entry # 3 : Ages Three & Five[Jane]

[janevolturi]

The world was a much happier place back then. Alec and I were the joyous little ones of the town, and we would often do small tasks such as help water plants. Of course, Alec and I had to work together to even hold the watering can up; it was a cheerful sight though, non-the-less. Back then, I had bright blue eyes and pale blonde hair. I enjoyed wearing dresses and spending time outside. Our lives were simple; easy. I was happy. However, I was still very stubborn, and Alec never left my side. He was my best friend, my other half, my only love. Our parents were bad people despite the fact that they treated us well. Many members of the town thought well of our family only because of us, but they tried to avoid my father if they could. But no one had any choice but to go to him, for he was the only miller in our village. Our mother loved him a lot, but she was mostly with him for his wealth. Father cheated many of his clients out of their grain by using sawdust, but we didn’t know any of this then. Our parents were golden in our eyes, and the village was a pleasant place to live.

[janevolturi]

Father was really sick the day he passed. None of the medically-inclined people in the village could figure out what was wrong with him; but he complained of pain all over. Not too much later, a lot of other fathers in the area passed as well with the same conditions. I was horrified, but my mother was worse. She began to drink and no longer seemed to care for anything; including us. Alec and I hung onto our lives only with each other’s help. I felt as if the world was coming to an end. My own mother tried to throw me out a window a few times, screaming a bunch of senseless garble. It soon became apparent she was not well, but no one dared to come and face her wrath to get us out of that mad house. Several weeks after my father’s death, a rumor flew around within the village that our mother had poisoned and used witchcraft to murder all of the dead men. I never believed them though. Personally, I thought that they needed a cause of death and had decided to blame it all on our mentally unstable mother. She was out of her mind, and it was just a coincidence that she had delivered cakes to all of the death victims. I didn’t want to believe she would kill others. She was our mother, how could I?

While mother was on trial, Alec and I were sent to live with a friend of the family. It was amazing we still had friends, seeing how messed up our family was. But, despite everything, Eva and Daniel Hessler took us in. When our mother was sentenced to burn at the stake, we went to watch. Eva didn’t want us to, but I wanted to see mother, and so did Alec. Slowly, we watched in agony as she burnt to ashes. Her screams were dreadful that night, and even now I can still hear them. This is one of the few memories I’ve kept all of these decades, however much I want to forget. Time has helped heal her absence; and since the transformation I’ve never quite acted the same. I don’t care as much anymore . . . she was a horrible woman. But her screams remind me of how everything fell apart.

A large piece of my soul broke away and shattered that night. I could feel it, and others could see it as I gradually became angrier. Things that used to not even make me mad began to make me furious. Alec was the same, but he was able to hold in his anger. I was always the one to get physically involved. We both lashed out verbally, but it wasn’t the same thing. People slowly grew to hate us and learned to stay away. We just wanted to be alone. Daniel, however, would often try to hurt us. The pain he put on us was maddening, but we were much too small to do anything back. We hated him, and all I had wanted to do was see him suffer. I wanted him to feel our pain, and then die. He didn’t deserve the precious air he used up by living, and it angered me that he was never punished for his abuse to us. Back then, I was helpless and weak. Alec was the only one who ever understood it all; for that he was my hero. He would often endure my anger quietly, his own apparent in his eyes. It was not often that he spoke up, but he didn’t need to. We were both content to letting me do that talking. I felt as if I spoke for the both of us, and if I became in the wrong Alec had always been the first to gently roll me to a halt. He knew everything about me, and we kept no secrets. I was never alone.