was perfect for being with loved ones. I was outside tending to flowers along the front porch when I felt an uneasy breeze blow nearby, when I looked down the drive and saw him coming nearer. Instinctively, I looked up toward the angel standing guard at the attic for guidance, and it seemed as though a teardrop fell.
Must one travel to the end of a road before being allowed to change? Do demons feel an incorrigible need to fight for what they feel belongs to them?
His name was Steven, I learned, as he approached and began speaking. I remembered him vaguely from Friday night at Joe’s Tavern, but had either known not his name or had forgotten it in the blur of the drink. After a long walk from town, though uninvited, I felt obliged to at least speak to him for a while, offer him rest on the porch and a glass of water. As he settled in on the porch, I went inside to fetch the water, continuing to notice how strangely vacant The Oak seemed on this day, and then I returned to him.
We spoke of the local community, which he seemed to know little about having just hitched in from a place with a name he could not recall. Perhaps his lack of recollection was because of the drink of which he mentioned being fond. We spoke of Joe’s Tavern, and he expressed also having plans to stop drinking, to settle down. We spoke of world events, of wars past and wars on the horizon, we spoke of romances and glory lost, and, as the hours passed, I seemed to forget the vacancy of The Oak and the uneasiness I had felt upon his arrival.
He seemed nice enough, lacking in harsh words or tones, and his clothing, though old and worn, showed signs of care and concern for his appearance. So, just before sunset when he suggested a short walk, I agreed, though I knew the season and the weather well enough to know that the clouds would likely restrict the stars and hide the moon.
We walked through the field, his steps acting as though they knew this land, familiar with the positioning of stones and water. And, the night grew darker.
As we continued to walk, we talked of this and that and of the history of The Oak. When I began telling him that I felt we should return to the house, he circled around me and put a gun to my body. I heard the trees shake as the wind picked up force, angry at what I had allowed on this hallowed ground. I felt the gun there, pushing into my side just before he pushed me to the ground; his voice changing, becoming angry, resentful, hateful, deadly. He lowered his weight upon me and, from face down in the dirt, I managed to turn over and began to swing my fists at whatever I could hit. He continued to scream at me, ranting, his rage growing with each word. In the darkness, in the struggle, I felt my head hit with something heavy, though I’m not sure if it was a stone or a fist. I made contact with his body with my fists from time to time and tried to push him off at others, but it seemed to have no impact as he ripped at my skirt and tore at my soul. My hand searched the ground for anything to use as a weapon, finding the gun. And, a shot exploded into the air. And, I felt myself hit in the head.
I woke there in the field the next morning, my dress torn and covered in blood. The trees looked down upon me in confusion of what had happened in their field, their leaves seeming to hang low, weeping for me. The gun was still in my hand and the rock that had been forced against my head was sitting beside me. Through dizzy, blurry eyes, the precious stone appeared to have been crying blood to have been used in such an evil manner. My hair felt matted and, after putting a hand to it, realized that it was matted with blood, blood that also ran across my face from the wound caused by the rock at the hairline. I had not been shot, yet pain blared throughout my body like a siren and it was difficult to move. And, Steven was nowhere to be found.
I just laid there, unable to move for the pain, until mid-morning when a field worker found me and carried me home. Betsy spoke to the field worker who found me, instructing him to tell no one. Then Betsy cleaned me up and tended to my wounds, ordering bed rest, keeping cloths smothered in herbal mixtures on my head wound, and keeping salve on cuts and bruises and scratches. Betsy had me consume regularly a liquid she had brewed containing a vile taste and a smell reminiscent of vinegar and horse manure being rolled around in rotten eggs, but Betsy was adamant that it would help me to heal. Together, we decided not to call the doctor or the sheriff, for we did not want anyone to know of this ordeal; the humiliation would be too much and would ruin my reputation, the reputation of The Oak, and Father’s business dealings. We would have to wait and see, she said, if there would be a baby, adding that, if there were, there were ways to deal with that.
For days, I stayed in bed, getting up at times to eat and to care for one very important task. I spent energy trying to regain my strength, crying, and searching for my spirit. The walls of the room closed in somewhat as if they were protecting me from harm, but the sun hid from me. And, I needed my Sister.
Betsy and I took the gun, the bloody rock, and the bloody clothing, shoving them into a laundry bag and then into a metal box. And, the box we carefully hid inside the wall leading to Father’s office so that no one would ever be able to find it, so that no one would ever know.
About a week later, my embarrassment and emotional pain were still great but my wounds were healing and my physical strength was returning. Business meetings had been canceled, the excuse of illness being provided as reason, and The Oak was basically able to run itself. I looked through the window of the grand entranceway onto the front porch one morning, and then looked to the strength of the front doors. Steven had never made it inside because the house knew--The Oak knew--and such evil cannot pass through the doors of hope. It was a couple of weeks before I was ready to go back on the front porch, and then only venturing there with the strength of Betsy beside me. But, finally, once there, the sun shined on me again as if welcoming me back home.
Two weeks after the incident, a field worker came to the house. They had found a body out in the fields. Having to know, Betsy and I followed them to the place where the body lay, and there was Steven, dead, a gunshot would to his chest and dried blood covering his clothing. From the location of the body, it appeared as though Steven had been running for the border of The Oak, his foot becoming entangled in the intertwined roots of some trees where the forest grew deep, causing him to fall and hit his head on a large root. That he bled to death was Betsy’s theory, and with a look of terror upon his face at the time. And, above him, the trees swayed gently, their branches outstretched to Heaven.
The body was turned over to the sheriff, but no evidence was ever found and no one had any information regarding this man or what he might have been doing on the property. And no one has ever reporting missing a man named Steven.
The brightness of The Oak seemed to return to normal after that, the walls attracting more sunlight, the workers about the fields and the house. But, even though The Oak had returned to normal, there was something of a cloud about me that remained. Though at times I was able to see the sun and appreciate its grandeur and warmth, to accept its comfort, there were also times I felt loss and unease. Much time passed before I felt comfortable enough to roam this property alone as I did as a child, and yet I’ve never returned to that particular part of the field.
If there was a baby, I’ve never been sure. In my bed one night, I screamed for Betsy to come help me and, with a painful cry, my body expelled a bloody mess just after Steven’s body was found. But Betsy kept it from me, explaining that it was in my best interest not to know, not to see. She wrapped it in a sheet and after I, weak from blood loss, made it to the window, I saw Betsy and a field hand bury it, sheet and all, by the old oak tree near the lake.
Hope lives here at The Oak, Sister. Father built it that way. Father used to say that it was the good spirits of The Oak that kept the workers happy to be here, that kept the place running smoothly and growing strong. Is it possible, Katrina, that The Oak protects its inhabitants as much as it can, considering that all things in life, all beings, all creatures, all living things are interconnected?
The world was different then, Kat. The world was different then. I wanted so much to talk to you, my Sister, about how I felt, about what had happened to me, and about what I had done, but I could not find the Sister I knew here at The Oak when we were children. Now, I realize that you were there, but I could not see you for my pride was as a heavy curtain that I did not push aside to look for you.
One is never the same after such an experience, the nightmare returning from time to time and the trust of others and of the self never fully returning. Betsy acted as my adviser as I tried to heal my soul, and after Betsy died I was left alone holding the secret and trying to repair the seams of my spirit that had been ripped apart. I’ve often wondered, Katrina, if I did something to deserve what happened. Was I being punished for some wrong I had done, I’ve wondered. Did my anger towards you, perhaps, or the hardening of my heart somehow invite such evil to The Oak, to me? And, sometimes, when my heart is open and I see the sun and remember what happened, I wonder if Steven began his life as a happy child running through fields of wildflowers, but later drawn from the light by despair until his heart was torn from him and he had no light left within at all. And, somehow, in those moments, I feel forgiveness for Steven, sorry for the pain he must have felt within. Is that where violence begins, Kat, as a seed of negativity, emotional turmoil, fertilized by sorrow and despair until any concern for life is gone completely?
Was I wrong? Was my action as equally violent as his, followed by a secret equally as evil? Katrina? Is there truly forgiveness for everyone? Sister?
Forever,
Christina
This work is fictional. Any resemblance to actual situations or persons, living or dead, is coincidental and unintentional.
Education, information, counseling, and additional assistance is available to victims of violent crimes at social service organizations that can be usually be contacted by local or toll free numbers. If you've been the victim of a violent crime or if you know someone who has, report this information to the local law enforcement agency and contact a social service organization for assistance.
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