Chapter 4: The Mother And The Poison

The morning cloudless sky shone its light on the village. Despite being early morning, it felt like it was already almost noon, having nothing to shade the village from its morning ray.

In the middle of the village, right in front of the village chief's house, a group of housewives sat chatting. They weren't idle. One woman was cutting vegetables, one was dehulling some kind of thorny fruit similar to chestnut, while one was grinding old wheat. The others were busy with various chores of their own.

The one cutting vegetables looked up and asked the one dehusking the chestnut, “You live next to her right? Anything happening?”

The woman dehusking the chestnut put down the thorny fruit and looked up. “Aiyo, Old Fum, how many times are you going to ask me this question? Do you really want the Bitch of Virell House to eat my family?”

“No, no, you misunderstand me. I'm just curious what happened after the offering that the whole village put in front of her house last month.”

The woman grinding wheat interjected, “As I remember, it was you who begged the village chief to do the rest-in-peace ritual, right Big Sein?”

“I… I was afraid that she would get hungry in the middle of the night. You know how she was. Even before she died, she was insufferable!”

“Do you think she died again?” Old Fum asked

“Wouldn’t her children bury her then?” the one grinding wheat asked.

“Maybe they buried her in their courtyard?”

Big Sein looked aghast at the idea. “What if she came back to life again?!”

“Then she'll eat you first,” teased the woman grinding wheat.

“Not funny! I didn't give birth to three kids just for us to be food for a revenant!”

“Look, isn't that her?” the wheat woman asked.

“No! Don’t eat me!” Big Sein panicked.

“Relax, she’s with her daughters.” Old Fum said.

On the other side of the clearing, Rinia Virell was walking with her daughter-in-law Rhielle and her daughter Vila. Each of them carried a basket on their backs. When Rinia noticed the three women watching, she waved at them, thinking that they were someone the original host of the body knew.

“Did… did she just wave at us?” Old Fum asked.

“What does that mean? Some kind of threat?” the woman grinding wheat asked.

“Old Fum, why did you get me to look! Now she's marked me as food!” Big Sein became even more afraid to the point she was trembling all over.

“Hey, what if she's not sure yet? But if we ignore her, won't she bear a grudge?” Old Fum said.

“What-what should we do then?” Big Sein asked.

“Wave and smile, I think.” Old Fum suggested.

And so all three of them waved back with a forced smile.

Aina smiled at them, not realizing that her partially paralyzed face appeared horrifying to them. If there was time, she'd like to chat and find out who they were. Too bad she was busy. With food at home dwindling and harvest being over a month away. She had to go forage for food in the mountains.

Rhielle had said that she need not go, that Rhielle could do it herself. Rhielle had told her to just rest at home. But for Aina, how could she just stay home when even the seven year old Vila would go to the mountains to forage? As a mother, how could she stay home just waiting for her children to come home bringing food? As a mother, she had to show a measure of dignity.

Unfortunately, that dignity was being severely tested.

Why is the mountain so far? Why is this body so weak? Even my seven year old girl can walk without losing her breath.

“Aren't we already on a mountain?” Aina asked.

“You jest, mother. Everything here has already been picked clean. We need to go a bit further. There should be some wild vegetables left over there.”

“Mother! Mother! It's not much further. See that peak? We're going to that mountain.” the seven year old Vila said cheerfully as she pulled on Aina's hand.

That's not far? It's a whole mountain away! How long would it take to reach there at our current pace?

Aina suddenly felt regret. Regret that she didn't just stay home. Mother's dignity be damned. Now she understood why the oldest girl was so shocked and reluctant when Aina told her that she wanted to go forage for food in the mountains too. Her limping left leg, with a calf that looked like it was bitten by an animal, was making it even more difficult.

Aina swore she would research how to build a mountain bike with primitive tools.

Thankfully, it didn't really take that long. Even with two rests, they managed to reach the foot of that mountain before the sun reached above their heads. While she took a breath, her two daughters were already at work looking for edible stuff.

Not to be outdone, Aina too looked for something edible. She thought it would be great if she could catch some small game like wild rabbits or birds. She'd even settle for wild bird eggs.

God, she misses the taste of fried eggs. Her daughter-in-law was way too frugal with cooking oil. She understood that cooking oil was precious here, being rendered from the fat of a slow-moving domesticated farm animal similar to cattle but with much bigger horns and belly.

But a bit more oil at least for fried eggs should be okay, right? Forget it, let’s just get this job done.

As the morning went on, Aina felt increasingly annoyed. She knew it wouldn't be so easy to find edible stuff. She had even given up on the idea of getting wild rabbits and bird eggs. But how could there be nothing edible at all?

She knew it wasn't just because she sucked at foraging. She had glanced at both her daughters and they couldn't find much either. So she went a little further, using the long stick she picked up along the way to ruffle the dry tall bushes, just in case there were snakes or other beasts hiding in there.

When she was sure there was nothing hiding between the yellowing tall grass, she used the same stick to part the grass. To her surprise, there was a rotting log on the other side and on that log were mushrooms. Big, wide mushrooms with white top and white stem under the umbrella.

Isn't this white oyster mushroom? Aina said to herself.

She parted more of the tall grass and was delighted to see so many more mushrooms. Without wasting any time, she quickly picked them in whole clumps before tossing them into her basket. With her basket almost filled with mushrooms, she rejoined her daughters, feeling a little smug.

Her daughters could barely find anything. Some wild vegetables, a few mushrooms and fruits picked from a nearby tree. She couldn’t tell what those mushrooms were. Flat, hard and yellow, they looked very foreign to her. As for the fruit, they had a strong similarity to chestnuts. That was all she could say about it since she didn’t know all that much about chestnuts in the first place.

“Mother, it’s almost time to go back. Do you want to go anywhere else?” her daughter-in-law said.

Where would I even know where to go? Aina asked herself as she shook her head.

The daughter-in-law nodded and asked the seven year old little girl to help their mother up. She tested the route down the mountain first before calling her mother and sister-in-law to follow. Apparently, the route up and down were not the same.

Aina had no idea why that was the case.

Still, that didn’t change the fact that the route to and the route from were equally as hard. No, probably harder as they were all tired from foraging all noon. At this point, would it even be possible to reach home before sundown?

Aina wished she was in the modern world. Not because she could just call a taxi, but because she could’ve made something to make the journey feel closer. She could kill for a skateboard right now.

It was almost dusk when they finally got home. When they arrived, the sons were already at home, refilling the water barrel in front of the house. As soon as Aina and her daughters passed the front gate, the eldest son quickly rushed to take away her woven basket and cleaned her seat.

Aina plopped down on the seat like she was a hot potato. The trek to and fro was so exhausting, she felt like she could just lie down and die again. She wondered if there was any point to going so far to forage for food.

It must be a net-negative energy, right? Like, I spent more energy going to get food than actually making energy from eating food.

Meanwhile, Rhielle and the first son were in the kitchen looking over what the girls brought home. The first son was still shocked to see that his mother would walk all the way over to the Beast Mountain to forage for food. In fact, he was surprised that his mother would walk out of the village.

When he took off the cloth covering his mother’s basket, he was even more surprised.

“Woah! Mother brought so much food!”

Rhielle looked over at her husband and said, “How is that possible? We didn’t go deep, there was barely anything where we were.”

“Then what’s this? There’s so many!” Irek pulled up one long and big white mushroom from the basket.

Rhielle looked at the mushroom without interest. But as she recalled something from her past, her head snapped back and her eyes went wide. In reflex, her left hand slapped the hand holding the white mushroom, causing the mushroom to fly into a pile of wooden cast-offs behind the house.

“Hold out your hand, now!” Rhielle demanded as she rushed to grab a pail of water from the water vat in the kitchen.

“Why? What is it?” Irek asked as held out his hands obediently.

While pouring water onto her husband’s hand, she answered, “That was White Wings. It has a very strong paralysis poison!”

“What? Wait, is that why my hands are numb now?” Irek paled.

“No, that’s just your imagination. It needs to soak in before the poison can penetrate the skin. But it would’ve been bad if you had touched your lips with these hands. It easily dissolves in saliva and sweat.”

“Wow, fortunately you noticed. I would’ve died if not for you.”

“Not really dead. It’s just that you’d be unable to move and your body would be hard like a corpse after your muscles seized up. But prolonged exposure would still cause problems.”

“Thanks to you I missed that fate, wife. It’s amazing mother was able to carry all that without getting poisoned-”

They looked at each other horrified. “MOTHER!” They screamed at the same time.

They scrambled out of the kitchen to the front yard where their mother was sitting. Irek quickly grabbed both his mother’s hands as Rhielle fetched water from the vat in the front yard. Washing their mother’s hand, Irek asked if his mother was okay and if she was feeling pain anywhere.

Confused by their actions, Aina instinctively pulled back her hands before Irek grabbed them back and diligently washed every corner of her fingers. He even scrubbed under her nails to make sure all the grime was cleaned too. Aina felt weirded out and asked them what was going on.

“Mother, are you feeling numb or difficult to speak?” Irek asked, full of concern.

Aina shook her head. But come to think of it, her tongue was feeling a little numb since earlier. She could still move it, but her speech was slurring. Now that they asked, she finally realized that there was something wrong.

“Mother-in-law has the poison in her mouth!” Rhielle said as she opened Aina’s mouth and poured water into it.

“Spit it out, mother!” Irek said.

That night everyone breathed a sigh of relief when she could speak properly again. Then the interrogation started. They asked her why she brought the mushroom home and if she knew what it was.

“Wasn’t that just oyster mushroom?” she asked.

“Oyster?” Rhielle asked.

“What is an oyster, mother?” Irek asked.

“You don’t have oysters here?!” Aina asked.

“Mother, this is called white wings. Do you know why that is?” Rhielle asked.

“Because it looks like white wings?” Aina asked. Come to think of it, since when did oyster mushrooms have two caps?

“It does, but also because of its effects. A little just causes numbness. At high enough doses it can paralyze all bodily senses and muscles, making people feel like they’re flying to heaven. At an even higher dose, it can paralyze even internal organs causing death.”

Aina looked at Rhielle in shock.

“Mother, there are enough white wings here to send the whole village to heaven.”

Everyone looked at Rhielle in shock.

“I-I didn’t do it!”

“Mother, this is too much!” Varn said.

“No… I didn’t…”

“Second, don’t accuse mother of doing something she hasn’t done yet.”

“I didn’t… I won’t…”

In the end, it took her the whole night trying to convince her children that she didn’t know what it was or that it was toxic.

For Irek, Rielle and Varn though, it was hard for them to believe her. After all, she had already done something like this before. They wanted to believe that she had changed, but deep in their hearts, they doubted it would be that simple. A tiger doesn’t change its stripes, a leopard doesn’t change its spots.

Maybe the madness that turned their mother insane never truly went away.

Maybe what happened today was the madness resurfacing.

Maybe not even the person herself realized it.