Ana The ninth soul
Ana
The ninth soul
The snow stopped.
I dragged my empty feet and wet hair over my parents’ yard, Tiberius’s eyes following me as I drew circles in the snow with the scythe.
I was right. The Elk must have sent the images with my father, just to tease us. To see if I was able to take the life of the man who gave it to me. I crossed my hand over my eyes, pinching the skin.
My mind couldn’t focus on even one happy memory with my father.
I hoped that he would be better as he saw the Goat Man and lived to tell the story. My family most likely thought I died. Yet, I was alive in a way I never was before. No regret lingered for the pact with the man who found a way to kill the Elk, to grant us freedom.
My lips were chapped, covered by blood, as I looked at my mum’s face, before the kitchen window, wrapped in all sorts of wools and shawls to keep her warm.
I took a step towards the house; my arms were numb from squeezing the scythe.
The smell of sarmale filled the air, turning my stomach upside down.
“ILEANA!”
My mother’s name, shouted in my father’s voice, drew my attention to the next window.
His face appeared behind the broken glass, my mother wincing with her eyes closed. The wooden door opened with a thump; my father’s hand was prepared to slap my mum over her head.
Her scream jolted me to my cruel reality. I had the means to protect them now.
I gripped the scythe harder, my feet climbing the stairs of the porch. Swallowing and then taking shallow breaths, I pushed the door open.
My father’s hand was above my mother’s head, Angelica cowering behind the door, tears falling down her face. Both of my parents were stunned as I walked into the steamy room, my mother’s eyes red-rimmed from crying.
“Who are you?” my father thundered, the smell of ?uic? infecting the air.
“You do not recognise your eldest daughter, Father?” I bit into the last word, my scythe gleaming in the candlelight.
“You are not of my blood! A daughter of mine would not turn to the devil!” he screamed, stumbling forward.
Instead of helping him, I retreated, letting him fall. His nose broke on contact with the cream tiles. The cracking of his bone should have had some impact on me, but the sound slowed down my racing pulse.
“If you two do not want to see what I am about to do, please, get out!”
My eyes moved from my mum to my sister; their faces covered in bruises.
“Is it really you, Ana?” my mother whispered, and my blood quickened.
I nodded as her eyes filled with tears. My sister grabbed our mother by the shoulders, pushing her out the door. Before closing it, Angelica threw me a look, her brows furrowed.
“You cursed women!” my father yelled, climbing to his knees, spit coming out of his mouth and blood flowing from his nostrils.
Circling him, I noticed the wound that the Goat Man had caused. Uneven edges were left in place of the arm, the pink skin still healing. I pushed my scythe into it, drawing blood.
My father screamed, the sound exhilarating, something to keep in mind whenever I thought of him.
“I believed I saved all of you by offering myself to the Goat Man. I believed you would not turn viler than you already are, Father,” I whispered, my voice travelling over the walls of the kitchen. The clay plates rattled, some of them falling to the ground.
“How did you become this? You slept with him, didn’t you? Whore!”
His words burned my skin and hurt more than any beatings from him.
“And if I did, what care have you?” I said in a low tone, making him wince. “I believed you would be gentler to your own flesh and blood.”
He puffed, then his smug face turned to me. “They do not deserve anything from me.”
“From you?” A hollow laugh escaped me, foreign even to myself. “They don’t, because you have nothing to offer, Father!”
I slammed my scythe into his other hand, cutting it to the bone. The sound coming from him was not human anymore.
More blood than I had seen on any of my recent ripped souls came from his wound, staining his stitched shirt.
“Because of you, Father, I do not have a heart anymore! And you know what?” I shouted over his limp body.
He fell again to the floor, this time hitting his head, a third wound opening in his forehead.
“It is better that I do not have one, otherwise I would not have done that!” A diabolical smile bloomed on my lips, a poison I welcomed with open arms.
My scythe touched my father’s body again, this time taking his legs.
“Ana…” I heard Tiberius’s voice crawling on my legs, my chest and my mind. “Do not cross the edge to the dark side, inim?. Remember yourself! Don’t let your power overthrow you.”
My father’s severed members stained the tiles, blood seeping through the cuts. I kicked one leg out of my way, ignoring my father’s howling.
The child within hungered for vengeance, eager to see my father consumed by oblivion.
But Tiberius was right…If I crossed the path to evil, I wouldn’t be able to love anymore. If I tortured my father the way my child self would want, I would not be Ana. I would be the Stag Woman.
“I thought I saved them from you…”
At the last moment, the scythe – my weapon, my friend – sank into his chest and freed the heart that had never known how to love.
The ninth swirl joined its siblings.
I should have let my man take my father with him.
But then, the Goat Man would not have been my future, Eugen would not have been saved. And I would not have found love.
Tiberius cleaned the kitchen while I went to talk with my sister and mother.
I fell at their feet, and through sobs, I told them how sorry I was for leaving them without any help. I gnawed at their aprons, my nails digging into the fabric.
“I’m so sorry I left you,” I cried, my breath coming in short breaks.
My damp hair was caressed by a warm hand, the smell of food familiar to me. My mum took my teary face in her hands, her thumbs wiping the pain away, just as she did when I was a child.
“Ana, you tried to do your best to save our family,” she whispered, her kind eyes and soul caressing mine. “I endured this life for you and Angelica, and I would endure a thousand more. Because you are my light that shines over all the sins. You and your sister are the air that I breathe.”
Angelica placed a hand over my head, a smile growing on her lips. “You’re back, and that is all that matters, Ana,” she hushed, her brown eyes crinkling at the edges.
I cried in their arms all night, missing the women they could have been and embracing the women they will become.
Without a shadow on their life.