Spirit: Part Five.

 Spirit tried to remember the day she had been condemned. She remembered her Mama and Papa, scared and fearful, their faces showing the worry and strain of things Fabienne didn’t understand. She remembered being told that she couldn’t trust the servants anymore, even the ones that had nursed her since she was a baby because things had changed and they might do her harm. She couldn’t understand and her parents didn’t explain it.  She could sense a dark mood in the city when she travelled through it. Once, the poor people had been friendly and treated her brother and her like a prince and princess. Now they had become sullen and looked at her in a way she didn’t like. In truth, it had scared her and she didn’t mind when Papa said they shouldn’t go out any more. Then the rebels arrived at the gates. Papa had called it a siege when she had heard him talking with the other grown- ups. All she knew was that she was hungry and they didn’t seem to have much of anything anymore.  Most of the servants had disappeared so she and Benoir had to do everything for themselves. Mama seemed to be crying all the time and Papa refused to talk, his face became ashen and grey. She woke one day to hear explosions and shouts as the rebels tore down the defensive walls demanding to be let in. She had run to Benoir’s room and found him cowering under his blankets shaking with fear. She had climbed into the bed and folded her arms around him trying to hide the terror she was feeling herself. Several days later Papa told them rebels had been allowed in to the city by the authorities.  Spirit remembered that her father had come to her room, His eyes empty of their usual genial good humour, his face grim. He had sat her down, held her by the shoulders and told her what she must do then made her promise she would carry out her instructions when the time came. He had told her that a fate worse than all her nightmares added together would befall her and Benoir if she didn’t follow his direction. He had frightened her so badly with his threat of dire consequences that she reluctantly agreed. Then, he had slipped a small, brown bottle into her dress pocket and gave her such a fierce embrace she thought she would suffocate.

The men came for them that night. She was woken by deafening banging on the front door as if all the demons from hell were trying to gain entry. She heard the yelling of the crazed mob outside her window and the smash of glass as a large stone came crashing through showering her with splinters. She heard her father shouting though the wooden door telling the mob to go away and threatening to shoot any man who crossed the threshold. Her mother’s high pitched wail of despair cut through the roar of the mob.  She threw the covers back, leapt out of bed and raced to Benoir’s room exactly as Papa had said. She heard the wood splinter as the front door gave way and the angry shouts and cries as the mob poured into the house. Her father’s pistol fired once then his shouts were lost in the pandemonium. She had found Benoir hiding in his cupboard behind the coats, crying silently with tears streaming down his face trying to make himself as small as possible. She climbed into the cupboard with him and closed the door behind as pounding feet came rushing up the stairs. She held him close and pulled out the bottle from the pocket in her nightshirt and, exactly as Papa had said, she made him drink some of the liquid from the bottle. She could hear the shouts and running feet in her room now and some more footsteps thundering up the landing towards their hiding place. She took a long draught of the evil smelling thick brown liquid herself just like Papa said, then she felt Benoir convulse beside her and looked into his shocked, startled face.

The memories of what happened next had faded over the ages but she thought she remembered standing in the corner of the room watching the men pull their still bodies out of cupboard and dump them in the middle of the floor. There were shouts of fire, fire and smoke began to drift along the landing. The rebels fled from the room and down the stairs running for their lives leaving the bodies of brother and sister to burn in the flames. She vaguely remembered wandering the streets of Lyon frightened and confused, then discovering that her parents had not been killed but captured. She attended the mock trial where her parents were accused of all kinds of jumped-up, ridiculous crimes and treasonous activities. They were found guilty and sentenced to death despite there being no evidence put forward by the prosecution. There were so many of the townspeople found guilty of fabricated crime that the rebels took to shooting them as it was quicker than the guillotine. There were two hundred people executed that day including Fabienne’s parents. She had watched them take their place against the wall in front of the firing squad but had turned away at the last moment. She couldn’t watch them die.

She had been appalled and horrified by what happened next to the orphans and dispossessed people. She had seen the most horrendous atrocities carried out by others who should know better. She knew in her heart of hearts that her father had been right, that she and her brother would be better off dead than suffer their fates at the hands of these monsters. But she hadn’t died, not completely. Instead she was doomed to wander the earth carrying an almost unbearable burden of grief, sorrow and loneliness.  Better that she had lived and suffered a life of poverty, fear and injustice, at least there would have been an end to it. She didn’t know why she hadn’t passed over to where ever it was you were supposed to go. She suspected it was because her father’s plan had unwittingly made her a murderer. Perhaps there is no place for murderers in heaven. Sometimes she became violently angry at her father for his stupid plan and condemning her to this existence. Sometimes she became angry at herself for being brave enough to carry out her father’s wishes.  Occasionally she raged into the empty air and other times she wept into, neither made any difference.

                                         Part Six next week.