A Story

Emily knew what her morning would be like when she opened her eyes. The sun struggled to find its way into her dark room and she could hear the far off church bells ringing in the still gray morning. Still vacuous from sleep she groaned and rubbed her eyes looking at the hearth as she turned her head.  The room was cold and the fire had gone out and she hated the thought of putting her feet on the icy floor but knowing she could no longer disregard the feeble sounds coming from the other bed.  She pulled her wrap around her thin shoulders as she made her way through the small cottage to get wood for the fireplace.

Many hours and chores later she took her mum a cuppa and sighed as she looked at her lined face with the sadness seeping out of her eyes. She hated the look she saw now and thought, no old woman; you will not sweep me into your discord! She looked away before the abyss she saw swept her into it.

Later as she walked through the meadow and headed to her favorite quiet place she reflected on her life and the turn it had taken just three short years earlier. She was still in school, had friends and had a mum and da who loved her. Then he rode in on a warm spring day. Her da was in the field and her mum was in the little garden when the pale stranger came into their lives. No one knew that this day would be the end of life, as known before. She shook her head and pushed the thoughts out of her head as she looked around her at the new life struggling to bloom under the thin layer of the late snow. New beginnings, she thought in anger as she drew her wrap tighter. Bitter beginnings and goodbye to the life that was so full of promise. She wished her da had taken her with him when he left. The life he now lived had to be better than the one he left her to live. Did he hate her too, she wondered. Was this her punishment for having thought her life was good? Should she have been more pious?  The life she did take for granted, thinking she would finish school and go to University, change the world, see the things about which she had only dreamed. Now she lived the life of a spinster at seventeen, taking care of an old woman with no will and the one thing the stranger left in his wake.



When supper was over, she led her mum into the warm kitchen and drew her into the tub of water she prepared for her. She scrubbed her mum’s hair and tried to talk to her. That was like talking to a child, but at least it was a human. She still could not break through the wall behind which she had retreated. Perhaps she should not be so bitter to a thing that used to hold her and stroke her face with much love. Who knew how much damage the stranger did to her mum or how much it cost her to do the thing she did. She pondered her mum’s decision and how a stranger could take someone’s heart the way her mum‘s was taken. Her eyes rested briefly on the small hump on the top of the hill and wondered if her mum thought about what lay under the earth? Was what was gone longed for? Did she know her life would change irreparably on that fateful day?

Thankfully when her bath was over it was time to take care of the other one so she could put her to bed and have the rest of the night to mull over her thoughts. She went into the shared room and stared at the other one.  The chair that held her dwarfed the child’s tiny body, the straps keeping her up were tangled and she had slipped too far in the seat. She crossed the small room, unbuckled the straps, and caught the slipping child.  The small child who was her half sister looked into her eyes and Emily could see the smile hidden in the depths of them. Please do not, she thought. I cannot and will not love you! Emily placed all the blame for the sad state of affairs that was now her life on the small helpless child. How I wish I could hate her, she thought, but as she held the little body in her arms, she knew in her heart that this small waif did not ask to for this life. She sighed and bathed the small child, dressed her and laid her in the bed she shared with her mum.

As she weeded the small garden she had scratched from the resistant earth, she heard a horse and rider coming through the woods towards the small stone cottage at a leisurely pace. She gave a small start as she realized it could not be the man Gerard and she never expected to see her da again. She threw down the hoe and ran as fast as her trembling legs would carry her towards the relative safety of the house where her sister and mother were resting. Hurriedly she slammed the door, turned the lock, and grabbed a knife before peeking out of the window at the man as he tied his horse to the stone wall.

The man was tall and at first glance was built slight , but as she watched him walk towards the house she detected strength in him, perhaps by the way he carried himself, the set of his shoulders. His hair was wavy and jet-black like her sister’s hair. His eyes looked much older than the rest of his young countenance showing her he had lived live with many hardships. His dress was not displeasing although he was very dusty from his travel on his horse. Before he could knock, she called out to him and startled his easy approach.

She knew he would not leave for he saw her hoe lying in the yard where she dropped it in her haste to reach the house. Yes, what do you want she called? I am looking for a bit of work he answered as he stuck his head under the eaves of the house. She opened the door and looked into his ice blue eyes, eyes so like her half sisters they could have been the same. Her heart beat furiously and she blushed when she met his friendly smile. No she was thinking, not again. She knew in that moment that her life would never be the same.







Love, me