The scream in the night
The atmosphere at ColdGuard Manor was tense. Servants came and went in the dark corridors, despite the bright lights that flooded the manor, murmuring prayers for Lady ColdGuard, who had been in labor for hours in the delivery room.
Xander Pékon ColdGuard, an imposing but kind-spirited man with the good looks and physical features of a Greek god, paced the great hall like a beast in a cage.
Fear was etched into his face, but his eyes sparkled with hope and anticipation. All he longed for was another child to love, whether it was a boy or a girl.
Finally, after all the waiting and stress that accompanied each childbirth of Quens, his wife and the mother of his first three children, a loud, piercing scream broke the tense, palpable silence of the manor.
The moment he heard it, he stopped dead in his tracks, eyes wide open, it was as if Pekon had found how to breathe again when he heard the child wailing so loudly, it had good vocal chords that one.
Despite all the technology and the various advanced inventions and ways to make childbirth easier for women, Quens always refused their help.
She always said that a woman's ability and essence lay in her courage to give birth naturally, despite the challenges. She was a woman, a real one, and she loved every minute of it.
She chose to embrace the pain of childbirth, knowing that it was a privilege to witness the miracle of life taking form. Each birth was a testament to her strength and femininity, infusing her with a deep, sensual energy that radiated from every pore, from her hair to her fingertips.
This was her fourth child, and she was determined to embrace the journey of childbirth as it unfolded, choosing not to rely on technologies that promised a hundred percent problem-free delivery.
Quens finds great fulfillment in the postpartum period, characterized by the support and attention from her husband, who regards her as a hero.
While the idea and method of natural childbirth may have initially caused some concern, Pekon deeply admires his wife's courage in embracing this tradition, a practice that their ancestors also followed.
If those women could give birth without the aid of modern medicine, she too could do it.The baby had just been born, and it was the most challenging and protracted labor she had ever experienced.
He was a preterm baby, but he was healthy and as large as his brothers.Eager to see the world, he was not going to wait for his due date.
At one point during labor, she feared for her life and deeply regretted not having followed her husband's advice to utilize the available resources, as is typical for many women in similar circumstances.
After successfully delivering three healthy children, it's possible that her body had become somewhat fatigued over time, due to the significant effort required to deliver babies of above-average size and length.
After the birth of her three sons, she experienced a sense of uncertainty about her ability to deliver babies in the same way she had in the past.
However, the cries of her child proved her wrong, and she found herself once again at the peak of her abilities.
Despite the exhaustion, a small, victorious smile graced her face for a brief moment as she thought ahead to the future care and gifts her husband will shower her with. While she has the means to purchase whatever she desires and whenever she desires, the true joy comes from her husband's eagerness to indulge her.
In a dimly lit room with drawn curtains, a soft light glimmered on the face of a woman of remarkable beauty, her appearance unaffected by the usual signs of fatigue, blood loss, and sweat.
The stillness of the night was punctuated by the cries of a newborn following the mother's intense labor, and Lady ColdGuard, looking pale and exhausted, lay on the four-poster bed as servants tended to her.
Barely able to open her eyes, she didn't even have the courage to ask about the child, but she could see that the doctor seemed a little troubled.
Before she could ask what was wrong, or even ask about her child, the door to the delivery room almost flew open as her husband burst into the room.
Pekon, who had been pacing the living room, had rushed upstairs like a madman when he heard the baby's first cry. His heart was pounding like crazy, each birth of his children brought him a joy he couldn't even explain.
He has no special expectations or complications when it comes to having children, and that's why he never reveals the gender of the baby, because it never matters to him if it's a boy or a girl, they're all children.
When he entered the room, he saw the doctor gently holding a small being wrapped in a white blanket. At the mere sight of the child, almost nothing seemed to exist anymore, and he hardly looked at his wife, for whom he was worried by the endless duration of the delivery, which had almost made his heart explode under the weight of anxiety.
The family doctor held the child gently in his arms, but his face betrayed an expression of confusion mixed with fear that even Pékon's watchful eye could not detect, for he had eyes only for the small ball wrapped in silk in the doctor's hands, which was not the case with Quens.
Knowing Quens and her obsession with all things perfect and orderly, the doctor was almost frightened when he saw what he had in front of him.
But no matter how he looked at the child, there was no other way to understand the situation, let alone describe it, so he tried to explain his fears in a small, hesitant, low voice.
"Dear, Lady ColdGuard... There's something you need to know about the child."
Quens, already on guard because of the doctor's almost frightened expression, hastened to ask in a very weak voice, "What do you mean?" She winced at the sudden effort.
But Pekon, still under the spell and buried in the emotions of a newborn child, didn't hear what the doctor said, but asked in an emotional voice. "Is everything alright? Honey? The baby?"
The doctor turned to Pekon, calming his growing fears with a discreet smile, "Congratulations, Xander. Your child is healthy... but there is one peculiarity."
Even before the doctor could explain, Pekon stepped forward and stretched out his arms to hold his child. When he saw the tiny, wrinkled, fragile face, he felt an indescribable warmth. All he could hear was that the child was healthy, unlike his wife.
Smiling tenderly, almost foolishly, Pékon once said, full of emotion, "My child... What a beauty! Whatever you say, Doctor, it's a gift."
But Lady ColdGuard, still panting, watched the scene with a cold eye. Suddenly, she turned her head towards the doctor.
Quens ColdGuard addressed the doctor with a dry voice, she didn't have the luxury of Pekon who took everything lightly, she needed to know what the doctor meant by her child being peculiar.
"A peculiarity, you say? What does that mean?" She almost bumped into the wise woman accompanying the doctor, who was trying to get her to swallow a tonic to regain her strength and replenish her blood. She had lost a lot.
The doctor hesitated, glancing at Pekon to see if he would come to his aid and not have to break the news to Quens alone, who was staring at him as if she would not hesitate to cut off his head if he dared to say the wrong thing.
But Pekon was absorbed in admiring his child, who seemed to be sleeping peacefully in his arms, but in reality was staring at him unblinkingly.
His other children were all born with their eyes closed and remained so for at least two weeks. The penultimate, Tash, took so long to open his eyes that he thought he'd stay that way for the rest of his life, but he was wrong: on the first day of his sixth week, he opened his beautiful dark green eyes, a universe of his own.
God only knows the joy Pekon felt then, it was as if he was reliving the day of his birth when he picked him up from his cradle this morning before going out.
The little boy was awake, his eyes wide open, looking at him as if he were judging him for doubting him.
He still remembers how he laughed and apologized to the baby, who started babbling incomprehensible things as soon as he picked him up, laughing out loud.
Now here he is with his youngest child, staring at him as soon as he's out of his mother's womb, as if he wants to keep his face etched in his memory forever, or as if they have some kind of score to settle.
No sooner had he taken him from the doctor's hands than the little creature opened his eyes, exposing him to a spectacle like no other.
With no one to encourage him to speak, and no guarantee that he would leave the room with his head on his neck, the doctor resigned himself to delivering the news: "Your child..."
He cleared his throat a little to release the pressure and clear his hoarse voice. "Well, how shall I put it, your child is a hermaphrodite. That means he has characteristics of both sexes."
The word seemed to hang in the air, heavy and oppressive. Lady ColdGuard went pale, as if she'd seen a ghost. Suddenly, she had lost what little color she had left after the tumultuous childbirth at the simple words of the doctor. She jerked the sheets back and tried to sit up despite her weakness.
The word echoed through the room like a condemnation from the mouth of her tormentor. Quens ColdGuard, his already tired features frozen, stared at the doctor, stubbornly refusing to understand.
In an icy tone, almost hoarse from the various emotions that suddenly overwhelmed her, Quens shouted with all her strength, "No. It's not possible. It's a curse. You're wrong, Doctor. You must be wrong! My child cannot be what you say," she stubbornly refused to repeat the cursed word as if it could burn her alive.
The doctor, Dr. Patrick Priver, gathered his courage and said gravely. "I'm afraid not, ma'am." He was already there, and he'd already announced the hard part, so it was his duty to remove any doubt and stand by what he'd said.
Lady ColdGuard then turned her gaze to the child, now wrapped in a silk blanket in the arms of his father, who didn't seem to pay too much attention to the question of his child's peculiarity.
He was immersed, almost lost, in the child's deep, disturbing gaze, the child's strange eyes captivating him.
He'd never seen eyes like that before, and strangely enough, he found them so beautiful that they took his breath away. Strange, yes, but beautiful, too beautiful.
While Pekon fell in love with his child, his wife's maternal instincts, stifled by years of perfectionism and need for control, fought against a feeling of shame and rejection.
Quens muttered to herself as if on the verge of madness. "My child... different? No, this cannot be the fate of the ColdGuard."
Pekon could clearly hear her muttering these words, clutching the child to him, he said in a firm tone. "Enough of this! How can you say such a thing? He's our child, darling. Look at him! He's so adorable."
Quens turned her head away, refusing to even look at the child. Her face was a mixture of disgust and despair.
She spat bitterly between clenched teeth, "You're the one who's blind, Xander. This... anomaly will ruin us. ColdGuards aren't supposed to have weird or different or whatever kids. We're perfect. Have you looked at me, have you looked at you and our children, how could we have given birth to this... thing?"
Pekon felt a dull anger rising inside him, but he refused to let it explode. He placed a kiss on the baby's forehead and murmured softly, "You are perfect in my eyes, Kelsey. No matter what your mother says. I'll protect you. Always."
Quens, for her part, turned her head away, closed her eyes tightly, lips parted as if to chase away the nightmare, leaving Pekon to carry the child to a nurse. It was the beginning of an invisible but deep rift between mother and child.
The days following the birth were marked by a growing rift between Pekon and Quens. While Pékon spent hours holding Kelsey, singing her lullabies and surrounding her with unconditional love, Quens withdrew into herself.
She avoided the cradle, pretending to be tired or sick. Every day was filled with false, incoherent excuses, and for a long time, it was detrimental to their relationship.
A pivotal scene occurred one evening when Pekon found his wife sitting alone in the living room with a glass of wine in her hand.
Pekon calmly walked into the large private living room dedicated exclusively to the ColdGuard family members, the walls covered with family and other paintings, each as expensive as the next, and all manner of luxurious objects from the ceiling to the various pieces of furniture and decorative pots, the room exuded wealth and old money.
It was a haven of peace, yet very luxurious, comfortable, and inviting.
"Quens, darling, it's been days since you've held Kelsey. Why?"
"I have nothing to say. She's your child, not mine, and besides, all you have to do is take care of her, as you already do so well." She answered without looking at him.
Pekon's tone and eyes suddenly turned cold as he heard his wife's insane reply, "How can you say that? You're his mother."
Quens suddenly raised her voice like an erupting volcano, "Because every time I look at that child, I see... A mistake. A shame. I've failed, that's how I feel, I'm not like you who are satisfied with little, my child can't be like that. I don't understand why you can't understand something so simple.
Pekon clenched his fists and tried to control his anger. He had this pain in the pit of his stomach as he listened to his wife ramble on, he didn't understand what gave her the right to judge what was good or not and what was normal or not. If Kelsey wasn't good or normal, he wouldn't have had her as a child in the first place.
"A mistake? A shame? Kelsey is our child. She was born with a particularity, yes, but that in no way diminishes her value. You're the one who should be ashamed of talking like that, because I'm so ashamed of you that sometimes I can't even look at myself in the mirror."
Quens stood up abruptly, his face etched with frustration, anger, and most of all, lingering rage. How dare Xander be ashamed of her when he worships this freak of nature, it's all the fault of that damned child. She, Quens, is the pride of all those lucky enough to see her.
Quens raised her head defiantly and announced, regaining her composure: "Then raise her as you wish. But don't ask me to love her. I can't. I won't."
She left the room, leaving Pekon alone with his anger and sadness. He returned to Kelsey, who slept peacefully like an angel in her crib. He leaned over her and whispered softly, "I'm sorry, sweetheart. I promise you'll never have to doubt my love. I'll be here even if your mother can't be."