The rain returned during the night. It’s patters had woken Maud from a deep, dreamless sleep. The hearth left a bluish hue in the darkness from its dying breath and cast only shapes within the darkness. There’s no real reason she decided to go into Ma’s room with Alden’s bear left tucked in the blanket as if she were afraid it would also wake. She navigated the shadows, her hands tracing them as she went, to the room on the other side of the house.
Table. She noted. Her toes touched one of its legs. Chair. She traced her hand across the back. When she reached the front door, she opened it barely a hair to see that it was nearly pitch-black outside, the noise of the rustling trees and splattering raindrops made it all visible to her somehow. Her eyes may not see them, but she knew where their shadows ended and the dark sky began. She closed it quietly and opened her mother’s just as quietly.
The room was much darker than the rest of the house; it was her memory that led her around to the other side of the bed. When she was little, it was the end of the bed that she would slowly climb on and crawl, wiggling her way to wedge between her Ma and Pa. Sometimes it took putting her knees in Pa’s back and pushing to make room. Sometimes that woke him up. Most of the time, she remembered, it wouldn’t. All her nightmares, all the scary noises of storms outside, of the hoots or howls in the night, would disappear when she lay her head on a pillow of her mother’s hair.
This time was different than those of her childhood. It was Ma who was jerking and shivering. Whimpers poked holes through the blended sounds of the rain.
She slid under the blanket until she felt Ma’s side. The whimpers mixed with sobs as she put her arm over and tucked her nose into her hair. The jerks were sporadic, some accompanied by kicks, some with bounces of her elbows. Ma’s head whipped back and forth. Maud let her arm rest over her and slowly tightened.
“It’s okay, Ma,” she whispered.
With each whimper, each sorrowful moan, Maud tightened her hold of her mother, pulled her closer, tighter. And then they quieted with a hand whose fingers tightened. A final sigh, peaceful in comparison to the shallow ones that came before, and the unbroken rhythm of the rain filled the air.
Maud woke to Aurelie watching with her head resting on her hands. The soothing warmth of that grin, like all the others that she had woken to when she was little, made tears nearly come to her eyes. There’s my Maman, Maud thought.
Maud rolled her head to make Pa’s thin and lumpy pillow comfortable. The rain meant she didn’t need to get up yet and, judging by the little bit of light in the room from the open door, coupled with the sweet smell of batter baking in the kitchen area, it was still early in the morning. She grinned back and closed her eyes with a pleased hum.
“Come on,” Aurelie kissed her cheek, “I made breakfast.”
Maud squished her face with a stretch and a whimper. She burrowed her head into Pa’s pillow. She tried to go back to sleep in defiance but the smell of the crepes called to her. Her stomach argued in favor of them. Groaning, she sat up and rubbed sleep from her eyes.
“It took me a bit to find everything,” Aurelie was setting the plates on the table for them while the crepes sizzled in a pan on the hearth rack when Maud stumbled out of the room. “You rearranged everything.”
Maud was squinting to adjust to the light. One eye wouldn’t open enough and the other refused to open at all.
She staggered to her chair at the table, slid into it, and said through a loud, wide-mouthed yawn, “Vigora kept stealing the cabbage and fruits through the window.” She plopped down in the chair and lay her head in her arms on the table in place of the plate she pushed out of the way, “And there wasn’t enough room for them there if I didn’t move the spices.” Another long yawn, “I’ll put it all back tomorrow or whenever.”
“No,” Aurelie pulled the pan from the rack with one hand and slid the crepe onto the plate Maud had pushed away. “I like it.”
Maud refused to lift her head. She turned her head to the side to watch her mother scrape at the pan with the spatula before hanging it on the hook to stay warm enough to clean easily while they ate.
She pursed her brow, “You do? Okay,” she pointed clumsily for the window, “Out! Give me back my Maman.”
Aurelie laughed as she sat across from her with her own plate. “No, really. I want to keep it this way.”
“Good,” Maud sat up and pulled the plate closer. The crepe made her mouth water. But when she saw Aurelie already starting to cut hers with her fork, she stopped her, “Pray first?”
The expression on Aurelie’s face worried her. It faded from a smile into a downward cast frown. Maud winced.
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“Please?”
“Sure,” Aurelie nodded, hesitantly grinning again. “Of course.” She couldn’t tell if her Ma was upset about the prayer or sad she had to wait before tasting the crepe.
Maud lowered her head.
“Um, alright,” Aurelie shifted in her seat squeamishly. She copied Maud, “Like, like this?”
Maud nodded. “Close your eyes.” She waited until Aurelie closed them. “Oh, Heavenly Father, thank you for the blessings of today and for all those You have given us before.”
Aurelie sighed loudly.
Maud continued, “Please bless this food and fill us with your Holy Spirit and guide us through our day.”
Another loud sigh, this time with an irritated hum. Maud grinned.
“Bless Draka as he fights his stupid war and bring him back home safely. Bless Vigora so that she can be at his side.”
She felt Aurelie’s annoyance, which only encouraged her to continue adding, “Bless Aunt Leta and Uncle Gregory, and all the other villagers…”
“Really?” Aurelie said haughtily under her breath.
“And, Lord, please be with my Maman,” Maud continued, “Please fill her heart with warmth and give her the strength and guidance so that she knows Your unfailing love and continues to come out. And help her not have nightmares anymore. Or be sad. Your Will and Your Will alone be done. Amen.”
When Maud opened her eyes, Aurelie was gaping at her, frozen. She had only made it so long as kind of a joke, but also so that she could make sure to pray for Draka and Ma, her only real family left. She didn’t mean to upset her.
Aurelie grabbed her hand with a squeeze and smiled through teary eyes, “I love you.”
Maud crinkled her brow. Her voice was sticking to her throat. All she could do was whisper, looking deep into her mother’s pale blue eyes, “I love you too.” After a breath, “And thank you for praying with me.”
“Personally,” Aurelie was already frantically cutting a bit off, “I would have left the village out of it. They don’t deserve any blessings from anyone after what they did. Should have prayed for your Almighty to wipe them out instead.”
Maud slowed her own cutting of the crepe in front of her. “Why would I do that?”
Aurelie thumped her fork on the table, “Because they tried to kill us, Maudeline. They killed your father and brother.”
“A boar killed them, not the village,” Maud met her mother’s glare with one even more intense. “And what they did may be unforgivable to you, but not to Jesus or God!”
“What kind of idiocy is that? You think they’re not still trying to think of a way to kill us now so that they can take our home and crucify us? That they’re not waiting for a chance to kill your precious Draka?”
“Maybe they are, maybe they aren’t. It makes no difference to me,” Maud stared her down. “Jesus says to love your enemy and do good for them and give to them without wanting anything in return! Because that is God’s way, because no one is really deserving of His love and He gives it anyway.”
Aurelie’s eyes were wide saucers. “And you’re just going to forget everything, is that it?”
Through gritted teeth, Maud said before filling it with a forkful, “I didn’t say that.” Between chews, “I’ll never say that. But I forgive them because that’s what God’s Son did. Even while they were killing him.” After she swallowed it down, “When he was crucified. ‘Forgive them…for they know not what they do.’ That was what Jesus prayed as he was dying on the cross for the people who put him there. I’d rather be like Him than like the Talkrois! But,” after a long silence hung between their sharp glares, “I will keep that part to myself next time so it doesn’t upset you again.”
Aurelie softened before her gaze, “No, don’t do that. Pray how you want to pray. I’m not sure if I’ll ever agree with all that, but you’re right, it’s much better.”
Maud nodded her thanks because she had accidentally taken too big of a bite and was struggling to chew it.
Aurelie finished hers and set her fork on the plate, “Are you allowed to pray for them not to be blessed, too?”
“Pierre got really mad at me,” Maud remembered the first time she led prayer with Pierre and how she asked God to ‘smite them into a thousand pieces.’ He yelled at her for much longer than she expected and made her write and recite, ‘Love thy enemy as thyself,’ a hundred times. She said before taking her last bite, “So, no, we’re not allowed to do that. Even if there are entire Psalms about doing just that.” Once she had finished, “That was really good. I missed that so much!”
“You’re welcome!” Aurelie stood from the table and gathered their plates. She stopped Maud from standing to help with a soft hand on her shoulder and a warm, “No, it's my turn today.”
