The Mystery of Anaia St. Claire

Grand Tragedy

    One cold night, a young woman strolled into a small town. She didn’t have much with her and she seemed to be in distress, rubbing her swollen belly. She happened upon the town’s inn and asked to spend the night there. The innkeeper, who used to be a midwife, asked the young woman if she was okay. With one agonizing scream from the young woman, the innkeeper rushed into action. She knew that the young woman had gone into labor. Her husband, who heard the loud scream, went to the front desk to see what was wrong. The innkeeper asked her husband to gather towels, warm water, and some clean scissors. He gathered all the materials mentioned and held the young woman’s hand as the innkeeper told her to get ready to push. After a few pushes, a healthy baby girl was born. “Congratulations.”, the innkeeper said as she handed the little baby to the young woman. Exhausted and weak, the young woman cradles the baby in her arms and says, “Your name will be Anaia. A beautiful name for a beautiful girl.”.

    A few days after the baby girl was born, the innkeeper went to the young woman’s room to check on her. From the hallway, the innkeeper could hear the newborn baby crying. She carefully opened the door to the young woman’s room and was devastated by what she had found. The young woman was leaning over the baby’s crib, dead sitting in a puddle of blood. The young woman had been dead for some time and the innkeeper knew that there was nothing she could do. So, the innkeeper and her husband buried the young woman and raised the baby girl as their own.

    That baby girl was me, Anaia St. Claire. Seventeen years later, I’m working at my adopted family’s inn and helping out around the house in any way that I can. The innkeeper, mama Dettle, and her husband, papa St. Claire were very good to me. They poured everything, all they had, into a girl that wasn’t their own. I was truly grateful to them. One thing I truly respected about them was that they never lied to me. They told me, as soon as I was old enough to understand, who my mother was and what happened. There was no information to be had about my father since my mother never spoke of him before her passing. That was pretty hard to hear. There was this whole other part of me that I knew nothing about and probably would never know. Because of this, I often wondered who was the girl that looked back at me when I looked in the mirror. She seemed to be this puzzle that was never meant to be solved since it didn’t come with all of the pieces.

    Life was good with the St. Claires until one day, something terrible happened. I was buying groceries at the local outdoor market when screaming roared up from down the street. I quickly looked over and saw swarms of townspeople running towards me. Shortly after, people on strange machines that shot out balls of fire came bounding up after them. I watched with widened eyes as people I had known my entire life were incinerated right before my eyes. “What is this? Who is this?”, I thought, “Why are they doing this?” I turned and quickly started running towards the inn to warn my family. As soon as I got through the door, mama Dettle greeted me with concern. “Good gracious, child! Where is the fire?”, she spoke. “Right behind me!”, I said out of breath, “The town is under attack! We need to leave now!” Mama Dettle tried to calm me down but I just couldn’t. All I knew was that we needed to leave. “Anaia! Calm down!”, Papa St. Claire yelled. I instantly shut up. “Now, tell me what you saw.”, he said gently. I quickly told him everything I had witnessed: the fireballs, people being incinerated, and the crest of a blue raven with silver wings on the sides of all of the machines. A look of horror came over his face as if he knew exactly what I was talking about. “Grab the money and our horse. We are leaving now.”, he said. Instantly, my mama and papa got to work, leaving me to watch them in confusion. They had an evacuation plan? It was almost as if they had been through this before? In the midst of the chaos, a knock sounded at our door. Papa cursed under his breath and asked mama to hide me in the inn’s cellar. I didn’t understand why he was telling her that. What does it matter if they see me? Why don’t they hide with me? “Please, Anaia, just listen and follow me.”, Mama Dettle said as she grabbed my wrist and ran to the back of the inn. Just as we rounded the corner, the inn’s door was kicked in. Mama Dettle led me to the cellar and right before she locked me in she said, “No matter what you hear, do not come out of this cellar. Stay quiet and stay hidden.” I reached out for her, but all she did was grab my hand, said ‘I love you’, and locked me in the dark cellar.

    I sighed aloud as the darkness seemed to swallow me and started walking to the back of the cellar. I had found a small opening between the floorboards and peeked through it. Papa and Mama were on their knees with their hands tied behind their backs. “Papa, mama...no.”, I gasped slightly, put both my hands over my mouth. Suddenly, I saw a pair of black boots stand before them. I frowned. “Who is that?”, I wondered to myself. “Where is she?”, a voice asked, “Where is the girl you had adopted seventeen years ago?” My parents remained quiet with stiff jaws. The boots walked closer to my parents and circled around them. They crouched and finally I was able to see the man that was talking to my parents. He looked like a military commander. Badges upon badges decorated his uniform. He was a very large many with one brown eye and one yellow eye. He looked so intimidating that I started to tremble and had to remind myself that he couldn’t see me. I was hidden. I was safe. “So no one wants to speak?”, the commander asked sarcastically. He then walked out of my view and came back with a steel poker that glowed a bright orange at the tip. “Want to talk now?”, he asked as he looked back and forth between my parents. I could hear my parent’s panicked breathing as the man brought the hot poker closer to their faces. “Alright! I’ll tell you where she is.”, I heard mama say. The commander kneeled down in front of her and smiled. “Good girl. Speak.”, he said. She nodded before taking a deep breath. “She’s in our summer cabin in the woods, directly east from here. Since she had come of age, we figured it would be best if she’d live on her own to learn responsibility. She should be expecting us at any minute.”, Mama Dettle lied. The commander frowned slightly. “Why would she be expecting you?”, he asked. Mama Dettle sighed. “Friday’s are family dinner nights. She was going to cook for us.”, she said before she started crying. I bit my lip. I hope he bought it. The commander nodded and started to head out of the door when he doubled back. Within seconds both of my parents were dead, with holes driven through their temples. I covered my mouth to muffle my scream and fell to my knees in tears. My parents sacrificed themselves for me. Why? Why is this happening?