Inner Kingdom

Content warning: this piece contains themes of domestic violence.

The moon shone through the glazed kitchen window, provoking a glistening shimmer onto the many potted plants that sat on its ledge. The field outside had many a buttercup, gardenia, and petunia. Mrs. Joan Rosewood stole a few glances at them in the cerulean light whenever her eyes were not glued to her sludge of bread. A flurry of buzzards dotted the dark sky above, swirling and diving off in the distance.

‘Honey, could you put those down and come help with the kneading?’ She asked while fanning her blushed face. The child to whom she spoke sat on the other side of the counter, weaving various coloured daisies into a wreath. Like a little twelve-year-old version of her mother, Ellia’s eyes remained intently fixed on her flower crown as she answered.

‘Aw, can I finish this one first?’ Ellia pleaded. Her anxious mother looked at their cat-themed clock on the wall, its pendulum tail swaying back and forth menacingly. It read 6:16pm.

‘Alright,’ her mother said, turning back to her brand-new, sweltering oven. ‘But your father's going to be home soon, and he wouldn't like you bringing all this... nature, inside the house.’

Ellia rolled her eyes but was now aware of how the tips of her fingers were oddly stained green.

‘Yes, mum, thank you, mum,’ she said in a monotonous tone, flinging a hand across her forehead as an army soldier would. Joan did not see this. She had turned away to wash off her hands with a bucket in the corner. The blushing sore that still grazed the outside of her wrist stung in the water just as Ellia knotted the last tie on her flower crown and lifted it up in the air.

‘And with this, I dub thee Queen of Gillikin!’

Her mother couldn’t suppress the smile creeping onto her face. Joan was in awe of how her child could achieve such joy, even amidst the chaos she hid. She kept her back turned to hide it, a slight giggle threatening to escape her mouth. Putting on a stern tone, Joan responded,

‘You read too many of those fairy tales.’

Ellia sat back down stiffly, lips pouting.

For a time, they stayed like this. Mother and daughter, spending the evening together, but not together. The lingering of such solemn, tranquil air provoked a sense of grief for times once had by Mrs. Rosenberg and a longing for more in Ellia, like a baby bird eager to fly. The gardenias outside beckoned to be plucked but Ellia felt she could not have possibly weaved anymore, lest her hands fall off completely.

Joan’s mind wandered as she absent-mindedly flattened, folded and twisted the dough. With vacant eyes, she liked to imagine her inner mind as a forest. Neural pathways as tiny worm tunnels in the dirt, her habits and behaviours as the creeping vines on its surface. One memory, out of all possible memories in her thirty years, persisted as an ancient oak tree steadfast through the many seasons.

Ten years before, in a cinnamon-tinted October autumn, Joan, her fiancé Doug, and his mother Agnes sat around the remains of a turkey at her dinner table. Eight empty VB bottles were gathered on Doug’s left with one shattered. On his right was an unmoving Joan whose stare remained fixed on her plate. As the hanging light above them flickered, Doug’s slurred voice roared in an obnoxious yawn.

‘…and that’s why I think you shouldn’t tell me what to do, even when we’re married!’ His fist slammed weakly on the table.

‘Yes, dear. Now why don’t you take a little nap there?’ Agnes suggested with a consoling smile.

‘Oh, well I think I just might then, won’t I…’

His neck then completely refused to cooperate, and his reddened head, in turn, flopped silently downwards. Agnes took the preceding quiet as an opportunity to shift closer to Joan.

‘Now, dear, there’s something I must tell you before you completely commit to my son,’ she whispered.

‘I’ve never seen him like this before. It’s horrendous,’ Joan stated in a sharp hiss while she nudged her chair further and further away from Doug.

‘I know all too well. He’s just like his father.’ Agnes then grasped at Joan’s forearm.

‘But all you need to do is stand your ground, you hear? They’ll do anything you ask as long as you don’t aggravate them. Like bears those two are. Give them some honey and you won’t get mauled.’

Their faces were so close that Agnes could smell the lingering turkey on her breath, and Joan held back confused, overwhelmed tears.

‘This will be my life, won’t it?’ she said, feeling completely dejected.

Joan shook her head, willing away the memory that had burrowed its way into her mind. The heavy stillness that lathered the air was quickly cut by a sudden opening of the front door. Joan jumped, breaking her out of her daze. Doug’s boots thudded along the wooden floor before being kicked off, the sound of a coat being thrown on a hook and an obnoxious stretch and yawn followed.

‘You girls done with dinner yet?’ Ellia’s father slurred as he stumbled through the hallway and into the kitchen.

‘Yes, Doug. Yours is still on the table. Why were you at the farm for this long?’ Joan said, putting all her effort into exhibiting a non-hostile tone. When he gave a grunt and passed Ellia to get to the dinner table, her nose flared at the starchy beer scent that followed.

Why, on God’s great Earth, does he always have to ruin a nice evening? Ellia thought, glaring with beady eyes.

‘What're you looking at, you little brat?’ Spat her father, whipping back around. Joan sucked in a breath and raised a stern finger.

‘Don't you talk to our daughter like that.’

He stopped for a moment, leaned forward, and narrowed his eyes on Joan’s left hand. 

‘Where's… your ring?’ he seethed.

‘What does that matter now? Have some dinner.’ Joan snapped, swiftly placing her hands behind her back.

There was silence. A deep, thick silence where breath bated and muscles tensed.

Ellia could feel tension creeping its way into her chest. She suddenly realised that her heart had been pounding harder than usual, akin to a deer in the headlights, knowing something terrible was about to occur but too scared to do anything about it. But before she could succumb to her frozen stupor, she shot up from her stool and ran to her bedroom. What would soon take place was much too familiar. She left the flower crown, now seeming lifeless in colour. Her two parents dared not break their predatory death stares for fear that the corked bottle of their bickering would explode.

Ellia weaved through the house’s furniture and swiftly shut her bedroom door. She keeled over in fear of throwing up. Instead, however, a red, raging pulse came up from inside and filled her mind. With every shallow beat of her heart, the intensity rose and filled every nook and cranny of her being.

‘Stop it, stop it, stop it,’ she repeated in a whisper, hands clasped around her ears. Nothing could be heard now except for the quickened gasps of her own breath. Her eyes closed.

Her mother's kitchen. Sunrise. The scent of newly baked bread and butter. Pastries of all types filled Ellia's vision. Small, large, soft, crisp, filled with ricotta, jam, or nothing at all. Pastries of which she'd only read about, only dreamt about. All set out on an infinite banquet table. One rose to her mouth. A croissant. She bit into it as if she had hungered all her life, and inside revealed strawberry and custard, a sweet and divine taste that made her feel whole. By now, her heart had slowed, and her breathing had relaxed, and just when she realised how calm she had been, that vision abruptly ended. The cold, white tiles she thought she felt beneath her feet gave way to a black void. Ellia's mouth opened but she could not scream, only flail her arms in a hopeless grab at the falling croissant, which was now high above her.

Out of one vision and into another, the dream flung her into an infinite body of water. A splash. Bubbles. No air, but no desire to breathe either. Ellia had fallen into a deep blue abyss. The cold water filled her lungs, and the only thing she could do was look up at the dancing sun rays streaming in from above. All her life Ellia had been afraid. This thought had just come to her, an insulting revelation. Afraid of everything new, everything unknown. But now, when she finds her mind in the most bizarre situation, panic had not been considered an option. As she felt the weight that had sunk deep in her chest be taken by the soft ripples and waves, tense fear gave way to serenity.

A circle. Beneath her. Yellow. No, gold. Once gold, now laced with dirt. Small. Glimmering.

These flashes of information pierced Ellia's mind and shoved her out of peacefulness. Out of serenity, and out of the vision. Like being thrown out of a dream and back to reality. Her parents could still be heard bickering outside. She thinks back to that morning, at the break of day, when her mother had insisted they go to their usual spot to feed the local ducks. 

‘Mum's ring. It's in the lake.’ Ellia said to herself, startled but amazed, and staring down at her hands. They were no longer shaking. She turned them into fists, pushed herself off from the bed and turned the doorknob. This marriage was now in the drink, she understood. This was not the life she wanted to live anymore. That much was evident by how frequently her mother’s hands shook and the hovering, dense energy that her father had always brought into the house. Even if she felt she had no control over anything in her life anymore, maybe this one ring, this one glimmer of hope, could make a difference.

So, just like a medieval knight faced with a dragon, she knew what she had to do to bring peace to her kingdom.

Editor: Caitlin Earle

Cover picture artist: Ayira Vij