Mayura

Advent

I

Innocence

Some believe childhood to be a sacred time: In the tenderest years of our lives, before cynicism, regret, and complex emotions take hold, we simply exist. All problems can be solved with simple words, all struggles disappear by the time we fall asleep, and everything we hear is the truth. Childhood is the time when we are at our most insecure: We know with absolute certainty that we are loved, destined for great things, and safe with our parents or guardians. Despite nightmares, frightening scenes in movies, parents losing their temper and raising their voices, and ghost stories, we have nothing to fear.

In a perfect world, all of this would be true. In a perfect world, all parents love their children. In a perfect world, no child is born with mental or personality disorders. In a perfect world, no parent would hate, wound, or abandon their child. We don't live in a perfect world.

As a bolt of lightning that appeared more like an explosion in the blackest of nights, tore through the sky, followed by a horrid clap of thunder sounding like mountains colliding with one another shook the very ground, a little girl's dull-blue eyes flew open as her sweet dream quickly became a nightmare. Terrified by her dreams and the hellish world she woke up to, the lightly pale child pulled her sheets and covers up over her face until her naturally purple-and-black hair was hidden from the evil night. Outside her very window, thunder continued to roar and shake her house. The frightened little girl winced and sobbed as her body trembled, her hot tears staining her sheets. With one final, monstrous blast, the wicked thunder sent the little one out of her bed and charging from her dark, monster-filled bedroom to the hallway.

Her vision blurred with tears, vampires and long-clawed ghosts breathing down the back of her neck, the purple-haired child desperately ran down the dark and narrow hallway. "Papa!" she cried out in fear and faith. "Papa!"

Summoned by the girl's cries, footsteps soon came from her parents' room, but not those of her father. Making her way down the hallway, pulling her housecoat tightly over her chest, a black-haired woman quickly proceeded toward her daughter with a look of determination and resentment upon her pale face. "Nathalie, stop that!" she sharply whispered, though it seemed more like a scream to the child. "You'll wake your father!"

"Mommy, I'm scared," the sniveling, shaking little girl exclaimed as hot tears streamed down her cheeks and mucus began to run down to her lips. "I had a bad dream, and the storm is so loud, and…"

"Come on," the woman interrupted in a cold, almost scornful voice as she gestured for her daughter to turn around. Without another word, mother and daughter returned to the girl's bedroom. "Get back in bed."

Nodding her head and swallowing the swelling lump in her throat, Nathalie climbed into her bed and began to pull her sheets back up to her neck. However, the storm continued outside. "Mommy," she sobbed. "Could you sit with me for a little bit?"

"I can't, Nathalie," the woman sighed. "I have work in the morning. Just try to get some sleep. And you shouldn't wake your father up this late at night. You know he doesn't sleep well."

"I'm sorry," the little girl replied, feeling ashamed of herself. At the same time, she knew her mother was not capable of comforting her like her father was.

"Everything will be okay," the raven-haired woman explained as she calmed her temper. "Remember, thunder is just the clouds rumbling. There are no such thing as monsters." Looking into her daughter's eyes, the woman walked over to her bed, sat on its edge, and gently stroked the little girl's long, purple hair. "I know it's scary, but there's nothing to be afraid of. Try to get some sleep. Everything will be better in the morning. Okay?"

"Thanks, Mommy," Nathalie answered as she rolled onto her right side and closed her damp, sticky eyes. Despite her mother's words, however, the child was still afraid. Why couldn't her father have been the one to wake up?

The next morning, after her mother had left for work, Nathalie sat on the living room floor, driving a toy truck through an imaginary forest atop the carpeting. Last night felt like nothing more than a forgotten bad dream now.

"I heard you had a rough night, angel," a warm, calm voice broke the girl's concentration. Nathalie looked up from the floor to see her father, dressed in his usual flannel, slightly overweight and balding at the top of his head, and as comforting as a kind storybook king. "Did you have a bad dream?"

"Yeah," the purple-haired girl answered plainly.

Pained by his daughter's sorrow, the kindly man sat down beside her, pulled her closer to him, and rested his right arm around her little body. "I'm sorry, Nathalie," he warmly declared. "It seems like thunderstorms always bring bad dreams with them. What was your dream about?"

"I was sitting on a glass floor that kind of looked like a butterfly," Nathalie began to recount her unpleasant memory. "I was waiting for someone, but then I heard a loud noise, and the glass broke, and a big monster that looked like a moth looked at me and opened its mouth really wide." Just describing what she had seen was enough to bring the child to tears.

"Oh, angel, I'm sorry," Nathalie's father exclaimed as he hugged his beloved daughter. "I've had dreams like that, too. They can be really scary. Sometimes I see that same moth. He tells me he's going to take you away, and there's never anything I can do to stop him…So, you know what I do?"

"What?" the little girl asked with confidence.

"When I wake up, I remind myself that it's just a dream, since dreams can't hurt us because they're not real," the man explained. "Then, I get out of bed, walk down the hallway, open your door just a little, and make sure you're still there. And, every single time I do that, you're always there." Nathalie smiled, exposing her white teeth and several empty spots where baby-teeth had recently fallen from. "The next time you have a dream like that, Nathalie, I want you to turn on your light and look around your room. You'll see there's no moth monster. You see, if he was real, he'd come to the light. Because all moths seek light. If he doesn't, you know he's made-up. And, if the moth-man ever does show up, you come wake me up, and I'll chase him away."

"Thank you, Papa," the little girl warmly and graciously exclaimed as she hugged her father and closed her eyes. "I love you."

"I love you too, angel," the loving father answered as his daughter's happy memory came to a close.

II

Innocence, Lost

I loved my mother and father dearly, as all children do. My father and I were always close, but my mother and I seemed to grow more distant as time went by. The earliest memory I have of being truly terrified was when I was six years old. I haven't talked about it much, but I've told those who truly needed to know. The pain is distant, but still not something I can recount comfortably.

"What the hell were you doing?" the dark-haired woman nearly snarled as her daughter entered the house one cold, rainy afternoon. "I have been looking for you."

"Sorry," Nathalie timidly answered. "It was raining, so I went to get the mail before it got too wet."

Her face tensing as she rose up from her chair, Nathalie's mother's voice gradually grew louder and sharper with every word she spoke, until they became screams: "And is that…why you're dragging mud and water on the kitchen floor?!" Looking down at her wet, filthy rain-boots, the purple-haired little girl immediately felt her heart begin to pound as the realization of her guilt and shame came crashing down on her. Before the girl could respond, a swift, forceful hand sharply slapped across her right cheek and the bridge of her nose, causing her to let out a high-pitched shriek. All the while, she prayed and hoped the awful slap would be the worst of it.

"I spent two hours cleaning that floor today," the raven-haired woman continued, her face tightening and growing red with disgusted anger. "Two hours of cleaning, alone…while you were running around outside like a spoiled little brat!" Nathalie swallowed hard as her trembling throat and panicked mind began to forge an apology. "March your ass back outside and clean those boots off," the woman entered her lowest, sharpest tone, which may have been the only thing more frightening than her screams. "When you come back inside, dry off, go straight to your room."

Turning around, the little girl stepped back out into the pouring rain and began scraping off her boots. Her tears and sobbing were buried under the constant sound of raindrops colliding with the trees and siding of her family's house. Nathalie could no longer tell if she was crying out of guilt, pain from her mother's slap, or from the fact that her beloved mother would actually strike her. Once her work was done, the girl entered her house once again, placed her boots on a matt in front of a heating vent, and slowly began climbing up the stairs to her bedroom.

"I think you're forgetting something," the woman's disapproving voice called out once again. Nathalie paused and turned back to see her mother sitting down and facing away from her. "Well?"

"…What?" Nathalie asked, her voice timid and trembling.

Incensed, the woman all but threw herself out of her chair and quickly stormed over to her daughter. Upon climbing the steps to where Nathalie stood, the girl's mother roughly grabbed the back of her shirt with her left hand and forcefully pulled her closer. Her teeth gritted to restrain her growing anger and disgust, the raven-haired woman glared into her daughter's eyes. "What is it you say when you've done something wrong and upset your mother?" she snarled through her teeth. "You selfish, spoiled, stupid, little pig! Tell me what you say!"

The tears now streaming from her eyes, Nathalie swallowed hard and shifted her glance to the floor. "I'm sorry," she choked out. For the rest of the night, the young girl was confined to her room, where she was deprived of her dinner, a kiss goodnight, and any sign of forgiveness. With her father away on business, the promise of tomorrow seemed distant.

From that moment on, I dreaded ever being alone with my mother. Every interaction was a source of tension. Whatever I said, whatever I did, it was all like walking on eggshells. I never knew what would set her off. I knew what not to say, what not to do, and what I should say or do, but the rules seemed to change at a moment's notice. I was conditioned and afraid, but it never stopped. I continuously told myself it would, if I just did a better job, tried harder, or was just a better person. I truly, earnestly believed I could make my mother love me…love me enough to stop the pain.

III

Unforgiven

Then, when I was twelve, I prayed that God would kill me, so my mother would be saved. I stopped saying that prayer when I turned fourteen. When I turned fourteen, my eyes started to open: They didn't open all the way, and there was so much I didn't see or saw wrong, but they opened. I went into mourning for the childhood I could have had, the family I could have had, and the person I could have been. Then, I started hating my mother. I hated her for the way she was, for the way she should have been, and for taking my happy life away from me.

Coming home from another long day at school, still unable to wear her backpack over her right shoulder, Nathalie kicked off her shoes and immediately climbed up the stairs to her bedroom. Her long, purple-and-black hair had been trimmed to little more than a pixie-cut, her dull-blue eyes were surrounded by thick, black eyeliner, and her long sleeves covered all of her wounds. The happy, innocent little girl she had been was nothing more than an unhappy memory.

Once inside her room, the young woman threw her pack on the floor, locked her door, covered her window, and slowly raised her aching arms to remove her shirt. Once her upper covering had been discarded on the floor, Nathalie unbuttoned and unzipped her jeans, let them fall around her ankles, and kicked them off. Brushing a lock of hair away from her eye, the young woman slowly crouched down in front of her vanity mirror. With sadness in her eyes and soaked over her pale face, Nathalie looked over the battered, broken, and shamed body the one who was supposed to love her had given to her: Her long, thin legs were coated with bruises ranging from yellowish to nearly black, several short cuts from having nails dug into her calves and outer thighs, darkened patches over the ribs and breastbone, welts on her shoulders, red marks sporadically running from her shoulder-blades to the middle of her spine, and a round burn mark from a cigarette her flesh had been forced to put out. Who could ever love a girl with scars? she sobbed to herself. "…So ugly," she whispered, forming a lump in her throat.

I never told anyone, not even my father. The beatings weren't all that common, but the things she said to me, and the awful, hateful snarl in her voice were what broke me and kept me awake at night. Pretty soon, I stopped living with my feelings and pains, and started searching for distractions. I started lying to my parents, saying I was studying with friends, when I was really hiding out by my school, smoking, cutting, or begging my friends to let me spend the night with them. Most of my friends were young men. I realized years later that my poor relationship with my mother had given me the sense that other women were silently judging me. I felt intimidated and reminded of my worthlessness. There were three instances of violent altercations with other girls, some of which were in my class, and the others a grade or two ahead. Every time I'd swear at them, pull their hair, or punch them, I imagined my mother. But, no matter how many distractions, or how many worthless attempts at venting my anger, the pain and anger never went away. And still, I refused to tell anyone what was happening to me.

IV

Moving On

My teenage years were perhaps the most terrible times of my life. I did things that I'd only seen in nightmares. Every day was devoid of hope and filled with a terrible sorrow and anger. I found myself praying for my mother's death. It was during that time I betrayed every friendship and relationship I ever had. My mother and father no longer trusted me, and I did everything in my power to make them both miserable. My justification for my mother, terrible though it was, was clear. My justification for my father, however, was distorted: I hated and blamed him for not stopping my mother, as if he could. It took years for me to realize my father was as much a victim as I was. My greatest regret is wasting all those years hating him.

Then, one horrible day, I came home from school to find my house empty. My father was still at work, which was nothing new for that time of day, but the absence of my mother was strange. Not long after my arrival, a knock on the door ended my search, and when I answered it, two men removed their hats and told me my mother was never coming home. All I could do was nod my head and close the door. After that, I walked towards the couch, removed my glasses, felt tears well up my eyes, and began laughing. It was such a relief, such a weight off my body, mind, and soul. At long last, she was gone, just as I'd wished and dreamed of for so long. I kept laughing until I finally fell to my knees, threw my glasses against the wall, and began openly sobbing and screaming.

Despite all that had happened, all the pain, lies, hatred, and fear, there was no hatred. There never was. That night, my father and I held one another, looked up at the ceiling, and said nothing for nearly three hours.

Years after we buried her, I finally managed to find myself again, turn away from all the anger and fear, tell my story, and finally start living my life and taking responsibility for who I was and what I had done. I went away to school, buried myself in my studies, made some friends, and pursued a career. I worked harder than I could imagine, but I kept telling myself I was working towards a goal: I was running to that warm, bright place I dreamed of between beatings and curses.

My father and I remained close until he passed away. He died in his sleep, about an hour after he told me that he loved me and how proud he was of the strong, beautiful woman I had grown to be. That was almost twenty years ago.

For so long, I was happy. My past was behind me. I maintained friendships, succeeded at every job I worked, and was even accepted as the personal assistant, secretary, and advisor to Gabriel Agreste. I worked under him for years, never seeing him as anything other than an employer. Then, one day, he introduced me to his wife. Her name was Emilie: Emilie was not only the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, but also the most caring, kind, gentle, loving, and genuine. I had never once thought of Gabriel's life outside of his work, yet, he chose to share it with me.

Emilie and I bonded immediately, forming a friendship within minutes. She was like a little sister to me, and within several weeks, we had achieved the bond that takes most a lifetime to form. However, nothing could have prepared me for Gabriel's offer not long after. He knocked on my office door, I let him in, he approached my desk in the same manner he practiced when handing me a document that needed review, cupped his hands behind his back, and asked me if I would accept the position of his chief personal secretary, assistant, and live-in maid. He explained that, upon my accepting the job, my office would be moved to the Agreste mansion, I would be given a room in their home to call my own, and I would legally become a part of the Agreste family. Hesitant at first, I soon accepted, and, for the first time since we had met, Gabriel smiled and thanked me, as if he had just succeeded at an impossible goal. I had never seen him so surprised, joyful, and human before.

Not long after I had moved into the Agreste family's home, Emilie announced that she was pregnant with her and Gabriel's first child. Later, in private, she told me, if the baby was a girl, she would be named Nathalie. If the baby were a boy, he would be named Adrien. When Adrien was born, Emilie and Gabriel were ecstatic. Their child brought them more joy than any accomplishment they had ever made in a lifetime of devoted work and investment. That may have been the last time Gabriel seemed truly human.

As happy as I was for them, I couldn't help but feel sadness and a weak trace of envy well up in my heart as I gazed upon their blessing. Never having been in love, I had embraced the fact that I would never have a child, much less a family, of my own. Yet, I had never been closer to that dream than I was now. No one adored Adrien more than Emilie, which made it all the harder for her as her health began to wane. The last thing she ever told me was, "Take care of him. He needs you." To this day, I'm not sure if she meant Adrien or Gabriel.

Sometimes it pains me, remembering all the loved ones that have abandoned me. The greatest pain, though, comes from the loved ones who were taken from me. But, as painful as it was for me to watch Emilie slowly let go and close her eyes, Gabriel was truly shattered. He screamed and cursed once she was gone, begging the doctors to revive her, insisting they had not done all they could to save her. As his will to be strong crumbled, I watched him fall to his knees after he had sent everyone out of the room. For the first time in my life, I watched Gabriel Agreste cry. After that terrible day, he was never the same.

Adrien was still so young. I was reluctant at first, but I had to try to become a maternal figure for him. I knew I could never be the woman Emilie was, but from the moment he was born, I loved Adrien as if he were my own flesh and blood. No one could know, but that love drove me through the darkest times.

At the same time, I found myself thinking more and more about Gabriel. He had been my rock for years, never needing a shoulder to cry on, a friend to confide in, or anything beyond a basic secretary's assistance. Since Emilie died, though, I saw him struggle more and more. He stayed up most nights, remained in solitude as often as possible, and would go days, sometimes weeks, without seeing Adrien. He was broken. I tried to help him, but he refused me every time. I realized all I could do was support him in what he chose to do. If nothing else, I had to remain close to him.

Almost two months after Emilie's passing, an unexpected guest arrived at the Agreste estate, insisting he needed to see Gabriel. I tried to stop him, but the man was determined to see him. The two spent nearly an hour locked in Gabriel's office, and the man simply exited the room, thanked me for letting him in, and departed. To this day, I've never seen him again. I can't even recall his face.

After that meeting, something changed in my employer. It seemed as if he had found peace, but this was short-lived. Day after day, his burdens seemed to grow. I began to fear for his health, and forced my way into his study. On that day, I learned a truth I had never imagined. At first, his plan, his destiny, horrified me, but I saw through the mask and the darkness. Now more than ever, I came to understand who and what Gabriel Agreste truly was. I saw what he was willing to do, what he was prepared to lose, all to rebuild his family for the sake of the woman he loved and the son he sought to save at any cost. On that day, I abandoned all moral restrictions, all of my fears, and any concern for my personal safety. Though the world may come to despise him, Gabriel Agreste…Hawk Moth…was a saint. And, even if it will cost me my life, peace of mind, or my redemption, I will stand by his side and see his dream and destiny fulfilled.