Chapter ten – Revelation

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'No, that can't be true,'

Jess collapsed onto the wooden-plank floor of the tree house. Martine didn't look as if she was lying, her eyes looking at him truthfully. 'It is,' Martine said dimly, 'I can't force you to believe, but if you listen to my story of what happened,' She looked at him for a while, then turned to Abele.

She was backed up against the railing, hands on her head. Her eyes were blank, staring at nothingness. Jess jumped up and shook her. Something was definitely wrong. 'Abele,' he screamed, 'Abele, wake up!' She winced and, groaning, passed out on the floor.

'Abele,' Jess screamed, 'what's wrong?!'

'Don't worry, Jess,' Martine said. Jess stared at her, surprised. Did she not care what happened to Abele? And why was she claiming she was Abele? 'That's natural for people with amnesia,' she said, not a single bit panicked, 'it means they've seen or heard something that brought a memory back. It hurts since the memory just suddenly penetrates your mind with no warning.'

'Martine-'

'I told you, I'm not Martine. There is no Martine,' She walked over to where the auburn-haired girl lay in Jess' arms and kneeled down, 'I'm Abele. And this is Leslie.' In a blur of brown, the auburn hair was stripped off to reveal shoulder-length blonde hair beneath it. The auburn hair Jess had known the girl to have has always been just a wig.

'N-no,' Jess choked, shocked at the sudden turn of events, 'If this is Leslie, then who are you? You can't be Abele. She had auburn hair, auburn. This is insane,' Jess pulled Leslie up and sat her up on the bench before turning back to the girl. 'Who are you, really?'

'I'm Abele, and my hair was never auburn, it was just always dirty by the time you got up and I had already worked in the fields. I've always been blonde; it's just that dust sticks to it a lot since I shower before and after work. It's strange your never noticed my hair at night when the dirt was gone,'

'But-'

'And I told you that listening to my part of the story might clear things up,' Abele said, smiling. Jess stared at her disbelievingly for a few moments before sitting down on the bench next to the unconscious Leslie. 'Fine, tell your story,'

Abele smiled.

--

'Abele,' Aunt Ester called, her voice echoing throughout the house, 'Abele!'

'On my way, on my way,'

Into the house came a girl at the age of six with blond hair, stained with dirt, making it look a light shade of brown. She hurried up the stairs and paused in front of a door. Gulping, she knocked on it. 'Come in,' the voice was stern, sounding a bit angry. Abele went in, eyes looking at her feet, closing the door behind her.

'Take a seat,'

Aunt Ester sat stiffly in her seat, hands clasped tightly on top of her desk. Abele couldn't see the expression on her face for the curtains were closed. Only hints of light poured out from under the curtain, helping Abele find her way in the dark to the chair.

'I've heard news about you again, Abele,'

Abele squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. 'Katherine, the daughter of the town's mayor, who visited yesterday, complained to me about you. According to her father, she arrived at the house covered in food scraps. And you know what her explanation was?'

The girl could feel her mistresses' eyes staring straight into hers. Gingerly, she shook her head, forcing herself not to cry. 'She said,' Aunt Ester said sternly, 'that you pushed her into the pig's food through for no reason at all,' She stayed silent for a moment, waiting for Abele to make a sound, but none came, 'Is this true, Abele?'

Abele stayed silent, eyes on the floor. She dared not look at her mistress in the eyes. Biting her lip, she blinked back the tears that were welling up in her eyes. Yes, it was true that she pushed the mayor's daughter into the pig through. But it was because the little witch was kicking the animals around. She dug up the newly planted seeds in the field, too.

'Well, girl? No response?'

'I-it's true,' Abele muttered, 'but-' She flinched as Aunt Ester banged her hands on the table and stood up, flicking on the lamp. She had a look of positive anger as she glared at Abele in front of her who now had tears streaming down her cheeks at this point. She wanted to protest, to prove she didn't do it without a reason, but her voice couldn't come out. When she opened her mouth, only sobs came.

'I will not tolerate this kind of behavior in my household!'

Abele bit her lip, not knowing what was going to come. 'Do you know,' came the angry voice of her mistress, 'how much trouble you caused me? I was almost sued, you stupid little girl, for what you have done. I've given you everything, girl! Everything! I took you out of that orphanage, fed you, and gave you a home here on my farm! This is how you pay me back?'

--

'What happened?'

'She had me drowned,'

Jess stared at her in disbelief. His aunt was a disciplinarian, yes, but she had a heart. She wasn't some kind of deranged person who could just go off and drown a little girl. Abele looked at him, the remains of a smile still on her face.

'But she did. At that very river,' She pointed out to the little parting in the trees at the raging river. Jess could barely make it out through the rain which was still pouring down heavily on them. 'She had the older girls tie my hands and feet up so I couldn't move them. Then they took me to the river. I was dragged to the deeper part, then, I was just dunked underwater. I was losing air, so I squirmed a lot, trying to free my hands, trying to get out of their grasp. They pulled me up for a while, I only got a little bit of air, then dunked me back under.'

'That c-can't be,' Jess stuttered, 'I-I mean, it was just a year after I visited. Aunt Ester wasn't that harsh. She couldn't have changed completely in just a year,'

Abele shrugged, 'But she did. She was watching as the girls did that to me, the intervals getting longer before they pulled me up,'

Jess thought for a moment, remembering how he had seen Martine huddled on the boulder in the middle of the river, afraid to go down. 'Is that why you were scared of the water? It wasn't an act?' Abele nodded, 'I grew up that way, and punishments were always like that,'

'Right,'

'And this takes us to where I met Leslie,'

--

There was a lot of noise coming from down by the riverbank. Girls were crowding around the water's edge, watching as some of the older girls ran into the water and started to slowly pull something out. Fourteen year old Abele ran to the crowd, pushing away some of the girls to get a better view of what was happening.

A girl was pulled out of the water, she was thrashing continuously. Her clothes were muddy, face stained, and hair messed up. The girls backed away as she was lay on the ground, her eyes wide and staring. Abele pushed forward, stopping right in front of the girl.

'Should we take her to the mistress?' said one of the girls behind Abele. 'Yes, I suppose so,' said another. One by one, the girls moved in closer to the stranger lying on the ground, and one by one, they helped each other take her up to the house where the mistress stood waiting in the front door.

'Bring her in,' the mistress said, as the girls stalked up the path.

--

Abele sat in the hayloft, looking out the window. She had finished all her chores and was now taking a break. Eyes looking out the window, she sat there, pen in hand, a page of her diary opened, ready to be written on. But Abele's mind was not there. It was wandering off into another dimension. Thinking…

'I hope this works…,'

Then, all suddenly, her eyes snapped shut and she fell backwards, diary and pen thrown off her, and down to the floor meters away from the hayloft. The girls sitting down there panicked, some screamed, others ran off to get the mistress, and a few of the older ones jumped up hurriedly, one of them catching Abele before she hit the ground.

--

It was dusk.

Outside the door of the room, Abele could her mistress speaking with the doctor. 'She seems to be fine, really,' he said, 'I can't find any reason of why she would have fainted like that,' 'Yes, I know,' Mistress Ester said, 'And she was just there writing in her diary. Oh…I don't know what to do. I mean, it's just dreadful that this has happened,'

Sitting up, Abele found herself in one of the guest rooms in the house. She pushed back the covers and pressed her ear to the door. Listening carefully, she waited until she was sure that the mistress and doctor had gone their way down the creaking staircase.

Turning the lock on the door, she made her way back to the bed. Keeling down, she pulled a pillowcase from underneath it. In the case were a diary and an auburn-colored wig. She pulled these things out and stuffed the pillowcase back under the bed. Yes, everything was going as she had planned earlier.

Over the past few days since the girl from the river arrived, Abele had planned to do something. She was to make the girl, who had amnesia as the doctor said, be her. The mistress had been poring around the girl a lot since she first arrived, treating her as she would treat her own daughter.

Abele knew this was wrong, but it was the only choice she could take. She was sick of the punishments, sick of being treated like a dog by the mistress. And she was going to put a stop to it at this moment.

She walked over to the moonlit window and pushed it open. Climbing out, she made her way carefully over the roof's tiles and over to the window next door. The room where the girl from the river stayed. Pulling the window open with ease, she jumped in and closed the curtains, making sure that there was barely any light in the room.

Then, she woke the girl…

--

'It all went as planned,'

Jess stared at Abele for a while, mouth hanging open. Leslie shuffled a bit, but her eyes did not open. 'So Leslie, all this while, had thought she was you?' Abele nodded.

'I wrote a whole diary of memories for her, making her take up my life from the point I wanted her to start from, when she was pulled out from the river. But instead of telling her she was the one pulled out, I made it seem as if it was me. She couldn't see my face because of the curtain's shadow, so it all went well. She took my place and I took hers. '

'So you left that note? On the book?'

'Yeah, ' Abele looked out into the woods with the rain still streaming on heavily down, 'and you know why I wrote it? It's because I betrayed you, I betrayed everyone. I've never been known to lie, everyone knew they could trust me when it came to telling the truth. But this time, I lied completely.'

All was silent.

'And now, I have to turn myself in,'

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Isa: Cliffie! Sorry it took so long everyone! My sincerest apologies!!! I was really busy with school, so I never had the time to write!! I hope you all forgive me!!