A Tale Of Shadows (Wattys 2023) - REPLACED BY DIVINE ASCENSION

Chapter 7 - The Princess of Obscuria

Melinda always tried to raise her daughter the best she could, even though it was not easy in the beginning. Ever since it happened, she found it strange that she only had a child at forty-one and therefore had no experience at all. Her daughter may have been sweet with her adorable inarticulate sounds and innocent blue eyes, but she also knew to be pesky, what with her constantly whining and biting stuff and soiling her diapers. She did so even at night as if her mother did not already have enough trouble sleeping. 

These opposing feelings made the situation all the more complicated. She loved her and expected her to act like that because it was how babies were allegedly supposed to act and knew that she would someday become as refined as her, but there were times she wanted to punch her in the face. She obviously felt a pang of guilt for having these thoughts, for punching babies in the face was a rather awful thing to do, and it would only prove how evil she was in her heart. Her evil may have become her identity, but it would not prevent her from being the truest mother she could be.

Luckily, it only lasted for the first six weeks or so. Griselda's behaviour did not change, obviously. However, she became used to it since she had familiarised herself with the pattern. Also, she hired a young and eager nanny, so it took some of the toll off her back. She could only imagine how sad she would feel if she were in Griselda's place, spending her afternoons with some random woman instead of her mother, but, unfortunately, work had to be done. 

Still, they spent a lot of free time together because she liked being a mother, although she liked it less than she had expected to. They read Pride and Prejudice, among other novels of high value; they went on long walks in the park; they bathed in the lake; they baked various lovely pastries together; they admired landscapes, particularly the jovial birds and butterflies that engulfed most of them; they also went to concentration camps to look down on filthy peasants. The latter was the most important.

Griselda admired all these activities, but only the latter influenced her in any meaningful way. She observed impoverished, starving people break their backs working in miserable conditions, carefully watching their every move in fear of any small mistake that might grant them a whipping, but she had soon adopted the school of thought that these people deserved it for the sins they might commit in freedom, ardently expressing her distaste for them to their faces the moment she learned to talk, which was at the age of three. The poor had hoped that the child might have more empathy but soon saw her as nothing more than an extension of her mother, internally returning the hatred she gave them. They knew it to be irrational, but they believed they could not feel any other way in a system such as this.

It was not the end of Griselda's political indoctrination, either. It was on a lovely winter morning that Melinda and Jane were discussing war while sipping tea in their garden, her daughter waiting behind closed glass doors, sorrowfully watching the elegant snowflakes descend onto the dry soil. 

"I am tired of war," Melinda groaned as she leaned back in her chair. "It is so horrible. Men, women and children die by the thousands, and soldiers enter the battlefield as soon as they are able. Death and destruction lay everywhere, giving no one a moment of rest. Anyone who tells you that war is glorious is lying to your face."

"Exactly," Jane said defeatedly. "This is why I admire you, for staying strong even in these wretched conditions solely because of the country that you love so much, but I would never want to be in your place. I am a woman of peace. We must all make sacrifices for the greater good, but all this terror has to end someday."

Melinda smiled weakly. "It will soon, or at least it should. I will keep conquering the rest of the developed nations until peace is secured, all for their own good, and to make peace amongst those that I already rule, I shall arrange a marriage between my daughter and Anthony, the son of George and Hilde Maguire. A brilliant plan, right?"