3
“Isabel,” mother calls from the kitchen, dried orange and cinnamon scents billowing through the house. “Come and help me finish these cookies for the Gallows’!”
Sugary sweet inflection, bitter heart. I shuffle into the room, shadowing my little sister, stifling a sneeze as the smell of spices consumes me.
Isabel settles behind the bench covered in flour, her eyes bright as stars – a gift of innocence that my mother tries her hardest to corrupt with her scripture.
“What did the police want?” Isabel asks.
“Isabel, you know what they wanted. You were eavesdropping, unsubtly I might add.” She glances at Isabel sideways. “I gave you the gift of life, and you repay me by not allowing privacy in my own home. Be respectful.”
Gift. What a gift it was, never seeing anyone. Isabel and I stuck. Cooking, sewing, sleeping, repeating. And now, my only friend is dead.
Isabel slumps, her head bowing. “Can you please tell me what they said, was it about…”
“It was about Francesca,” my mother tells her. “She was found dead.”
My sister glances up with her mouth agape and tears in her eyes. I want to comfort her, but the grief is so thick in my own blood that the words won’t pass my tongue.
“They found Francesca dead?” she questions, her throat dry, the sound rough.
“Yes,” My mother confirms, no emotion in her words. “Buried and forgotten in the woods.”
“Mother!”
Isabel may be nearly an adult, but she is as innocent as a child in her mind. The world is safe to her, and my mother – callous and snide – has no respect for her soft heart.
Mother hums beneath her breath, as though considering. “An ill fate for a woman of faith, but nevertheless… life continues.”
A sob grips my chest. How did someone as sweet as Isabel come from such a wicked woman?
“H-how did she die?” Isabel asks quietly, avoiding looking towards me or mother.
“Strangled, apparently. Quite symbolic,” my mother tuts. A sharp sorrow splinters my ribs, shards of despair burrowing into my chest. How could that ever be an act of symbolism? Symbolic of what?
“Symbolic?” Isa asks as though reading my thoughts. “Well, her breath was stolen, the very breath our savior gave her. She rebelled against divine creation and thus, he silenced her from whence the dissent came.”