by Fiona Cavell
Three days before the court case, Sicarus turned up again, this time to offer Fiona a settlement. The children would live with him in his house made of sticks in the forest, and Fiona could either live with them as his servant and abandon all rights to be their mother, or she could remain in the village, be declared an unfit mother and see them once a year when it was convenient for him. Fiona could not speak, but he told her that when the court declared her an unfit mother, he would be employing another servant to look after the children, so she would lose this very reasonable offer if she didn’t act now and take it gratefully. He also reminded her that once declared unfit mother by the court, she would never get the opportunity to see the children again. Luckily, Fiona fainted and was unable to accept his offer.
Two days before the court case, Fiona decided that if she was going to lose the children, she should make their last memories with their mother special for them, and she resolved not to cry in front of them or get depressed, and to give them the best last couple of days she could. She took them out to the forest with a picnic, and they ate it together and played with the wild animals. The children ran around the forest without a care in the world and Fiona smiled at them behind her tears.
Chapter Ten
On the day before the court case, Fiona received an unexpected offer from one of the village boys who had no wife. He offered to marry her and then they would be given their own hut, which would look good for the court case. Fiona was delighted, so she agreed to let the boy take her and the children out for the day. He took them to the forest and bought them food and treats. Fiona thought they were having a perfect day and thanked him with a smile.
“My pleasure,” he replied. “And now I have made you smile, there is something you can do for me.” And he tried to push her to her knees.
Fiona’s heart sank as she noticed his beady black eyes. She dared not upset him. If he attacked her, she would surely be covered in cuts and bruises at the court hearing tomorrow. No one would believe she had met another bird, and Sicarus would probably tell the court that she had been self-harming, which would mean that she would surely be declared an unfit mother.
How could she have been so stupid as to have allowed herself to get in this situation? What was wrong with her? Was there something written on her face to show the birds that she was easy prey? She took a deep breath and decided she had no option other than to give this bird what he required and then get the hell out of there. She swallowed hard, checked the children were still asleep on the forest floor, exhausted after a fun day, and dropped to her knees.
Afterwards she politely thanked the boy, who was called Thomas, for taking them all out for a fun day in the forest, woke the children and went back to her parents’ hut to prepare for court the following day.
Her parents would not be attending with her as they had agreed to look after the children. After Fiona had put the children to bed, she kissed them and watched their sleeping, angelic faces. She panicked that she would never see them again and sat watching them all night. There was no point even trying to sleep as she was so scared it had overtaken everything else in her brain.
Finally, the morning of the court case arrived. The sun was shining, and Fiona could not understand how the sun could shine or the rest of the world could carry on with its everyday business, as everything stood still for her. In the past she had heard about village wars and how the men went off to fight and never came back to their families, and she knew how they must have felt. Goodbye to everything safe and loved as you leave to fight and possibly die, with no freedom to choose your own fate: someone has forced you into a terrible situation and all you can do is go along with it, do what you can to survive and hope it is over soon.
Fiona travelled to the neighbouring village where the court was to be held with the village elders, Peter, Michael and several others from her village including the boy Thomas she had gone out with to the forest the day before. She remained polite but distant with him. “Please let me just get through today first,” she whispered to him as she pulled her hand away from his when he tried to grab her.
“All right then,” Thomas replied, “but I will want you to make it up to me.”
*
When they arrived at the neighbouring village, Sicarus was already there. The sight of him dressed up in his finery, looking smug, made Fiona let out an involuntary cry. Sicarus scowled when he saw Thomas, the village boy with Fiona. “I feel sorry for you, putting up with her.” He pointed at Fiona with such contempt he couldn’t even say her name.
Thomas’ response wasn’t much better. “Well, mate, someone’s got to take her on for the good of the village.”
They shared a smile, then Sicarus sniggered. “Throw her back my way when you have had enough.”
Fiona wanted to run away, but she bowed her head in shame and said nothing.
She looked over to where the court had convened. It was a large temporary hut with no colour and no door, standing boldly at the centre of the village with solemnity and importance. These temporary huts were often used for village celebrations, weddings and the birth of a baby, even funerals, and decorated with brightly coloured flowers and leaves. But today it was bare. Today it would decide the fate of Gabrielle, Jegudiel and Duriel, and of course Fiona. She did not recognise any of the three villagers who had been given the power and authority to give judgement. Two men and a woman. The woman seemed to have a kind face, but the men looked fairly severe and Fiona wondered if they could be birds. If they were she didn’t stand a chance. Perhaps she should just give in now and walk into the forest, never to be seen again. She could be food for the wild animals; at least her life might serve some purpose after all. But instead she entered the temporary hut and stood before them.
She had to stand there asking the court to allow her to keep the children she had given birth to, that she had grown within her body and protected when the bird attacked her. She had already decided to tell the court it was Sicarus who attacked her and not mention his transformation into a bird. She didn’t know whether anyone in the courtroom was a bird or would believe her if they didn’t know about the birds. Sicarus denied attacking her and told the court that she had in fact attacked him. He went on to say that she then harmed herself and the children. Fiona frantically hoped no one would believe him, but Sicarus was able to prove the children had some injuries after Fiona had left him. She tried to explain that the injuries occurred during their escape through the forest, but she was unsure whether anyone believed her.
The day dragged by. Sicarus seemed so believable that she thought she was bound to lose her children. This in itself made her feel more nervous, and so uptight and stressed that she thought she was surely coming across as neurotic and therefore an unfit mother. She felt she was playing right into his hands and there was nothing she could do to stop herself. She looked at the three people tasked to judge her children’s future. They had never even met Gabrielle, Jegudiel and Duriel, so how could it possibly be fair that they could decide their fate?
After the three strangers had heard all the evidence, they went off to chat among themselves and make their decision. They took what seemed like many hours but was probably less than an hour. During that time Fiona paced up and down, biting the skin off her lip with her teeth. She remembered the bird pacing one of the first times he became angry, and she drew blood, wondering if taking skin off your lip could be classed as harming yourself. Everything was so blurred in her head she almost wondered if she would soon turn into a bird herself and was indeed capable of all the horrible things Sicarus had accused her of in court.
Her head was still whirling when the three announced their verdict. There were lots of words floating around the temporary hut, but Fiona only heard a few: “…children to stay in the village with her.”
Chapter Eleven
She wasn’t sure if she had heard correctly until Sicarus stood up, shouted at the three de
cision makers that he would be back, and stormed out of the temporary hut in a fit of temper. Peter and Michael, the village elders, turned to her and told her they always knew she would win, and Thomas the boy from her village beamed and tried to put his arm around her, but she backed away. “I feel so tired,” she said to Peter and Michael. “Can you take me back to the village please, just us?” They nodded and rose to their feet, leaving Thomas and the other villagers behind, telling them to give Fiona some space. Thomas was clearly furious but didn’t want to appear unreasonable in front of the others.
When Fiona got back to her parents’ hut she was overjoyed and kissed the children. She thanked her parents for looking after them and expected to have the best sleep of her life. But she still couldn’t sleep as the trauma of the court case and all the lies Sicarus had told about her still haunted her. When eventually she slept, she had fragmented nightmares where two birds were pecking at her eyes, one on each side, and had made her blind. She opened her eyes and saw nothing but blackness, and felt her cheeks wet with tears.
*
Over the next few weeks Fiona did her best to avoid Thomas, the boy from the village, and mostly stayed in her parents’ hut. She started to help her mother look after the village animals again and gradually took over her old occupation, freeing her mother up to assist her father as she had previously done by making animal pens and fences for the village. Her mother was not able to collect, chop or shape the wood, or indeed dig holes in the earth for the wood to stand secure, but she was able to weave vines around it to make the fences more stable. Her father was a man of few words but was loyal and kind to her mother. He was very traditional and mainly spoke to Fiona through her mother. “Your father thinks you should look for the escaped animals in the forest today,” her mother would declare on behalf of her husband, and Fiona would inevitably go along with his advice.
But a few weeks after the court case, her mother stated, “Your father wants you to finish the fence he is building as he needs a rest today.”
Fiona looked puzzled. Her father never rested. But she obediently finished the fence even though it was hard manual labour and took her all day without stopping for a break. When she was finished, she ran home to her mother to tell her to let her father know it was completed. She was so proud of herself for finally being able to be a help rather than a hindrance. Most adult daughters did not have to still live in their parents’ hut, and she knew she was an embarrassment to them within the village. But when she arrived at their hut with a spring in her step, she knew something dreadful had happened.
She wandered into the hut and heard her mother weeping. Then she saw her father. He was lying still in the bed with his eyes closed. His face was grey and lifeless. He looked different; not like her father but someone else, someone not full of life. He was just an empty shell; his spirit had fled his body. Fiona fell to her knees. Her life had changed yet again; nothing ever seemed to stay still for her and let her have more than a few days’ happiness. Trauma after trauma was all her life seemed to consist of. Her father’s death would have a profound effect upon her mother and their village life. The hut they were living in was a substantial hut in the heart of the village because her father had an important occupation building and maintaining the village fences. Her mother might not be able to keep the hut if she had to ask the village for charity and was unable to earn her keep. Fiona didn’t think she would be able to do everything her father did as the role would need a strong, muscular body, and even though she had managed today she doubted her physical strength would hold up for long. She felt sad that all she could think about was her and her mother’s future when she should instead have been concentrating on grieving.
*
Fiona’s mother fell apart following the funeral in the village’s temporary hut, a hut very similar to the one in the neighbouring village where her court case had been heard. She shuddered at the thought of what she had been through. Her mother was unable to work. She couldn’t even assist with Fiona’s occupation of looking after the village animals, so Fiona had to do this as well as attempting to build and maintain all the village fences as her father used to. Fiona was exhausted, working all the daylight hours and leaving the children with her mother and other women in the village when they were not being taught by the village teachers. Despite all the effort she put in some of the fences started to look as weary as Fiona, and eventually they fell down.
The village elders, Peter and Michael approached Fiona a few months later about her work. “We know you are trying your best,” Michael said gravely. “But the fact is we are getting complaints about the state of the fences and the number of animals escaping.”
“We have decided,” continued Peter, “that we need to find a new fence builder from another village to take over your father’s occupation. It will free you up to look after the animals. You can stay in your hut until we find a replacement for your father, but then we will need to offer him your father’s hut. We can house you and your mother in one of the charity huts on the edge of the village. We are very sorry, but village business must come first.”
Fiona turned pale. All her hard work over the last few months had been in vain. All the times she’d had to leave the children in the care of others had come to nothing. But the worst shock was still to come when, a few weeks later, she discovered who had been given her father’s occupation and hut. Sicarus.
Fiona’s blood ran cold. Sicarus had cleverly found a way never to let her go, where he could watch her every move and constantly be around her and in her and the children’s lives. After the court case was over he had disappeared into the forest and Fiona naively thought she would never see him again. She had only had a short time on her own without him and now she was trapped again. Worse still, he was stalking her with the consent and blessing of her village, the people who had helped bring her up and the place where she had previously felt safe. But not now. She wanted to run away, to hide in the forest and scream. Her mind raced as to what she could do to prevent this. The court in the neighbouring village had declared it was in the children’s best interests to live in the village with her. She hadn’t for one second contemplated that Sicarus would be able to live there too. If she had anticipated that, then she would have asked the court to rule that the children lived with her and he was not allowed to live in the same village. She had heard of these types of rulings before but had also heard that they were only made in rare cases. Even if she had asked for such a ruling, she felt sure they wouldn’t have granted it. She was simply stuck. Stuck forever in the worst way.
Fiona’s world was closing in on her, swirling and tormenting, laughing at her. How bitterly she regretted the day she fell in love with Sicarus’ attentions.
Sicarus moved into her parents’ hut the following week. She was given one day to move herself, her mother, the children and all their belongings out before he took up residence. It took her all day to move everything. The boy from the village, Thomas, offered to help, but she refused. No doubt he had his own agenda and would want something from her in return. Trust no one, she thought to herself. Accept no favours and you will not have to be put in a position where someone wants something from you that you do not wish to give. Be independent.
She cleared out her parents’ hut and found some crumbs and dirt left on the floor. Her memory went back to when she had scoured the floor of the house made of sticks when Sicarus had abandoned them without food, and she had given the children mouldy and unclean crumbs. She wished she could erase such memories from her brain as they always stopped her dead in her tracks. She felt like smearing the hut walls with the dirt, but she didn’t. She refused to sink to his level and try to seek revenge or punish him. So she cleaned out the hut and left it fresh and tidy. For anyone else she would have picked flowers to welcome the new occupant, but she was unable to go that far. Sicarus was not welcome.
Chapter Twelve
Weary, Fiona went t
o the charity hut on the edge of the village which was now her home. Her mother was sitting still in a chair while the children played around her, trying to attract her attention, but she was oblivious to them. At the tender age of six, Gabrielle was attempting to look after her two younger brothers. Jegudiel was now four and Duriel was still only a baby, but they needed an adult to meet their needs. Fiona felt guilty. She resolved to try and sort out proper arrangements for them and noted that her mother was no longer able to assist. Bereavement can kill or cure a person and she worried about her mother, particularly now as she had just lost her home. Fiona blamed Sicarus for this. He was destroying her mother to destroy her.
The following day, she bumped into him in the village. She was taking the children to be looked after by another mother so she didn’t have to trouble her own mother while she was working. With having to organise moving huts the previous day, she had neglected her occupation of looking after the village animals and they were looking sad and underfed, with unkempt bedding. Fiona’s shoulders were heavy as she was carrying Duriel in one arm and holding Jegudiel’s chubby little hand on the other side. Sicarus seemed to spring out of nowhere and almost knocked her off her feet. She felt sick that he had touched her.
“You want to watch where you are going,” he laughed at her. Then he forcibly removed Duriel from her arms. “My son!” he proclaimed. “Daddy has missed you!” Then he started throwing Duriel up in the air, the way he used to with Jegudiel when he played with him, normally after he had hurt Fiona so badly that she was unable to care for him and Gabrielle. This made baby Duriel chuckle, a deep, spontaneous, contagious chuckle that immediately spread to Jegudiel and Gabrielle. Only Fiona remained still, unable to catch the laughter.