Page 9 of Hellebore

The sharp edges of our lives had softened, just enough to allow us room to breathe, and that brought a heartache of its own kind.

Mother stepped into the role of leader as best she could, but our community had always been built upon the certainty of male authority. Without it, everything felt unsteady, as though the structure of our lives had shifted.

So, we resisted her. We fought back; our claws still stuck in the old ways. We questioned her decisions, pushed against her instructions, echoing the very arguments she had once taught us about order and obedience.

How were we meant to follow her now, when our whole lives had been spent learning to lower our voices, step aside, and let men lead? We had been forced into silence, taught that a woman’s place was in their shadows – and now we were expected to follow the lead of her.

And where she once was the light for us, the glisten of hope, of joy, she became something difficult with sharpened edges that made us fearful of stepping out of turn.

She became father, in the end. Demanding of us the same things he did, expecting us to fit into boxes we couldn’t break ourselves for. But we loved her, we revered her. She showed us there was more to life than men shouting orders and blindly obeying. She showed us, even without the intent, that women have the power to be more.

And after a while, with time softening our memories, thoughts of father became palatable, with her filling that void. But it’s difficult to miss someone when you can suddenly breathe easier with them gone.

When I was a small girl, before I understood the complexity of belief and rebellion, I followed my mother with adoration and respect. I would watch her ready herself at first light, covering her skin with scratchy cloth, the garments near always hand sewn by an elder in the community. We thrived on it – sharing and combining skills to have no need for the outside world. And for a time, it was peaceful. I didn’t need anything else.

I had my mother, my father, my sister, my friend. We played in the woodland, avoiding the snakes in the grass and picking wildflowers to press into old books. It was simple, then, being grateful for what the universe, God, provided.

But through time, our curiosity grew and became intolerable. Our adolescence was spent discussing other theories of the world.

When I was near thirteen, a gentle faced man had slipped me a book of ancient myths and legends into my woven basket as we tarried through the market; an outsider thinking he was offering a kindness.

I remember the way he glanced around before handing it to me, as though the simple act carried an unspoken danger – wild promise and hope inked into the pages. His fingers brushed mine for a moment, our eyes meeting with my heart in my throat.

“For you,” he murmured softly, winking as he disappeared into the crowd.

I had never held a book that didn’t come from the church before – only bibles and children’s fables designed to teach Gods lessons. The cover was worn smooth with age, its leather cracked along the edges, the pages thin and yellowed.

It felt like a secret, and I cherished it.

But that kindness blossomed into an insatiable hunger for more. The stories inside were unlike anything I had ever been taught. Gods who created the world with thunder and flames, oceans that stretched farther than imagination could allow. Entire civilizations rising and falling beneath the expanse of a starlit sky.

Gaia, Tartarus, Eros – Gods, Titans and Olympians. Stories I’d never felt so lost in, so seen and understood. Each page felt like opening a window in a room that only ever had cold cement walls. The world beyond suddenly glistened with promise.

I began reading at night by the subtle glow of candlelight, long after everyone had gone to sleep. Sometimes I would brush my fingertip against the page, tracing the words as if they might disappear if I looked away. If there were other concepts of the world, of where the stars came from, of how humans were made, and how population continued, perhaps there’s a whole world out there I should explore.

I had read the book from cover to cover, the ink fading where my fingers pressed to the pages, the spine cracked beyond repair. I adored those stories, so much that I offered them to my sister. I had hoped she would see beauty in knowing more than what they allow us.

Instead, she took it to mother, scared of the repercussions should she be found with it in her belongings.

Mother scalded me, my penance paid with lashings, then burned the book in the fireplace. My heart sank as I watched my hopes and dreams wither into nothing more than ash.

Isabel was mournful, regretful apologies being spilled into the night as I cried into my pillow. She sat beside my bed long after the house had gone quiet, her small hands twisting nervously in the blanket. The lamp light warbled against the walls, making her shadow stretch and shrink behind her as if it were breathing.

I wanted to be angry with her, and for a long time I was.

But beneath the anger there was something worse – understanding.

Fog rolls through the trees beyond our fence line, thickening as it reaches misty fingers towards the sky. It smells of earth and promise, the gentle moisture feeding the land as the day crawls in. Nights get cold within the gums – branches and leaves trapping the air beneath them, offering wildlife a sanctuary from the heat through the first half of the day before the sun breaks through the leaves and warms their homes again.

In the early morning the forest always felt older than the town that bordered it, older even than the houses slowly sinking into the soil beyond our fence. The pines whispered when the wind slipped between them, their leaves hissing together with quiet secrets. Francesca used to say the woods were alive in ways people never were, free in a way we could only wish.

We believed the trees knew things. That if we stayed long enough, if we listened hard enough, they might tell us where to go when the world felt too small.

We planned it quietly – our escape – fearful that if we spoke to loudly, something might notice and intervene. We swore we would leave before we turned nineteen. Before life could settle over us like suffocating dust. She wanted the city, the bright lights, her brother. And while I longed for something simpler, quieter – just she and I as we navigated our freedom – I agreed. I would have followed her anywhere, should she have asked.

I’ve not returned to our secret place since winter. Since Francesca went missing. I could say it’s because the sadness keeps me rooted here, that I can’t face the place she drew her last breath. But I’m not certain it is that, at all. Truthfully, I think it’s more selfish – a fear woven with self-preservation.

Hesitancy anchors me to my home, that fear of what I might remember if I were to venture there again – that perhaps the reason I can’t remember the last few months the way I should, is because I’m blocking them out. Blocking out what really happened.