Fog settled upon the trees; heavy, thick, wet, and uncomfortably warm. A sticky blanket of late summer the Ipahnish knew ushered in the changing of leaves and chilling of the air.
She was taken just before fall. He told himself. The dim light of a waning moon peeked through trees. Moonlight gently strobed over a somber Samhir as he and the foreigner seemed to drag themselves down the shabby path. Neither of them were in a hurry to get down the mountain.
Everything was happening fast for Samhir. However it was not the quickness of happenings that troubled him most, but the way in which memories, forgotten and ignored, poured over his mind, a neurological ignition of unpleasant reminiscing.
__________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Ama left right around this time of year too.
While helping Mikki and Sira remodel the old mansion that would become Sira's Tavern, he caught sight of her immediately. From below, through trees and shrubs and boulders, he saw glimpses of her as she came down the path. His wife had always been an unwavering beacon for his attention. He swore up and down his eyes would find her first in a field of a million people. The woman he viewed now was much different than the one so lovingly detailed in his memory. Deep purple bags pulled at glossy and swollen flesh beneath manic eyes. Her once soft and mousy brown hair was now lackluster, frizzy and disarrayed. Small crops of grey grew in at the crown of her head. She'd lost weight–too much weight for a meager seven moons–and swallow skin paired with a bony collar bone jaunted out from her favorite dress. One in periwinkle that Samhir loved on her.
Seven moons was all it took for their daughter to drive Ama insane. It was a hard thing to watch and even more difficult to admit to himself, as a father and as a husband. Samhir had suspicions Yuen had given him the ability to withstand whatever strange effect his daughter had on the people around her. When the villagers grew irritable and as his wife mentally deteriorated, only he remained rational. There were others, seemingly more prepared and withstanding to his daughter's forces, like Etan and the elders (who he'd desperately begin to group himself with), but it would not be until several years later and countless hours of teaching his young daughter to be approachable that the paranoia would quiet out and smolder into an underlying distrust. Ama was not spared that time. She lived in close proximity to Korin and it was destroying her.
When she came around the corner, stomping in an angry march, Samhir finally noticed his daughter. Ama dragged her along. Korin's hair was a mess, tangled and greasy and she wore the clothes from the day before. She stumbled as her little legs attempted to keep her upright and moving forward, her arm clenched so tight in her mothers grasp that her wrist and hand were turning red and purple.
Mikki quickly excused himself, eyes flashing back and forth, then strained for a moment on the young and bizarre girl, who–espite the chaotic situation unfolding–seemed almost bored. The change in the girl was undeniable. Her previously inquisitive and social nature was eaten away by something hollow and uncanny. He ran off quickly, mumbling about water and working up a thirst.
"Samhir!" Her voice rang out, shrill and cracking from chapped lips. She approached fast and livid, coming to an abrupt stop before shoving her daughter forward. Korin finally lost her footing and stumbled to the ground at her fathers feet. Her mother shook her hands. As if they were unclean and tainted.
"Ama!?!" Samhir exclaimed as he picked up his daughter.
"It's okay dad." Korin said in a tiny voice, as he'd set her on her feet.
"No." He said sternly, doing his best to keep from raising his voice and gently dusted her off. "It's not okay to throw others around." Little trills rang in his skull, echoing words of warning of his daughter's new susceptibility to acts of emotional and physical turmoil. A better look at her revealed a cheek reddened and little swollen, partially concealed by tangled black hair. His attention quickly shot to his wife. "Did you hit her?"
In front of them Ama began to readily pace.
She had. It had been watching her today more than usual. Those large yellow, waxy, dry eyes weren't her daughter's beautiful amber ones. Everyone had always given her compliments on her sweet baby's beautiful big doe eyes. Now what looked at her was some insidious little creature with a dead gaze- ghosts of her beautiful Korins trapped in the skin of a face no longer hers. Ama would occasionally see red flash in Its pupils when light reflected off their glassy surface. Eerie and evil. Paranoia and fear had seeded themselves within her fibers and from them the sapling of hatred began to root in her psyche.
Amas sanity was gone, whittled away and that day had been the worst so far. She'd been circling the house, stomping around, mumbling, slamming cabinet doors and kicking rugs. Korin had been watching her frenzied mother uneasily, an action that demented in Amas' mind. And when Korin finally decided to leave to try to go outside, she made an unknowing mistake and moved past her mother, brushing against her skirts. Ama let out a terrified wail, one that dropped and rose in its burst, and had immediately struck out. A heavy blow of a back hand that blasted Korin in the side of the face. A thick pause followed and Korin stood frozen, eyes trained on the ground heat on her face. Ama left, returned a moment later in changed clothes, grabbed the frozen and unmoving Korin by the arm and left the house.
Ignoring his question she chewed on a thumbnail, arms tucked up against her chest. "I can't do this anymore Samhir! I can't." She spouted loudly, rattling her head from side to side. "I can't! I won't!"
Lead had gathered in his chest, defied gravity and began to rise. "Ama, what's wrong? Let's talk about th-"
"You know exactly what's wrong!" Ama shrieked. "I've talked to you about it! This week, last week, last moon! The moon before! You won't placate me anymore asking that same stupid questions!" She seethed. Her face was quickly reddening and her eyes bulged, rolled down to find the source of her derangement staring at her again with those damned unblinking yellow eyes. "STOP LOOKING AT ME!" She wailed as fingers gripped at nothing, veins pulsed and spit flew from her mouth.
Korin let out a little gasp and her eyes snapped to the ground.
"AMA! That is enough!"
"NO, SAMHIR! IT'S NOT ENOUGH! I WILL NOT BE SUBJECTED TO LIVING WITH WHATEVER FUCKED UP THING THAT IS ANYMORE-
He'd snatched up Korin as fast as he could, picked her up and squished him into his chest, one arm securely wrapped around her head-covering her ears.
"I WON'T DO IT! THIS IS THE LINE, SAMHIR! IT IS ME OR THAT THING! YOU GIVE HER TO THE COUNCIL AND LET THE STATE DEAL WITH HER, LIKE I TOLD YOU TO DO FROM THE START, OR I AM LEAVING! TODAY, SAMHIR!"
"SHE IS OUR DAUGHTER!" The heavy bubble of pain swelled up into his throat and soured on his tongue.
"NO!" Her refusal cut through the air. Her voice dropped low, an index finger aimed at the girl he held. She shook as she pointed, rage hot on her face. "That is not my daughter. You can pretend all you like, Samhir, but I am done. Our daughter died in that forest. It's time we accept it and move on."
How quickly his anger fizzled out as her words struck him. His emotions had bubbled and built to collapse in the quake of sorrow and now he was falling. His mouth had gone dry and for a moment his tongue lolled about, useless, before he managed to croak, "Ama, please."
Ama shook her head, let out a single bark of callous laughter. "No. This is it."
He felt the blood drain from his head and his cheeks go cold. His tongue flopped about some more. He clenched his daughter closely. What a horrible ultimatum; kindling that lit a fire of cruel thoughts. Samhir was sure that either way it would be the cruelest single moment in his life. To abandon his child-precious and sacred in an age of infertility- or to be abandoned by his wife-the love of his life, his best friend, his chosen life partner. "But she's our daughter." Words that came out pathic, high pitched, squeezed and compressed through the pipes of his throat as he continued to fall. A plea he didn't know how to better articulate. And he didn't really know to whom he begged or for what. His mind refused to make a decision.
Ama nodded this time, pursed her lips and in his silence made the decision for him. "Your daughter. Your daughter." Her head tilted to the sky and she smiled and Samhir could swear in that moment, as her decision set in stone in her mind, he saw her insanity lift from her shoulders. Little flashes of light that had been long snuffed out lit from behind sweet chocolate eyes that finally relaxed. "Goodbye, Samhir."
Trails of hot tears wet his cheeks and he watched her walk off, down the mountain.
"I can't breath."
Samhir instantly relaxed. He hadn't noticed but he had begun to squeeze Korin and now she was looking a little purple in the face. A tear rolled from his cheek and fell into her hair. Samhir stared at the top of her head for some time before giving her one last squeeze and setting her down. With a deep sigh and a little concentration he did what he thought a parent should do in a situation like this; did his best to pull himself together. He wiped the tears from his eyes and cleared his throat. Samhir wished she had not heard any of what Ama said. It was not a thing a child should ever hear, especially from their own parent.
"I- I'm sorry. Your mom… She's just sick. She'll-" He was going to tell her that Ama would be back but the knot in his throat caught his words. The dread in his stomach told him otherwise. "You know I love you, right?"
Korin nodded, visually unfazed, looking about periodically coming back to her father. "I love you too, dad."
Samhir gave her a gentle smile. "And just so we're clear you are my daughter. You know that too right?"
"Yes, dad. I know." This time her eyes stayed trained on him until she felt satisfied with her sincerity then resumed inspecting her surroundings. Her father squinted, watched her for a moment curious as to the feelings she was experiencing right now.
She was odd in many new ways but Samhir had never doubted that she was still his daughter. She still hated mushrooms and stuck her nose up to eggs. She'd once watched her mother crack a fertilized egg into a pan and hadn't wanted another egg since. Her curiosity still dominated her personality, she'd still tilt her head to the left when she was fibbing, and click her tongue when she was deep in thought. She was still kind and good even if he was the only person in the world who thought so.
"Good."
He'd return to work, having Korin sit off to the side as he finished up building shelving. They'd continue like that for another season afterward- she'd sit quietly and still too long for a normal seven year old child and he would piece by piece help Mikki put together the tavern. His work, for a while, would serve as a numbing agent that he would later find in a bottle, when the stillness of winter came and there was no longer anything to occupy him.
But that all would come later. For now he would finish up his work and when the two would finally return home that evening, Samhir would not immediately enter his bedroom. Instead he mindlessly made dinner, burnt it in the process. Neither of them complained. Then he washed the dishes, methodically and slowly scrubbing every plate and utensil. After the kitchen was more spotless than it had been in years, he bathed his daughter, got her into clean clothes and tucked into bed. He hadn't read to Korin since before her accident but tonight he cracked open her favorite illustrated story and read it word for word. Korin laid unblinking, listening closely and only closed her eyes when Samhir was done and told her to. For a while he sat at the kitchen table, then paced around the living room until his feet began to ache.
When he did find himself at the threshold of his bedroom; he stood, memorizing the little grooves in the floorboards, the small crack on the door frame. He obsessively procrastinated and it took half an hour to get himself through the door. Once inside he found everything of Ama's untouched. The bed was made, her clothes remained hanging neatly in her half of their closet, her shoes lined the floor beneath in orderly fashion, and in the bathroom her toothbrush still leaned in the cup next to his. He found her ceremonial wedding band on the nightstand on his side of the bed. They were crafted by each spouse to be worn on the head of their beloved. Samhir had spent days crafting Ama's. Hours of stitching tiny precious stones into intricate patterns of swirls and waves in shades of blue, lavender, and silver. He'd always been a fan of crafting and tinkering and her band had always been his proudest creation. She'd intentionally placed it where he'd see it, returned to the giver, a signifier of separation in Ipanish culture.
Ama had left with nothing but her favorite dress and that night Samhir held her wedding band, curled in bed, finally no longer able to stave off devastation. He quietly sobbed until the early lights of dawn began to peek through the windows. He would not find sleep in its sincerity for a while.