The Kindest Cruelty

The marble shone white in the winter moonlight. My knees nearly knocked together, my cloak not nearly keeping out the cold, my booted feet buried in the snow. The image of my longest love now lost stared back at me, stone eyes fierce and accusing. I had nothing to do but wring my hands and speak, for it is what I had come here to do.

            “Hear me, my love, and pray do not hold onto rage,” my voice broke the clear frigid night.

Nothing met my ears but the silence of the small hours, the creaking and moaning of forlorn branches that swayed aloft over the graveyard.

My mind dove deep into my memories of those fateful months ago, my breath clouding rapidly where I stood.

            “I did not set out to betray you, nor did I ever wish to be the reason you reside on the Earth no longer. Doubtless, you know as well as I my reasoning for the deed which now stains my soul.”

Sweet and tender was our love at first meeting, stolen kisses and vows sworn, witnessed by none but the Moon and her sky. My love and I secretly courted for a time, but it soon came to be known by all; secrecy was no friend to a king. And so we found ourselves side by side, a throne for each of us, a crown weighing heavily upon my poor skull, and a child growing rapidly within my womb.

I could not have said which made my love happier, his love for me or me being with child.

Standing still in the moonlit graveyard, I could not help but smile at those pleasant early memories. Would that I had known what was to come as I sat there on that throne.

            “What was it, my lord, my love, my king? Was it the stress of your royal duties that so swiftly altered your mind? Was it I? Was it our newly arrived son? I could not say, then nor now.” I was jolted by the calling of a crow in the distance. “Do the very birds of the air know your secrets, the knowledge that you held back from me, your wife and mother of your heir?” Of course, the marble likeness held no answers for me, just as my love had never given those answers in life.

I recalled exactly the day your ire began to show its ugly face, the first sneer that you ever turned in my direction. I would swear upon the Holy Bible that my heart stopped its beating with that one menacing glare. It was not long after that our son found his legs and began to use them; such joy did it bring to both of us. His small toddling steps are enough to bring a tearful grin to rest upon your face. A look I had long forgotten since it had not been turned in my direction since our first courting.

Years passed again in the blink of an eye, a malicious glance now and again, but I grew used to them. Our son was not yet twelve when a battle lost sent you home with an iron-clad fist and nothing but myself to meet it. The bruises were simple enough to cover, a bit of powder and longer gowns sufficed to hide your shame. For, it was shame that you felt after those fits of rage. I could see it in your eyes, a cruel specter taunting you within your own troubled mind.

            “Was I not enough, my love? Was our life not fulfilling? We could have gone on in such a way forever.” I swiped a hot tear with a gloved hand that had fallen before it could hit the snow beneath my feet.

It was not to be. The next series of battles lost were witness to that cruel fist of yours aimed in our son’s direction.

            “Even now, I wonder, could you hear my heart breaking when I found him bruised and crying in our bed?” It was a question that none but the dead could hear, that no one on this Earth could answer, still I asked it.

The beatings did not stop, as you well know, my lord. Each time I found him crying, each time a piece of my beating heart was chipped away. Even the strongest levies have their breaking points, my king, and finding my son in the infirmary with a broken arm was mine.

            “Did you suspect? Would that you discovered the reasons behind my consulting with the village apothecary.” I bowed my head, my shoulders shaking with silent laughter.

A stretch of long months with you away at battle saw me reconsider my intended actions. The vial of herbs weighed heavily upon my conscience, burned bright as a falling star to my eyes under my pillow, for we had slept in separate beds for a long while. Would damning my eternal soul to hell’s fires be worth easing my suffering? But it wasn’t only my suffering, and I would take the Devil to bed to protect my son.

            “Do you remember, my love, the day you returned from that last battle? Our forces had crushed the opposing nation, sent them cowering, I believe you said at the feast that following evening.”

I smiled and simpered like a good wife, a complacent queen should. Greeting our subjects, our friends, the nobles like nothing had changed. Nothing had changed, not to their knowledge, nor yours. They called you the kindest king in rememberable history, the way you were so generous with our people, I suppose your kindness began and ended with them. There was never any left for your own family.

I came to you in your bedchamber, and, oh, the look in your eyes as you beheld me naked in your bed once more.

            “You fell asleep quickly afterwards, as all men do, I am told. It was nothing to mix the herbs with the water you kept on your bedside table. But it was treachery to do what I had to do next.” Even the crows fell silent, waiting on bated breath to hear what had transpired next.

I wrenched your sleeping form free of the covers, a knee on either side of you. Those rough hands that had once been kind to me, that had loved me so thoroughly those years ago came down upon my hips. I could see the gleam of lust in your eyes, squinting as they were in that dark bedchamber. I offered you, my husband, my king, my one true love the doctored glass of water. I watched your throat bob and work the concoction into your body. It took only moments to notice the sweat break out across your now-pale forehead, for your airway to begin closing off. The labored, wet gasps were the worst part of the whole endeavor, it was torture to listen, I covered my ears in the end. I sat there still in your lap as the light faded from your eyes, one last rattling sigh escaped your mouth before all was still and silent.

I waited a few moments before laying my head upon your unmoving chest, squeezing my eyes tightly shut, afraid I would hear the echoing drumbeat of your pulse. But there was nothing to hear, your heart was quiet. You were dead.

            “I know not if you bore witness to the tears I shed over your still-warm body. By my own hand, my husband had been taken from me, a cruel, cruel act.” I placed a hand on the bitterly cold marble, the stone icy under my soft palm. I stroked a thumb across your stoic cheek, the material giving even less than your flesh had in life.

            “My son is king now, there are no bruises to hide, and I do not enter my bedchamber to him crying, asking why his father hurt him. I hope that I can teach him how to love a woman and his future children without raising a hand to them.” I turned to leave, the snow crunching beneath my boots, tugging the hood of my cloak up around my face to hide my identity.

I turned back to face your grave once more, only to say this. “I loved you truly, and to take your life was perhaps the cruelest thing I shall ever do, but it was also the kindest thing that I shall ever do. If I must burn in hell beside you for that deed, then so be it.”

Charlie and Amelia

Lindbergh’s Paris Trip Makes Him World Hero

Big, bold, unmistakable. To my utter disappointment, Lindbergh had made it across the Atlantic. I clenched my jaw and balled the newspaper up in my fists, my knuckles going as white as the paper the article was printed on. 

“World hero, indeed,” I scoffed at my Canary. I picked up the rag I’d been using to wax Canary’s body and wings. I cram the gray rag into the tub of milky wax before pulling it back out, rubbing it onto Canary’s right wing in circular motions, attempting to soothe her. “It’s okay, we’ll make that trip ourselves soon.” The ball of rage burned where it sat in my stomach. There had been a time when Lindbergh, Charlie as I once called him, was a friend of mine more than a competitor. 

I remember the day I stopped calling him Charlie, the day my friend Charlie died and left the cold, empty Lindbergh in his place. I even remember exactly what we said to one another.

“I’m flying the Atlantic,” he’d blurted out during our weekly plane maintenance. 

“Okay, where are you stopping? Maybe I could meet you there.” 

He was silent for a moment before continuing. “No, Amelia. I’m not stopping. I’m flying the Atlantic nonstop.” 

“Do you need me to be your copilot? That would be a trip to remember!” I smiled at him, picking the wrench back up and diving back into Canary’s innards. 

“Amelia!” He’d yelled it, and I jerked back up and looked over at him. He was pinching the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut.

“Don’t yell at me, Charlie. Don’t you ever yell at me.” It was an order; my tone brooked no argument. I watched his face relax. 

“I’m trying to tell you that I’m going to fly across the Atlantic fucking Ocean, nonstop, by myself. And I’m doing it for you.” 

A high-pitched ringing assaulted my ears. I watched myself drop the wrench; the stained silver glinted up at me from where it now lay on the ground. I snapped my mouth shut with a click of my teeth meeting. 

“Charlie,” I began, trying to remind myself to breathe. My chest tightened, barely allowing me to speak. “That’s my dream, and you know it.”

He climbed down from his plane, as did I, and we met on the ground. He grabbed my hands, stroking his thumbs over my knuckles, his eyes glued to them instead of looking at my face. 

“Charlie, tell me you’re not doing this,” I fought to maintain control over my voice. I would not cry, not now. 

“You know as well as I do that I’m a better pilot than you, Amy. You’ve come in second every time you and I have flown against each other. No woman could make that journey first,” he snickered, his brows wrinkled, his deep brown eyes wide, and a soft pitying smile on his face.

“Why would you do this?” It came out as a whisper. I sounded weak and meager even to my own ears. 

“If I do it, then I can make sure it’s safe for you. I can even mark a map with places for you to stop as I go,” he smiled, like this was a kindness that he was offering to me. 

I yanked my hands away from him, biting down on my knuckle with my other hand propped on a hip. I spun back to face him, not bothering to check my temper. “God dammit, Charlie! I told you that I’ve dreamed of being the first pilot to fly the Atlantic nonstop! I told you in confidence! I never dreamed that you would…” My throat closed up with repressed emotion. 

He looked at me as if I were a stranger. “That I would what, Amelia?” 

I swiped angrily at a tear that had escaped down my cheek. “That you would betray me.” 

He smiled, sharp and cruel and nodded. “That’s what you think? I betrayed you?”

“That’s what I know, Charles Lindbergh. If you do this, if you take my dream, I will never forgive you.” 

He kept nodding, his mouth pressed into a tight line. “Then don’t forgive me.” He turned to leave the hangar, stopping at the door. “I’ll see you in Paris, Earhart,” he said over his shoulder before disappearing into the day. 

That was three weeks ago. Now, he was a “world hero,” but to me, he was a traitor. Now, it was to be me vs. him, Amelia vs. Charles, Earhart vs. Lindbergh. He was winning for now. But I was right behind him, I would overtake him, I didn’t have another choice.

We Rise

The mines had never been a kind place, but it was the only place Adira had ever known. Her days were a monotonous repetition of gray and black cragged rock walls, the deafening ringing of pickaxes against rocks that echoed through the pitch-dark pits of the mine. The old songs that were hummed as she and her people slogged through the mud and icy rain down into the dark were always a source of comfort; a source of strength when there was none to be had. 

            Adira’s knuckles and palms were wrapped in bandages, her calluses and blisters split open repeatedly, and rendered her hands nearly useless. Would that stop the enforcers from driving her down into the depths of the mines, to swing the pickaxe until she fainted from exhaustion? Of course it wouldn’t, it never had and it never will. The familiar weight of the pickaxe on her shoulder and the swinging of the bucket from her other hand were just another part of her day that began at dawn and stopped only when the night whistle blew. 

            Shayla, a friend to Adira since they’d been five and eight respectively, caught her eye as the enforcers ushered them into the mines, nodding her bandana-wrapped head. Adira knew what that nod meant, like she knew her own name. We will get through this. We will see the outside of these walls. We will live. We may fall, but we will rise. 

That had been what got them through the endless working days, the hunger ever gnawing at their empty stomachs, the crack of the enforcers’ knuckles against their bodies when they didn’t move fast enough. 

            The days moved at a slug’s pace when there was no daylight to tell them what time it was. The swing of the pickaxe, the picking of the ore that shone from the newly fallen rock, the plopping of that ore into the bucket, it was mind-numbing. The ore was what lined the pockets of those who saw to it that Adira and her people were always in chains. Never to be freed, even in death, the chains remained on their corpses as they lay in the fly-swarmed mass graves. The empire had no room for single graves, not for them especially. Slaves had no names. Slaves were property, goods to be traded, nuisances to be done away with when they’d become useless.

            A new girl, light of skin and eyes, worked next to Adira. Small in stature, she must have just turned six, the age they all were when they were deemed old enough to work in the mines. The pickaxe was bigger than she was. Adira wondered to herself how the little girl would haul the full bucket up to the surface, and a pang of pity blistered her heart. The little girl’s hair was bound with a bandana similar to the one Shayla wore. Shayla’s was blue, the girl’s bandana was red. Adira shook her head. The color would make the girl a target. Adira had learned that the hard way when she was her age.  

            The scrape of her pickaxe against the rocks beneath their feet grated on her nerves, but she hauled it up and over her shoulder again and again despite it all. That familiar daily ache had already begun in her muscles. She was sure it hadn’t even been three hours yet. It was going to be a long day. A little while later, she noticed a marked silence to her right where there should’ve been the ringing of the little girl’s pickaxe. Adira’s mouth dried up when she looked over and saw the girl clutching her knees to her chest, her face in her hands, her shoulders quaking with the ferocity of her sobs. Adira quickly looked around to make sure the enforcers weren’t near before she set her own tool down against the wall, scurrying over to the far too small form crying in the shadows. 

            “Hey, you can’t sit here. You have to keep working,” Adira hastily whispered to the girl, shaking her arm gently. 

The girl shook her head fiercely, “No, no, I can’t. It hurts!” Her voice was thick and choked with tears. Adira’s heart broke for her. She could see now that the girl’s hands were smeared with fresh blood, probably from a blister that had burst or a cut from a rock. 

Adira swallowed past the lump in her throat, “I know, sweetie, but you have to get up.” The girl continued to shake her head and sit there in the dark, tears dripping from her face to the ground. She sighed, “What’s your name?”

The girl sniffed and looked up. Honey brown eyes met Adira’s. “Lily.” 

She offered the girl, Lily, a small smile. “That’s a pretty name. Mine is Adira. I know it hurts, Lily, but you must get up or these bad men will come and take you away.” She widened her eyes, trying to convey the dire urgency of the situation to the little girl who could have no idea what would befall her. 

“Why don’t they come now and take me home? My hands are all cut up, see?” Lily stuck both hands out, palm up, and an identical slice marred both palms, right across the center. It had probably been the handle of her tool then; she must not have known how to hold it right, so it wouldn’t bite into her like that. More sympathy pooled in Adira’s already broken heart. 

“You don’t want them to find you like this, Lily. They won’t take you home; they will hurt you.” Adira’s voice was level, harsh to her own ears, but Lily had to be made to understand. She couldn’t bear to watch this little girl get beaten or whipped, and she couldn’t trust herself not to do something foolish. 

Something shifted in the shafts of the mine. It took Adira too long to realize that the silence had thickened around them. She and Lily weren’t the only ones who had put their tools down. They weren’t the only ones not working, and that would draw attention. She took Lily’s too-small bloody hand and tried to pull her to her feet, but the girl stayed rooted to the ground, shaking her head and crying. 

Then she heard it. Footsteps. Heavy ones. The sound of the enforcers’ heavy steel-toed boots had come to a halt behind her. She swallowed hard and did her best to stop breathing as that all too familiar sour breath skated past her cheek.

“Hello, Addie.” 

Dammit, she thought to herself. She’d know that voice and that smell anywhere. Karl, her least favorite enforcer. She shuddered as his hands grazed down her backside. 

“Shouldn’t you be working, doll?”

Adira’s gaze shot over to Lily, who had mercifully gotten back to her feet and was picking ore out of the debris at her feet. “Yes.”

Karl turned her around, grabbed her face with one meaty hand, and squeezed until her jaw ached. “Yes, what?” 

His voice grated on her nerves, her ears. “Yes, sir.” 

He snickered but released her and strode back the way he’d come. Adira rubbed her jaw and thanked the nameless gods that Lily had come to her senses when she did. The horrors that man had unleashed upon her alone were bad enough; she wouldn’t allow him to touch Lily. 

The day mercifully ended without incident. They were on their way back out of the mine’s mouth, only the enforcers’ lamps interrupting the thick night blanketing the little bit of camp that Adira could see. It wasn’t far from the mouth of the mine to Adira’s house, which she shared with her mother and sisters. She had nearly breathed her daily sigh of relief when she saw Lily fall, dropping her bucket, spilling ore and rock everywhere, her tool skittering across the ground and landing at Karl’s booted feet. 

Adira got to her first, picked her up with her hands under the girl’s arms. She weighed next to nothing, so it wasn’t hard for Adira. She stood off to the side and inspected the girl; except for a busted lip, she was no worse for wear. “You’ll be okay,” Adira told her, ruffling her hair as she returned her to her feet. 

Lily started to walk off, following the flow of people the rest of the way out. 

“Not so fast, little doll.” Karl, square-faced and brutish, quirked a finger at Lily. Adira felt filthy even watching his face contort with glee at the little girl’s fearful expression. 

Lily came to a halt beside Adira, looking up at Karl with watery eyes, her lip wobbling pitifully. She reached up and took Adira’s hand, wincing at the contact with her open wounds. 

“You’ll have to come with me to see the Officer.” Karl sneered, reaching down to grab Lily. 

Adira stepped in between them, pushing Lily behind her. “I’ll take her punishment.” Adira eyed the enforcer, his eyes narrowed at her as he straightened, coming face to face with her. 

“Was I speaking to you, Adira?” He’d used her full first name; she clenched her teeth. That meant trouble in the most painful kind of way. 

She sucked in a breath and repeated herself, “I’ll take her punishment.” Cold fear and fire she’d only glimpsed before twined in her chest. The people around her had stopped, watching the exchange, her people. 

“Indeed, you will,” Karl grinned. He half-turned, and before Adira could brace herself, his closed fist made agonizing contact with the side of her head. 

The rough ground bit into her knees as she hit it, her head ringing with the force of the blow. She knew without having to look up that he stood over her, that enraging self-satisfied smirk on his menacing face. She remained there, calming her breathing and her temper on her hands and knees while the setting sun gilded her skin a fiery russet brown. Her knees were bruised. Possibly bleeding, she thought as they began to sting. Her thick black curls hung like a curtain in front of her face, creating her own personal bubble where the only thing she could hear was her breathing and her heartbeat. Blood, dark and precious, dripped to the ground between her hands from her split lip. Her temper would not be doused; this had gone on too long. The gravity of her situation grated on her nerves, even more so knowing that her mother and sister would hear of this and that Lily was watching from behind her. Adira prodded her lip, adding fuel to the flame that brewed inside of her. 

“Get up,” it was a demand, she understood that. She fully expected the new blood that dripped to the ground to hiss; the majority that was still tearing through her veins was boiling. Watching from a place that wasn’t entirely seated in her body, Adira saw her own hands begin fisting the dry, dead grass and dirt. She took a deep, dizzying breath, her already-injured ribs screaming in protest. Her jaw set, and her eyes snapped open, flashing a blazing golden brown in the lamplight. She swiped the back of a hand across her mouth, a crimson smear left in its wake. 

Adira stood tall, squared her shoulders that would no longer cower, no longer shrink away from what had to be done. She held her head high as the remnants of the sunset silhouetted her and the rest of her people against the darkening sky, facing the man who was so used to being obeyed. She gave him a small, sharp smile. And then the call went up.

“We Rise!”