Naomi~
I could not afford to rouse more suspicion so I used my walking stick to alight from the cart. All the time, the guard did not take his eyes off me. Once I was out, he came closer. "Thandon hmmm?" he asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"Dark skin, bee-stung lips… " he listed off my features as he preferred to describe them. "And blind. "
I said nothing.
He looked at the back of the cart and eyed what I feared was my bag. "Is that bag yours?"
"Which bag?" I asked, sticking to my role.
He approached the bag, reached into the cart and pulled it out.
"What is in it?"
"My things," I replied plainly.
"No, it is my things that are in it." He replied sarcastically. He undid the latch and dipped his hand. I held back the urge to gulp.
He pulled out a vile and then another one. He shook its contents. "What is it?" he asked.
"What?"
"He can't see," Ronald backed me up, pointing out the 'obvious'.
"What are the contents of the bottles?" he asked. "the ones in the bag."
"Oh… they are my medicine."
He put them back in my bag and searched in it a little more.
Hopefully, he would not find the strands of hair and indeed he did not. He threw the bag at me and I barely caught it.
"Your name?" He asked.
"Victor."
"From?"
"Thandon."
*****
I was awakened as the caravan that I was in jolted to a stop. I stretched my exhausted body as best as I could without disturbing other passengers. I looked around to see the rest of the passengers waking up as well.
It was nighttime and we had been on the road for two days already.
"We will continue the journey tomorrow." The rider announced to us.
I pulled out my bag and dug Inside for something to eat. I pulled a little pouch that contained the remainder of my carrots. I got some water and began to chow down.
I was starving but I knew that this would have to do till I got to Farlen. I was just a day away from the end of my journey.
I noticed a little boy eyeing my carrot from beside me. He looked strangely at me before his eyes fell on my carrots again.
Despite myself, I wanted to give him a carrot. I let one fall and immediately he picked it up.
"Samson!." A woman beside him suddenly said. Judging by the resemblance of the two, I inferred that she was his mother. On her lap was a smaller child drooling on a small piece of bread.
I shook my head and coughed. "It is fine."
"He loves carrots a lot, that is why he already ate all the carrots we brought." She continued.
"What should you say?" She asked her son, still munching away.
"Thank you." He bowed a little.
I smiled again. Abel's face crossed my mind. His face before the disaster. He would still be like this. Healthy and happy. He could not even chew food, he had been taking broth for a little over a week. Two of his teeth had fallen already and something told me that he would only lose more in the weeks following. That was why the mission had to be accomplished.
"Here take this," The woman extended a piece of bread to me.
I should have refused but my mouth only watered at the soft-looking beige substance. She did not really give me a chance to refuse and pushed it into my hand. I ate it with a bit of trepidation.
She shared the rest of the bread with her among us. She gave me some lukewarm tea.
The other passengers had left the caravan to lay something on the ground to sleep. She helped me out of the caravan. She laid the children to sleep and soon she slept as well.
I couldn't sleep, I found myself turning on my cloth. I got up and scanned the area. The area was grassland like most of the places we had gone through. I walked further away from camp.
The moon shone brightly above us. A new moon, I thought to myself. The wedding had been set for the next new moon. Tonight Raymond and I would have shared our first night. We would have consummated the marriage. In the weeks that would go by after that, I would have conceived and been carrying his child.
My heart ached at the thought of his betrayal. Tears pooled in my eyes, I was not crying for Abel now, these tears were selfish tears. Foolish tears. I was crying over a horrible man, murderer. I loved Raymond. I cried that he was gone. I had lost him for good. Now I understood the saying 'love is blind'. Love didn't think, it was stubborn and consuming. Even if it hurts your soul. Even if it tore it to shreds.
I let my tears fall and without being able to hold myself back, I began to sob. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder and turned. It was the mother.
"Are you okay?" She asked.
I did not trust my voice not to betray me so I nodded. I could not help but hope that I had not sounded like a little girl when I had been sobbing.
"I am alright." I wiped aggressive at my tears. "I needed…"
"You must have really loved them," She said out of the blue.
"What?"
"You wish you could rip your heart out, to stop it from skipping a beat at the thought of them."
I was speechless.
"I know how it feels," She turned to me so she could take a look at my tear-stained face. "I don't know you but I know your pain as well as I know mine."
She turned to look at her sleeping kids before turning back to look at me.
"You wouldn't have loved if you knew?" She asked. "What they were?"
I nodded.
"Then wipe your tears dear. You only loved the idea of what you thought they were. You loved an element of your delusion. What you loved never existed. If it never existed, why shed your precious tears?"