Lullaby Child

No glasses. ’Tis the first assertion my mind utters. Perhaps she lost them. Ma has her raven hair loose. Swallow. Throat clogged. Tongue dry. “Ma?” I whisper. I cannot recall the skeletal figure she now bears. How long was I away? Her blunt shadow of blue tint peers through the bleak canopy of pines. Looming. Peering down at me with grins of malice. Wandering listlessly, languidly, she is shrouded in fog - layers of it shifting beneath each twisting branch, coiling - back- forth - around each other. Sticks beneath my toes bite teeth into my skin. “Ma!” I cry and break off.

My arms are flung around her waist and something thin pierces the skin of my chest underneath the white linen of my patient gown. “You found me, ma!”

Her head wilts and her intense blue eyes - no, sorry, black - dilate after finding mine. “Yes. Oh my boy. Trust that I always will. My dear.” Hypnotically she grazes my hair. I try for hers but only find leaves. “You are pallid, child. Anaemic. You are weak. Oh…they have treated you poorly.” The slow cadence and consonance in her tone soothed my head to rest at the sharp hollow of her diaphragm.

“It hurt, mama. They hurt me. They told me to do things. I didn’t want…no mama …’n all stared. The men in white stared, mama. No friends. Just the big men there. And all …all were so quiet…still so quiet, mama.” I tug at the sleeve of her silk gown. “Remember our game? We would…we would whistle - two notes and it was your…your favorite theatre remember? I would get the melody…two-two notes wrong… but you were…you were happy, mama, remember?”

Her lips pull apart and my limbs seem to forget their ache. “Oh. Darling, never could I forget. And more’s to that happiness from now on. I’ve found you now. Let us go. Return to our real home. Those ants - they could not know you. They are not deserving of what’s inside you. When we’re home, far away from here, you will be safe once more, my child.” Staring with unblinking eyes, statically fixed on mine, she grips hold of my wrist. Smooth silk tresses of unswerving, ebony hair frame the soft curves of her face. Skin of lightest ivory. So light it’s almost glowing. Leaning and whispering something and she is glowing.

When I recoil from her grip I don’t know what to believe.

Doctors. Doctors.

When I rip myself from her grip, the face of ivory twists. Rosy lips reveal rows of teeth. Nails piercing me, her hand clasps around my wrist once more. The wingbeat of a bypassing owl and mama is herself again. Hurt and concern stains her opalite countenance.

“Oh, my darling, it is to ensure your safety. I cannot protect you unless you show me the gift.” Her lips quiver. Eyes languid and intent. Beguiling me with her smile she pulls me in for a hug.

I release and unfold quavering, gaunt hands.

The doors to mama’s eyes slam shut. Tremors work through the tips of my fingers, to the pit of my throat. Thumbs beginning to twitch, seething, black tentacles spread from my palms. Thick nails of black shoot through me, and course rapidly alongside my arteries. Somewhere I feel my skin quaking from the impact. Air. Air. Swallow. Air. Dry. Too dry. Lashes heavy. Patient gown. Cold so cold so cold. Cold. “Ma,” I whisper. Somewhere branches break. Swallow. “Ma, can we please stop?” Slithering, smooth tentacles envelop my hands; creep around my wrists. Cold, black flames like smoke bloom: rising from my outstretched palms and ma’s hands go to hover above the throbbing onyx fire. Quiet - too quiet. Slithering tentacles envelop my arms, spread across my shoulders. Ensure my safety. Ensure my safety. I did this with them before. I know what happens. Lashes heavy. Patient gown. Coldsocoldsocoldsocoldsocoldsocoldsocold. “Ma.”

But when I try to push away, I can’t. “Mama?” Her hands hover. Her eyes are shut. I can’t push away. Hands locked with nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Why nothing? Cold. Too cold. Why cold? Why cold? Smooth tentacles spread ice around my throat, across my cheeks. Then - slowly I begin to notice the faint grey trace of a field building up like an orb around us.

Ensure my safety.

Oh.

Then… it’s almost as if I’m smiling.

It’s almost like I’m smiling when the looming, coiling trees can’t reach me. It’s almost like I’m smiling when the view of the crescent moon becomes blurred. I’m smiling when the shifting layers of fog build up against the shield and when I can no longer hear the wingbeats of the owls, the murmurs of the winds and the breaking of the branches. It’s almost like I’m smiling when the cold flames resign submission and snarl, and ma’s eyes break apart, intent on the black, and glowing like her skin. It’s almost as if I’m smiling when the patient gown is covered in slithering shades of black. It’s almost like I’m smiling when there’s merely a small small hole left in the shield, and when I notice a distinct whistle through the trees, and I smile when my flames grow higher and I smile when ma smiles and I know I am smiling when I no longer want to leave and the arrow perforates my breast.

The shield crumbles.

The fire likes trees, I assume.

Ma roars.

It must be drawn to her as well.

The forest is black.

So black. Some trees crumble too.

I seem to have fallen. I know because the tentacles are gone. I know because mud clings to my cheek.

I cannot reach her.

I cannot move.

Why can’t I move?

I cannot smile, nor speak, when flames of black all around slowly fade to embers, and the mother crouching by my left, has a chest and face of moss and piercing sticks, hair of wet leaves and eyes of onyx crystal stones. “Supposed to be mine” - is all she hisses before pulling the metal arrow from out of my heart. She licks a blue liquid off of the spiked tip with a tongue of restless worms. I cannot scream when she drives it into my open mouth.

The wind doesn’t murmur anymore.

From somewhere in the forest a distant two-note melody rises to my ears, and I go to sleep.

Cradled in whistles and the breaking of the branches.