Gloom. It was all Ichabod knew; he was surrounded by it. The child of only seven years of age stood alone, slumped, shivering, grieving. He absentmindedly clutched the small bundle of wildflowers he had collected for the occasion as one last gift. Ichabod knew she loved them.
Everyone who had attended the funeral service had left him there. They all knew why it had to be done. They all knew why it was necessary. Why they and not he? He could not comprehend why his mother had to be murdered in such a horrific way. Murdered in such unfathomable cruelty. Why? He kept asking himself. Why?
Ichabod let out a long, shaky exhale and his eyes met the plain wooden coffin that had been lowered into the gaping pit. Inside, he knew, she was and will forever be, never to be seen again. Never would she dance with him again. Never would she play with him again. Never would he be able to feel her love and warmth ever again. And he did not understand why.
A low grumble shook the sky and Ichabod tore his gaze from the pit to the metal sky above. As he stared for a bit, he sensed the odor of rain. Such a gloomy day, he thought to himself. So full of misery. Was the entire earth lamenting as he was? It seemed so. Contemplating this, his breaths became shorter and faster. Uneven. He tried with all his might not to cry, he hadn't done so since he had found her.
Recollecting that last thought, one of his hands abandoned the flower stems and found its way to his face. He could not seem to recognize the white linen material that was wrapped tautly around his hand. Carefully, using the fingers from his likewise bandaged right hand, still grasping the flowers his mother loved so dearly, he lifted the bandage to take a look underneath. His palms had not changed. The pits remained, blanketed with dried blood.
Along with the holes in his skin, the pain seemed to linger as well. Not only the piercing agony of the metal spikes gashing into his skin, but the emotional pain also. The pain of having to look straight into his mother's dead eyes while being showered with her blood. The pain of his heart being shattered into a million pieces, unable to ever be reassembled. Ichabod feared those pains would never leave, that they would haunt him until his dying day.
Finally, unable to contain his grief any longer, his tears flooded profusely down his cheeks. They were cold tears. Cold like the air. He tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle his sobs as he lightly tossed the bunch of his mother's favorite flowers down to her. They fell and landed, scattering slightly, onto the wooden box ever so softly. Ichabod brought both empty, bandaged, scarred hands to his face and sobbed into them, completely oblivious to the rustling of leaves in which a pair of feet were causing the arouse of.
Ichabod felt a strong firm hand grip his tiny shoulder. It caused him to jump in surprise and confusion. He turned his head and looked up into the cold gray eyes of his father, two perfect reflections of the sky above them.
"It had to be done," he said to his son in a stony voice. "She brought it about herself. She made the choice to follow Satan. But now she is safe. She will never be tempted by the devil again." His father's eyes fixed intently on Ichabod's as he said: "Her soul is saved."
Ichabod shook his head and wriggled from his father's grasp. He backed away as if frightened of a beastly creature.
"You killed her," he said softly.
"It was my duty. An act of God. You do not understand." His father remained where he was, watching his terrified son back away from him.
"You killed her!" Ichabod screamed. "What is there to understand?"
Ichabod's father stood stone-like where he was, not intending to show any compassion or to comfort his child in any way.
"You know nothing," he replied calmly, yet callously. "It was for the good of everyone."
"Good?" Ichabod sputtered. "What is good about killing?"
Getting no reply, Ichabod charged towards his father in ferocity and frustration. His bantam fists pounded his father's chest but were promptly seized. Ichabod's father squeezed his son's wrists and held them firmly outward until the struggle diminished.
Ichabod, feeling no need to continue, stood limp, giving his father liberty to physically chastise him. However, he was surprised that his father only released him from his grip, backing up a few steps. Ichabod looked up at him, wondering in fear what his next action would be.
"It was an act of God," his father said after a brief moment of silence.
Ichabod gave his father a half sour, half skeptical glare. He knew God had nothing to do with his mother's murder. He knew in his heart that his father was the one to blame for her inconvenient death. He just knew. It was all he knew.
"I hate you!" Ichabod shouted. His father did not move. The hardness of his heart did not absorb the odious words his son had thrown at him.
The child pivoted and sprinted across the cemetery grounds, kicking up leaves along the way, his father's stone figure shrinking in the distance. Streaming sideways across his cheeks were fresh tears of loathing for his father. How he wished he, his wicked father, were dead instead of his innocent mother. The wind stung his damp cheeks as he ran uphill, seeking a place to hide from the world that was so cruel to him.
By that time, it had begun to drizzle as if the sky were crying along with Ichabod. Out of breath from both exhaustion and grief, Ichabod collapsed to his knees at the top of the hill and wept into the ground. How could his father do that? Murder his own wife out of fear that she was following Satan? Ichabod cursed both his father and God.
He looked up at the gray clouds overhead, dropping tiny raindrops onto his face. An act of God. His father was a fool to believe that God intended to have Ichabod's mother murdered. At that moment, Ichabod put up a barrier between his relationships with the Lord. He snuffed Him out as if He were a candle keeping him awake at night and never looked back. The hatred for his father and God would remain until his last day on Earth.
Reaching into his pocket for a handkerchief, his fingers fell upon something else: a round cardboard disk and a string. Pulling the object out by one of the strings, Ichabod sat on the ground and brought it into both hands. It was his mother's toy. The toy she would use to comfort him on stormy nights. The toy she would entertain him with when he was depressed. Their toy. He had intended to toss it into the grave along with the flowers but had forgotten.
"A cardinal on one side, an empty cage, and now…" his mother had said to him when she first displayed the toy to him only a few years before as she twisted the strings, causing the disk to spin. The cardinal appeared to be in the cage and yet when stopped from spinning, it was freed.
Ignoring the now large raindrops pelting his body, he sat on the grass, alone, and twisted the strings of the toy, watching the only thing left of his mother in numb fascination.