Chapter 8 Dark Curtains

Songs for this chapter are:

You are so beautiful - Eddy Kim (Goblin OST)

M.I.A - Byron Juane and Aaron Cole

In the end - Hulvey

Heaven - Roy Kim (Goblin OST)

Eight years later...

"Cassandra!! Mummy is calling you to join the table for dinner!" My elder sister's voice rang out through the whole living room. I could not understand why she would not just knock at my door to inform me civilly but she had to shout like she was done searching the entire house for me but could not find me hence she resorted to calling my name so loudly, with hopes that wherever I was, I would hear her voice.

I mean, I'm not exactly angry at the fact that she's calling me. I love my elder sisters, the two of them. Maybe it's because this has to do with my mother wanting to see my face and how much the idea of meeting my mum irks me to the spine. I mean, I hate this woman so much and I do not even want to see her face.

I still could not believe that she sold me into slavery. That night, eight years ago when Dn opened my eyes to the truth, it then came to my memory that I was there when she sold me to that devil but of course, I had no idea what she was doing.

I remembered that fine, white horse, even though it stood a little far from our house and there was someone on the horse that I could not recognize nor see his or her face but I saw this bastard of a loan shark giving my mother that bag of money.

But I was just stating which was unlike me because I was usually the inquisitive kind of child and I usually did not care if I was interrupting an important conversation. Many times, I could chirp in and ask questions like, "Daddy, what is the meaning of real estate?" Since I mostly hung out with my dad when he had important visitors like that.

But the loan shark looked scary even though he was smiling. He looked like the kind of person that would strangulate you if you dared try to interrupt his conversation. His presence gave me the chills. Maybe it was because of that scar that ran down from his forehead to his jawline. It was so thick, it looked like this face had been vertically divided into two.

Immediately he mounted on his horse and left our street, I wrapped my arm around my mother's arm, shivering.

"Mummy, why are you talking to a man that looks as scary as that? Is he going to kill us?" I asked faintly, as I could barely even find my voice at all which was also unusual. Fear had consumed me to a deep extent.

"No my dear. He is a nice man. Look..." She said, raising the bag in the air so I could see it properly. It looked like a bag that had been made from a goat's skin. "He gave me a lot of money. We would be able to use it to buy you all of the dolls and all of the dresses you said you wanted..." She said to me that day.

Unknown to me, that the deal required me as an exchange. It did not only require me as a person. It required my happiness, my freedom, my childhood, and the bliss that came with it and my soul even. My mum sold me to a loan shark in my presence! She sold me to the devil for money that she wasn't even going to use for something reasonable!

When the loan shark came for me that afternoon, of course, I could not see his face but even when I could after five days of being with him, I could not remember who he was. It was like I was seeing him for the first time even though he just sold me to my mother a few months ago. I had a feeling that I had met him before but I just could not connect the dots even though it wasn't a while ago that I saw him last. I still couldn't recognize him.

But I really could not be mad at him for depriving me of my freedom, it was what my witch of a mother bargained for and him abducting me was only his means of fulfilling his part of the contract or something. It was a terrible pill I had to swallow - the fact that my mother saw me, her child as nothing but a commodity.

I could not believe I lived for eight years with my mother after I learned that she sold me into slavery. I could not believe I lived with her ever since then without murdering her, attempting to murder her, or causing grievous bodily harm to her.

I'm seventeen now but the past eight years of my life have been excruciatingly painful. I have lived for eight years with my mother and this woman has been saving like she never sold me out.

I was feeling the effect of her pretense now because I was spending more time at home. Normally, I was always away from home and I did my best to stay as farther away from home as possible.

I deliberately got busy with a lot of activities for eight years. I got busy with school work and took after school lessons even when I knew I did not need it. I stayed away from home so I could not get to feel the unbearable pain of being next to my mother. But now, it was summer holidays and even if I could still get busy with a few things, it just was not the same as being in school during school sessions and semesters hence I, unfortunately, had to stay at home and Lord knows, I was rotting very quickly on the inside.

The last time I ever felt this way was eight years ago when Dan took me home the morning after we were able to escape from the tunnels. He did not drop me by the doorstep of my house though. All he did was take me to the steer where my house was located so I could walk to the doorstep of my house on my own.

He insisted on not wanting to meet my family for some reason best known to him but he promised that he would come back for me, hence we would surely meet again.

I could remember the day like it was yesterday; my dad wept, my siblings yelled because they were the first set of people to see me, particularly younger sister, Ebun. "Mummy, Daddy! Big sister is here!!" She cried. Then, everyone came rushing out to the balcony. It seemed like a competition as to who was going to hug me first.

My dad already lost a lot of weight; his hairline had receded in contrast to the fact that he used to have a lot of hair. He wore a constant Afro hairstyle always but now, I could barely find much hair on his head. His cheekbones and collar bones were more outlined now and his hands had grown thin from wearying. His stomach was the only thing fat about his body. It was protruded. It looked like a round ball attached to a long, thin stick. He was going through his sickle cell crisis for sure and I felt beet bad for him.

My mum had caused him all of that pain and all I wanted to do was to stab her in the eye till I could have her eye sockets rolling in my hands. But this witch of a woman threw herself on me and wrapped me in an embrace that felt like flyspecks of venom has jolted across my nerves just by having bodily contact with her. Her arms no longer felt like home. She was crying and touching my face all over as she knew down to be in correlation with my then, small height.

"My love, oh my...We've looked for you all over the town. Oh...my heart! We grew sick from hoping you would come back to us real

soon. Where have you been, my baby?!!"

Where have I been??? Did she just ask me that??!

I did not say anything at all. All I did was look her in the eye as I kept gritting my teeth, till it hurt unbearably. When I began to feel the urge to slap her face so very badly, I pulled away from her hold because I knew I could not slap her.

So I approached my father who was standing right behind my mother with such a sorrowful mien that broke my heart. He carried me ho and placed a kiss on my forehead. Tears fell down my eyes. I looked him in the eye since I was unable to say all I wanted to say to him at the moment but I did hope that my eyes would make a clear window to my soul and to what it was saying.

I was sorry for all the pain, the sleepless nights, the frustrations he went through; Days when he felt like he was very close to finding me and then futility being the outcome of his efforts. Days when he had the fiercest of battles with his health due to stress, anxiety, and depression and days when he broke down and cried when he was supposed to be 'strong' for his family and try to give everyone hope.

I was about to be back in his arms as well; just like the light dan and I had seen at the end of the tunnel after running for hours, in the darkest paths of pain, endurance, invert is net and then seeing a ray of light from afar off; a rekindling of a hope, long quenched.

I hoped that he would see all of these things through my eyes.

"Did you see the coin? I was about to toss another one in the poultry and pray to God to help me find you. Throwing a coin amongst a group of roosters can help you find someone or something that is lost."

I burst into an unexpected cackle of laughter. It was ridiculous that my dad would believe in such a superstition because it made me wonder if roosters could even fly but I stopped laughing immediately when I realized that somehow, what he had done had worked.

I did find a coin in the fields truly.

My dad looked for me with all of his might. It was just that those damn roosters did not communicate effectively to my dad about my whereabouts but regardless of that, I was thankful for my dad and his genuine efforts.

My heart was very sore on that day and my mum would not stop coming close to me, touching my cheeks and pouring kisses on my face but I, unfortunately, could not push her away because it would have been plain, stark rude.

So I just sat there and let her touch me 'affectionately' and I bore it and it ate a big chunk away from me.

And it kept eating me away for eight years until I got busy on purpose to subside the agony. But now, I'm back to that life. Back to the same thing I felt that day, eight years ago. Back to a place that was like paws tearing at my flesh and bone, leaving to die gradually for the vultures that would eventually devour my corpse. I was back to my default state.

I wanted the eight years of my life that I lived before I was abducted and enslaved. Oh! How happy and free I was! My siblings could not do much to take my pain away and I could not blame them for finding it hard to believe that my mother sold me into slavery because I found it hard to believe too at first until I connected the dots and it began to make sense.

Even if they did believe, they did not cry for nights on end like I, the bearer of the pain did. They did not pull the dark curtains together, closer to stay away from the outside world. They did not have to isolate themselves. They did not have to live every day of their lives with paranoia and fear on the sight or feeling of anything that looked or felt similar or familiar to captivity. They did not have to go through all of those things but I had to. I did.

And it had to stop.

I have never transferred my immense aggression nor pain to anyone. I saved it for the day when I would have all it took to face the one person that ruined my life and today was going to be that day. Unfailingly. I would transfer my aggression, my pain, my endless unhappiness, my nights of shedding vile tears, on that woman and she would hate her life.

This might not change much, neither would it take away all of my pain but it was something I had to do. Something I knew I should do because it was crucial. I want to confirm the truth from her lips because it would determine what I had to do with my life next - to decide if I was going to leave this house and never see her face again or to probably kill her. I knew I could not kill her though no matter what but I was ready to take other drastic actions that might result from the confrontation.

I got up from my bed and slipped my shirt over my head in a swift motion as I shut the door of my room behind me. My elder sister, Demi, and my sixteen-year-old younger sister were at the dining table, seemingly busy with their food.

I was so happy and thankful that my elder brothers were not present on a day like this when I wanted to burst out and erupt because they would have stopped me for sure with their heavy, musculature biceps.

I saw that my mother was not at the dining table yet which meant that she still had a few things to do in the kitchen. Perfect. I rushed over to the kitchen quickly, ignoring my younger sister's attempt to start a conversation with me.

I saw my mother in the kitchen, covering the last ceramic plate ware with its lid. It smelled like catfish pepper soup and yam. When she saw me step into the kitchen, she wiped her hands with a napkin and dropped it on the counter. Her eyes were weary and she looked stressed. But I didn't care.

"Mother," I called on her, not knowing exactly how to start all that was placed in my heart to say. This was the first time in eight years where I was going to have an actual conversation with my mother but it did not look like it was going to be a conversation judging from what might come out of it.

"Yes, my love?"

"I want you to answer my question because I have only just one question to ask you." I balled my hands into fists, clenching them tightly. I paused for a bit to study her expression; to know whether she already had an idea of what I was going to ask her or to know if there was an iota of fear in her expressions but I found nothing. Nothing at all and it infuriated me even the more. Even at this crucial moment, she still had the never to pretend effortlessly!!

"Go on, love," she said, still very clueless,

"You sold me to the loan shark eight years ago hence why I became a slave. Yes or no?"

"W...w...what do you mean by you were a slave?" Her countenance changed now to that of an utter surprise but I could not decipher the kind of trigger that was behind the surprised look - whether it was a surprise that came from her not expecting me to know about it or whether it was a surprise that showed that my allegations were not true. It was hard to figure out.

"I'm not freaking joking ma'am. I was there when that loan shark gave you that bag of money eight years ago. He was the same person that abducted me. You have been acting like you did nothing at all and my life has been a hellhole thanks to you and you alone but I would not let the pain eat me up till I rot away and die a painful death and then you would carry on with your life and probably seek my siblings too. No. That would not happen. So just tell it to me now. There's no use lying."

"What? He was the one who abducted you??? Yes, I made the deal with him but I-"

"What deal did you make mother? I need you to state it out to me clearly." I clenched my jaw, tears rolled down my cheeks.

"I made the deal to give you out to him as a servant if I could not the pay the money I borrowed from him but—" Tears rolled down her eyes now, She was in a state of disbelief like it was all a movie with some big plot twist unfolding in her view.

"But what?" I pressed on.

"I...I...I paid the money back my love. I did. Believe me!"

I could not deal with her lies any longer. My fists were unclenched now, never to be clenched again because I shoved the tray that contained all of the ceramic plates of food away, the plates crashed to the ground, breaking into pieces, all of the pepper soup and slices of yam, wasting away on the tiled floor. I had broken all of those plates instead of breaking my mother's head because I was angry beyond what I could explain.

My mother gasped as more tears rolled down her cheeks. The blood from my hands, dropped on the floor, crimson red. "Believe you? You paid the money back yet he still made me his slave?? It took you eight years mother to prove yourself but you acted like nothing ever happened and now when you're being faced with the truth of the shameful thing you did, you still can lie to me with goddamn tears in your eyes!!"

Just then my dad walked in with my sisters. He looked like he had just woken up from his slumber and I felt sorry again for disrupting his siesta.

"Dad, do not worry. I would prepare another meal for you." I said quickly and dashed out of the kitchen before he could even open his mouth to ask what was going on.

I ran back to my room and shut the door loudly. I fell to the floor slowly and clutched my folded limbs with my blood-stained hands, crying and wallowing in all of my pain but right there and then as I wept, I promised myself that these were the last set of tears I was ever going to shed concerning this occurrence that's happened years ago.

I would get my life back and move on without my mother. I would have to make up my mind and accept the bitter truth that I did not have a mother in my life any longer. I was done with her forever and there would be no going back...

*********

Psalms 55:12-14 - "For it is not an enemy who reproaches me; then I could bear it. Nor is it one who hates me who has exalted himself against me; Then I could hide from him. But it was you, a man my equal, my companion and my acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked to the house of God in the throng."