Chapter Two

    Throughout the days following Daddy,s leaving us we waited. We waited for some sense of normalcy to return, some sort of routine though it would never be the same surely if we were all still enough and waited patiently enough what we were supposed to do next would inevietably revele itself to us.
    And while my sister and I waited for this revelation to occur our mother warred silently with the very air surronding us. Her previously light and fluid manner was replaced with an intensity that terrified us both. Don"t get me wrong she directed none of this toward me or my sister. We were terrified of the of the change that had come over one of the most constant things in our lives. though always agile and confident her movements now were punctuated with a silent but almost tangible force. Her once melodious voice now only whispered under her breathe words we could'nt quite catch but the tone was unmistakable it was calm, steady and terrifyingly provokiing as if she were daring something to hear and answer her. She pulsated with something that at the time terrified me even more because of my lack of ability to identify it, but now I realize it was rage. Rage at the audacity that my father could be so easily taken from her. I had never thought of my mother as formidable in nature but I realize now that had she been aware of any threat to her little famiily this gentle almost childlike woman would have waged a merciless war on whatever had the courage to cross her path. And her lack of opprotunity to defend what was hers had left her cheated and this offense added to the anguish of her grief was building inside her to the point she would call the gods down to rage against for this. If they were only brave enough to answer her challenge.
    Soon enough my sister and I realized that the mother that we had known was not coming back. As the days passed her attention to our needs faded. We soon both became familiar with the mundane tasks we had never realized we're nessecary to our lives. The food that had always been prepared for us, the washing and cleaning we'd never thought of before now went unattended as our mother slipped further and further into her own self.
    Late one night after Clara and I had finished with one of Clara's new concotions which was really just a mixture of cooked and raw vegetables since niether of us was ready to face the dirty work required for a dinner that included one of our chickens. We had washed up and Clara headed to bed while I lingured in the kitchen wondering where our mother might be. She had started to get missing more and more every day. But she always returned never with an explanation of where she had been, leaving me more worried I think than if she hadn't returned. The wandering was what was killing me. Constant worry had become a ever present knot curled tight in my stomache. At times the only words I could hear in my own head were Mama, mama, mama. I guess part of me believed if I called to her even in silence enough, my mother who was hidden in this stranger now masquerading as her would hear me.
    As I paced my small feet around our rough wood floors I came to our kitchen window looking out into the pitch darkness that the vibrant green of the forest surrounding us gave way to after the sunset behind our mountian and as I peered into the pulsing black that was usually more comforting than it sounds a movement amongst the trees caught my attention. Squinting my eyes try and narrow down the exact place I had seen whatever was prowling tonight thinking maybe a deer or opposum was slinking through the trees. I stared harder and harder into darkness, beginning to wonder if maybe I had only imagined it, when the moonlight breaking through the cloudy skys caught up an unmistakable glint of what seemed like silver wind as it whipped through the trees darting further into the blackness.