Pleading

There is little shame in how I hold myself while I walk home. The bleeding had stopped and the blood had now dried on my face, on my chin, my neck, my hands and my sore knees. My dress has a few holes in it and stains of dirt and mud. As I walk down the streets, nobody seems to take notice of me. It almost seems like the blood on my face makes me suddenly unappealing and something to be shunned. 

By the time I reach home, the fires are all burning and the house smells of my mother’s special apple pie. A faint, exhausted smile crosses my lips as I enter and take off my coat, to hang it beside the few others. 

“Nesta, is that you?” I hear my mother’s voice from the dining room and I hear the way the cutlery and plates ring when she sets something on the wooden table. 

“Yes, mother!” I reply with a dry and rough voice. 

Before I made my way through the house and meet my mother, heavy footsteps descend the stairs, coming down to greet me. My father pauses as soon as he lays eyes on me, his eyes narrowing slowly while he takes in the crusted blood. I pause, my heart steady as I face him with a rather determined face, ready to bite if he was going to lash out at me. But he says nothing and a strange haunting silence that mixes with tension wraps around the two of us. 

“Come help me get the dinner table ready, child!” My mother huffs as she does not hear me approach and she comes to me instead, an apron in her hand on which she wipes her wet, clean hands. The woman suddenly stops in the doorframe, her eyes widening and a hand going up to cover her mouth as she lets out a loud squeal of surprise at the sight of me. 

My eyes move to her and I feel my chest tighten at the way she looks at me. She does not question me. She does not ask what happened, because she knows better than any other woman what power a man has over the one he is promised. We had seen it before, and she was not a stranger to such customs. Or this is what I thought of her, of her past, of her journey with the man I call my father. She swallow hard, the lump in her throat visibly resisting her attempt to push it away, her eyes moving to my father who is still processing the image of me, bloodied, with an already bruising cheek, with blood staining my skin, contrasting with the almost sicklish alabaster hue of it. Under his thick beard, I can see the way his jaw tenses and he seems to be ready to lash out. At me? At my mother? At himself? 

“Come-” My mother’s hands find their way on my arms, with a bit of hesitation, afraid to actually be too harsh with me, but she takes a hold of me. “Let’s get you cleaned up and soothe those -” she whispered, averting her eyes from my father. 

Yet, mine never leave his face. I see him try to make a decision if he is supposed to scold or comfort me and maybe even stop my mother and say that I might have deserved such treatment, and by the way his fists ball at his side, I’m ready to dodge a full fist of anger and resentment. But he does not move. He barely flinches a muscle when my mother leads me away and I follow without a sound. 

As soon as the door of the bathroom closes and we are alone, tears start flowing over my face and all the anger and fear, all the emotion I held back, now spills in big hot tears that start streaming down my face. 

“It’s okay. It’s alright…” My mother tries to hush me as she wet a cloth with warm water and starts wiping my face clean of any remaining blood. 

“How is this alright?! How is this fine?! How is this acceptable!”  My voice grows agitated and I grab the cloth from her hand, and start cleaning myself, with shaking hands and soft sobs escaping me, making my shoulders shake as they turn to soft hiccups.

“He will stop. He will get tired of it-” she speaks, her hand stroking my back slowly, trying to soothe my desperate cry and I can’t help but glare at her through the mirror in front of me. 

“What are you talking about?!” I turn to her swiftly. “Mother, you have to cancel all this!” I hurry to speak, grabbing her hands and giving them a desperate shake, as panic swells in my chest and my breath becomes shallow and agitated. “You can’t allow this to go on! I am not marrying that evil man!” I continue shaking her hands, grabbing her arms for a bit more support as I feel my knees give in to my swelling panic. “You can’t-” my sobs make my words stop in my chest again. “-don’t!” I plead with round eyes and I think that this breaks my mother’s heart right now, because her own soft blue eyes grow teary and she lets out a gentle sad and tired sigh.

I knew she had no power in this matter. But she had to make father understand! I will NOT marry that man! And I will do everything I can to avoid him, his disgusting face, his lustful and psychotic eyes… 

***

After my scrapped knees, palms and split lip are carefully dressed and taken care of, I remain in my room, still sobbing lightly, trying to muffle the loud ones with the pillow I hold in my arms. It was my only comfort right now, because as I was sobbing, I could hear the fight going on downstairs.

"And what will you have me do, Milena?!" My father hisses and I hear something hit the floor, which is most likely his foot stomping .

"What do you mean?! Cancel this whole charade, Ferdinand!" My mother's voice is shaky and I'm sure she has been crying ever since I stormed out of the bathroom. 

"Cancel?! Are you insane, Milena?!" My father seems outraged. "Who will ever wed her?! Who will ever lay their hands on her after all the rumors that have been spread around the village?! How is she supposed to ever find a husband with such a reputation?! I am looking out for her! I am thinking of her greater good!" The man seems very stubborn in his own idea in looking out for me... how foolish.

"She will find someone! I am sure our Holy Mother has a plan for each and every one of us!" 

"Don't give me this horseshit, Milena!" His voice softened and maybe she actually struck a soft cord.

"You know I'm right! There could be someone out there, searching for someone like her right now! And we are giving her away to-" the whole fight is suddenly interrupted when a terribly loud bang on our front door echoes through the house. 

He's here. I don't have to know it. I can feel it. It's like the air has become harder to breathe, It feels like I am choking on my own tongue and the room suddenly feels like a coffin.

Downstairs, my father is the one who answers the door, while my mother scurries away to get the last small things ready for tonight's dinner. 

"Welcome, Father." Ferdinand speaks with a low voice, straining to seem calm while he shakes the other's hand.

As Father Cassimir enters the house, his eyes look around. He takes notice of Nesta's coat and a pleased smirk curls on his lips. She made it home. She came home. Like the obedient woman she was supposed to be. Good. It meant she had no other place to hide. Nowhere to hide meant that she had no safe haven and she would be bound to him. In every possible way. 

"Whatever your wife has cooked, it smells delicious~" the man muses through his lips, which are curled into a fake, soft smile, as he walks with Ferdinand in the dining room.

Food was not the scent he felt in the house. It was blood. It was fear and terror. And he savored each single drop of it, for knowing he had this power over the young woman was more satisfying than anything else he could be offered right now. 

A small chitchat rises and fills the odd silence that seemed to have settled over the room as the two men sat down at the table which was filled with plenty of goods to feed a large family. Milena sat down too when everything was ready and she looked up at Ferdinand with begging eyes. 

"Father-" Ferdinand breathed in bracing himself to whatever he had to say, avoiding the other man's eyes. 

"Where is Nesta? We should not start without her-" Father Cassimir spoke gently, eyeing the stairs with a strange longing look. Then his eyes moved to Milena who wanted nothing but to get the man out of her house right now, as if scolding her for the absence of the young woman. 

"I will go check on her. She was not feeling well, Father." Milena spoke through gritted teeth and bowed her head before scurrying upstairs.

She stopped in front of the wooden door of the girls bedroom and slowly knocked.

"Nesta?" She whispered, her voice cracking once again. "We are waiting for you-" she spoke and pushed the door open. but What she found struck horror and fear in her heart. "FERDINAND! FERDINAND! OH DEAR HEAVENS!" she yelled as she ran away from the room. 

"What ?! What is it?!" Came the worried voice of the man who hurried from his seat, to meet his wife halfway. 

"She's gone!"

"Gone?!"

"She's not in her room! She IS GONE, FERDINAND! GONE! YOU PUSHED OUR DAUGHTER TO-"

"Shut up woman!" the man hisses and his hand raises, grabbing her face and shaking her softly. "We'll find her! she can't have gotten too far!"

Ferdinand seems determined as he rushes to grab his coat and shoes and start his pursuit for his daughter.