The Last Candle

A collaborative piece by H1 and thePearl

Little Miss Kitty

It was one of those long-tapered candles that were only brought out on Thanksgiving and Christmas. This day was neither of the two, but Mother lit it: the last candle.

She held onto the base, flickering light illuminating her green eyes so they seemed to glow with emerald embers. Pin-pricks danced along my upper arms as I took in the sight: gleaming eyes back-lit with the flash of lightning, thunder grumbling, wind whipping, trees groaning under the weight of the tempest battering our freshly painted shutters. Mother looked the part of a witch, hands long and elegant on the strings of her violin as she crooned a dark lullaby to us. The music entangled with the clash of thunder, sending children’s eyes ablaze in fearful wonder.

We loved and hated this song.

Her voice was perfectly suited, all hollow and forlorn and ringing with a pain young minds struggle to grasp, but commiserate with nonetheless. Her eyes filled with tears as she sang the second verse, and every time, we wept along with her. We hated going to bed with sadness in our hearts, but we loved to see Mother transformed, an echo of some otherworldly being rising up with the pulse of each note, the timid woman we knew for once buried under the weight of her raw pain.

She changed the words. She changed the melody. The version she crafted is etched upon the very heart of me:

Oh, do you remember?

A long time ago.

How two little babes–their names I don’t know…

Went strolling along

On a bright summer's day…

Got lost in the woods– and I’ve heard people say–

She always paused there, hovering on the last note as if weighing whether or not to sing the next part. But then she always continued, egged on by small voices whispering, “Finish the song, mama.”

The sun, it went down…

And the stars gave no light.

They sobbed and they sighed

And they bitterly cried.

Poor little babies,

They lay down and died.

I always drifted off to sleep during that part. Mother lingered for hours by my bed, stroking my hair, humming, and sobbing. I don’t think I really slept at all that night, every flash of lightning re-illuminating Mother’s haunted eyes in my mind. A part of me was afraid of her from then onward. She held on so tight to me, it made me afraid she would never let go… and I didn’t want her to, not really. I just snuggled in closer to my little brother, curling around his small body to shield him from the touch of Mother’s brief break from reality.

James had always been mine to protect. Mother paid him no mind, sometimes forgetting him in the house when we went to the grocery store, never reminding him to brush his teeth before bed, neglecting to even make him a plate at dinner time. It didn’t bother me. We both knew something wasn’t right with Mother, and if she wasn’t going to look out for my brother Jamie, I would. I always slid food off of my plate to him, helped him put on his shoes, and brushed his teeth with my own toothbrush. Mother wouldn’t buy him one, but I thought maybe she just didn’t realize that three-year-olds needed to brush their teeth, too. Mothers don’t really know everything, after all. But sometimes she was even a little mean. Sometimes she pretended she didn’t see him at all. Those times I was angry with her– those times I resented being the favorite, the one who never got left home alone, the one who got extra stories and songs at bedtime, the only one who ever got a cake-pop at the coffee shop. Don’t worry, I always saved a bite for Jamie.

I know Mother secretly loved Jamie, too, because after I was asleep, I sometimes heard her talking to him. She didn’t say much, but she did whisper his name a lot when she stroked my auburn curls. I liked to imagine she was petting his head, too. The words wove spiderwebs in my mind,

…And when they were dead…

The Robins so Red

Brought strawberry leaves, and over them spread–

And sang them a song the whole day long…

Poor babes in the woods… Poor little babes in the woods.

It wasn’t until the eve of my fifth birthday that the prophecy so carelessly sung in Mother’s broken voice became real. Mother always hid my presents in the back of her closet. I found the little box wrapped in brown paper on my second foray into the fragrant folds of sundresses that made up her wardrobe. Success. My gift, all wrapped up and waiting for greedy little fingers to gently peel back the tape, to unfold, to peek at the label, and then hastily re-tape and stow again, only to be greeted with crafted surprise upon the morrow. I was ever so careful with my opening of the brown paper, though it looked like Mother had had a hard time getting it to stick, it peeled back easily as if it had already been removed before. The paper fell away completely, little bits of it crumbling under my fingers. It was the most curious gift I’d ever seen. Mother had wrapped up Jamie’s shoes in a glass box. The bright orange velcro straps winked at me in the darkness of the closet. There was a picture of Jamie in there, too. He was holding a cake pop, with little bits of chocolate clinging to his face. I felt a pang of jealousy. Was Mother taking him out for cake pops without me? It was then that I heard footsteps approaching, and hastily shoved the box and paper back into its hiding place.

Mother was standing with hands on hips when I poked my head out from behind the dresses. She laughed at the sight of me and scolded (but I could tell she didn’t really mean it), “You silly girl– you won’t be finding it in there this year!”

Just then, a tiny ball of fur darted from behind her legs and hopped up to lick my cheeks. The puppy was a glossy golden color, with kind eyes and a gigantic blue ribbon tied around its neck. I squealed in my delight, puppy kisses showering my cheeks and eyelashes.“We were supposed to wait until the morning, but he just couldn’t stand it any longer. He had to meet you now,” Mother smiled,” I suppose he wanted to spend your special day with you.”

“Oh, Mama– I love it!” I squealed.

“I’m glad,” she whispered, “What will you name him?”

I answered without hesitation. I’d met a beautiful dog named Lola at kindergarten. I knew that should be this puppy’s name. “Lola,” I said.

“Are you sure?” Mother hesitated, “... he is a boy dog.”

“Yes,” I said, “and he is Lola. Lola. Lola. Lola!” I buried my face into the cozy fur of his neck. “Aren’t you?” I whispered. He yipped and licked my nose in agreement. I loved him–and he loved me, too. From that moment on I pledged to myself that Lola and I would be the best of friends–for the rest of forever. Best friends. Besides Jamie, of course. I spent the rest of the evening playing with them in the back yard. Lola wanted to run into the woods that stood to one side of our yard, but Jamie kept shooing him back my way. We ran ourselves ragged jumping and laughing and getting grass stains all over. Pine needles and sticks and tufts of dried grass tangled in our mussed hair, sticking up at odd angles. We looked rather like a family of little scarecrows.

The three of us fell into bed that night smelling of puppy dog and pine trees, contentedness radiating through our bodies to our very bones. It wasn’t until I was drifting off to sleep that I remembered to ask, “Jamie— Why did Mama take your shoes?” But he was already asleep, little toes poking out from under the covers all purply and covered in dirt from running barefoot.

That night, I dreamt of sleeping under a blanket of stars, clutching a bundle of flowers to my chest, tears crusted to my cheeks– but I wasn’t sad anymore– I wasn’t afraid. I was wonderfully warm. I was wonderfully at peace. It was the most beautiful dream I ever dreamt..and in the dream, I wasn’t me: I was Jamie.

In the morning I woke up to slurpy puppy dog tongue on my ear. I couldn’t help but giggle. “Wake up, Jamie!” I shook his little shoulders, “It’s my Birthday!” The sun had barely peeked over the top of the mountains when Jamie, Lola, and I made our way to the backyard. We frolicked the early morning hours away, and Mother brought out a picnic blanket and a plate with a steaming stack of pancakes. There was a bright pink candle in the top of the stack. She lit it and we all sang. I tried to give Jamie one of my pancakes, but Lola scarfed it down before it ever made its way to his grubby fingers. We all laughed. I gave Mother a kiss and she squeezed me in a hug that was a little too tight. I tried to pretend that I didn’t see the tear tracks on her cheeks when she turned away, bustling with the stack of dishes to the back door. Before she went inside she turned,

“Kitty–” she began, seeming to choke a little.

“Yes, Mama?”

“Happy Birthday, baby,” she smiled, “You and Lola have fun out here… but stay close.”

Her last words were lost in a swirl of ribbons as I darted across the yard, testing out the new pair of shoes Mother had given me along with the pancakes. They were pink, with tiny white flowers and glittery golden lightning bolts. The new shoes made me run extra fast. Lola tagged along behind, doing his best to capture the rainbow twirl in his tiny jaws. It was several minutes before I realized Jamie was missing. I stopped my running and Lola barreled into the back of my legs before plopping down to scratch his floppy ears. Jamie was nowhere to be seen. I called for him, but he didn’t answer.

“Lola, where has our brother gone?” I asked.

He just whined a little and went back to scratching. I crept closer to the line trees at the edge of the yard. Mother always said not to go in there, but Jamie was missing… Surely she’d make and exception for this…I slipped my toe over the imaginary line she had drawn in my mind, and I suddenly felt very cold. I stepped back into the yard. I should go get Mother. I should get a grown-up. I turned to go to the back door when suddenly a ball of bright golden fur and blue ribbons whizzed past my ankles and into the waiting woods.

“LOLA!” I screamed and darted after him, grateful for my fast shoes.

When I was a good way into the trees, Jamie popped up beside me, out of breath from running. “No.” He tugged at my braid.

“Ow, Jamie! Stoppit!” It was very unlike him to pull at me.

“No. Pwease. Go back,” he pointed at our house, barely visible beyond the trees. My head snapped back and forth for a brief moment between home and the golden blur quickly retreating deeper into the forest.

I looked at Jamie sternly, placing my hands on his shoulders, “I have to get Lola. You stay here. I will be right back.” I left him standing there, barefoot, with tears running down his cheeks. I heard one last pitiful, “Pwease,” before I darted off.

I didn't find Lola.

The day was turning hazy grey when I stumbled into the little meadow. Wildflowers and strawberries grew in great abundance, flourishing in the shafts of sunlight that shone through the open patch in the trees. These were the last lingering flowers of the summer. Fall had come on in earnest, and the air began to be chilly in the absence of the sun overhead. The ribbons had come out of my hair, and the light blue sundress Mother had put on me this morning was torn and tanned with dirt. I sat down in the flowers and wept. I didn’t know what to do, but Mother had always told me that if I should ever be lost, I was to sit down and wait. So I did. I ate strawberries until my tongue was raw and picked flowers to pass the time. The sky faded from grey to black and the first stars began to wink through. If I wasn’t so frightened, it would be beautiful.

It was as I reached down to pick one last dandelion for my growing bouquet that I saw him there: Jamie. He was sleeping in the strawberry leaves. I shook his shoulders, “Jamie! Wake up. What are you doing here?” He just stared up at me with a sleepy smile.

“Oh, you’re here,” he said softly, reaching up to swipe tears from my cheeks, “Don’t cry anymore. It’s okay. Come here.” He wrapped his little arms around me, and inexplicably, I felt all better– I felt safe. “Take off your shoes, Kitty,” he said, sounding too old for three, “Mama will be wanting them.”

I sat on the grassy ground beside him and removed my new shoes, placing them gently beside the scatter of flowers I’d spent the evening picking. “Will she put my shoes in a glass box, too?” I asked, feeling nothing but curiosity at the thought.

“Yes. She needs them– she needs them to remember you.” He took my hand then and we curled up, eyes trained on the stars above. They grew brighter as the night wore on, and I stopped feeling cold at all, but rather like the warmth of the thousand swirling suns above was shining on me. I smiled at the thought and Jamie spoke, one last time, “Let’s go, sister. It’s time to come home.”

He held my hand as we stepped into starlight.

Below, in the meadow, I saw myself lying there alone, beautiful–even in my dirty dress– with strawberries and flowers all around. The birds began to coo in a way that reminded me very much of Mother, fluttering through the branches in a flurry of wing and song. One by one the birds took turns draping leaves across my pale, lovely body until I had become part of the lonely field. My puppy crept from the shadows and crawled protectively onto my chest. I felt sorry that he couldn’t come home, too.

Mother

My eyes fluttered open, a steady flow of hot tears trickling forth, staining my face and falling like drops of blood to the ground… the ground where the two darling angels most precious to me were snatched away by the hand of God. The old wound which had scarred my heart all those years ago burst open with redoubled pain, aching sorrowfully for the children I had lost here. I retracted my hand from the tree and gazed up into its empty, barren branches. They creaked and swayed in the light breeze, giving voice to the silent moaning of my soul. The wind funneled down from the treetop and then carried skywards along my upturned chin, sending long hair whipping in wild tangles around my distraught face.

I inhaled deeply. The air smelled like bittersweet, poisoned honey. My faint exhalation carried on the winds and extinguished the feeble flame flickering on the small stub of candle held loosely in the fingers of my left hand. The wisps of smoke curled upwards and the ember glow from the wick slowly turned charred and black, finally crumbling into ash. That was the last candle, the last flame. I had refused for all these years, to accept it, clung to the vain hope that I could bring him back, but instead the other– my sweet little daughter– was taken from me as well.

I collapsed to the ground, leaning heavily on all fours. My eyes looked past the tender blades of grass waving gently in the Fall wind, and locked on a painfully familiar glimmer of glittery pink with white flowers peeking from the greenery a few yards beyond. They were shoes.

I uttered an ethereal, heartrending cry and lowered my head. It had been six years today. My limbs gave way and I lay on my side in the brush, the forest of lush green rising up around me like a garden castle. The strawberries grew sweet and ripe in tender clusters on all sides, and a handful of severed and wilted meadow flowers in various shapes and colors lay strewn about every which way. How many did she pick to bring home to me? I would carry them all home and arrange them carefully in her favorite vase placed on her bedside table, just as I had done with Jamie’s last collection. His were dry and crumbling, but these were fresh. Maybe they would make her bedroom smell sweet again, if only for a few days.

Lola hobbled weakly toward me and whined. Then he stumbled and fell beside me in the bramble of red berry leaves. He laid his head against the black case of my grandmother’s violin and turned his pitiful face toward my own. There, I saw my reflection.

I shot to my feet with a start, coursing with new energy. My hands flew to the violin and pressed the guard against the soft skin on the uppermost part of my neck. My fingers independently wove notes like a spider’s web as the bow swept slowly back and forth across the strings. The tune played itself, my heart bleeding the words along with it, those fateful lines which swept my darlings away from me:

Oh, do you remember…a long time ago?...

As the song progressed, my eyes shut themselves and the tears continued streaming down, but a bittersweet smile stole across my face. For in those words unspoken, the silence sang, and I heard their laughter echoing through the trees. I did not need to open my eyes to see them leaping joyfully together across the field, Lola frolicking alongside them. I did not need to open to see them dancing side by side in riotous squeals and merry tumbles. I did not need to open to see those bright, smiling faces, radiant with ecstasy, playing wildly in the wind. I even heard Kitty’s rapturous shout of victory whispering across the breeze. “I found him!” it called faintly, “I found him!”

I listened harder, the golden chaff swirling around, darting behind trees, sounds of laughter echoing where they would be, together forever: my babes in the woods.