“I could marry an elf!” Sorcha declared at dinner that night. Her mother, sat at the end of the table, furrowed her brow as her daughter expressed excitement at such a ludicrous suggestion.

“Think about it, they’re relatively peaceful, right? They outlive us by hundreds of years, I’m sure one would agree to it just for a lark!” Sorcha went on to explain.

“You will not be marrying an elf, most don’t like humans enough to be romantic with them to begin with, and think of the-“

“Social status?”

“Sorcha-“

“Tana.”

The two women regarded each other, one with a glare of annoyance and the other with a devious smile.

“Well,” began the younger, “if you don’t like that idea, what if you let me…explore?”

“What do you mean?” Tana speared her potatoes as if targeting them with her annoyance.

“There’s a lot of money to be made from going up North.”

“No.”

“But mum,”

“No. You are not going to go up there and get yourself killed, I lost…we lost enough already.”

“But I’d be safe-“

“How?”

“Hire a party.”

“With what money?”

“Well…”

“With the promise of untold treasures?”

Sorcha nodded.

Tana scoffed.

  For a moment the dinner continued in silence, silence heavy with the burden of Sorcha’s burning questions and impatient desire to be free of this place and all the rules created from superstition and ignorance. And the ridiculous notion that Sorcha find a boy to marry in a short amount of time. She opened her mouth.

“How did you and father meet again?”

“Sorcha, this-“

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“It took him years to win your heart.”

Tana looked at her daughter, who continued, “years, mum. And even on the weeks up to your wedding you did not relent in letting him know that it could all be over in a moment.”

“This is not about your father and I.”

“Well I haven’t been so lucky as you, have I mother? No man or boy has decided to take an interest in me for longer than a week, and the only few I cared to see again got sick and died.”

“This-“

“What?”

“Sorcha, this is about survival.”

“It’s about comfort. There’s so many empty places we could move in to and fix up a little and you want to keep living in a big house with empty halls.”

Tana sighed, “we used to be important.”

“You used to be important. Father did. I never really have. I don’t care to marry, mother. I’d rather my feet find the path.”

  Tana looked at her daughter with a combination of consternation and understanding. In the form of pursed lips and tapping fingers. Sorcha mistook this look for impatience, and removed her plate from the table as she stood, “I’ll be finishing this in my room.” And thus she left, leaving Tana at the table, alone. Tana placed her face in her hands and sighed.

  The matron of the Manx family was once a woman of fine station. She taught secrets, kept secrets, and handled other’s finances. Now, thanks to the southern sensibilities, she was seen as not useful for much other than midwifery, animal husbandry, servitude, and nursing. Men who did similar to what she used to do in the North were paid well for their services. Tana understood her daughter’s desire to leave, more than Sorcha would ever really know.

  After a few moments of wallowing in frustration, Tana removed herself from the table and set herself off to her chambers, seeking her papers and inks, preparing to write a letter with her increasingly stiff hands. She would spend the rest of the night doing this, writing multiple letters. Part of this was her hidden duties, things Tana had to do that Sorcha was unaware of, but another part of this was for Sorcha herself. She hoped her daughter would appreciate it.

  Sorcha, currently, was not in an appreciative mood. She paced in her room taking intermittent bites of her food as she felt the need. This was a common pattern to see her in when she was frustrated, but in the big empty house she found herself in, no one was meant to see her now. Her limited pacing would only come to an end when she lay in her bed, face down into a pillow, and let the frustration flow out of her in the form of tears.

  And so both of them spent the night agitated for what the future may hold. Sorcha was first to close her eyes, and in the wee hours, Tana followed her daughter into the realm of dreams.