Chapter One: Family
I never knew my mother as she died when I was an infant. My stepmother did not miss an occasion to tell me that it was my fault that she died. Father had not said as much, but he did not speak of her either. Regarding her, I learned never to ask as the topic was painful for him to disclose.
“A child needs a mother,” others often informed my father, “and a man needs a wife.” He seemed to have agreed, or evidently succumbed, to those comments since he remarried with great haste when I was still quite young. I was perhaps, four, five, or even six years of age at the time he remarried. He hardly knew the woman whom he wedded. She was a widow, same as he, and more recently deprived of her spouse than him, and she had …show more content…
She, my stepmother, never failed to blame me for his passing. That wretched woman recited it like it was a witch’s curse whenever she was cross with me. I was old enough to know that it was not my fault in the slightest, although I never voiced that to her, instead I uttered meek apologies in reply. My father was a casualty during the short war against a neighboring land. If anyone was to blame, it ought to be the king who sent him, and numerous other able bodied men, to fight, and subsequently, die for his country. Chapter Two: Cruelty
We wore black in mourning my father. His death was especially cruel as the war just ended prior to the attack that took his life. Regrettably, the soldiers on both sides of that battlefield had not yet received the news of a newly signed peace treaty. This was a common problem in our world which proved difficult to entirely rectify. That knowledge was of little consolation, especially not to a child.
My father received a hero’s funeral, which he deserved. It was lovely and certainly grandiose as well, although my memory cannot accurately recall the details. I watched it through tear flooded eyes while all the sounds of the surrounding world made mute and muffled by my banshee-like wailing. How we would be able to live without him was a mystery to me; he was the only family I had and known my entire …show more content…
All three of members of my stepfamily had different tastes in food, combined with my stepmother’s insistence on a strict diet for her daughters to maintain their elegant and lady-like figures. Essentially, I was required to cook three different meals every time I cooked. I ate whatever was left whenever they permitted any part of what I cooked to remain after they ate their fill. Stale bread was sufficient for my meals when nothing else left unto me to provide nourishment. It was, at least, far better than starving day in and day out.
While cleaning, I learned to take my time and pace myself. Some tasks, in particular cooking, I felt consistently rushed by them to finish regardless of how long various dishes were meant to take. That excepting, for nearly everything else, the more time I took to finish the task, the less additional chores they would tack on. Those extra tasks were, with few exceptions, especially cruel. The collection of lentils from the fireplace was one such
I never knew my mother as she died when I was an infant. My stepmother did not miss an occasion to tell me that it was my fault that she died. Father had not said as much, but he did not speak of her either. Regarding her, I learned never to ask as the topic was painful for him to disclose.
“A child needs a mother,” others often informed my father, “and a man needs a wife.” He seemed to have agreed, or evidently succumbed, to those comments since he remarried with great haste when I was still quite young. I was perhaps, four, five, or even six years of age at the time he remarried. He hardly knew the woman whom he wedded. She was a widow, same as he, and more recently deprived of her spouse than him, and she had …show more content…
She, my stepmother, never failed to blame me for his passing. That wretched woman recited it like it was a witch’s curse whenever she was cross with me. I was old enough to know that it was not my fault in the slightest, although I never voiced that to her, instead I uttered meek apologies in reply. My father was a casualty during the short war against a neighboring land. If anyone was to blame, it ought to be the king who sent him, and numerous other able bodied men, to fight, and subsequently, die for his country. Chapter Two: Cruelty
We wore black in mourning my father. His death was especially cruel as the war just ended prior to the attack that took his life. Regrettably, the soldiers on both sides of that battlefield had not yet received the news of a newly signed peace treaty. This was a common problem in our world which proved difficult to entirely rectify. That knowledge was of little consolation, especially not to a child.
My father received a hero’s funeral, which he deserved. It was lovely and certainly grandiose as well, although my memory cannot accurately recall the details. I watched it through tear flooded eyes while all the sounds of the surrounding world made mute and muffled by my banshee-like wailing. How we would be able to live without him was a mystery to me; he was the only family I had and known my entire …show more content…
All three of members of my stepfamily had different tastes in food, combined with my stepmother’s insistence on a strict diet for her daughters to maintain their elegant and lady-like figures. Essentially, I was required to cook three different meals every time I cooked. I ate whatever was left whenever they permitted any part of what I cooked to remain after they ate their fill. Stale bread was sufficient for my meals when nothing else left unto me to provide nourishment. It was, at least, far better than starving day in and day out.
While cleaning, I learned to take my time and pace myself. Some tasks, in particular cooking, I felt consistently rushed by them to finish regardless of how long various dishes were meant to take. That excepting, for nearly everything else, the more time I took to finish the task, the less additional chores they would tack on. Those extra tasks were, with few exceptions, especially cruel. The collection of lentils from the fireplace was one such