Inheritance

CHAPTER ONE:

"Lizzie, he is here again."

My mother's voice broke through while I was dabbing my sister's head. She was beginning to look worse.

This was the second time this week. His visits were getting more frequent.

"Tell him I'm busy, or sick. Heaven knows how I'm not already where Marta is right now." my voice broke.

"You know I can't do that. He'll come in. You know that." Her voice pleads with me.

I look around me at the other women in the camp. Their faces were dirty and tired.

I nodded.

Standing up, I smoothed my dress and walked outside. I couldn't do any better than this.

It was for the thousandth time that I noticed his eyes, almost ravenous. His face would under normal circumstances be quite handsome, but a disgust morphed his features as he looked around the camp.

"You were looking for me, Captain?" My voice sounded hoarse. There was a flu going around the tent. My throat was sore and my head was warm with fever. I knew that he would be displeased.

His eyes settled on me, looking me over.

"You look sick." He remarked, his accent still so strange to my country-grown ears.

"Most of the women in our tent are." I replied, even if he hadn't asked.

"How is your sister?"

I would have thought that he honestly cared if it weren't for the tone of his voice.

"She's worsening. Her fever is getting worse, and the...the circumstances we find ourselves in, isn't helping. We have no medicine, Captain."

"Don't sound so emotional, La Ponte. We're in this position because your people couldn't just be obedient and stay out of our way."

An anger rose up in me. How dare he?

"Don't you look at me like that." He scoffed, his lip turning into a grimace. "You know just as well as I that the Crown is the only reason I'm still here. Otherwise I would've left this disgusting country ages ago."

The silence between us grew as I withheld what I really wanted to say.

"How can I help you today, Captain?" I asked, making my voice as polite as I could.

"Get behind the tent."

***

I woke up with a start, my body frozen with cold chills. His face still played out against the backdrop of my memory.

He was there still, I knew. Always there.

Looking out the window, I saw that it was already light.

Mother would need help in the kitchen.

It's going to be okay. It's over now.

I doubted it.

There will always be another war, another life taken, another young woman scarred.

Until someone decides to burn the Khaki Empire to the ground.

The thought made me snort. Who would ever do that?

"Morning skattebol." My mother's voice greeted me, her eyes looking as tired as I felt. I knew that it had been a long night for both of us.

"Morning mamma. How did you sleep?"

The smile she threw in my direction seemed so fragile.

"Where's pa?"

"He went out to go see how things were going at the farm. They started to rebuild some of the structure of the house. He says we might be able to move back soon. Some of the workers are helping out. He might try to start farming the crop soon."

I nodded. It was expected he would be back at work after everything that happened.

Gerhard La Ponte was a hard man. He didn't let anything get to him. Not even the death of his daughter.

"Did you want to help me with the bread? I just started with a new batch."

***

When the khaki's came for us we were hiding somewhere in the kitchen under a cabinet. Our ousie, Maria, was clutching onto my hand so tight that I could barely feel it after a while. My mother's breathing sounded laboured. She had been struggling for a while with her health and the stress of my father being away in the War wasn't helping.

It wasn't until we registered the smell of the smoke that we realized we had to leave the house.

"Lizzie, listen to me. You need to take Marta and run, do you hear me? Run. I don't care what happens to me, but you both need to go. You are the older sister. Take care of her." My mother pleaded with me as I wrestled with her to get the cabinet door open.

I nodded.

***

"Hi pa. Ma asked me to bring this to you." I handed him the basket with the bread and fruit my mother had packed for him.

"Thank you." He gruffly answered. His face looked stained with the dust of the day. He smelled like sweat.

"Did you need anything else?"

"No thank you." He answered gruffly again.

"The fields look beautiful." I commented, looking at the grass that was standing taller now that we were gone for so long.

"It looks unkempt." My father replied again, gruffly.

"In no time it will look like home again." I smiled in his direction.

He looked in my direction again, almost as if he wanted to believe what I was saying.

"There's no such thing anymore, Lizzie."

***
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