A Bleak Winter:
The winter of my sixth year following my brother's death was a tragic one at best. The winter itself was cold and bitter. The wind, a biting phantom, howled and shrieked around our small, drafty cottage. It snaked through the cracks in the wooden shutters and under the ill-fitting door, a relentless chill that seeped into our bones and settled there, a permanent ache.
Without Ellis, there were fewer mouths to feed, so Mother was generous with each meager helping. The salted pork and dried roots, stored carefully in the root cellar since harvest, were portioned out with a heavy hand. She doled out far more than we usually got, but the surplus felt less like a gift and more like a constant, bitter reminder of the space where my brother should have been.
Father spent much of his time tending to the sheep alone, a grueling task made worse by the icy wind. The sheep were huddled together in the barn for warmth, but Father would stand outside in the open, his back to the house. I would often see him standing at the great oak tree where Ellis lay, his silhouette a stoic, lonely figure against the bleak landscape. He'd swig from a bottle of cheap wine, a constant companion these days, and shed silent, solitary tears of a man broken by grief.
Edmund, now thirteen, would watch this from a distance, his jaw clenched, his teeth grinding audibly. He would say nothing. He just tended to his chores with a grim purpose, his movements stiff and deliberate. He kept to himself, a world of complex emotions roiling beneath his surface. On the rare occasion our eyes would meet, I saw a flicker of raw accusation-a desperate desire to blame me. But just as quickly, the fire would die, replaced by a look of profound defeat before he would turn away.
My mother was also beside herself with grief. She rarely spoke, her silence a heavy blanket over the house. I would find her staring into the fire, a cooking pot sitting idle on the hook, its contents unstirred. When I tried to approach her, her gaze would pass right through me, as if she were looking at a ghost. More times than I could count, she called me "Ellis" by mistake. Edmund would gently take her hand and say, "Mother, That is Cassian." She would nod slowly, her eyes distant, before returning to her aimless work. These moments, like tiny shards of ice, broke me down little by little during that harsh winter.
My birthday arrived in the middle of winter; I turned seven. But it was not a day for celebration. Mother didn't come out of her room, and Father spent the entire day getting drunk in the sheep barn. Edmund was off tending to the chores Father had neglected. I sat alone at the large wooden table in the main room, the only light coming from the flickering fire. A piece of hardened bread and a small cup of bitter red wine was all I had that year. In previous years, even with the cold, there had at least been warmth. Mother would prepare a feast. Edmund would carve me a small wooden toy. And Ellis-Ellis would take me to a new spot he'd discovered just for us. Mother would even knit me a new garment to celebrate my birth. Now, there was no one but me.
I quietly ate the dry bread and sipped the wine, toasting to another year I had lived through. The wine's bitterness did nothing to take the sour taste of sadness out of my mouth. I wasn't sitting there long before Edmund entered the house. He glanced over at my meager spread, a flash of something unreadable in his eyes, before sitting down in the chair opposite me.
"Cassian…" His voice was strained, heavy with weariness. For a brief moment, I felt a flicker of hope that he would say happy birthday, but a long heavy sigh diminished that hope entirely. "Father blames you for Ellis's death." The words hung in the air like a cloud of frost, and a creeping sense of betrayal began to set in.
"You…told him?" My voice barely a whisper. Edmund's eyes flashed with anger for a moment before he sighed deeply again.
"No. Apparently, Ellis told Father that he took the knight to give to you on your birthday." He spit the words out as if they themselves were bitter in his mouth. "He told Father you didn't know anything about it. He protected you until the very end." Edmund studied me for a long moment, his gaze searching. I wasn't sure what he wanted me to say or do.
"I should've told the truth…" Edmund scuffed at my words, then stood up abruptly and went to his room, leaving me alone once again. I felt my heart drop into my stomach, and a wave of cold anxiety washed over me. I tried to settle myself, but as soon as I began to relax, Father came stumbling through the door, a half empty bottle of wine in his left hand. He was muttering incoherently under his breath before his eyes fixed on me. They were filled with an all-consuming rage and resentment.
He grabbed me by the hair and dragged me outside into the frigid dusk. I wanted to scream, but the noise wouldn't come out. He dragged me to the frozen ground where the vegetable garden grew in the summer and threw me into the hard packed dirt. He snatched his long shepherd's cane from its place against the house and raised it high above his head. The wish of the can cutting through the air was the last sound I heard before it came down hard against my back. I cried out, a small, choked whimper the moment it struck.
"Don't you dare cry out!" Father screamed, his voice echoing in the gloom. "You deserve the same pain your brother had to endure!" He was right. I too should have to suffer the same pain as Ellis did. I bit down on my lower lip until I tasted blood as the cane came down again and again. My father's shouts became an incoherent blur in his drunken rage. When the cane wasn't enough, he threw it aside and used his fists, landing blow after blow against my small body. The cold snow and bitter wind numbed my skin, a temporary relief before the deep, throbbing pain returned with every blow.
I wasn't sure how long it had been, for I had drifted in and out of consciousness. By the time I came to, Father was already back in the house. I slowly rose to my feet, each step a staggering, painful effort. The raw, angry bruises covering my skin were proof of my suffering and guilt. I pushed myself to the front door, but it had been latched shut from the inside. I was locked out, abandoned to the bitter cold on my seventh birthday. My only hope for survival was the barn. I pushed my battered body toward the sheep barn, where the sheep were a huddled mass of warm, living wool. I sank into the hay next to them, the heat from their bodies a small comfort against the terrible cold. My body ached terribly, and my mind was numb with pain.
I was drifting in and out of sleep when I heard the barn door creak open. My body tensed, and a new wave of fear rose in my chest. I feared Father had come back, unsatisfied with the beating and wanting to inflict more. I pressed myself closer to the sheep, hoping to go unnoticed. After a few agonizing minutes, the sheep shifted, and Edmund appeared with a small candle. "Cassian…" his voice was laced with pity and tenderness as he took in my battered body.
He sat down next to me in the hay, and for a few moments, we sat in silence. Finally, Edmund wrapped a rough blanket around me, then put his arm around my shoulders, pulling me into his side. His free hand reached into his tunic and pulled out a small object wrapped in linen. He handed it to me sheepishly before saying, "Happy birthday, Cassian. Sorry I didn't tell you sooner."
I unwrapped the object, my fingers trembling, and was stunned. It was a small wooden figurine of a knight, a re-creation of the very one I had stolen. Edmund had carved it to the best of his ability, the wood still rough in some places, but the detail on the armor was careful and deliberate. I clutched the figurine, and before I could stop them, tears streamed down my bruised cheeks. Edmund held me tenderly as I cried, the sobs wracking my body. The tears wouldn't stop, no matter how much I tried, but Edmund just held me, allowing me to get all my sadness out. I wasn't sure how long we sat there, but I eventually fell asleep, my head against my brother's shoulder.
When I awoke the next morning, I was back in my warm bed, still clutching the knight figurine for dear life.
Edmund's behavior towards me changed after that night. He didn't avoid me, but he didn't try to get closer either. Mother had seen the bruises, but she said nothing. She watched me struggle to walk and move for a few days, but still, not a single word was spoken. Father refused to look at me. If his eyes did linger for too long, a flicker of something that might have been regret would cross his face, but it would always vanish the moment he began drinking again. The beatings continued for the rest of the winter, with Edmund often carrying me to bed from the barn. This is how we lived that cold, bitter winter-shells of ourselves buried in grief and agony.