4 Then
Then
The memories of my mother are tainted.
Tainted by the way she was after. The mother of before was something altogether different. Gentle hands and gentler smiles, a woman not yet hardened by fear and fervor. Someone I could trust.
These days I find it difficult to recall her face. But I can recall, with stark clarity, her battered copy of the holy book. The floral scent of her perfume whenever Ilse and I sat on either side of her, our legs nearly touching, and listened to the soft cadence of her voice as she turned pages.
It’s funny, the way skepticism doesn’t seem to infiltrate youth. A mother’s word is gospel, her stories doctrine. And so I didn’t question it when she spoke of the world’s inception. I didn’t wonder at the existence of the Savior, the devil, or the macrocosm of their battlefield.
The first time I tasted doubt, I think, was on the day my mother spoke of diabolists.
Perhaps it was the sheer contrast of the story—the way it contradicted all the others I’d been told about sin and its effects.
Perhaps it was the fact that I couldn’t comprehend an evil that existed now, as opposed to in some long-ago fable.
Either way, I absorbed the warnings of diabolists with dubiety.
They’re designed to entice, my mother claimed. Their voices can lull you into a trance and loosen your tongue. Then, once they get what they want, they leave you forgetting you ever met them at all.
That part unnerved me far more than the concept of a creature who thrived on sin. I didn’t like the idea of being manipulated in that way. Of losing control.
You will know a diabolist by their blood.
Ilse was wide-eyed, fearful, as our mother described how the blood ran thick and onyx in a diabolist’s veins. I grabbed my sister’s hand, an automatic response, but my mind was elsewhere. I didn’t believe the words, and yet…I wanted to.
Even then, as a child who knew almost nothing of the world, I wanted it to be true. For there to exist a being outside of our comprehension, wholly separate from the Savior and his creation of fragile humanity.
I’ve always loved an exception.