Rescued: An Allegory [Short Story] by Tracy Higley
Rescued
An Allegory
by Tracy L. Higley
copyright 2013 Tracy L. Higley Do not reproduce
Table of Contents
Part I
Part II
Part III
Part IV
Part V
Part VI
Questions for Group or Individual Use
About the Author
Connect with Tracy
Other books by Tracy L. Higley
Three-Chapter Excerpt from So Shines the Night
~Part I~
She never knew how long she’d been in chains. Even years later, when the stench of her dungeon home visited her only in nightmares, and the angry scars on her wrists had faded to gentle pink, she could not work it out, how long she had spent in that dreadful place.
For as horror-filled as the dungeon was, it had become her home, and like any home it had woven itself into her very being, into the fabric of the person she believed herself to be.
She could never please them there. It mattered not how she tried, and she did try, at least for a time, to gain their approval. Bow and scrape a little lower, girl. Clean up that putrid mess there, girl. Speak up, shut up, stand here, stand there, stand nowhere at all. And the days in bondage turned to years, and the calls of “you, girl” faded as she became a woman and still she wore her chains and still she wore her shame.
In the night, in the night she often dreamed of freedom. And in her dreams, it was almost near enough to touch, to taste, near enough to catch its distant scent and hear its far-off music.
In the mornings, with freedom’s whisper echoing in her ears, she vowed that today would be different. She would wear her chains proudly, with dignity and grace. But by nightfall her chains had pinned her dignity to the mud and scraped away any grace she might have gathered.
She longed for a better life.
She knew there was no escape.
And the years passed. Each day gripped the heels of the day before and dragged itself miserably into the next.
And then one day there came a word. A whispered word, with echoes of her dreaming in it.
Purchased.
Her jailer, a paunchy man who fattened himself unjustly on the few scraps allotted to the prisoners, waddled down the muddy hall until he reached the cell she shared with others of her fate. He fumbled at his ample waist for a rusty ring of keys, unaccustomed to their use. All the while, his black and piercing eyes fixed on hers, as though to pin her there even if the cell door should be opened.
And open it did, at last, at last. She did not move, not yet. Not until he cursed and shouted at her and she feared he would strike her.
The mud floor seemed to suck at her as she rose, and she pulled her ragged clothes about her, with enough shreds of defiance in her still to desire modesty.
Her jailer jerked a thumb over his shoulder. “Get out!”
She stumbled past him, her shoulder grazing his, and her body shuddered with fear and disgust.
Outside her cell, she faced him, still clinging to her torn clothes. “Where am I going?”
“You’ve been bought and paid for.” His low growl sounded only half-human. “Some armored knight. You’ll be his slave now.”
A knight? The word meant little to her and she would have remained where she was, but her jailer knuckled a fist into her lower back and shoved her toward the muddy hall.
They passed other cells on the way, more desperate prisoners with empty eyes, and they yelled out to be released along with her, but her jailer ignored them all.
Past a dozen cells, the hall bent sharply to the right and though she hesitated, her jailer shoved her forward. The end of this hall glowed like fire, like the fire in the jailer’s lantern, only a hundred times brighter, a thousand times brighter, and she knew, as long as it had been since she had seen it, that it was the sun at the end of that hall. The sun and the air and… the knight.
She nearly fell at the entrance to the jail, so blinding was the sun to her earth-bound eyes. She reached out to steady herself, grabbed the first thing her hand fell upon, and was horrified to discover that it was an arm, the knight’s arm, covered in finely woven chain and strong and unbending. She blinked and blinked and did not raise her eyes, but instead cried out in surprise and not a little fear.
“Be well, my child.” The knight’s voice was low and soothing.
She had not been called a child in a very long time. And yet she found it wonderful.
Her eyes at last remained unblinking, and she dared to raise them, removing her hand from the strong arm.
He was there, this knight, all beautiful and shining, all shadows and gleaming metal, and though she could not fully see his face, she felt she knew him well, or at least that he knew her, and that she had never been so well known, nor ever would be.
And all in that instant, she also became aware, so painfully aware, of her own filth. The accumulated filth and stench of a lifetime spent in her cell clung to her like she were made of nothing more than dungeon mud.
And she pulled away from all that bright beauty, and fell to her knees, her head bowed low.
“Yours to command, my master,” she croaked, embarrassed even to speak to him, but sensing that it was expected.
The lightest of touches brushed her shoulders. He held her with his clean hands.
She tried to shrink away but he held her fast.
“Rise, child.” He pulled her to her feet. “You are no slave.”
“Oh, but I am,” she found the courage to say. “I am nothing but a slave and have always been so.”
“No longer.” Her knight tipped her chin back so that she could not help but look into the kindness of his eyes.
“You are a child of the kingdom now. I have purchased you out of there.” At this he jerked his head with scorn in the direction of her prison. “And I have set you free. You have been adopted into the kingdom from which I have come.”
She lowered her eyes, pulled away once again. “There is some mistake.”
“You are not a mistake,” he whispered. “I will take you there, and you will see.”
She breathed deeply, barely noticing the freshness of the open air, for the strangeness of the encounter. Her eyes still on her filthy rags, she shook her head.
“Will you come?” he asked. “Will you follow me to the kingdom where there is a special place for you?” He laughed softly at her silence. “The king is waiting, you know.”
And it began to seem real, this dream, and her heart began to beat an uneven rhythm, and her palms grew slick and she pulled her rags tighter.
“Mustn’t I clean up first?” she asked. “Before we reach the kingdom?”
“There will be time enough for that. You will find that you will grow cleaner as we go. It is a long journey, the way to this kingdom.”
She dared a look again at the shining face, and heard the joy in his voice as he spoke of the kingdom, and she wondered if perhaps he were more than just a knight of that realm.
“Is it treacherous?” she asked. “The journey?”
“Yes, very.”
His simple answer struck fresh fear into her heart.
“I am not brave.”
“But I am. And I will never leave you, child.”
And so she tried to swallow her fear, and she tried to take in a deep breath of courage, and she fixed his words in her heart, and she nodded. Just a quick nod, to say, I will follow. But it was enough.
Her knight clapped his hands together in joy, laughed aloud, and called for horses.
Once again she gazed upon the rags she wore. “I am too dirty…” she began, but the words wer
She looked down on him, and he smiled up at her, and said only this:
“My child, I love you just as you are. You are beautiful to me.”