Chapter 1 ~ The Turning Point
I had spent the whole day, from sunrise till right around dusk, in the market place in our families stand. The market place was right in the middle of town and there were people all around me. I was supposed to be working…selling our families goods from the farm. But, instead I was sketching something I did often to pass the time.
I loved the sketch. To see something come to life on the scraps I found. It was exciting to me to watch my hand fly across the paper creating what I saw through my eyes. Much more exciting then to see yet another piece of our families priceless things go for a little bit of nothing. That’s right we also sell our things. We are broke. One of the families in town that has no money hardly at all anymore.
I hadn’t been paying much attention that day or I would have realized that I was being watched all day.
When my sister and I trudged home that afternoon, only selling a few things that day we slowly walked into our house. I snuck a peak into my fathers small side room and saw another man in there with him. A man I didn’t recognize at first. I heard my name and that of course piqued my curiosity, so when I leaned in to listen closer, but I wasn’t sneaky enough. Because the door was opened and I was startled and caught listening by the man I didn’t know.
I stood there as he smirked down at me. My eyes trained on the floor. I could feel the blush creep up on my cheeks. Just about the time his hand came up to cup my cheek. Catching me off guard I steeped back making him smirk even more at me.
“Good day ma’am.” He spoke tilting his head down at me. Then he just walked away looking back at me once still smiling, then turned and walked out the door.
I looked back to the door that my father was now standing in. I knew what he was about to say. I had heard it about ten times before and my answer was the same each time. But he went ahead with what he had to say, knowing my reply before one word came through my lips.
“His name is Peter Contez the second and he has asked…”
I didn’t even let my father finish with what he had to say, I knew what the gentleman wanted. I also knew the Contez family to be very wealthy and high up in the royal family. Peter himself looked upon himself as a prince or something. Even though he was only a duke. I hadn’t seen Peter in a very long time, not since we were both young children.
He was royal blood and in my world that was looked upon as being royal. I wasn’t sure how exactly he was royal blood, it had to do with the queen or something. But really I didn’t care one bit for Peter Contez the second.
“No Father, I will not marry Peter. I don’t care that he’s asked you for my hand in marriage and that you said yes. I don’t care that he is royal. Just because I am not married yet does not mean I will marry the first royal that comes to call for my hand.”
My temper was on boil that day. I remember storming from the room with my father on my heels. Screaming this at him. Peter wasn’t the first to call through and he wouldn’t be the last. That’s what I had thought that day…I had no clue what the day would bring me, if I had I might have made a different decision. Knowing my temper though probably not.
“KATRINA…” he yelled furiously slurring his words, his face as red as the apple I had plucked from the apple tree on the way home that day.
It had been seventeen years since I was born and back in the time I grew up in it was unheard of a female of my age to not be married and have kids already. NOT ME! I didn’t want to marry for money or to be royal. No I wanted love and no one was going to keep me from it. Including my father.
I guess you could say I had high standards, that’s what my father and sister always told me. But I just couldn’t marry someone for the reasons my father wanted me to.
I seen marriage in a different light than everyone in this wretched place. They all including my father, seen it to mean more money and land for my family. Not me! I seen marriage to be a loving and binding contract between two people that were in love.
I didn’t care about the money and land. I wanted things that I knew money couldn’t buy. The sweet kiss from a husband before we both fell asleep in each others arms. The “I love your’s” before he went off to work in the fields or what ever it is he does for our living. That’s what I wanted and I’d be damned if I wasn’t fighting for what it was I wanted.
“Get back here this instant. You do not walk away from me.” My father yelled as he got a hold of my arm and yanked me backwards. “You are going to marry Peter Contez and that is final. That is my last words on the subject do you understand me?”
I struggled to get away from him, I had never seen him so angry before. Releasing his grip on my arm he slung me towards the floor. I crawled my way towards the back door of our family home and outside with him following me, like I was his prey, him glaring down at me the whole way. I slide trying to catch my footing on the soft pebbled ground, but my slippers wouldn’t catch. My hands scrapping across the small rocks, slicing my palms till they were bleeding.
I could see the rage in his eyes as my own filled and flooded over with tears as the fear took over my body. I had not an inkling of what was to come next because if I had I would have prayed for death to find me.
“You don’t want to marry a man that has come to call for your hand. A man that has what this family needs. Then you are no daughter of mine.” he screamed, the echoes of his voice sending chills down my body and sending birds in a near by tree squawking and flying away.
I watched as his arm came up and back down slapping me across the face with such force it sent me back on the ground my head whipping around. My body hitting the ground knocking the air right out of me. Leaving me gasping for air.
I laid there crumpled up crying out in pain as my father continued to kick me screaming at me that I was going to do as he says and that I was a disappointment to him. Words that were just like the slap in the face he had just gave me. They hurt just as much.
“NO DAUGHTER OF MINE WILL REFUSE WHAT I HAVE SET FORTH” kick…. “NO DAUGHTER OF MINE WILL TELL ME NO…” kick….
He stopped after that last kick looking down at me then shrugged all of the sudden moved away from me and the words that came out of his mouth next were staggering to me.
“You are no longer welcome here, you are no longer my daughter….”
One last kick after those words, were like nailing the nails into my coffin. Every kick was like a wound to my soul coupled with those words. He kept kicking me in the stomach over and over and over.
After about the tenth kick, im not really sure if it was ten I had kind of lost count and blacked out of and on but I think it was ten, well I remember closing my eyes, my body going numb and the words that I muttered, is the only thing I really remember.
“I’m not your….daughter.” I muttered, as I did I opened my eyes to look at him once more.
The truth be told I really wasn’t his daughter, he knew it but at the time I had no clue. I found this out years later, that as a newborn baby I was found on their door step and his wife at the time fell in love with me and became my mother. They looked for my biological parents but they were never found. I did however find them, but that’s another part of my story. A part to save for later.
As those words came through my lips he froze where he stood, he looked down into my eyes then he walked away from me. He left me there battered, bruised and bloody. I watched as he walked away from me, then my eyes slowly closed in and the darkness over took me.
When I woke back up, the sky had turned black and rain drops had begun to fall from the sky down onto my skin. Each drop caressing my cheek as it made its final destination sliding down my face.
I could barely move the pain causing me to cry out with each subtle move I made. No one came to help me. No one cared that I was lying there in so much pain or so I thought no one cared. One person knew and one person cared.
That very person watched me from a distance….
