Falling for the Enemy

                                                                                            Catherine Quietly I open the back door, hoping that no one inside will hear me returning. Stepping gently down on the hard plank floor; A loud creak echoes from the wood below my feet. Pausing I listen for any movement in the still house. All of my senses have been heightened and are on high alert. Frozen for what feels like an eternity, I stand in the darkness, waiting for some sign of life. After assuring myself that it is safe to move, I silently remove my shoes, hoping that my shoeless feet will make less of a sound on the old wooden floor. Gradually, my eyes start to adjust to my surroundings, allowing me to recognize bits and pieces of my home. Soundlessly I continue tip-toeing farther into my home. The loud thumping of my heart vibrates in my ears; if anyone is indeed still in the house, surely my heartbeat alone will give away my position. Closing my eyes, I quickly send up a prayer hoping that no one will discover me in my father’s home. There is no sign of life, but I know just yesterday my childhood home was full of my family’s enemies; who were cloaked in dark navy blue. Those enemies are the reason my sister and I have been hiding in the nearby forest for the past two days. Frantically, we each took a horse, and a cow into hiding, and I managed to cage up eight chickens to bring with us. We stayed hidden amongst five large boulders that shielded us from all sides. That was two days ago when my sister and I sought refuge in the forest. However, before seeking sanctuary in the forest, my family and I listened to the guns and mortars going off the night before on that chilly day in December, and we all knew that the battle was close to our little town of Goldsboro, South Rotta. As the sky grew darker, we could see flashes of light through the trees. It wasn’t until the morning after the battle that my father caught a glimpse of hundreds of United soldiers traveling across our 750-acre farm, moving toward our home. My father refused to go into hiding with my sister and me. He instead stayed behind. There was no time for saving anything valuable and our tiny family had already discussed what to do and bring if this situation ever occurred. We had run this scenario through our minds again and again. We knew we only had time to worry about our survival and we could only hope that the United did not find our most treasured items that we had previously hidden behind the wooden panels throughout our home.   In my heart, I knew my most precious memories were concealed behind the wall of my father’s plantation home and I could only hope they would remain concealed. After hiding in the woods for two days, my sister and I noticed a lot of commotion and movement at our home. Silently we hoped to ourselves that this meant the United were finally moving on. And now here I am, out on a mission alone to discover if our home is safe to return to.   Mary my 17-year-old sister remained hidden behind the boulders in the woods. Entering the main hall I am reminded of happier times; times of balls and parties but this is a much different time. Suddenly, I am engulfed by a foreign smell. It is a strange smell but it is one I have grown accustomed to in the last few months. It is the smell of rotting meat and flesh. Strewn across the floor are various blood-stained cloths, clothing, and a large heap covered by many blankets are piled beside the fireplace. Moving slowly towards the giant heap, I am aware in the back of my mind of what I am going to find under the covers.  “Please, god do not let this be my father.”  I am scared, anxious, and angry at the same time. I knew it was ridiculous and naïve to leave my father behind but he refused to leave Moher. He insisted that remaining at our plantation was his only choice. He would not leave his home and voluntarily give our home to the United Army. Kneeling next to the heap, I steady myself and take a deep breath. Gaining enough strength I grip the bloodied and dirt-riddled blanket and slowly pull the covers down to reveal the most horrific sight I have ever seen. Under the blankets are various pieces of human bodies. The flesh is raw and looks as if some monster from the pits of hell has torn them from some soul’s body. I can make out various arms and possibly a torso. I also see a large bone protruding from a large chunk of flesh. I can only guess that this was once someone’s leg. The sight and smell become too much for me to handle and I am forced to cover the horrifying sight. Turning from the pile of flesh and meat, my body begins heaving. I cannot find my breath and violently I begin throwing up. I no longer have control over my body, and my body must remove something from inside me to create some type of equilibrium to make room inside my consciousness for the torturous sight I have just stumbled upon. Wiping my mouth with the back of my already filthy hand I slowly stand to my feet and place my quivering hand on my father’s ivory wallpapered wall. The wall helps to balance me until I realize that the walls are no longer the pristine Ivory wallpaper with gold flecks that I remember from my childhood but instead the walls are covered with streaks and splatters of blood that run down the once pure ivory walls.       Terrible things have happened here. It is obvious that the United soldiers have been using my home as a hospital for their sick and wounded. In addition to the torn apart limbs, bloodied cloth, and blood-splattered walls I can see remnants of the United's makeshift cots and some of their leftover surgical tools that must have been forgotten in their haste when the United Army left my home. Sadly, my home wasn’t merely used as only a hospital; the United also took any treasures that were left within my home that we were unable to hide behind the wooden panels. Staring around the dark, bloodied, and empty room I can picture where the once beautiful curtains hung from the sun-filled windows and I can still envision the grand piano that used to be standing in the main hall that my mother played each night. The house and my memories are now bare. The soldiers have taken anything worth any value that we were unable to hide and anything they didn’t want, they destroyed. Even my mother’s portrait has been taken from the wall and is now laying half-burned in the fireplace. I can just barely see one of her blue eyes staring at me from under the ashes as the moonlight shines through the window.       I push myself to continue through the rest of the home, but I find it to be as bloodies and bare as the main hall is. I do not discover any more bodies in the house to which I am relieved. Discovering that I am completely and utterly alone in my home, I soon fall to my knees and begin sobbing. I will allow myself this moment to mourn my lost memories. I will allow myself this time to mourn the fall of my family’s legacy. I will allow just this brief moment when I can be weak and broken.       I can still remember when I last cried like this; it was two years ago before the war started at my mother’s funeral. She was so beautiful and perfect and at that time I wished I had more time with her but now I am relieved that this war never had the chance to touch or tarnish her memory. Sobbing in my filth-ridden home, I am soon overcome with a rush of fear. Where is my father? Quickly standing I begin running from room to room looking for my father who stayed behind when my sister and I ran to the woods. After searching each room in the house once more I am convinced that the house is indeed completely empty and living beings.   “The barn” I quietly whisper through my dry and thirsty lips.   Running out the front door and down the veranda steps, I quickly make my way to the old barn. My mind is racing and thoughts of my father’s blood and body being a part of the hellish scene in the house cross my mind and I quickly push it out of my consciousness. Flinging open the old wooden doors I am greeted by the soft glow of a lantern and soon all my current fears are gone. Beside the lantern sits my father, our house slaves, Samuel and his wife Sarah, who has been serving our family for years, their daughter Susanah, and Susanah’s young son Adam. Running over to my father I embrace him in a desperate and anxiety-filled hug. Tears are flowing down my cheeks and I keep my father consumed in my embrace. I am relieved and a strange peace washes over me.  “I am so happy that you are alright” I whimper through my sobs.   My father rubs my back and tries to comfort me  “Everything is fine, hush now child. Where is your sister?”   “I left her in the forest. I came alone to see if it was safe to return. How did you stay safe?” I ask my father.   “Samuel and his family hid me beneath the floor in the slave quarters. The amount of gratitude I owe Samuel and his family can never be repaid.” Samuel and his caring family kept my father safe. They allowed my father and me to be reunited. I can never repay them. Looking at Samuel and each member of his family I thank them for helping to keep my father safe, words will never express my gratitude.   “Where is everyone else?” I say staring at Samuel.   “The others have gone with the United.  We are the only ones who have stayed.”  I am in shock. How are we going to keep the farm running without the help of the many slaves that my father procured for work? We had owned over 25 slaves that helped to run the daily undertakings around the farm, and now we were down to just four slaves, two of which are over the age of 65, my father, myself, my sister, and a young black child of only 8 and his mother.   “Thank you for staying with us Samuel. I know you could have made another choice but you chose to stay and we will be forever grateful for that.” I say taking Samuel’s hand.   This gesture would be appalling to most white southerners but my father always believed that our black slaves were not to be treated like animals and insisted they were to be treated like the human beings they were. Even if we did treat them like they were our possessions, we still acknowledged that they were undeniably human. My father did not punish or beat his slaves like many of the other slave owners did across the state of South Rotta. My father instead built suitable slave quarters that were comfortable and clean and he provided each slave with their own acre of land to farm for their selves’ s and he kept each slave clothed and fed well. In our hearts, we knew it was wrong to own our slaves but in the south that was the way things were done. The farms and plantations needed manpower to run them and the n*****s were cheap labor. We saw them more as employees but we didn’t pay them with a wage, we paid them with shelter, food, and clothing. “I will go into the woods and gather Miss Mary and the animals” Samuel states as he stands to his feet.  “Mary is around the boulders we used to play in as children.” I tell Samuel knowing that he would know this spot.   Samuel then turns to help his wife, Sarah, to her feet. Sarah is a short and stout woman. The wrinkles next to her eyes are starting to show her age and she has streaks of gray running through her coarse black hair. Her hair is always hidden beneath a cream-colored bandana that she wears on her head. “ Yes, we have a lot that needs to be done,” Sarah says giving me a small smile.   No matter what Samuel and his family have been faced with in this life they have always faced it with grace and pride. My father bought Samuel and Sarah together as a pair over 30 years ago. He said at the time he couldn’t bear tearing a husband and wife apart, even though it happened all the time in the south. Slaves were split up and torn from their families on a regular basis. It was a way of life that slaves needed to get used to. Even slave children were often sold away from their parents and never were to see one another again. My heart would break for the children who would be split from their parents at the slave trades but my father would just explain that we can’t buy every family and that this is the way things were. We may not like the way things are but there is nothing that can be done about it. He always talked about making the best out of a terrible situation. I guess my father made the best out of the situation by vowing that after my father bought Sarah and Samuel he would never buy another slave couple or family again because he didn’t want to deal with the emotions involved with selling or trading his slaves. My father promised both Sarah and Samuel that he would not split them up nor would he sell their children if they were to have any, as long as they would promise they would dedicate their selves to his land and farm. Both Sarah and Samuel happily agreed knowing they would not receive a better offer elsewhere, and since then have gone above and beyond their promise to my father. Both Sarah and Samuel are well educated for slaves. Many slave owners in the south did not bother with educating their slaves, believing that the animals they are didn’t deserve the same education as white people did. However, my father taught both Sarah and Samuel how to read and write, he saw them as a long-term investment and he wanted to get the most out of his investment. Also, Sarah and Samuel had spent so much time with us in the home that they became very well versed. It sometimes was easy to forget that they were black. Sometimes it felt like Samuel and his family were a part of my family. When Samuel returns with Mary and the few animals we were able to hide we break up into two teams. Mary, Samuel, Sarah, and Adam went with my father to the bedrooms to salvage anything that may be salvageable and Susanah and I tackled the United's mess that was left behind. Susanah and I decided that before a new day is born, the house will be rid of them and any signs that the United were ever inside Moher. Susanah is a beautiful thin but strong female. Her skin looks like chocolate silk and her fine black hair is always tied in a bun. She wears a tattered and worn brown dress and has shoes on that have a single hole on the side. She is a hard and fast worker. I know we will meet our goal by morning’s light. As promised before the orange and red rays from the morning sun begin to shine down on my beloved Moher Plantation, the inside of our French white colonial plantation has been purged of all the blood-soaked bandages and clothes left behind from the United. We also disposed of and burned the torn flesh, limbs, and any other filth that was left behind from the United and their makeshift hospital. We accomplished this all before the morning sun shined through Moher’s windows. Susanah and I spent all night scrubbing the United’s repulsive blood from our floors and walls the best we could. The smell of raw flesh wasn’t as heavy and fresh now in the house as it was before but there was still a hint of death in the house. In some places within the house, the blood would not come out of the floor or off of the walls. No matter how hard I or Susanah scrubbed, the blood was relentless.      My home will forever be tarnished with the stains left from the United Army. Standing on the front veranda of Moher, I find it difficult to keep my body upright. I feel lightheaded and dizzy from the work from the night before. How could everything change so quickly? Placing my hand to my head, I am quickly reminded of my bleeding hands and knuckles from scrubbing all night. Pushing my back against one of the seven giant white columns towering in the front of my home, my memories are torn back to the night before. Mary couldn’t stand the smell or the sight of the blood, so much so that she vomited off the edge of the veranda last night. She spent the night in the shelter and protection of my father’s arms. Mary never had the stomach for much. She was always quieter, kinder, and more petite than I was. She was also more beautiful than I was too. She had blue eyes like mine but her eyes were a piercing blue that seemed to stare right through to your very soul. She was thin and her skin was a creamy white from always being shielded from the hot southern sun. She had long chestnut brown hair that fell to the middle of her back just like mine except she usually kept her hair in a tight bun. I often had my hair tied into a loose braid that fell down the center of my back. Mary’s face was covered with small delicate features and she had a tiny pixie-like nose that bent just slightly at the end. She was beautiful. She was too beautiful to be on her hands and knees scrubbing the United Army's blood out of the wood. I on the other hand was taller than my sister and curvier. My features weren’t as slight as Mary’s but we looked similar enough to one another that one could easily tell that we were sisters. Mary was a mere 17 years old now, and I was only three years older than she, but I felt like I had aged a decade or more since the beginning of this war. Staring at the morning sky once more, I assured myself, Mary is too delicate and pure to be touched by this war. I will keep her as clean and unscathed for as long as I possibly can. There is one thing this war will not blemish and that will be my innocent loving sister. Turning to look into the empty shell that was once my childhood home, I find that my memories have been ripped away from me. My childhood home has been raped of what it once was, and I am boiling with anger. The anger only lasts for a few moments until once again the fear creeps in and takes its place.  “How are we going to keep Moher alive?”  I am only a 20-year-old girl, how am I going to run a plantation now that our slaves have been freed? I find my mind feuding with itself. Yes, they deserved to be freed. They deserve a life outside of Moher but what will happen to Moher now that they are gone. I have no idea how I am going to do this alone. How am I going to keep my family alive through this war? Calming myself down, I am reminded that I just have to last long enough until the war ends and Nathan returns. Nathan Buckley is my fiancé. He is a brilliant man, who is the son of one of my father’s oldest friends. Nathan asked my father and me for my hand in marriage just prior to leaving to sign up for the war. He promised he would come back to me a war hero and we would be married upon his return. I often find myself daydreaming about the day Nathan returns to Moher. I can see him walking down the dirt path between the willow trees, with the light green Spanish moss hanging down, he is wearing his gray uniform and sitting tall and full of pride on his black horse, and he is perfect and handsome in every way. I envision myself growing old here at Moher and raising Nathan’s children. “Catherine!” I am pulled from my childish daydreams and back to reality. “Catherine, we need more water” father yells to me out on the veranda. Slowly but steadily I make the journey to the nearby creek because the pump in the house had quit working over a year ago.