Like a complete jigsaw puzzle being dismantled one piece at a time, Belladonna watched the life she knew disappear and the skeleton of a new one form.
The feeling of cold invisibility, she felt like a wallflower, a spectator as strangers in single file raped the contents of her home.
“No,” she screeched at one of the removalists, clutching her wooden spinning top until the carved symbols on its surface pressed red indentations into her palm. Set about his task he ignored the little girl’s protestations and her pain.
She was the last thing to be liquidated. Lilydale’s Finishing School sent a car for her one overcast Sunday. A heavyset Turkish schoolmistress, Ma’am, as she insisted on being called, had been sent to escort Belladonna to her new home.
“You will collect your things and come with me, your Grandfather has enrolled you and you will receive an education commensurate with your breeding. The death of your irresponsible parents was the best thing that could have happened to you, imagine, home schooling a child,” without making eye contact Ma’am judgmentally surveyed the wreckage of the once proud Brown estate, “Don’t dally child we have a long journey, go!”
Tears stung her eyes, “No!”
Throwing her toy on the ground she ran for the door. With her eyes closed she kept running but she could no longer feel the ground under her feet. Ma’am had her suspended by her shirt colour as she struggled desperately to free herself of this circumstance.
“You’d do well not to make an enemy of me young lady and I’ll only say this once more, GO!”
What do you pack? How do you pack a childhood into a single trunk? You can’t.
So she packed nothing.
“I’m ready, Ma’am”
“That’s a good girl.”
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