Vina Girl

Corvina’s eyes searched the empty horizon for the arrival of something unknown. The girl crouched silently in the attic corner and watched the storm escalate, her face peering through a tiny window rimmed with snow. The winds tore through the trees, ripping the thin branches from their ice-encrusted trunks. She pressed her pale cheek against the chilled pane of glass and closed her eyes, imagining the eagerly awaited arrival of spring. She felt she had been waiting forever. The sounds of the storm grew louder and dangerously close with every passing moment. Cor…vinaaa…She abruptly pulled back from the glass and rubbed the skin on her face, now grown terribly cold. Other than the bare witch-haired trees struggling against complete exhaustion, the sky appeared dark and dead.

Corvina turned away from the window, shivering slightly from the haunting melody arising from the elements outside. Her attention fell upon the numerous cardboard boxes haphazardly heaped on the warped attic floor—mostly stale, unopened, and packed tightly with treasures that may never again be known—but she looked away quickly, sighing herself into a slump. Others boxes sat in frozen states of eruption, unrecognizable old clothes and trinkets faded both by sun and time. They had been there, undisturbed, for as long as Corvina could remember.

Surprisingly, it was only now that she wondered, as her gaze settled once again on the storm raging beyond the translucent glass, to whom they belonged. They used to be simply ‘in the way’, roadblocks she needed to scamper over during times of play. But now she wondered. Could their insides be linked to previous owners of the house, long deceased ancestors, or even her mother or father? And seeing as she never knew any of them, other than her dear Papa, did that mean their contents now belonged to her by default?

A female voice caught Corvina by surprise. Sounds without physical bodies sometimes caught her off guard, but Corvina knew this body. How long had she been calling her, anyway?

“Vina…girl, you up there?”

Pretending not to hear her stepmother just yet, Corvina closed her eyes and sank further into the wall. Every time she thought about her Papa, she still missed him horribly. Silently longing for him, she convinced herself that, upon descending the rickety stairs, his familiar presence would once again occupy his dilapidated yet sturdy armchair, broad shoulders overflowing its width while his lengthy arms reached lovingly for her. He’d scoop her up while she squealed with delight, cradling her in his lap, all his attention on her and none of it on the others. They were always pulling on him, screeching for him, yanking him away from her. His breath had been like nutty warmth and curled around her body like a cat gently lapping at a saucer of milk. She would never feel that safe, that protected. But now, even if he was here, she doubted she’d be able to fit as comfortably as before.

“Corvina!”

Her stepmother’s voice was closer now, and jarred Corvina out of her fantasy. Groaning inwardly, she pushed herself to her feet and dragged her aching body over the uneven planks of wood towards the opening in the floor. Sure enough, there Riona stood, an immense sculpture surrounded by swarming little goblins.
“Vina, I’ve been calling you for quite a while. You won’t be able to go up there anymore if you don’t answer me when I need you.” The trolls tugged at her trousers while she unsuccessfully tried to arrange stray coils of hair behind her ears. Corvina was often amazed at how beautiful she was, in a fleshier, larger way, than the faded photographs of her real mother. How could someone with that many children still appear so young, so fresh, especially without anyone to help her? But she does have help, Corvina thought dismally. Me.

“Sorry, Riona.” She yawned unexpectedly and quickly covered her mouth with one hand. “I’m just …”

“Girl, you weren’t going through anything up there, were you?” Riona interrupted. Her heavy brows knotted as she caught sight of the dusty fingerprints left on Corvina’s face, and she scrunched up her broad forehead like the weeping willow bark out back. “Who knows what’s up there. Some of that stuff—gosh—could be from decades ago. We always meant to clean it out, but then…anyways, could you come down here? I’ve got my hands full and need your help.”

Corvina dejectedly crept down the ladder, counting the rungs with impending gloom. She hadn’t been sleeping very well lately, and her body ached all of the time. She really didn’t like feeling this depressed and tried to find a way out of it, but whenever she tried to be happy she had memories of when she had been happy, and remembering all that happiness that was dead and gone just made her sad. The cycle could not be broken. Corvina just wanted it to be the way it had been before but was beginning to realize that was an impossible wish.

As soon as her feet awkwardly hit the polished floor, one of the gnomes exploded with a sneeze and snot trailed down his ruddy face. Riona expertly dabbed the mucus away from his mouth and tottled him into the kitchen, all the others impishly jostling each other like old men gambling at the races. She motioned Corvina to follow with a brief nod that swished her coarse, snaking curls around the cushioned waist that had miraculously bore the seven now-fatherless savages.

Her domain, the kitchen, had been transformed into a circus-like display. Piles of root vegetables lay heaped like fallen clowns on the countertop. Freshly plucked from the garden that her father had taken such meticulous care of, they awaited their boiled and bubbling fates with vibrant stoicism. Dried herbs were scattered on the stone floor and mixed with forgotten toys and peanut shells that crunched harmlessly even under bare feet. Aromas ballooned upwards and outwards though never completely escaping and mingled frantically while vying for dominance.

Corvina inhaled the warm, earthy smells, smiled as if remembering something she never knew, and picked up a copper pot. She rubbed the gleaming surface with the faded fabric of her shirt and peered anxiously into her reflection. Still odd-looking, she thought. Corvina rubbed at the dust that had collected on her cheek and left an angry mauve streak in its place. Not voluptuous like Riona. Many times her father had praised her beauty, likening her to her mother, “like a raven,” he would say, sighing while stroking her hair, “my raven girl with moonlit skin.” She wanted to believe her delicate frame, lucent skin and wide-eyed innocence feminine, but Corvina now felt gawky, unsure, and had never felt to be the quite same caliber as Riona.

It wasn’t that she was jealous of her. She didn’t hate her either. Riona had actually tried, over the years, to connect with Corvina, and offered herself fully. But she was too much of a woman. The supple sexuality emanated from her movements and her curves crushed Corvina’s frailty into a stupor. She was the mother of many, her father’s lover, and was so overwhelming that, hours afterwards, her laughter would linger in the corners of the rain-stained hallways long enough to become permanent household fixtures. Corvina felt suffocated by her.

Her gaze transfixed on the rubbery-looking image before her in the pot, Corvina slowly padded towards the large wooden table in the center of the room. One of the boys snoozed on a grooved bench while another darted around Riona’s ankles, rosy-cheeked and gurgling. Corvina placed the pot next to some potatoes and picked up a knife with a thick handle made of bone.

“Be careful with that,” Riona warned. “It’s sharp.” She stood over the table heartily peeling apples and once again mimed for Corvina’s help. “No, no, we have enough potatoes. Do some apples. Like this. ” With a slender blade of her own, Riona deftly separated the crisp skin from the flesh of the fruit and let the peel trail into a downward spiral. After coring the apple and placing the parts not needed for the pie in a woven leather bin, Riona picked up another apple.

“Here.”

Corvina struggled with peeling. Her wrists were slim and lacked the dexterity of Riona’s. The blade chopped clumsily and the peel dropped onto the floor in sad bits the size of fractured eggshells. No matter how often she helped, it was always the same. She was never as good, as quick as the woman. Choking back frustration, Corvina mechanically sliced between the red and white while keeping one eye on the bubbling stove, which had a tendency to spew its contents. Riona caught her gaze and lurched as the stove suddenly launched liquid into the air, saving one of the boys from the burning turnip broth that slid down the cabinets and crawled sneakily onto the floor. The boy erupted with grumbles instead of thanks and spat at his mother, annoyed to be disturbed from a game with his toes.

Then a sound arose from the depths of the woods that only Corvina appeared to hear, harsher and in more agony than the wind-beaten trees before. Her attention averted from unspooling the apple towards the arched window and the wood beyond. Was this just another disembodied voice? Something just behind what can be seen, ready, waiting?

The trees were bending, creaking now, and the very last leaves of the season clung weakly to their branches. But now they were swept away by the gusts, torn from the only homes they’d ever known merely to rest damaged and twitching on the ground below. Corvina watched, entranced. She thought she could hear their rustling voices reaching desperately away from the wind and towards her ears, trying to hold themselves together in the midst of all the chaos. She continued to look intently past the arched window and listened to, no through, the storm. There it was again. Cor…vinaaa…They were calling to her now, she was sure of it. Things were both floating and crashing through the air depending on the intensity of the crescendo, the length of the lull, the sadness of the fallen.

She had never heard a song like this before and wasn’t sure what type of creature had the capacity to create it, but somehow knew that it was for her. It was time! The wordless richness ravaged Corvina and the dizziness that ensued felt enchantingly new, yet strangely familiar, something she had been slowly progressing towards since birth. She was swept away by the beauty of the music like a feather on autumn wind but continued her task slowly, as if under a spell. And then, by the time her stepmother gasped, Corvina had already dropped the apple into the pool of blood collecting on the ground.