Chapter Three

    All the air in my chest rushed out as my bare foot slipped off the porch step into the wet grass and my mind realized what my body seemed to be doing despite the protests I could feel screaming through me.
    I was following. I was following and as I tiptoed up the short hill leading from the side of the house up into the dense, damp darkness that radiated out of the wall of wood and vines. It felt as if the very air around me was trying to push me back to the safety of my little home and the harbor of blissful ignorance it offered. But I could'nt despite all my efforts still my treachurous feet. They moved forward as if they wern't even my own anymore. Finally they reached the edge of the woods and though there was no way I could've known then what lay ahead of me I knew that once I crossed this barrier, though I knew these thorny overgrown paths better than anyone else in the world, I'd be lost.
    At the first crunch of briar and years of packed leaves beneath my toughed feet I knew my first taste of hoplessness. I couldn't tell you then what that feeling was all I knew then was that it was awful, as my  mama would have said just plain awful, but I know now it was hoplessness. I didn't know yet what it was I was after, but I knew I'd find it and I new it would be awful. How could it not be. I'm slinking through the night time woods tracking whatever it is thats living inside of the woman who used to love me best but now doesn't remember me at all. In what way could this ever end any way but awful.
    Following the whispers of movement ahead of me I pressed as quietly as possible through the web of untamed growth, even traveling blindly off the trails worn through the forest I knew where we were headed. I could smell it. The metalic scent of the water flowing over the dirt bed of the stream. The heavey wieght added to the air by the algea and moss slickening the rocks breaking the steady flow of the water. Oh yes, I know where we were headed, I can already feel the cold mud of the creek bottom press between my toes, see the water flashing as the moonlight strikes the micca that skims the top and streaks the black bottom with silver. But as much as this peaceful ending to my journey called to me something in me told me my presence here wasn"t known and not welcomed so I hung back and peered through the leaves that hid me.
    The stark whiteness of mama's nightgown agianst the darkness gave the scene infront of me a luminescent, dreamlike quality. The anticpation and fear of what I might discover here had my entire body trembleing in its little cacoon of brush. I watched as she collapsed kneeling in the shallow water, her nightgown billowing over the surface. She sat there for what seemed like an eternity. Her shoulders bent by some unseen wieght threatening to crush her at the first sign of give, her beautiful slim fingers clenched into painfully white fists at her sides. Slowly her body began to lean forward, her arms reaching out before her into the cool water, her hands burrowing into thick creek bed like anchors desperatly grasping for hold. As she rocked forward an inhuman moan bellowed up from her tiny belly with such force it seemed to physically shove her head back. Finally the eruption of anguish that poured out of her semed to have spent itself leaving her kneeling limply in the water gazing up into the moon that bathed her soaked body in light.
    " We were good " Her voice rang out into the dark. The sound startled me so badly my knees almost gave, tumbling me out into plain view before I could realize that she wasn't talking to me.
    " I know we were, we sacrificed everything to make sure you'd see we were good." She said with the voice of a person empowered with unshakable faith in the truth of thier words.
    " Our fathers, you loved them. You loved them first. And our mothers, you melded thier beauty and strength with your own hands. So you tell me how we could be anything but loved by you. " Her shoulders drawing back from thier slump, squaring defiantly as she spoke.
    " TELL ME " she screamed when no answer came.
    Suddenly on her feet, with the hem of her gown balled in her fists she began to pace with angry steps along the waters edge.
    " My babies are as beautiful as thiers. They shine brighter, thier innonce is pure and radiant, I made sure of that. You look at them. You look at them and tell me if these are your damned, unholy monsters. NO, they're the children of your great creation. Can"t something good be made from something not of your hand." A ripple of sarcastic laughter broke her sentence " Pride cometh before the fall, isn't that one of yours. Can't you see that in the end its all yours to claim, even us. Even the dirty gliche in your blessed plan, yes sir it all runs back to y ou one way or another wether you choose to see us or not."
    Her pace slowed to a halt leaving her standing up to her ankles in the cool water gazing up as if waiting for the answer she demanded.
The intensity of her concentration drew me forward without myself realizing it, until the feel of the brush I had been hiding behind on my face made me realize my curiosity had almost caused me to reveal myself. I jerked back, stumbling slightly causing the smallest of disruptions in the silence of the night. Though the sound of my mis step was minimal the realaztion that I could be found out sent terror revirbrating through my body, jolting me into action. In seconds it seemed, it was as though i was flying, soaring through the forest my feet barely skimming the forest floor,my body weaving through the brush. Suddenly I was breaking through the trees into our clearing. The deep exhale I felt when I stepped into the open told me I hadbeen holding my breath most of the way. Gasping, but fueled by adrenaline and unexplainable terror. My legs continues to whip me around the house.
    As I reached the path leading to the front porch all the momentum propelling me seemed to evaporate, as I crumbled into the red dirt walkway, everything seemed to slow and fall into an unholy silence as I watched mama step off the front porch. All I could manage as she approached was to stare quizzically up at her. She stopped directly infront of me. I waited, I waited but whatever it was i was expecting never came. She just stood there looking at me, It was the first time she had really looked at me since daddy died and it seemed as if she was seeing someone she'd never known. Very slowly she turned without a word and started toward the house. As her feet stepped into the darkness of the front door my body fel forward limp and trembling uncontrollably into the red clay dirt. I lay there unable to control myself for god only knows how long until without realizeing I was the one doing it I rose on legs jerking half from the trembles I still couldn't stop and half from exhaustion from the run, and seemingly without my bidding they unsteadly carried me after her into the darkened house. As I reached my bed whatever reserves I had been using to carry me dried up leaving me clutching to the rounded top of the bedpost at the foot of the bed. I managed to pull myself onto the bed not bothering with covers dispite the chill in the air I lay there unable it seemed to form even basic thoughts, but unable to slip into the safety of oblivious sleep. Finally I felt myself relaxing into the mattress and my mind easing further down from the numbed stupor I had fell into. I finally succumbed to the exhaustion creeping over me, joyously falling away from everything that I had experienced.