Waxing Crescent

Awake

I awoke with shock sitting up in the double bed gasping looking around at the familiar surroundings of grandmas home, shivering with the cold quilt around me wet with sweat. I do wish i could erase my memories of that day that continue to haunt me every time exhaustion takes hold and i give in to the horrors i would face again. Sophie lay sleeping in her bed wrapped in her quilt grandmother made her not even a bomb going off would stir her.

The silver dagger cutting into my leg slightly throughout my dreams lay in the brown leather belt i wore around my black leggings and black long sleeved top. Now soaked in sweat but it was the only clothes i owned except the red cape grandmother made. 

"Happy 18th Elizabeth my darling, I noticed you looked cold when you went to hunt for some rabbits with your cross bow, I hope you like your gift"

Unwrapping the sugar paper I see a vision of scarlet. Unfolding it and standing it was the same length as i was. 

If i go hunting in this i'll have no hope on catching anything for our meals, although it does look warm. 

"Oh granny, I love it thank you" i say wrapping it around myself, experimenting with the hood that draped over my eyes.

"It shows your strength, it shows the powers you will possess in the future. You are becoming such a strong women Elizabeth the gifts you possess will shine through. Even when i am no longer around to see it" grandmother said while stirring the stew that boiled upon the hearth of the fireplace. 

"Well i wont need to worry with that as your not going anywhere any time soon are you?" i looked at grandmother as she poured stew into the large wooden bowl and passed it to me smiling. 

"Of course dear I will be here for as long as i am allowed to be, someone has to look after you and Sophie" she smiles as she passes my sister her wooden bowl full of stew and beckons her to sit at the table. 

"I hope you like them i had to go far away with granny to pick them" Sophie says glancing at the Lemon and yellow primrose flowers that sit in a cup in the middle of the table after taking a mouthful of stew and not quite finishing it. 

"Oh my dear, can you finish what is in your mouth before speaking?" Grand mother scolds my little sister. 

"Sorry granny" Sophie looks down in her lap ashamed. 

"Its very unusual they bloomed so early at this time of year" My grand mother continues the conversation, seemingly forgetting scolding Sophie seconds ago.

"Have you heard from father?" Sophie speaks up after finishing another mouthful of stew.

"No, why should i have?" My grandmother says irritated with my sisters questioning. 

We haven't been gifted with my fathers presence for a few months . All i remember was my grandmother arguing with him and telling him to go before he did something he would regret. Obviously i pretended to be asleep that early morning when he left but i remember him reminding her he would be back when his girls reached an age where we could decide ourselves what we would like to do. They argued back and forth on the prospect of myself going with him then but he eventually gave up and went away. 

During that time we lived in the town and it was plagued with countless attacks from some furious beast. It attacked my mother and had killed her while she walked home from working in the tavern. Her friend Polly identified the attacker as being a huge black dog with golden eyes and a tinge of silver on its front left paw, nobody in the community owned a dog that matched the description, during that time i felt uneasy, every night when the sun set i felt my body temperature rise, i shook and then would wake up laying on the floor of the cottage covered in dust from the wooden floor. 

Afterwards Grandmother took us and told father we would live with her as we were no longer safe in the town.

"So you haven't heard from father at all? I miss him so much" Sophie said snapping me back to reality. 

"Sophie if i had heard from him do you not think you would have as well?" Grandmother said putting her spoon down on the table glaring over my shoulders out of the window into the woodland that stood behind me.

"Sophie we would have seen father if he had been around, please eat your stew if he wanted to speak to us he would." i said stirring my stew, suddenly loosing my appetite. 

"So hes forgotten us? What if somethings happened to him?!" Sophie replies wide eyed watching my movements.

"Sophie give it a rest, father can look after his self" i huffed standing up out of my chair looking into her eyes pleading with her to stop as it would upset grandmother.

"I'm sorry granny, I am no longer hungry may i be excused?" i say looking at the flowers in the center of the table. 

"If you are sure you wont be hungry later on then yes, you may be excused."Granny allows i feel her eyes watching me as i take my cape and walk out the door into the woods.