Cold night

My name is Alex, a little girl of 6 years of very small size and this size was a great help to me, as I could hide in the narrowest or smallest places from my father's tantrums and violence, especially after drunkenness and that I would not find anyone to defend me if I fell under his hands.

My early childhood was not easy or easy if I lived in an unbalanced atmosphere in which the mother was very weak besides drunkenness and smoking, and the father was a drunkard who enjoyed cruelty and violence in everything, especially when the wine turned his head and did nothing but scream and hit her or me.

The house we lived in was in a place among the woods and far from urbanization, so with time and from the many violence I had been exposed to, I became a professional at how to hide when I saw the signs of tantrums in order to protect myself from his cruelty and violence.

It was one of the cold nights and as usual the usual wave of anger and domestic violence started and I started the process of hiding as usual so that I wouldn't get my share of what happened, but this time I chose a different place to hide as our house had a back garden and it had a hole that helps me to reach the bottom of the house and hide there, and with my small size It was easy enough for me, and to guard against the cold, I took a blanket to wrap myself in.

The shouting and beating started between the two drunkards, and I slipped out without them noticing me to hide, and wrapped myself well in the blanket, but with the rain the place was wet, which helped the blanket become wet and polluted, and the mud made me feel colder, but I was forced to stay so that they would not feel that I went out and punished me harshly.

"Are you cold? "

I noticed this soft feminine voice and looked and found that she was like me, hiding close to me, as dirt and wet in the mud, but beautiful and delicate, and wearing a chain with a butterfly pendant on her neck, and I was not afraid of her, and answered her with a nod of my head.

She came very close to me until she hugged me, and the cold disappeared and the warmth settled, and she began to ask me about my age, so I told her. You taught me to draw and I agreed.

I fell asleep in her arms, and when the morning came, she woke me up so that I could fulfill her request, so I crept back into the house to get my shoes and started my journey, and although the road was long, Lily's voice was always guiding me so that I wouldn't get lost or lost the roads, which made it easier for me, but with the distance and smallness My age and the cold, I was starting to feel weak and weak but fortunately I was almost there when Lily asked me to go to the police station and an officer saw me in my bad condition and heard my whisper to see Sheriff Lowell Joyce.

With my first aid and warm drinks I recovered and found a gray policeman smiling at me and telling me that it was Sheriff Lowell, so I told him that I knew Lily and that she was under our back porch, so he should come and get her out. Black roll as they arrested my father and mother, and here I knew that Sheriff Lowell is my grandfather and that I will move to his house.

I became sixteen years old and my grandfather took him to my old house and told me the story where Lily was my real mother and that she was his daughter and she married my father despite my grandfather's refusal and ran away with him and my grandfather did not know where they were, and he killed her and buried her under the back window until she appeared to me when I was six And she guided me until I reached my grandfather, and her murder was revealed, and whoever killed her, he took out from his pocket the chain with which the butterfly was hung and gave it to me, and at this moment I felt that I saw her smiling from inside that hole.