Chapter 8

Conceived from Love, Born in Hate

Year: 1899

The drought that had held Oakwood Island in its oppressive grasp was still being felt in 1899. Though not as bad as the year before, most were hopeful that the crops would be better this season. Harvest had been thin in the fall and had produced very little for the families that had settled in the area and had built farms for cattle, livestock and vegetable crops. The fishermen from the mainland were having a lot more luck than the island families that were dependent on their crops and livestock. Some had returned to the mainland, where there was work at least in the fisheries and on the fishing boats. Work meant money to be able to buy food from the ones that had a bit extra to go around. Life on the island was not easy, but those who stayed worked hard to make sure they would have enough to survive, at the very least.

Henri Masterson no longer cared for farming. He no longer had the patience to tend to it, to watch things grow. He also did not want to spend all his days and nights on a cold and wet fishing boat, surrounded with loud and mostly drunk fishermen, the saltwater beating his face and patience. Instead, he hunted and trapped for meat. He would cut wood for lumber and firewood when he wasn’t hunting, often trading with neighboring families for goods or services they needed, all while Sparrow cared for the children.

Sparrow Whitefeather spent most of her time helping Henri care for the one year old twins. Henri both loved and hated his children. He wanted to love them with all his heart, like his late wife would have wanted, but he found himself often glaring at them, his heart filled with a hate he could not control. He spent days and weeks in his mind, his thoughts filled with blaming them for his wife’s death, even though she had not died due to giving birth. His wife had bled to death after being cut by Bessie.

Sparrow recognized his conflicted thoughts, and picked up on the ill feelings towards the children. She tried to talk to Henri, to bring some sense to him in regards to his wife’s death and who had caused it. She speculated that Bessie wanted the child and cared not if the mother had lived. So she had cut her, making the baby come faster in order to take it and run before Henri returned with the water. All that Bessie had wanted was to get to her sacrificial site and kill the baby as planned, to offer it to whatever devil she had made a deal with.

Sparrow had told Henri that Bessie had been crazy, but she wondered to herself if perhaps there was more to it. Since Sparrow stopped the murder of an innocent child in what looked like some sort of ritual, strange things had started happening. Things Sparrow couldn’t understand nor explain with logic, which lead her to doubt her own sanity at times. This was often due to fatigue though, she told herself. She knew several mothers that often became but shadows of the bright young women they had once been as soon as they delivered a baby. And even though she had not carried them in her body, and given birth to them, taking care of two babies surely had taken its toll on Sparrow, and she concluded that perhaps that was all it was.

As tired as she may have become over the last twelve full moons, she saw how Henri looked at the children sometimes and didn’t want to leave them in his care. She feared he would hurt them if she did. Now pregnant herself, she felt an even greater need to protect the children. Her husband didn’t understand when she told him that she had to protect the twins. He couldn’t grasp how a father could wish harm on his own children. Sparrow hadn’t yet told her husband that she herself was now with child. She couldn’t as then she knew with certainty he wouldn’t let her care for the Masterson twins. She had to come up with a plan and soon. She loved the baby twin boy and girl too much to let any harm come their way.

Sparrow Whitefeather had taken to calling the little twin girl Nakuset, which meant Sunshine. She called her this because of the brightness of her spirit. She seemed to glow with life and so Nakuset/Sunshine suited her fine. As she bathed Nakuset, her twin brother lay naked on the bed, kicking and cooing as he finished drying from his bath. She called him Gaqtugwawig, or Gaqtu for short, which meant Thunder. This name she chose for the way he screamed and carried on when he was upset. She had decided to name them as Henri had never named his children. He shunned the subject every time Sparrow brought it up by leaving the cabin and disappearing for hours on end. When Sparrow first tried to name the girl Martha after their late mother, Henri grew so angry that he threw a chair across the kitchen and it broke several dishes on the countertop. His outburst had frightened her and the babies. Moments later, he had left them alone in the cabin, not returning for several days. Eventually, she decided to give the baby girl the name that meant Sunshine instead of naming her after Martha.

The one-year-old twins, as much as she loved and cared for them as best she could, had become her burden. She couldn’t leave them with Henri for long anymore. In the beginning, she could leave them for a few days and he would look after them, though he did so with no love, no care in his heart. The last time she had done so, she had found them alone in the cabin when she returned. Henri had gone hunting and left the children, hungry and cold. She decided from that day forward that he could not be trusted with them for much more than a few hours at a time. She made it a point from that day to care for the babies daily.

Sparrow frowned, lost in her thoughts about Henri’s lack of care, as she placed the little girl on the bed, next to her twin brother. She turned her attention to the potbellied wood stove that warmed the cabin so the children would be comfortable. She placed a new log of wood to the fire, and added more water from a wood pail to a large pot on the stove. Turning her attention to the cooing children, Sparrow smiled. Placing a hand on her small baby bump, she felt the love growing from inside her as much as she loved the twins she had felt forced to care for at first. She wanted to take them with her when she left, unsure when Henri would return from hunting, but her husband wouldn’t understand. She feared for the babies but was unsure how to save them from the life they had been born into.

She wiped them a bit with a cloth, drying off the bathwater, and dressed them in their light cotton sleeping gowns. She watched them as they both yawned and began to slip off into slumber; the warmth of the stove helping them to sleep. Thunder had rumbled prior to his bath, screaming and crying, while at the same time, Sunshine had lay quietly sucking her thumb as she often did during his rants. It was as if her brother’s cries soothed her. The twins slipped off to sleep in unison.

Sparrow heard what she thought was her water boiling on the old wood stove but when she turned her attention to it, she saw the water was still, without a hint of steam yet, let alone boiling. The noise repeated itself, and seemed to come from outside. It had been a beautiful day when last she looked, but now she heard what had to be strong winds battering the cabin. Had the winds grown stronger? Is there some sort of storm brewing, thought Sparrow as she went to the door to see.

Opening the door, she spotted dark clouds in the sky blocking out the sunshine she had seen not long ago. In the far off distance, she saw a dark figure lurking in the shadows near the brush that surrounded the cabin’s yard. She turned to check on the children and saw them peacefully sleeping on the bed. When Sparrow turned her attention outside again, the figure was no longer in the brush but standing twenty feet from the cabin. It stood in a wide pentagram made of flames that were as high as the figure’s waist. The flickering flames cast much light but somehow, the figure remained draped in shadows. It had to be Bessie thought Sparrow. But how was she doing this? It had to be dark magic of some sort. The figure raised its arms, palms up and the flames grew taller.

“What do you want from us? Leave!” Sparrow cried out, tears welling up in her eyes. She couldn’t believe her eyes. She had been so sure Bessie had died that day just over a year ago.

“Go away with your dark magic! We want none of it here! You are not welcome!”

Sparrow looked back at the children who still seemed to sleep peacefully. Sunshine sucked her thumb while Thunder lay sleeping next to her.

Sparrow picked up one of Henri’s smaller axes that sat near the door and charged at the figure in the flaming pentagram at full speed. She raised the axe overhead as she ran, hoping to scare off the figure, but it stood there, arms stretched overhead, flames growing high. Reaching the flames, she ran through them and brought the axe down on the figure. Down went the axe, through thin air, the figure gone, the flames and the pentagram also gone. The axe hit the dirt with a thud and sent a cloud of dust around the sharp slit mark it left in the ground. Picking it up in a swift movement, she clutched it as if waiting to be attacked. She looked around perplexed at what had just happened. As her breathing slowed, she felt confusion and fear set in. Had she imagined her? The dark figure whom she assumed was Bessie? Was it her spirit? Confused, she stood in front of the cabin a few moments until the sound of crackling coming from behind her made fear swell up inside her. Sparrow spun around to see the entire cabin engulfed in flames.

“Nooooooo…” she screamed, her legs feeling weak as she dropped to her knees, the axe thudding onto the ground before her. “No!”

“Sparrow!” she heard someone shout. “Sparrow… what’s wrong?”

Sparrow buried her face in her hands and wept hard. She felt strong hands grasp her shoulders and shake her. Sparrow looked up at the bearded man who had driven the cart on the night the twins were born.

“Sparrow, is it the children?” the bearded man demanded. “Tell me!”

Sparrow looked at the bearded man in stunned silence as she saw the blue sky overhead.

“Fire…” she began, but stopped. Glancing past the man she saw the cabin, perfectly fine and not a sign of any fire damage.

“Have I gone mad?” Sparrow asked the large, bearded man, tears streaming down her cheeks.

“What?” the bearded man asked. “Sparrow, where are the twins?”

Sparrow, still kneeling on the ground, pointed towards the cabin.

The large bearded man turned and ran to the open door expecting to find something horrible. Sparrow had been shrieking after all. Instead he found the twins, lying on their bed; the boy fast asleep but the girl sucking her thumb. She popped it out of her mouth and began cooing and smiling up at the man as he smiled back at her.

Henri sat at the wooden table in his home with a near empty plate before him. He watched with disdain as the twins played in a makeshift play area Sparrow had fashioned using boards in a corner of the cabin. The boy had taken to crawling early and now was walking with unsteady steps at thirteen months. The girl seemed content to sit, often just staring off into the distance when she wasn’t her usually bright cheerful self. Sparrow had gone to fetch water, wash clothes and clean the cast iron skillet. She had insisted that Henri keep an eye on his children. Henri could tell that she had been hesitant to do so. He had been trying to keep his anger under control over the past week, or at the very least hidden from Sparrow. He did not want her to think that he was not able to father his own children. When she insisted that he look after them, he knew he had succeeded. Otherwise, she would never have left him with them alone.

She had instructed Henri to simply keep an eye on the twins while she did her chores. She wouldn’t be too long. She explained to Henri how Thunder had gotten out of the makeshift pen a few times already, and Sparrow was afraid he’d burn himself on the stove if he got out unattended. Henri had grumbled his agreement to tend to them while Sparrow did chores. As he ate his meal, he watched them with disdain. Henri wasn’t done blaming the twins for their mother’s death. He couldn’t stand to look at them. He hated them still.

Henri ate the last of his potato, as he poked his knife at the last morsel of boiled rabbit on his plate. He heard the twins cooing but couldn’t bear to look at them, instead focusing on the meat before him. He ate the last of the rabbit while wishing his wife still lived. He missed her greatly. She had always made him happy, even in difficult times. But he had lost her, and it was their fault.

Henri heard a rustling noise coming from the pen area, but he couldn’t bring himself to look. He hated those children. He felt as if his blood boiled, his face flushed, and his stomach knotted as he listened to the twins coo. He didn’t think he had the patience to watch them grow after they took his Martha. He listened to them shuffle about but refused to look. He refused that is, until he heard one the children speak what sounded like a word.

“Mama,” he heard the tiny voice say as a tear ran down his cheek as he thought of his Martha. She had wanted children, many children. He knew because she had told him often enough. Now her children would grow up never knowing who their mother was. He wiped away his tears as he turned to see the children but saw they were no longer in the pen. He heard a squeal of happiness coming from one of the twins. On the bed was a familiar looking fabric. Both twins sat on the bed, on his late wife’s blood-covered dress. The girl child smiled and laughed while the boy spoke.

“Mmmm… mamma!”

Sitting atop the blood smeared dress, the twins toyed with the fabric, getting blood on their hands as they smiled. They smiled and laughed. The boy child stuffed a bloody hand in his mouth, took it out and spoke.

“Momma!” he said with a scowl as his twin sister laughed.

Rage fueled Henri as he rose from the table, sending the chair he sat on tumbling backwards. It clattered and struck the wall behind him. He walked to the door of the cabin with the intention of going outside but stopped at the door.

“MOMMA!!” he heard coming from behind him.

Looking down to his left, Henri picked up his heaviest axe, marched to the bed and without hesitation began hacking at the twins. Blood spattered his face as he brought the axe down on the small bodies again and again, destroying the bed as well in the process. The maddening rage that had fueled the onslaught subsided as his head spun and he staggered, taking a step backwards. He looked at the carnage before him; the small bodies completely hacked to pieces and gore splatter covering the dress, the bed and walls. Bewildered, Henri dropped the axe and looked at his trembling blood covered hands. What had he done? How could he explain this to Sparrow? He remembered his dead wife and her love of children. He had killed their children, her babies. Looking back up at the bloodied, decimated bodies of the two infant children, he knew what he had to do.

Sparrow saw the cabin door was open as she approached and that worried her. Has Henri left the twins alone again, she wondered? She carried a skillet in one hand and a bucket containing freshly washed garments in the other. She wanted to run but was afraid of what she might find when she got there. Henri had seemed better recently, less angry. The sight of the open cabin door worried her. She set the bucket down before stepping inside but kept hold of the cast iron skillet. She stopped and stood in the doorway. The skillet fell from her hand, hitting the wooden floor with a clang. Sparrow’s scream echoed in every corner of the small cabin.

Henri’s lifeless body dangled from a rope tied to a rafter, a chair toppled over at his feet. Sparrow hesitated, but then stepped into the cabin, her thoughts returning to the babies. When she saw the wood bed and straw mattress in the corner had been chopped to pieces, most likely with the axe that lay on the floor next to it, she gasped. Just as soon as panic began to well up in her abdomen, it was squashed when she saw Wallace, the large bearded man who had driven the cart to fetch her on the night the twins were born. Standing next to the children’s pen, he held Thunder in his arms, his face tear-stained as the little boy grabbed at the big man’s beard. Sunshine stood by the edge of the pen holding herself up, smiling at the large bearded man.

The children were fine after all, but Henri was dead and by his own hand. As much as she loved the children she had cared for, she knew this was the end of her journey with them. Turning back towards the cabin’s door, she ran out, ignoring the tears that ran down her face. She knew she had to protect her own baby that grew bigger every day in her belly. She could not let what she now believed was a curse on these babies affect her own unborn child. Sparrow wondered if something was wrong with the children. Were they possessed by an evil that she could not see? They had been exposed to Bessie at birth and Sunshine had been used in a ritual that Bessie had tried to do on the night the girl twin was born. She had no clear idea of what this curse was, but she knew this was something she could never tell anyone if she was to be rid of the burden of caring for someone else’s children while expecting her own. With a man like Wallace and his family to care for them, they would be better off, so Sparrow ran.

Wallace and his eldest son had already constructed a makeshift bed for the twins. They would sleep in the same bedroom as Wallace and his wife Hester. The Masterson twins needed caring for and there was no one else to do it. That decision would not come without their share of worries.

Wallace had explained to his wife that Sparrow had run away after seeing the lifeless body of Henri dangling from a rope. She hadn’t said a word to Wallace when she saw he had the children in his care. She had just bolted outside and had been seen by Hester as she ran away from the cabin where Henri had taken his life.

Hester and Wallace discussed at great lengths the situation before they agreed to take in the children and care for them, as there was nobody else for miles, and even if they did go look for help for the twins, they knew they would be likely locked away in an orphanage somewhere. This was not something the loving couple could let happen.

Later that night in their home, in the warm glow of lanterns, their own children already sleeping away the tiredness of chores, the couple conversed.

“I’m not sure I can raise these children with names like Thunder and Sunshine,” Hester said. “I know Sparrow said Henri never wanted to name the children, but Wallace, if they’re to be ours now,” she said, trailing off as she raised the little smiling girl into the air. Hester smiled wide at her, making the child giddy with laughter.

“Jenkins children need names,” Wallace said to the boy he cradled on his lap. “We will call you Liam.” He had heard the name on the wharf. One of the boat captains had been named Liam and he thought it suited the boy.

“Fannie,” Hester added with a smile. “We will call you Fannie,” she said to the little girl as she dressed her in warm clothes that used to belong to their own daughter when she had been little.

“Welcome to the Jenkins family,” Hester said. She shed a single tear of happiness. Hester had wanted more children in recent years, but it hadn’t looked like it would happen. With two growing children of their own, she had not been able to bear any more. The twins had to be a gift from God, she thought. Finally, her prayers had been answered. She would think that way for a while still.

It would take some time for the evil embedded in the little girl to show itself again. She would love the children fiercely even when it finally did.