Children of Hell

Chapter Five: With Family

 By the time Maia reached the Rising Sun Inn, she realized that she had been running from nothing. There was no one else on the trail, no one following her at least, nothing but her own fear.

The inn sat on the side of the trail in the middle of the Morandava Savannah on the east edge of Antananarivo. It was a large two-story wooden unit with large double oak doors in the front and a mat that read "Welcome". The once bright yellow paint had faded and peeled from its planks.

Inside was a small room for coats that led into a foyer with a front desk. On both sides were hallways leading to rooms, and in the left hallway, stood a flight of stairs that led all the way up to the attic.

"How long will you be with us?" the innkeeper asked, not looking up.

She stared at the pages of a guest log and wrote notes beside names.

"Not long," Maia whispered in exhaustion, "Do you know anyone in this picture?"

"Yes, that's Samuel," the innkeeper answered, looking at the picture, "do you need to see him?"

Maia nodded yes, and the old lady put her pen down and walked off.

Samuel was older than he was in Maia's crumpled picture. In her picture, he was a young man holding a baby boy. He was standing with a small, smiling woman and beside them was a short, thin, dark haired girl with glasses. She had one hand on Samuel and the other on the woman. The dark-haired girl with glasses was a young Aaoni of the Haru clan, Maia's mother. They were posing proudly in front of the inn. Now, as Maia looked at Samuel, there were wrinkles by his eyes and in his smile. He had grown a thick, curly brown beard that was fading into gray and he was losing his hair.

"Wow," he said looking at the picture, "this was such a long time ago. Where did you get this?"

Maia turned the photograph around, and showed that it read: "To Aaoni, remember when life was this simple? Your sister, Eloise."

"Where is she?" Maia asked putting her finger on the photograph, "Where is Aaoni?"

"Child," Samuel said taking a deep breath, "this photograph is more than thirty years old. Aaoni disappeared, and her husband Adam died eight years ago."

"What?" Maia asked gasping.

"I was twenty-five when this was taken; Aaoni was no older than seventeen. My first wife, Eloise, was about twenty. She wrote the note on the back of that letter and gave it to Aaoni before she left to fight in the Great War six months later."

"Did you see her after that? What happened? How did Adam die?"

"We only saw Aaoni in brief moments after that. She fell victim to" he paused,"influence and vengeance."

"And then what?"

"Well, she wrote me several years later saying that they had settled in Durani and had a daughter. She wanted us to visit, but it wasn't safe for people like us."

Samuel stared at Maia, looking through her eyes, hazel like her father's, thin like her mother's and he called out, "Amaia?"

Her face broke into a smile and she answered, "Actually it's just Maia. Aaoni was my mother. I don't know why I fooled myself into thinking that I'd find her here. I thought..."

Maia looked down at her wrist as the pain crept in, and she winced.

"What is it?" Samuel asked as he watched her eyes slant up.

She hesitated at first, but there was something kind and trusting about him. Maia pushed back her sleeves and held her arms up. Samuel took one hand, then the other. His eyes grew large as he stared at her wrists, reddened and pulsating. The brown tone in her hands faded and there was a thin reddish line stemming from the base of her right thumb to the bottom of her wrist. He rubbed his finger over it, and she cried out.