Words I
Kily
Chapter One
The room was dark and gave no hint of the small bodies snuggled deep beneath the covers of the old iron bed. Outside the wind blew dust and tumble weeds freely across the barren ground and whistled its way up the canyons and around house-sized boulders in the deep of the night. An ancient tree stood guard just outside the bedroom its small occupants shared and swayed back and forth in a rhythmic dance with the wind. The big light father had bolted to the top of the old barn played tag with the tree and periodically managed to shoot a beam of light straight through a tear in the old yellowed window shade. To Kily it seemed as if the wind was always blowing in this place and the flickering light often made strange shapes and patterns on the wall of the small room. In her seven year old mind those patterns and shapes sometimes made scary images that made her heart race and her palms sweat until sleep would finally win out over her fear. Ultimately her sleepy eyes would flutter closed and Kily would finally find relief in her dreams.
The bedroom door opened and the bare bulb suspended from the ceiling blasted the room with sudden steady brilliance as mother flicked the wall switch. Time to get up girls, mother said. Kily’s eyes snapped opened and she quickly closed them again. Faint sounds told Kily that mother was moving about the room, but she snuggled down deeper into the blankets. Mother’s footsteps receded into the hall and Kily lay very still trying to re-enter the world of dreams. She liked the dream she had been having this morning. She had been running through lush green grass with a cool breeze blowing through her hair as she chased a frolicking puppy. The door to the bedroom opened again and Kily smelled the rich aroma of coffee perking on the old stove in mother’s kitchen. The nutty smell of oatmeal and toast drifted into the room and she heard her mother say, " come on girls, it’s time to get up", then the footsteps receded once more as mother headed back to the kitchen. The blankets next to Kily rustled and the china doll face of her older sister peeked out from under the blankets. Selene was one year older than Kily and the two stared at each other for a minute before Selene slid out of bed and began to dress. Kily watched Selene for a few minutes before she too slid out from under the warm blankets and found her own work clothes. The two yawned and sleepily dressed, made their bed, then headed for the bathroom to wash their faces and hands before going into the kitchen.
The light in the kitchen was bright and Kily squinted as she slid onto the wooden chair. Her step father sat in his usual spot at the head of the table sipping coffee while he silently stared out the window at the dark morning. An empty plate in front of him told Kily that he had already eaten and was just waiting for the sun to rise over the barren hills that surrounded their little ranch. Once the sun peeked up over the far hill Kily knew he would speak the words that would give them their orders for the day. Each morning was the same. Father sat silently at the head of the table staring out the window until the two young girls finished their breakfast. The only sounds in the tiny kitchen were those of mother busily making breakfast and the sounds of dishes and utensils as they gently clinked under her busy hands. Kily rubbed her eyes and picked up her spoon as mother put the bowl of oatmeal down on the table in front of her. Selene picked up a piece of toast and daintily took a bite out of the middle. They sat in silence while they ate and Kily wished that she could be back in bed snuggled under the warm blankets continuing her dream with the puppy.
As they ate, the darkness outside began to fade and Kily could now make out the shape of the old barn and corral fences just past the backyard fence. The sun continued its slow rise bringing with it the dawn of another day, and Kily moaned inwardly wishing she could make the sun stand still. The continued rising of the sun brought her seconds closer to words her step father would speak that would start another long day of hard work. Her step father glanced over at her and shifted in his chair. Mother poured more coffee in his cup and he lit a cigarette. Selene and Kily listened to the sounds of their mother as she washed the dishes and cleaned up after breakfast. When they had finished their oatmeal, step father stood, put on his white straw hat and said, " let’s get goin, we’re burning daylight". The two small girls stood and silently followed him out the door into the gray dawn.
While she was still very young Kily’s parents divorced and her mother had re-married. Kily’s step father was a very stern, "children are to be seen and not heard" man. He had a temper that often resulted in painful punishments and Kily and Selene learned right away that it was much easier to follow his rules than to face the wrath of his temper.
Step father was a tall, dark haired cowboy with deep blue eyes. He always wore his white straw hat from dawn to dusk. On the occasions when Kily or Selene would forget the "children are to be seen and not heard" rule, (which for Kily seemed to be quite often) he would send them down to the barn to await his arrival. There they would wait in anxiety for him to arrive with the buggy whip in hand. When Kily was very small she tried her best to out run that buggy whip as it poised in the air for its next strike. Her step father would hold her by one arm as he lashed out, and Kily would run circles around and around trying to be as many steps ahead of the stinging buggy whip as she could before it made contact with her skin. Once, she did her best to hold still as she was instructed but found that the force of the whip was less if she could be moving forward when it landed. Often she was left with very painful blood blisters from that buggy whip and each morning she followed step father down to the barn Kily winced and prayed she would not get into trouble this day.
Kily’s paternal father had black hair, blue eyes, and a pronounced hook nose, probably from the Cherokee blood he had running through his veins. He had also been tall and quiet, but unlike step father’s silent mean temper, her first father’s quiet had seemed very kind and wise. Kily’s mother had soft blonde curls that swayed across her shoulders as she moved, blue eyes that held a distant sadness in them and a slight build that spoke of years of work. Kily thought her mother was very beautiful. Mother always knew the perfect things to say and spent a great deal of time trying to get Kily to act like a lady. Which must have been quite a chore for her, since Kily had no desire to do anything except live in her world where she believed everything was possible. Kily just knew there was an answer for everything, people just hadn’t thought of the answer yet! With this in mind Kily felt it was her duty to look under every rock, dig a hole so deep that she could actually emerge in china, and in general explore every single thing she could get her hands on to see what it was made of. And, of course, you couldn’t find the answers to the universe if you didn’t ask questions. So Kily asked lots of questions.
One year older than Kily, Selene was the "pretty one". She had mothers petite build, blonde hair, blue eyes, and had the general features of a china doll. Like mother, Selene always knew the perfect things to say and of course was always the little lady. On the numerous occasions Kily had to sit in her room to think about what she had done or said, Kily would think a lot about how unfair it was that her sister got all the grace and she got all the klutz! Once while sitting in her silent room Kily thought she had found the answer to her dilemma when she hit on the idea to copy everything her sister did. This was surely the answer since Selene seemed to do everything just right.
After having done the appropriate amount of thinking time her room, Kily was released back to the world with her sincere promise that she had really learned her lesson, and would make all efforts to conduct herself as young lady. Determined to succeed Kily put her plan into action. She spent the entire day following her sister around doing her best to copy Selene’s every movement and word exactly. She was very careful not speak unless her sister spoke, and then Kily would mimic her every word and action. If Kily’s mother or step father asked a question, she patiently waited for her sister to answer first then she would say exactly the same thing. If her sister got a drink of water then Kily got a drink of water. It didn’t take her sister long to become very annoyed with Kily’s antics and complain to her mother. Before long Kily found herself back in her room for more thinking again. This time she was to sit and think about the importance of not being annoying!
At eight Selene’s appearance always seemed perfect to Kily. Like a china doll her hair always seemed to stay perfectly in place, her clothes always clean and crisp looking even when she was outside doing chores, and she could eat anything she wanted without putting on a single pound. As she got older Selene complained about hating her nose, which was slightly hooked, (from their father’s Cherokee blood, Kily supposed). Kily thought Selene’s nose was just fine, and could never understand why with all her beauty she didn’t like it. Kily spent time looking in the mirror trying to imagine where she fit into the picture. She was always a little on the chubby side, hair that wasn’t black like fathers, or blonde like mothers, but somewhere in between and it never stayed put. It was always blowing in the breeze or hanging in her face. No matter which angle she inspected her face from it just simply looked plain to her, even though people would say that she was a cute little girl. It didn’t seem to matter what Kily tried she always ended up with dirt on her clothes, scuffs on her shoes, and straw or grass sticking out of her wild hair. The only resemblance she could see to her family was that she had mothers blue eyes.
Being raised on a horse ranch in Southern California, Kily and Selene had plenty to do. They sometimes heard adults telling stories about how they walked 40 miles in a blinding snow storm to get to school. Kily and Selene didn’t have to walk 40 miles in a blinding snow storm but they did have to get up in the dark of each morning and go out to feed and water 64 horses, a few head of cattle and one stubborn donkey. Once all the animals had been fed and watered the stalls had to be cleaned and the manure hauled to the back forty, or at least that’s what step father always called the area where the girls dumped all the wheel barrels full of manure. When the morning chores were done the sun would be completely up and both girls would head into the house to clean up for school.
This morning was the same as all the others and as Kily followed her step father out into the dim morning light she thought about the movie she had watched on the old black and white television the night before. Watching television was a real treat and Kily was glad that step father had brought one home. When she and Selene were done washing and drying the dinner dishes in the evening, they were allowed to watch television if they had been good during the day. Kily’s thoughts dwelled on the small girl she had seen on the television. In the movie the little girl was an orphan who lived in a tiny attic and she worked very hard just like Kily doing lots of chores. One morning the little girl woke up to find that she was magically surrounded by lush beautiful things. Kily was lost in thought about the movie, thinking that if it could happen for the little girl then surely it could happen for Kily too! She thought how wonderful it would be to go to bed at night and wake up the next morning to her world transformed. No more horse stalls to clean or manure to shovel, no fences to mend or whitewash, no barns to repair, or weeds to pull, just sleeping in to wake up to lush bed covers and lots of toys to play with all day long. A rough poke on her shoulder brought Kily sharply out of her day dream. "What are you doing", step father said harshly. "Nothing", Kily managed to stammer out quickly. "Well pick up that rake and get over there with your sister", step father said with a tone of frustration. Kily saw that Selene had already picked up the pitch fork and was stabbing at the hay bail to hook a flake of hay. Kily bent over to pick up the heavy metal rake and found herself showered with bits of alfalfa as the flake of hay Selene had been trying to throw over the fence bounced back and landed on Kily’s head. "Stop playing around", step father bellowed. "Don’t forget to check all the water troughs when you’re feeding or it will be a trip into the barn with you", he finished. Kily and Selene gave each other a worried look and Selene whispered, "Sorry" into Kily’s ear as she bent to stab at the bale of hay again. Step father pushed his hat further down on his head and said, " Make sure you don’t mess around, there’s stalls to clean, fences to mend, weeds to pull, and the alley ways need raking today, I don’t have time to be messing around with you two". Both girls remained silent as they nodded their heads to show they understood. Step father eyed them for a few seconds more and then disappeared around the corner of the barn.
When the morning chores were done Kily would shake the hay out of her hair, brush the dirt and manure off of her clothes and she and Selene headed to the house to get ready for school. Off came the thread bare trousers, muddy boots, and manure stained shirts. They hurried to wash hands and face which Kily hated because it took forever for the hot water to get up through the pipes and out of the faucet. She never seemed to have enough time to wait for the hot water to get to the end of the faucet and had to splash the icy water onto her face and hands.
After changing and washing up Kily and Selene walked about a mile down to the bus stop each morning. When the bus arrived they climbed aboard they sat quietly in their seats as the school bus made its way down the road. Kily really liked school. Not for the education, but because it was fascinating to her. It was her only outside contact from the horse ranch. There were so many things she had never seen before, and often she would get to see some of the things she saw in her dreams actually happen. Even though she had no clue what they were or meant. It was like getting to hit replay and see the scene twice. It didn’t help much in figuring out what things meant, but it was very exciting to see.
After school Kily and Selene rode the bus back to their stop and walked up the long road that led to the ranch. The scenery was always the same. Dry, dusty land, with huge piles of boulders scattered over the landscape. Some of these boulders were so big you could build a house right inside of them. Lizards, and Gila monsters were in abundance as was sage brush and tumble weeds. When the wind blew, which it did often, the sand would sting their faces, legs, and hands, and tumble weeds blew up against them as if they were deliberately chasing them down the road. Kily and Selene soon learned the trick was to hold the tumble weeds at just the right angle, step to the side, and then let go. The wind would then carry them tumbling down the dusty road looking for their next victim. The only trees visible were the ones at the end of the road where the bus stopped. These were huge old olive trees. Fascinated by the round green pods that lay all over the ground at the base of the trees, Kily would often pick up a handful and put them in her pocket with the intent of checking them out more thoroughly at home to see just what they were made of. Kily would always forget to take them out of her pockets and get scolded when mother would do the wash.
Arriving at the small house Kily and Selene went to their shared bedroom, changed clothes and headed out the back door to feed and water the horses and cattle again. As they threw flakes of hay up over the corral fences Selene always managed to duck out of the way and Kily would be showered with pieces of straw, seeds, and fine dust each time the hay toppled over the top fence board. Kily sighed and tried to pick pieces of straw out of her blowing hair while Selene looked as if she had just arrived fresh from the house. After the horses had been taken care of Kily and Selene moved to their next chore of mending fences then helped out on the construction of the new barn.
With the feeding, watering, fence mending, and barn building done Kily and Selene got to do some fun stuff. Each day they had to ride specific horses to keep them worked out. Every day step father chose different horses to be ridden and eventually the girls moved through the rotation until they came full circle back to the ones at the beginning again. Kily had a great time doing that until a big ol’ bay mare about 16 hands tall promptly planted her hoof right down on top of Kily’s toes. Then the huge old mare blandly looked at her like she didn’t have the faintest idea of what all the whooping and hollering was about. With tears streaming down her face Kily pushed, shoved, and pleaded with the mare to back up, move forward, or lift up her leg. But still she would not budge. The mare took her own sweet time of course to remove her hoof from Kily’s foot, but not before nonchalantly twisting the front of her body away from Kily, grinding Kily’s foot into the dust as she did so! Kily just knew that the mare did it on purpose and told her so. The mare only turned her head to eye Kily while she nonchalantly chewed away on whatever she had in her mouth, shook her head then walked away. With her foot finally free and tears streaming down her face Kily limped over to where her step father was hammering at the millionth nail he was putting in that fancy new barn and she tearfully told him what the old mare had done. Step father simply looked at her and said, "go saddle her up, and stop your whining, you’re not hurt". Incredulously Kily limped back to the tack room wondering if her step father had lost his mind. To Kily’s way of thinking he should have gone over and had a stern talking to with that old mare and of course given Kily a mountain of sympathy for her injured foot, and maybe even the rest of the day off!
Lacking sympathy, Kily was left to work it out for herself and approaching that old mare was not something she looked forward to. With her foot throbbing Kily returned to the old barn and drug the saddle, blankets, and bit from their perch then returned to the corral where the mare stood with her eyes half closed. She managed to saddle the mare and had her own words with her while she did so. The mare seemed to only half heartedly listen to Kily’s lecture on the proper way to treat people but Kily proudly thought she and the mare came to an understanding that day. Kily was also very careful to keep her feet out of the mare’s way after that!
Kily dutifully went about her chores each day, sometimes working side by side with Selene and other times completing her chores alone. She would sometimes find herself deep in thought about why she had always seemed or felt a little different. From what she could see Selene and mother didn’t appear to be like her at all. They knew things too, but they seemed to know things differently than Kily and never talked about seeing things twice like Kily did. Kily didn’t know why but it was very common for her to see things in her dreams and then get to see them again when she was awake. Sometimes a dream would seem so strange that she would tell her mother or sister about it. Then she would get the "look". You know the " I think you might have a problem", look! This can tend to set you apart from the rest of the world as a young child and Kily quickly learned that it was often better to keep things to herself. However, being only seven, she would often forget.
Not often, but sometimes, visitors would come to the ranch and Kily would find herself in a blissful conversation. In Kilys’ house, they lived by the rule, "children were to be seen and not heard ". But, Kilys childish enthusiasm would often take over when an adult would engage her in a conversation and she would naturally talk about things that just came into her head.
Believing what she had seen in her dreams to be truth, Kily would happily chat away informing the listener of all matter of strange things, as if there wasn’t a thing in the world wrong with her side of the whole conversation. Naturally the listener would ooh and ah and laugh as this seven year old child rambled on. Of course the more the listener would chuckle or laugh the more Kily would talk. This earned her a reputation as being a fanciful child and an exasperated look from her mother with a "where do you get this stuff from" comment. Then she would be told how wrong it was to tell lies and what happened to little girls who told stories all the time. This also earned her time in her room to sit and contemplate an appropriate imagination. Kily was never sure what was an appropriate imagination so she resorted to specific situations that got her into trouble and tried to avoid those instead. It was much harder when she got into trouble for things she said rather than for things she did. She concluded that things you did were easier to not repeat than things you said, because words were always something she was required to use and for the life of her she just couldn’t figure out which words were the right ones.
Even in school Kily’s teachers would report to mother that she was a very bright little girl, but spent to much time daydreaming and needed to apply herself more. This naturally got Kily more lectures on daydreaming and sharing stories that weren’t true.
Having been told about her daydreaming, story telling, and "fanciful" side so often, Kily resolved to do her best to make them go away. She finally concluded that it was her dreams that were giving her the wrong words to say so she concentrated very hard each night to not have dreams, but they simply did not cooperate.
copyright 2006
