What Charlotte Said; W. Schofield

4.

The past few days were silent, silence that now, looking back on it, silence that she should have taken much more advantage of.
"Charlotte, get up."
her neck felt stiff like ancient wood, but she pulled it up anyway at the thought of someone possibly being in need.

"Ma?"

Tired blue eyes met yellow-green ones in an unbelieving manner. Had she died?

"Lottie, hun, get up." Her face was painted seemingly in a watercolor fashion, colors swirling and mixing with a damp gray-scale background.

"Can we go home?" Charlotte begged, dampness cascading down her cheeks.

Charlotte's mom cupped the blonde's face, "Soon, flower." She heaved her up, but it was like grasping to mist, seen but not felt. Mist always disperses in the presence of warmth.

"Charlotte."

Her mother's face twisted, like that same watercolor paint had been far too saturated with liquid, with a sudden brush stroke, her features dispersed.

"Liv?" She furrowed her brow and lifted her head farther up. She was on the ground, the muddy, bloody ground, looking up at Olivia Mitchell whose words turned to dust in the air. "Where is my mom? I need my mom." She explained.

"Lottie - Please get up," Olivia tugged at her shoulder, the face of the brunette was almost unrecognizable, it was caked with mud and smeared with blood on her cheek.

"Where did my mom go?" Charlotte stood with Olivia, re-gaining her rite of head.

"Charlotte - your mother's been dead for three years." Olivia reminded, placing both hands on Charlotte's shoulders.
For a moment she just stared. Stared at Olivia's dark blue eyes, searching for her mother's green ones within them.

"Right."

"nurse!"

Olivia whipped her head around and the surroundings faded back into place. The medical tent. The germans. The attack.

"Clean up Lottie." Olivia swiped her thumb across Charlotte's cheek and retreated to the direction of the voice.

The atmosphere had died down, but the medical tent was still taking part in a group devastation. She looked down at her hands, feeling the ghost of her mother's palms on her cheeks still. The false weight brought her an odd comfort. Simple tears wet her cheeks before she could even predict them; it was almost like muscle memory. The tears plowed stripes in the mud on her cheeks, making it quite obvious that she had been crying. She used the slight dampness to clean her skin, wiping and rubbing it causing red rashes. Finally gaining her consciousness once again, she thought of the boys who had lost their lives in the trench, the ones who were still stranded out in no man's land, if they could survive out in conditions like that, did that make her any less capable of surviving in current conditions? Stumbling outside of the medical tent, she was met with a distraught atmosphere. Artillery had created devastating scars in the landscape. If the camp wasn't melancholy enough, another layer of fog settled in at the west end. There was a slithering noise far behind her, the sound of someone dragging a body. She elected not to turn her head.

"You hear about the phone lines Lottie?" Madeline appeared at her side, oddly unfazed by the grim atmosphere.

"The phone lines?" Charlotte asked momentarily then shook her head.

"The Germans cut them as a parting gift." Madeline pointed at some discarded wires that lay in tangled heaps outside the trenches.
Charlotte didn't feel like replying. The weight of the world was putting immense pressure on her forehead and she just wanted to get to the next hour - the next day - week.
Until the next letter from Sam.