Daughter of the Forest: Diary of an Assassin

by Edite L S Warren

“Anyway, don’t panic, nobody saw me coming out. Did you see Joana’s face Emilia?”

  “Yes, I did,” I said, holding back tears, which I could feel were about to pop from the corners of my eyes.

  There was silence for a few moments; just the distant chirping from the cicadas in the tall grasses could be heard.

  Lorin looked up, his eyes burning into me. “Let’s do the voodoo again. Only this time you stick the pin in his heart,” he said.

  CHAPTER 27

  Brotherly Love

  IT WAS SUNDAY night, and father had requested that I pack his bag for one of his trips. Whilst I hated doing what he asked, I didn’t mind this task. Everyone was happy that he was leaving again. It gave us all some peace and I knew that my family could relax again. As I packed the last of his clothes into the case, Lorin appeared at the bedroom door.

  “Now we can read his notes again,” Lorin said, a big smile on his face.

  “Yes, we can do, but why do you like reading it so much?” I asked.

  “I hate all that he has done. But reading about him, I can understand how best to kill him,” he said, smiling.

  I felt my heart start to race. Maybe Lorin was becoming like father? I pushed the thought to the back of my mind, and grabbed the note book anyway.

  Father left an hour later and Lorin and I walked back to the spot by the lake, where father had shot at the tree earlier. The bullet hole in the tree trunk was still there, a reminder of our father’s unpredictable and cruel behaviour. We both made ourselves comfortable on the soft grass of the river banks and Lorin started to read. The sound of Lorin’s voice was like an echo in my head, an echo from my father’s past, retelling the things he had done to people; tales of blood and horror.

  Lorin continued reading from the book, from the page where he’d stopped earlier;

  …I arrived back on the farm late that night, Maria and along with everyone else was sleeping. I had to wake her up though, as I had so much to tell her. I didn’t of course tell her about torturing and killing a man of course, but I did tell her about the trip, lying of course about how I got the money and the cows.

  Maria sounded happy, especially since I had bought her a dress and had given her the presents from my boss’ daughter, which made her day. Sometimes I wish I could tell her what I was really doing for a living. The way she looked at me occasionally indicated she already knew, but was too scared to talk about it.

  In 1959 we were blessed with another child and to my delight it was a beautiful little boy. We named him Belizar. This time I chose the name myself because, after my boss’ uncle. If Maria continued giving me boys like this, in a few years, I would be as rich as Joseph. More boys meant more hard working hands on the farm.

  Over the next four years Maria game me two more children; another girl, who we called Julia, and a boy, who I decide to call Dionizio. He of course became my favourite. I gave him the name Dionizio as a reminder my first boy who died a few years back. I believed it was his spirit in a new body, as he behaved in the same way.

  Maria got angry on several occasions because I used to pay more attention to Dionizio than the others. She told me to stop imagining that he was our first boy, but I could not help myself. If there was a God out there, he gave my boy back to me and I was happy.

  Life on the farm was getting very active, more work, more progress and a lot of new land became available close by to purchase. It was odd though, because my boss had not given me a job for few years and this was making me quite tight financially. So I decided to pay him a visit and ask him if anything else was available for me.

  My kids were also growing up. One day a teacher came to the farm to visit us. I didn’t like him, but the government people had built a school close by to educate the farmers, and everybody was taking their kids there, but I had no plans to do the same.

  I had a lot of work on the farm and I needed my family’s help. Marina has begun milking the cows. She’d learnt to do this and she was a very strong and impressive girl. Belizard and Julia were also starting to help me, so in my opinion there was no need for them to go to school.

  I was not interested in putting my kids in school anyway, and Maria was now pregnant again, so it was not a good time for schooling. We had a massive plantation of sweet corn and she was a good hand for me, but with the pregnancy she was getting bigger and bigger each day. Firmina even said she was expecting twins. Maria was generally not feeling good and she was very heavy and walking very slowly, but she had to continue helping me in the plantation because we didn’t have much choice. It was collecting season, and the rainy season was about the start.

  I could have sent Maria for a rest, but I needed her for work. She was seven months pregnant, and it had to be twins as she looked like she was carrying a calf in her belly! It was fun to look at. Later on this particular day I decided to send her home. Maria was walking back home, clearly very tired and slowly. Late afternoon I decided to go home myself. On my way back, I saw Maria lying down close to the bridge. She’d found it impossible to make home. She looked at me, her face pale and tears wetting her face. I panicked when I saw that her clothes were covered in blood. It was the first time I didn’t know what to do.

  Maria lost our twins that day. It was of course sad to see. Two little boys, so small they looked like two blue dolls. We made a little grave by the river and I put them there where they belonged. I had to shout as loud as I could to Firmina, who finally came down to the river to see their graves, walking very slowly, her eyesight now all but gone…

  Suddenly there was a loud rustling from the direction of the forest and Lorin stopped reading and looked up, his eyes wide with fear. “What the hell was that?”

  My heart missed a beat. I prayed it wasn’t a panther. Whatever it was, it sounded large.

  From the forest, a Giant Anteater appeared, saw us, and moved to the river bank to drink from the river, before turning and shuffling slowly back into the forest.

  We both breathed a sigh of relief. Confident there was nothing else lurking close by, I motioned for Lorin to continue reading from the diary.

  …Maria began to make a quick recovery. She was strong woman but she never stopped blaming me for the death of the twins. She was of course right on some points; I had another job to do for my boss Joseph though, so it took my mind off things. I had to ask him to postpone it though, as the coffee season was soon ending and I preferred to finish working on the farm first. He agreed to wait.

  It was shortly after the twins’ deaths that Firmina started doing her spells again. This time she said she was going to take the evil from my body. I decided to let her do her spells on me, just to play up her. I was in the garden drinking my coffee when she came out with this bush of herbs in her hand. She asked me to sit with my head down, and so I did. Immediately when she began speaking I noticed this weird feeling taking over my body. The more she was praying, the weirder the feeling become.

  I couldn’t take it anymore, so I asked her to stop the stupid ritual she was performing. That night I couldn’t sleep, and woke about two in the morning. I felt wide awake, but the only thing I could move was my eyes. I was lying down on my side and I knew someone or something was behind me. I don’t know what it was but it definitely felt evil!

  I was terrified and shouted to Maria who was sleeping next door. She came with the candle light and I told her to lie down close to me. I was the most dangerous man in the region. Everybody used to respect and fear me but nobody ever knew what my deepest fear was. I’d always had a big fear of the unknown. I’d tried to perform black magic, but my fears always made me do everything the wrong way.

  The old witch knew that she was always using my fears against me. If Maria didn’t need her mother so much I would make her disappear, no problem. But we did need her for the kids and she was good for cooking and helping to prepare the dinner every day. She was now partially blind so couldn’t see much, but she knew everything that was going on. She was able to walk everywhere in the
woods and never get lost. I believe that she had an evil gift. People from all over used to come to my farm for healing rituals. I bet they all gave their souls to her.

  Christmas was now approaching and I had to go to my boss’ farm to find out what was going on as he’d asked for my presence urgently. His farm was the other side of the state and it took almost two days on horseback to get there. I usually stopped in the villages, and/or slept outdoors. It was part of my job and I was used to it.

  I finally arrived at St Anna farm, but everything was quiet. For me this was bizarre. My boss used to come to receive me at the door, but this time one of his men came out and told me to come inside. When I walked in I noticed that things were far from alright.

  Joseph was sitting on his favourite chair, but he looked pale and had lost weight. He asked me to take a seat close to him, his voice was quite weak. Joseph told me that he’d contracted malaria and had nearly died. His head and his memory were not good. He told me his brother had arrived and that he was looking after the farm while he was sick. I asked him why he didn’t ask me. He told me that his brother had made a cock-up and had been held by the Amazon Army on their camp, and was going to be delivered to the city police. His brother knew too much and he would not be able to resist the pressure that he’d be put under.

  He then asked me if I would go to the army camping site and kill his brother. He said it was the only solution and everybody would be safe, including me. I tried to persuade him to change his mind, as it was his brother who I would be killing. He was family, but no one could say anything to Joseph. He always made the decisions, and I could not make him do otherwise.

  I didn’t resist much as I knew how difficult he could be and he gave me 50.000 cruseiros to do the job. It was a lot of money. That day I decided to take a rifle and a .38 revolver plus a 765 pistol. It was a new model and the first time I’d seen it. My boss used to travel to Rio de Janeiro to find these great weapons.

  I had no idea how many people I would have to kill to get to his brother, but he gave me his best horse and asked his wife to prepare some food for me to take on the journey. The army camp site was far away, about three days riding on horseback to the next village and then from there, another day through the forest.

  The army were holding his brother to take him to Manaus, one of the largest cities in the Amazon. I left my horse in a farm nearby and walked for five miles through the forest. My feet were killing me, and the forest was becoming darker by the minute. I was tired and the mosquitos were driving me crazy. I decided bed down and camp in the forest for the night, so I made a tent with some palameira leaves, and I made an improvised bed with some branches.

  The evening air inside the forest was dense, hot and humid and I was very hungry. I could not make a fire as this might be noticed from distance, so I ate some cold food and went to sleep. I had to cover myself, head to toe, as the mosquitos inside the forest were insane. There were also all other kinds of insects; spiders being the worst. You were never too far from a large Wolf or Huntsman spider in here.

  I decided that in the morning I would face my mission. I had to get into the camp, but I needed to wait until the crew would be out for their morning training, I hid behind a large tree, and I could see everything that was happening. My victim, Antonio, was in the middle of the camp, tied up inside one of the tents like an animal. Two soldiers were looking after him, the other was off- site, training in the woods.

  I walked up to the tent, approaching from behind, until I could get close enough to shoot the guards. I was good at shooting, I am proud of saying that. I shot the soldier straight in the head, giving him no time to react. I had to act fast before the other soldiers returned. Antonio saw me, and smiled. He was very pleased to see me, but I was not there to take him home. I had to do what I been told. I had no choice, and Antonio knew too much. The happy expression on his face changed to fear when he saw me taking a small pistol from my belt and pointed it at his head. He died instantly. I ran back into the woods and only stopped running when I could go no further.

  I had killed Antonio. It was the best way because if the police from the town put their hands on him, he would tell them about me also. Nobody saw anything. Antonio was not a good man, he had too many people who wanted him dead, so when the soldier came back and saw him with a bullet in his head, they no doubt thought it was some kind of revenge killing, as they would never think Joseph would kill his only brother.

  A few days later I arrived back at St Anna Farm. I was tired, and my body was covered in ticks. I was hungry and felt very little sympathy for my boss, especially when he said “You’ve done great job!”

  I couldn’t take any more. “That’s enough Lorin, I can’t listen to any more of that stuff today,” I said. Just hearing about the cruel things father had done, made me feel really down. Lorin seemed fascinated by it however. I’m sure he felt the entire thing was one big adventure.

  “Come on, let’s get back to the house, I’m thirsty,” I said.

  Lorin closed the book, picked a pebble up from the bank of the river as he stood up, and tossed it in. “We need to do something about this,” he said, holding the book up.

  “I don’t want to talk about it anymore today,” I said, turning to head back for home.

  CHAPTER 28

  Darkness Descends

  FATHER HAD BEEN gone for a few days now, and nobody was quite sure where he was, but Lorin and I knew what he was probably up to.

  As we wandered back to the farm, I thought about how wonderful it was when father was away. We could visit our friends, wander into the village, do things that any normal family would do. Maybe Lorin was right after all. Maybe it was best if father was dead?

  The following day, Lorin and I decided to walk to the village. It was a hot day, but the road was empty. It was very odd, but not a single person seemed to be in the village. As soon as we walked into the general store, Carlinho saw me, but he quickly looked away. I guess he couldn’t face me after what father had done to him. He couldn’t deal with the humiliation, and I couldn’t really blame the poor boy.

  We purchased some sugar and flour for home and we headed back outside to stack the supplies on the cart. Lorin looked at me as he loaded the cart. “He will think first before doing something so stupid next time,” he said.

  “I feel sorry for Carlinho, he didn’t know how crazy our father was,” I said, feeling even more miserable than I had earlier.

  “He was still stupid,” Lorin replied, shrugging my comments off.

  We walked back home in silence. Just thinking about poor Carlinho made me feel sad and upset. I felt terrible about what had happened.

  After five minutes walking and thinking about Carlinho I turned to Lorin. “Poor lad, he’s a good guy. It’s a shame I don’t fancy him!”

  Lorin looked at me, a cheeky grin spreading across his face. We both laughed and continued on our way home.

  The following morning I awoke to the sun’s rays warming me through my bedroom window. I stretched and rolled over on my bed. I’d overslept, having had a bad night’s sleep after reading father’s diary. The contents of it were so disturbing it had given me bad dreams and I’d woken several times during the night. It was a good job father hadn’t yet returned; otherwise I’d have just given him another reason to have beaten me up.

  I now knew that our father wasn’t a normal person. The diary was like a window into his twisted mind; the mind of a cruel murderer, an assassin. I just wanted to destroy the book, try and forget about it, but my curiosity was too powerful. I knew that I had to finish it. Anyway, Lorin would never let me destroy the book now, not until we’d read the entire thing.

  Our grandmother’s health had continued to deteriorate and mother was walking around the house like a zombie, and any hope of living a better life had long since gone.

  Father had been gone now for almost a month and mother had naturally started to worry. She had taken to looking out onto the road every day, not because she w
as missing my father, but was waiting for someone to come.

  As I watched mother, I inhaled the strong smell of coffee coming from the stove. I was amazed at how something so simple made me feel so good. Just the aroma of the coffee was comforting, in an odd way. We weren’t even allowed to drink the coffee, we were told it was for adults only, and I was still only sixteen. We had always been told coffee was bad for us, but my rebellious side just wanted me try it.

  “Hello mum,” I said, pulling a funny face at the same time, in an attempt to make her smile.

  Mother was holding a big cup of coffee and staring at the road. She turned to me.

  “What are you doing here? Why aren’t you at the plantation helping your brothers and sisters?

  she asked, a slightly angry tone in her voice.

  “Please, let me try some coffee. I want to taste it,” I pleaded.

  Mother laughed in response. It was very rare to see her laughing, and it gave me a warm feeling inside my stomach. She had been quiet and sad for a long time now.

  She passed me the cup. “Go on then,” she said. “Try it!”

  I took the cup and took a large gulp from it. As soon as I swallowed the black, bitter tasting liquid, I immediately spat it back out all over the floor. “Argh, that’s disgusting!” I shouted.

  Mother laughed even louder, as she fetched a cloth to clean up the mess.

  “How could something smell so good and taste so bad?” I said.