Ander - Part 3: Subchapter 12
12
The wind had died down, and the first stars of the night were starting to peek out from the gaps between the thinning clouds, but the rain was still there, falling in a fine mist. It covered the monstrous beech tree in a gleaming blanket, doubling each star above with a twin sparkle on its shiny leaves.
"What are we doing here?" Banno asked. The boy has been cooperating up until now, but Kadai could only expect so much before he would have to give some real answers. He just didn't know what those answers would be.
He sank down to his knees at the base of the giant tree and carefully lay his daughter upon the ground, the irony of this place not lost upon him.
"Father?"
"Just help me with this first," Kadai said and plunged his hands into the soft dirt.
"But what are we -"
"We're digging a grave!" Kadai shouted, not bothering to keep his voice down so far away from the village, scooping out handfuls of dirt without pause until his arms began to ache.
Banno joined him without a word, squatting down and scraping up heaps of earth into his own growing pile. Sometimes their hands would knock against each other, cold and slimy with mud, but that hardly registered in Kadai's mind. He only wanted to focus on one task at a time, and right now, that task was digging a hole, so a hole he would dig. Never mind the cold, never mind the pain in his back and the sting in his bleeding fingers, never mind how he had to drag his son into a deed as grim as this.
Soon, much sooner than expected, the grave was complete: a dark, mucky hole with a small pool of water at the bottom. It just seemed so undignified, but what choice did he have?
He picked up his daughter and peeled away the wet layer of cloth stuck to her face. Even in death, she was so beautiful. With her stormy fur and her fine features, Kadai wondered what she would have looked like all grown up, and he wondered what name she might have earned.
"I'm sorry, baby," he whispered and gently kissed her on the forehead, so cold. "I'm so, so sorry, but it has to be this way. I hope you can forgive me..."
He looked into the grave...
There was a white eye staring back at him; blind, but all-knowing. It was the reflection of the moon shining through the leaves, staring up at him from the pool at the bottom of what would be his daughter's final resting place.
He covered his daughter's face for the last time, so that she wouldn't have to see this curse, and gently lowered her into the dark depths of the earth.
Banno reached for the pile of dirt, but Kadai stopped him.
"No, Banno. This is something I have to do myself."
Banno nodded, his face still devoid of any real emotion. But maybe that was just the darkness's doing.
Kadai picked up a handful of dirt, black and clumpy, and hovered his hand over the open hole. Little bits and pieces broke loose from his grasp and struck his daughter's body with muffled thumps, almost lost amongst the sounds of the raindrops still dripping from the branches above.
But not quite.
The black splotches they made on her white shroud stood out like diseased pustules.
Let it go, Kadai. Open your hand.
These were his thoughts, but he could not act upon them. He could feel the slippery fingers of insanity winding their way into his body and mind.
The dirt will get in her eyes. She won't be able to breath. She will be so cold and lonely in the dark...
The earth will not sting her eyes, nor cool her skin. She cannot feel alone, for loneliness is a curse of the living world, and she no longer dwells here. Open your hand, Kadai. Finish it.
But...
The first will be the hardest. If you can do this, you can do it all. Open your hand, Kadai. Open it.
Kadai opened his hand and the earth fell upon his daughter in a brown cascade. It felt like...
It felt like he was burying his own heart.
Kadai went back for more. And more. And more. He shovelled dirt into the grave with his bare hands, working like a Wolf possessed. His daughter's feet were the first things to disappear beneath the mud. Then her legs. Her arms. Her chest. Her neck. It piled upon her body like a small peak until it grew too heavy to maintain its balance. The top spilled over, covering her face.
Kadai stopped. He looked down into the grave, but he couldn't see her anymore. It was just a shallow dent in the ground now.
It made him want to scream, but instead he scraped the last pile of dirt into the grave with one final sweep of his arm. He patted the earth down with his palms until it was even once more, and all traces of their doing were gone.
Gone.
She was really gone.
His enka.
Gone forever...
"Father?"
Kadai had almost forgotten about Banno. He placed one hand on the boy's shoulder, but he couldn't look him in the eye. Not now, not with his sister lying just beneath their knees. "Banno, you cannot tell anyone what has happened here tonight. Not ever."
"But why?"
"Because it would cause your mother great pain. You don't want to hurt your mother, do you?"
"No..."
"And you wouldn't want anything bad to happen to your little brother, would you?"
"But he's not really my brother."
Damn. Banno was far sharper than he had any right to be at this age, and that meant there was no point in lying to him. He tightened his grip on the boy's shoulder and, even though it pained him to do so, he looked his son dead in the eye. "No, Banno. Not entirely. But you made a promise. You promised you would look after him, and that's a promise you must keep, whether he's your full brother or not."
"But I don't understand."
Kadai sighed. "Listen to me, Banno, and listen well. I will make it so that there will be no confusion, and no doubt. That little brown Wolf waiting back home is your brother. Do you hear me? He is your brother. Say it."
"But he -"
"Say it!"
"He is my brother."
"You don't have a sister. You never had one."
"I don't have a sister."
"You never left the village tonight. You were in your tent the entire time, except for when you checked on your mother. You got to meet your little brother, and he was the only cub there. After that, you went straight back to bed."
"I never left the village. I was in my tent all night, except for when I checked on Mother."
"And?"
"And there was only one cub. Then I went back to bed."
"Good." Kadai wracked his brain, but he didn't think he had missed anything. "You're a good boy, Banno. Now I need you to get back to the village as fast as you can. Don't let anyone see you."
"I have to go alone?"
"You know the way."
"But what about you?"
"There are still some things I have to do, but don't worry. I'll be back before you know it."
"Okay, Father."
"Promise me you won't breathe a word of this to anyone."
"I promise."
"Good boy. Now get going."
Banno spared the freshly dug soil one last glance, then ran off into the night, back in the direction of the village. Kadai watched him go until his black shape merged with the shadows and he became invisible. The squelchy sounds of his footfalls remained for a while, but they soon faded away to nothing.
Kadai took a deep breath, wiped some of the rainwater from his face, and blew it all out again in a long, drawn out sigh. The future of his entire family now hinged on his four-year-old's ability to keep a secret. All it would take is one slip, and then...
No, had more important matters to worry about right now, matters that simply could not be left as-is.
Kadai bent down and felt along the forest floor with his fingers until he finally found what he was looking for. A good, hefty rock with a pointy end. He pulled it out of the ground and washed away the mud with the water still dripping down from above, then turned to the trunk of the great tree.
Making a gravestone for her would be a colossal error on his part, but he couldn't just leave her to rot down there without leaving at least some kind of marker.
He pressed the tip of the rock against the rough bark, slowly increasing the pressure until it sunk into the tree's flesh.
You almost did this to yourself, he thought, carving deep trenches into the wood. He could feel the sap oozing over his fingers, thick and sticky, like tar. When he was done, he stepped back and looked at the single word that would serve as his daughter's epitaph.
enka
His first daughter. Taken from him before she could earn a name, before she could even take a single breath.
"This isn't fair..." Kadai whispered in the dark. It felt like he would start crying again at any second, but no tears came. Maybe he was finally all cried out. But there was still so much anger, welling up inside, anger he couldn't keep back any longer. "This isn't fair. This isn't fair! This isn't fair!"He raised his voice to the sky and shouted his outrage for all the forest to hear: "THIS ISN'T FAIR!!"
Enka. It wasn't enough. It wasn't nearly enough. There was something missing, something vitally important, but he couldn't figure out what. He dropped the stone at his feet and turned away from this grim sight, grinding his teeth. If anyone ever stumbled across this place, all they would find is that single word. Incomplete, yet it meant everything.
And nothing.
It would just have to do.
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