Carry On

 

The boy was smiling while raking leaves, but his smile faded as he heard his new mother calling him. Unlike his old mother, this one's soft voice dripped with malice.

"John," she repeated as he approached. When he refused to answer, she slapped him repeatedly, her nails digging into his flesh. He just smiled at her, willing to die before answering to the name John.

She finally relented when there were three deep gashes in his cheek. "What would you rather be called again?"

He told her his name for the fortieth time, and she angrily sighed, "Someone made that name up to torment me."

"It was my mother's choice."

She pinched his other cheek, hard enough to draw blood, and coolly said, "You keep forgetting I am your mother now. That's the only reason I put up with your nonsense."

He wanted to laugh at her, but he couldn't do that without sobbing in pain. Instead, he replied just as coolly, "It's because you can't even remember my name."

For a moment, her hands clawed mercilessly at his throat, but then she stormed away. He went back to raking leaves, imagining his real mother tearing the fake one's heart out across a million miles.

---

That night, the lady commanded, "You must answer to the name 'John'."

The boy muttered, "I won't, not even after you kill me."

"I'm not going to kill you," she giggled innocently. "I just want to teach you proper etiquette."

"Then why did you say you were going to do it earlier? I think my mother taught me just fine."

"You shut your mouth," she hissed, ever more fiercely. "You've been here for a month already, so you should realize your heathen mother is never coming for you. She's a witch and they've probably already burned her at the stake. Why else would they separate you two?"

He felt tears welling up in his eyes, just like every other time the fake mother insulted the real one. But his new mother wasn't done. "You know the food we're eating right now? The meat which you claim has no taste?" She leaned until the tips of their noses were touching. "What if I told you we were eating your mother?"

He poked both her eyes, and when she recoiled in pain, he ran deep into the woods. Hidden between two trees, he prayed, "Please bring me back to my mother," until he fell asleep on the ground.

The hollow between the two trees marked the end of his scent trail, as if someone picked him up and carried him away.

---

The next day, the lady saw her foster son come swaggering up to her house.

"John," she said coolly, "where have you been?"

"Mother." A heavily accented woman's voice came out of his throat. "My name is not John. Do not call me 'John'."

The woman scoffed. "Stop talking like that."

"I cannot stop talking like this, Mother," the boy sweetly sang. "This is the way I am meant to speak, Mother."

"Stop singing!" The lady took a plate and slammed it into his head. The boy only laughed before starting a song with words the lady couldn't understand. She picked him up and shook him, beating him until she was wheezing, but he kept singing sweetly.

She heard a noise and looked up, glaring at her neighbors' frightened faces.

"What?" she snapped. "It's my child, and he needs discipline!"

She looked down and continued to beat the dead dog's corpse as if it were her son.

---

The lady's fingerprints were all over the dog, and its blood was literally on her hands. But worst of all, she could not distinguish her child from the dog's corpse. She was kept in custody until determined sound of mind, at which point she returned to her house and never took another child.

The biological mother's house was deserted. The neighbors said the mother had abandoned her house two days before the dog incident, on a mission to retrieve her son. If they had harmed the lady in any way, this would have led into a search for the "missing uncivilized foster child, stolen by his wicked mother". But because her wildly attacking a dead dog would only put a greater spotlight on the woman's aberrant treatment of the boy, the authorities decided to let this one go.