Chapter 1635 – 1635

From the diary of Anya Mueller – May, 21st 1635

My daughter wrote a poem and drew a picture today.

There must be a god, otherwise how would she maintain her innocence ?

Erik tells me that she is “touched by the spirit” as Chase was at birth. I wouldn’t doubt it, considering how the “good minister” helped watch over me in pregnancy. But any other comparison to my baby girl with that worm of a man is gonna get a smack in the mouth.

While Chase tries to breed his beasts together, creating more abominable creatures, Edith picks flowers, creating art from their mixed peddles.

Chase takes his gold, adorns it into his robes, cutlass, even his teeth fillings. He found a way to apply it to the armour of genoskwa; he had the bright idea to pour melted gold into his creatures fur, but this would only burn and disfigure his army further. We started calling these creatures “The Welded”

The closest Edith has to adorning herself to riches is a silver line in her hair. It formed over the past few months.

While the beasts patrol our colony by night, Edith plays by day in a field they dare not walk. It is there were Mahalia’s farmhouse stood.

How she shows know fear I will never know. I may an unrealistic dreamer, but this isn’t the life Erik or I wished for her. We wanted her to have a life beyond the colony, to see the world and what it offers. I always believed the gold we found here, we could afford such a dream to come true.

This was also the dream my parents had for her, having saved every coin, every piece of silver in anticipation of Edith’s birth. The sickness took them before she could walk or talk, and so they were spared the reign of Greeshawn Chase.

Erik spent his time held up in our home. Like many of us here, he has fallen into the hold of fear Chase has on this land. We never attend his church, for we couldn’t stand to see his “entertainment”. He hasn’t fallen into the same drunken stupor that took his father, but the same faithlessness Benjamin Chase fell into.

The creatures that serve Chase, fearsome as they are, are beaten like dogs at the slightest rebellion, and that alone kept the strongest and wisest of us from the slightest rebellion. He has his giants guard our borders, building a wall of trees, decorated with the bodies of the executed. Chase leads these new breeds, his Holy Army he calls them, on expeditions of slaughter. He’d take survivors with him to stay in our mines, and preform his conversion methods on them. Our mines have long since became a prison, now guarded by the sinners he used to save. Any defiant ones also taken into the mines, and left at his mercy, with the men and women separated. According to whispers and rumours, they were to be “rewards” for his followers devoted work.

The last evening, I tried to talk Erik into leaving, I ask of him why he subjects himself too fear, when I finally see him taking a drink from one of his fathers wine bottles “This devotion is a fools effort, you know it even if you can’t speak it Erik!” I argue with him “This path you’re in, I’ve seen it destroy your father, I’ve seen it destroy Benjamin. I refuse to let it destroy you.”

“What am I to do ?” Erik argues back “All my life, I have had a brother in Greeshawn. He was the one who guided me from boyhood to manhood, he was the one who taught me what I know. What choice do I have but to have faith in him ?”

“What you have in him isn’t faith. It is fear, and I never knew you to be afraid.” I continue to try to reach out to him.

“I have always been afraid Anya,” Erik shakes his head “Fear has always held me. I don’t life without it, I live despite it. Other than Greeshawn, fear is all I knew. What else do I have ?”

“You have us Erik!” I shout at him “You’ve had me and Edith by your side. I saw and know there’s a side of you Chase doesn’t have a hold on. You are stronger than you know, and I know you are too strong and too smart to not fall this far. What of Edith ? What would she do without you ?”

“What is it I can do for her ?” Erik snaps “Do you think I couldn’t take you from here if I could ? Do you think I wouldn’t leave this place to rot, and grant my daughter freedom if it were not for the literal demons at our door ?” This put me in a pause as Erik continues “Fear isn’t my choice, it is our only choice!”

Our argument was interrupted by the sound of Edith coughing. Turning our attention to her, our demeanours drop, and Erik tries to muster a calm voice.

“Edith dearie, it is far past your bedtime.” Erik says as he tries to reach forward to her, but she steps back.

“I made this today,” Edith says holding up a piece of paper “Greeshawn’s god spoke to me today, and I wanted to draw it.”

Edith hands me the paper and walks to her bedroom; on its front was the drawing of what I thought at first was a dark tree, standing in a meadow. But at it’s top was what looked like a human skull, and a crown of antlers.

Erik stares at the picture for a minute “It can’t be.” I hear him muttering, before he turns to me “This creature was also on a drawing Jaralath found in his boyhood home. We didn’t think Edith could have seen this. How could she know ?”

It was at the bottom of her paper we saw writing. It was then we decided to question her.

We went to her bedroom, and saw she wasn’t asleep, she was just looking out her window. Erik closes the blinds. By now the Welded would be walking our streets, patrolling our village.

“Edith,” I hand the paper back to her “Where did you see this ? How did you write this poem ? Did a friend show you this ?”

Edith shakes her head “No mama. I saw it. I spoke to it.” she taps the image of the creature “He spoke to me, and spoke to me for days. Today, I spoke back.”

Erik nervously asks “You’ve been talking to…the lord ?”

Edith shakes her head “He’s not the lord. But he wants me to follow him, like Greeshawn. He shown me many things and said he would give me so much prizes.”

“And you said ?” I ask her, unsure of what to make of this.

“I ask him, if he is God, why did he let Greeshawn do all of this ? If he is good, why do our people and others have to die ?” she taps the paper again, this time on the poem “This is what he said”

“Humanity is nothing. It is worth less than the lowest pile of dirt, to the highest blade of grass. They lose themselves in the wilderness and hope to find me. That’s why I love you, humanity. Both man and the child alike kill for my approval. And oh, how much I laugh at the prayers you say to me. That’s why I love you, humanity. “

We didn’t know what to make of this at first and it took me a moment to find my voice.

“Little one, if you’ve been listening to something like this,” I find myself once again at a loss of words “Think it would do you good to help block him out.”

The next words were the last I expected to hear from a five year old girl.

“I know, which is why we plan to kill him.” She smiles at us. Erik and I glance at eachother “I’ve been talking to me friends today, and we decided that Greeshawn, his monsters, and his god need to die, I’m even going to show them how.”

Erik shakes his head and dismissively waves Edith quiet “You shouldn’t speak of such things little one. Especially as a little one, and especially with those very monsters at our door.”

“I’m not scared, they are.” Edith smiles again “Like Mahalia tells us, the gugwe will kill their master if they are weak, and the dogmen will kill their master if they are too mean to them. They are as scared as Greeshawn as you are daddy, and that keeps them fro-“

Erik interrupts her again “Enough Edith, we are not discussing this now! You are to rest, and not speak a word of this to anyone else! I don’t want you to be put into any kind of danger, do you understand me ?”

Edith’s smile drops as she nods sadly “Yes daddy, I understand.” She says as she drops her head down onto her pillow.

We left her bedroom for ours, Erik and I discussing what has occurred.

“Don’t you see, why we have to keep this quiet. If word got out, Greeshawn will kill us all at best. At worse, only her.” Erik tells me.

“And what do you propose to do about it ?” I question him.

Erik takes a moment to think before he answers “I can talk to Greeshawn.” I was about to yell and objection before he continues “I know it’s a long shot, and a shot in the dark, but if I can get him to allow me to join his expeditions, and get you two to join us… perhaps we could sneak off while he makes camp ?”

“That’s a rich idea,” I say sarcastically “Even if you were to get him to allow a woman and a child to join his band – as if it will allow her anywhere near these creatures – what makes you think we could escape from under their nose ?”

“I don’t know!” Erik shakes his head “Dammit Anya, I’m still trying to thi-“

Before he can finish his sentence, we hear the front door open and close.

We go to investigate and see Edith’s door open. As Erik rushes to the front door, I rush to Edith’s bedroom to see her running across our field and into the night.

Barely thinking of anything else, besides the abominable beasts lurking in the darkness with Edith, Erik and I rush out after her. We knew Chase’s army was patrolling, and we couldn’t risk them noticing us or Edith. Not that it stopped Erik from shouting out after her.

We kept Edith in our sights, mostly because every dozen yards, she’d turn around and wave. Not mockingly, but as if she wanted us to follow her.

We chased her across the field, looking back, forth and around us. None of these creatures were around us, and we looked forward to see Edith entering the farmhouse Mahalia once lived in.

By the time we reached the house ourselves, we were preparing ourselves to air out all our worries, and scolding, but we couldn’t prepare for what we actually saw.

Standing in the middle of the room was Edith, speaking to a dozen of other children, all around her age, or a few years older. They were standing around a body; it was one of Chase’s creatures We couldn’t tell exactly what it was, it was covered in burn scars, and fresh cuts and bruises covering it’s body. Broken pieces of metal clutter the floor around it, as Edith wipes blood off a hammer.

“I told you we could kill them.” Edith says.

We were at a loss for words as Edith continues talking “I told you, these monsters are weak. I told my friends! They told their brothers and sisters! Mama, daddy, we don’t have to be scared of them anymore!”

Erik finds his voice “Edith, what have you done ?”

“I told you that Greeshawn’s god has been telling me things, and I decided we had to get rid of him.”

“You could have gotten yourselves killed! Have you children no sense ?” Erik scolds, looking back and forth at our daughter and the other children.

“But we didn’t, we got one of them killed.” An older boy points out.

“Children,” I chime in “Do you know how much more trouble you could get into for this ? Your parents must be worried sick and-“

“My parents were eaten by the Welded when both became sick.” A girl around Edith’s age answers.

Each of the children begin listing the people they have lost to Chase or his army.

“My grandmother was too weak according to Minister Chase.” A boy at the age of twelve says.

“One of them killed my dog, and not even for food.” Another child says.

“My brother was taken in by one of Greeshawn’s army against his will, and was killed for it.” A ten year old girl says.

“My mama’s head was ripped off by one of the armored ones when they first shown up here.” A smaller boy says.

“And what about you daddy ?” Edith points her hammer at Erik.

“Edith, you don’t know what you’re talking about. You are just a chi-” Erik starts, but this only causes Edith to slam the hammer down onto the dead creatures head, causing it to splatter.

“What about you daddy ?” Edith asks again “These monsters eat people! They kill people, and scare people! Greeshawn is a bad man, and it’s like mama says,” she starts pointing the hammer at me “You are not stupid, but you shouldn’t be scared!”

With nothing else to say, Erik gets down to his knees and looks Edith in the eye, his voice starting to break “Baby girl, all I wanted is for you to be safe. What you and your friends are doing might seem brave or noble but I promise you, what I am doing is to protect you.” Tears start forming in his eyes.

Edith keeps a calm expression as she walks up to Erik. “I am scared for you too daddy. And for these people. We have to do something daddy. Being scared makes people weak, and Greeshawn kills people for it. You have to stop being scared of him.”

Once again, Erik appeared to be at a loss for words, so I stepped in.

“Edith, did you do this ? You and your friends ?” I ask calmly pointing at the bloody beast.

“We’ve been trying all afternoon.” Edith nods.

“We had to trap him first.” An older girl says.

“He was a stubborn one.” Another older child answers “Had to cut out his eyes and tongue, but we’ve been cutting and hitting him all day.”

“Is that so ?” I ask them “And this was Edith’s idea ?”

“I told you mama, the dark thing told me a lot. Other things talk to me too, like the silver one, or the blood people.” Edith nods “They want to help us.”

“What are we too do ?” We hear Erik ask.

“Tell other people, and bring them here. Tell them, we don’t have to be scared. Bring them here, and we can show them how to stop these things, but don’t let Greeshawn know.” Edith says as she hands her hammer over to Erik.

Erik places the hammer down and pulls Edith into a hug “Promise me, you won’t you ever put me through something like that again.”

“Promise me, you won’t be scared of Greeshawn again.” Edith hugs back, only pulling away to make a cross across Erik’s chest. Erik does the same to her, and both look at me expectedly. I do the same across my own chest. I look around and see the other children doing the same over their hearts.

And at that moment, a new chapel was formed. It was like an underground congregation of Awesiaki. Led by my five year old daughter no less. Maybe I always had faith in my little girl, more so than Chase, so perhaps she was in fact “touched by the spirit”. And perhaps tonight, my husbands faith has been reaffirmed; but this time, it was in the right person.