John Paul Cacioppo

All I Can Offer You Are Complications

2: The Town Protector

1441 A.D.

Anastázia did her best thinking underneath the willow tree, so it’s almost fitting that here, while thinking what to do with Lily and her fixation with the hearth’s fire – was when her next child (and first son) Grigorii, caused her water to break. It’s right then, she’d tell her friends, that she knew what kind of child he’d be. Luckily, it had been midafternoon and people were going about their days because walking the trail back was more difficult than she’d expected and the contractions started to come more quickly than they had the first time.

Her little boy was out of the womb by dinnertime, and he was wailing for his food right alongside the other young boys and girls in town who wanted their food. Anastázia had grown tired by then, she was weaker than after the last birth, and the townspeople worried. She had dreams during this time, as she switched between conscious and unconsciousness. They were scattered and fast and almost like memories.

Her as a child, standing proud, while foreigners painted the town on canvas. Scratched and changed to the water-well with mother when most everyone had gotten sick during a particularly harsh winter. And then marrying Blaz, his big smile when she said she would. The birth of her first child and now her giving birth to this child – she watched it from above, watched herself holding that baby in her arms. It was all so strange. By the time she woke up, days had passed.

Apparently, she’d still fed her baby, Grigorii, during this time, but only with the help of others in town and through a hazy mind. It took weeks for her to stand on her own and months before she would walk the town, unaccompanied by Blaz or the townsfolk.

When she finally returned to her old self, able to delegate the town’s responsibilities, she missed her bleed. She sung her blessings to the kids, once she was sure that the newest child was here to stay, and they danced and laughed together as a family, but that night, lying next to Blaz, she noticed his furrowed brow. Neither one spoke of it, but they knew where he stood.

The birth of this next child, a girl, had left her weaker than with Grigorii. She could no longer walk without a shoulder to lean on or a stick to support her weight. A distinct limp had become synonymous with her steps, and a small heave every five seconds as well. These two characteristics would be ones that her children remembered more clearly than most other things in their lifetimes. She’d even seen Grigorii trying to copy her when he was still young.

These traits would remain with her and be hard to shake, but at some point it all became minor. The daily tasks that were required of her became doable again. And then she did it again. Pregnant with another girl. This would be her last, but this child would not live through the birth. It’s possible that this was why Anastázia didn’t get back to better health again. As time passed and she returned to her place in this town, there would be whispers and the eyes would no longer hold hers with welcoming smiles. Anastázia would never be sure, if she was the cause or if the townspeople were, but soon enough she took a different role in the community. In between baited breaths and careful steps, she’d patrol the town and warn people of dangers. Keeping the community safe and keeping death away had become her primary goal. So it was ironic that the next death would come from within her own home.

Lily, her oldest, had always loved beautiful things. It got to the point where she’d always reach too close to love it, burning the tips of her fingers as a toddler, crushing flowers in her palm when she was four, making babies wail with her too close wide-eyes at six, poking at a birds’ nests once she could climb, forcing the birds to abandon their homes despite the eggs inside. Anastázia would remind her child to keep distance, but with three children and a town to worry over, Anastázia couldn’t possible win this battle every day. Besides, Lily would learn her lesson one day. That’s what Anastázia determined.

Then Lily turned nine, and she grew fond of a local boy – someone Anastázia would hold hatred of for the rest of her life. Lily would visit the boy every day with gifts and smiles, in between the daily ventures. And then one day she didn’t. The boy came looking until the whole town began looking. Anastázia’s father had found her sweet child, fallen off a ledge – head first, clutching flowers just like she had done when she was four. Apparently, they were the boy’s mother’s favorite. Anastázia treated her grief the only way she knew she could, by continuing her walks through the town and doubling her efforts to protect them all.

And then it was her father who died next, getting lost in those caves, so she made sure to watch the people near her even more carefully than before. Grigorii would no longer be able to explore the mountains or play along the tree line. He would work under the watchful eyes of Blaz, and she’d question the both of them whenever they all were home. Her last living daughter, Mislava, would be at her hip, accompanying her wherever she went. This was how she kept them all safe.

The deaths had effected everyone, but Anastázia would hardly notice because that wasn’t what was important. Keeping her loved ones alive was all that mattered. Grigorii would be the most effected, except his newest functions were attributes that Anastázia had considered improvements and proper parenting, instead of the grief that they hid. The young explorer had transformed into a little helper, running around for everybody who was in need, once his work with Blaz was done. Anastázia watched it with their neighbors, taking it on as a point of pride, even when Grigorii desire to help created inconvenience for everyone. For years, he was like this. It had taken on so much of his being that Anastázia nearly forgot about the old ways of her boy, the little explorer, but it came back as things always do.

It wouldn’t happen until Anastázia had woken up one night, many years later, to her home, empty of Grigorii. She’d expected it to be Mislava who’d escaped, trying to meet with Emilio – a Venetian who’d fallen for the young lady in the mountains, so it was with a drop in Anastázia’s heart that she saw the empty space where her son should be and not her daughter.

Had it been her daughter, she’d have understood: marriage was on the corner and young love made you do foolish things. Anastázia had accounted for this, ensuring that Emilio stayed in safe places, convincing him that remaining in this town was the best way to keep Mislava safe. Emilio, being a romantic, accepted all terms and remained in a little hobble that they made, right next to Anastázia and Blaz’s own home. Once the marriage occurred, the two newlyweds could officially take their place in that home together.

But her son, Grigorii, had no such thing. Anastázia shook Blaz awake and ordered him to look for their son, but only after a few minutes of waiting Anastázia decided to search on her own. She searched until the sun rose high and fell back down to earth. The paths that lay ahead of her steps became less and less familiar, but she kept moving and searching until she saw a young man, standing by a tree and staring up at the sky. She called out Grigorii’s name, but the young man didn’t answer. She called again, and when they looked at her, she realized that this was not her son.

This young man stared at her but didn’t move. His clothes were tattered and his body worn, but his face was like that of a child. She wanted to ask him something, ask him if he’d seen her boy, but then voices came from behind her. The townspeople had begun searching not only for Grigorii but for her as well. She saw them by a large stone surrounded by those wretched flowers, and they soon spotted her as well. While they came towards her, she looked back and saw no sign of the young man from before. She forgot about him quickly and asked the people for everything they knew about her son’s whereabouts.

They told her he was alive and that was all that mattered. It was only when she returned home that she learned of the note that her son had left behind, how he had left for Venice with Emilio’s guidance. She’d have killed Emilio had it not been for Mislava. And she’d have cancelled the whole wedding had she not been bound by her own words. Anastázia would grow quiet over those next few days and stop her patrolling, while everyone prepared for Mislava and Emilio’s love. It was as if, in her silence, the whole town went into a rush to fulfill this one thing. Perhaps, they worried that Anastázia would change her mind and decide to kill Emilio after all, if he wasn’t part of her family under the eyes of God.

It’s these few days that would haunt her for the rest of her life, these few days of stopping on her part, because (she determined) they were reason things went the way they did. On the night of the wedding, bandits came while the town danced and Anastázia grumbled. That same young man with the face of a child was the one who led the way, and he was the one who dragged Mislava from Emilio’s arms. He’d be the same one that ordered all the able bodied men be killed right then and there. And he’d be the one that stared at Anastázia and told the men to leave her behind, since she was decrepit and weak.

The rest of the ladies were dragged out and taken to some caves that the children of the town would find weeks later. They’d lead her and the others who’d been spared to it. A gravesite of stones would be placed there. Fires would burn the evidence of what had happened. And nobody would discuss it again. The somewhat-able adults that were left would raise the abandoned children for as long as they could until each and every one disappeared in one manner or another, most of them joining some adventure or escape.

Anastázia would lie on her deathbed thinking of them and of her own children, who’d have passed. She’d wonder if Grigorii had managed to live. In her heart, she knew he would – she had to, after all. He’d always been that kind of child. Whether or not that was true, she smiled. No matter what, she knew she’d see all her children soon.

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