5 A Mother Worries

Three people sat around a rickety table eating scraps. Rena was unusually happy. She smiled and hummed to herself as she fed Doevm. Hank sat at the other end of the table in silence. He swirled his soup around and frowned. He slurped it all down and left. Rena ignored him and kept humming her lullaby. When Hank left, she said, "Did you like meeting Jameson the other day? He saved you from the Kobolds. He's so strong, but Hank doesn't really like him."

'I know all that.' Doevm thought. 'But why is Hank still alive? What did you do to him? He hasn't been this quiet all my two years of life.' He figured he would wake up with one parent left, but not a family meal. While it was quiet, it wasn't peaceful. Hank glared at Doevm even more than usual. But the strangest thing of all was that Hank didn't have a bottle in his hands. After both Rena and he were done with breakfast, she carried him to his crib.

"Now don't escape this time." she said as she pulled out spare boards and placed them on top of his crib. "Mommy will protect you." she smiled and skipped out of the room. He took off his rags and inspected himself. His wounds were still open, but a layer of scabs were forming. Pus and dry blood hung at the sides. It hurt to even move. He put his clothes back on, sat down, and gathered mana for the rest of the day.

When the night came, he came out of his trance hungry. He waited for his mother to come back and give him his second and final meal of the day. The sun fell behind the mountains. He waited. The full moon rose and greeted him. He waited. His stomach growled. He waited. The stars faded away as tomorrow's sun rose. He waited. On the gravel road, Rena walked carrying a beat and battered man. Doevm looked through his one window and realized the man was Hank. Rena opened their front door and laid Hank on the ground. She rubbed her shoulders and stepped over him.

"Doevm, are you still here?"

"I'm here." Doevm replied. "What happened to daddy?" Rena came in with a bowl of soup and pulled the planks away.

"He challenged Jameson to a duel." She scooped up a spoonful and fed Doevm. "Then he got beat up because he doesn't know how to fight. We spent the rest of the day with a doctor."

"Why did he challenge Jameson?" Doevm asked, pulling out his signature cute baby eyes.

"Because he's something called an idiot. He's jealous of Jameson and wanted to fight him. Jameson is the captain of the guard of Regginald Virility. Of course he won." She looked up and smiled. "What a man." Then she touched her lips.

"More please." Doevm pulled her out of her fantasies. He hadn't eaten in twenty four hours after all.

"Of course." Rena said. She stuffed him full. "Listen, daddy's going to go away for a while. So I'm going to protect you. Nothing will ever happen to you ever again. Isn't that great?" Doevm nodded and put on a fake smile. "Now remember, daddy is taking a long trip. You probably won't see him for a while. Some people might ask where he went. It's important that you don't say anything. His trip is dangerous, and no one can find out." She grabbed him by the waist and tickled him. "No one can know? Do you understand?"

"Yes mother." Doevm wheezed. "It hurts, please stop." Rena immediately let go.

"I'm sorry, I forgot you were hurt." She backed away. "But you need to go to sleep now, don't worry, mommy will protect you. Just go to sleep and dream of a safe warm place." She bent over the crib, kissed Doevm, then put the planks back on the top of his crib so he couldn't escape.

"Oh the wind, the wind blows east." she began the lullaby. Since Doevm had stayed up for so long and now had a belly full of warm soup, he fell asleep immediately. That's what he wanted Rena to think. While he was tired, under his rags, he dug his fingers in his wound. The pain kept him awake.

"To the edge of the earth, it runs from the beast." Something heavy was dragged across the floor. Rena grunted as she said the next line: "It's fangs are sharp, but mommy's got her harp." the door to her room opened and closed. "She'll lull it to sleep and count some sheep." He heard a soft sound of metal sliding past metal. "Oh the wind, the wind blows east." She grunted again. "Until the end of time, Mommy will save you from the beast." Doevm opened his eyes. There was a trail of blood leading to a pool coming from Rena's door. "And when mommy's harp is bend and broken."

A loud clunk and squishing sounded out, like a board being sawed in two. "She'll. Wait. For. The. Earth. To. Darken."

She stopped the lullaby. Doevm laid down and pretended to be asleep, all while creaking his eye open. Through the doorway was Hank's body. Not only was his throat slit, but he was also stabbed numerous times. One of his arms had been sawed off. The blood covered Rena walked to Doevm's side.

"She'll wait for a chance to come.

And when she's done waiting.

She'll stop delaying.

Her heart keeps hating.

and slit his god damned throat."

She took off one of the boards and stroked Doevm's hair with her bloody fingers. "He's dead. I finally did it. You can be safe for tonight, but what if the Kobolds come again? What if someone wants to take you away from me? What if you starve to death in your crib?" She slid one of Doevm's sleeves up and looked at his wound. "I'll do anything for you. Nothing will come between us ever again." She skipped back to her own room. Since she forgot to shut the door, Doevm saw her saw Hank into pieces all with her motherly smile on her bloody face.

Doevm looked at the boards that formed the roof of his new cell. If he tried, he could push them off, but that was for today. On Rena's waist was a hammer and nails. By the time she finished with Hank, it was night-time. She collected each of the pieces into Hank's empty bottles, grabbed seasonings and some vegetables, and walked out of the house. Doevm pushed his boards off and secretly followed her. Since he was still hurt and much smaller, he fell behind quickly, but that didn't matter.

He knew she was going to the river to wash off. He found her rinsing the pieces of Hank off and humming her lullaby. She chopped up the carrots with the murder weapon and threw them into the pot with Hank. She pulled out another jar and did the same.

Doevm watched her for a few moments before finding the rose he left yesterday. There was still one thorn left in the rose. He picked it up and hurried back to his house. In the morning, Rena came back. The smell of roses that usually followed her home from the field was gone. She smelled like copper. She handed Doevm a bowl of soup through the bars of his cage.

"Eat up, I made it myself with a special recipe." She hummed as she slurped up her own helping.

"But it smells like liquor." Doevm complained and pushed the soup away.

"Please eat it." Rena said. "You're so hungry. I haven't been feeding you right. You need to grow up big and strong like Jameson. And now that daddy's gone, we won't eat good ever again. We have to keep eating." she pushed the soup closer. It sloshed back and forth. Doevm saw his own reflection in the brownish-red water.

"Ok," Doevm said. He picked up the soup and held it to his mouth. He gulped the soup down and left the meat chunks. He looked to Rena and smiled, displaying his teeth dyed in red.

"All of it please." Rena got up and picked up a chunk with her spoon. "Open up, I want you to get extra strong. We don't usually get to feast like this." Doevm opened his mouth. The spoon entered, and he tasted the horrible taste of liquor. When the bowl was clean, Rena smiled an picked up the hammer and nails. She set one nail over the crib's boards.

"What are you doing now mother?"

"I'm going to keep you safe. Now that it's just me, I need to keep you safe and feed you. No Kobold will be able to get to you in here. You'll be safe. Jameson will be so proud of me." she winced and dropped the hammer. A single drop of blood came from her wound. She ceased up fell down. "Doevm, I can't see, are you OK? What's happening? I can't see you."

"You poor woman." Doevm lifted the boards that weren't nailed down and bent down to take a closer look at his mother's face. "I'm fine. I'm OK." he stroked her head.

"Thank the goddess." were her last words. Doevm walked outside of the hut and threw the soup back up. It tasted the same coming back up as it did coming in. He returned to his home and inspected the hammer. The thorn he had put inside the handle's leather had done its job perfectly. The rest of the day he spent getting rid of the soup his father's remains were cooked into and build a sled out of the boards. He pushed his mother onto it, dragged her under the cover of night, and dumped her body in the rose fields. Now, all that was left was to act. He threw the boards away and got in his crib. In the morning, when the farmers walked to the rose field, Doevm cried his lungs out. He screeched louder than a banshee and howled more terrible than a wolf. They passed him of course, but came back when his mother's body was found.