Beware, little cub. Times are coming when what was will seem easy and what will be seem unbearable. Take heart, for you will overcome.
The voice sounds like Father… but it cannot be. He has been dead for years.
Who are you?
You know who I am, little cub. My time is up, but yours is upon you. Prepare yourself and know I will always be with you, even to the ends of the worlds.
Wait! Don’t—
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I sit up in bed, gasping and drenched in sweat. I plop back on my pokey straw mattress and pillow of bunched up fabric, breathing deeply and trying to calm my racing heart.
“Just a dream. It was only a dream.” I scrub a hand down my face, trying to forget the voice that sounded just like my father, but with such grief in the simple words. “Just a dream,” I repeat.
“Aria! Get down here before I smack that hiney across the ocean,” Mom calls up the stairs, her voice making me jump and my heart pound… again.
“Momma! I’m twenty-three this month,” I yell, my voice rough from sleep.
“A child is never too old for a good booty-smack, child of mine. Now get down here before your brother eats the last of the hotcakes and help me get this stew rolling.”
I crack a smile and hop out of bed, knowing my thirteen-year-old growing brother will finish off my portion of Momma’s delectable hotcakes if I give him half the chance. I throw on a black tunic and oversized pants that I have to cinch up at the waist. But they’re mine and they don’t have holes, so it’s good enough.
A basin beside the door contains water… that wasn’t there last night when I came home long after the moon was high in the sky. Momma must’ve brought it up this morning. I smile, her thoughtfulness warming my heart as I splash the cool, fresh water on my face and rinse my hands off.
I look at the gaunt-cheeked girl in the water, seeing all the sharp edges of my face and my not blonde but not brown hair. It’s average. I’m average.
And I like it that way. Less chance for someone to remember me.
In my line of hobbies it’s better for no one to remember me.
It pains me to admit, but I want to go out again tonight. It was a late night at the library last night, which meant a late morning today. But I felt some sort of tug--as if the library were calling me. But libraries aren't sentient and I'm sticking to that.
The sun is already bright in the sky when I peek my head out the shutters, and I realize Momma let me sleep for a lot longer than she shoulda. We’re to the second meal of the day, and my stomach gurgles, reminding me I didn’t break my morning fast.
There were a few books that were promising but I had to leave last night when I realized I had drooled on the pages when I accidentally fell asleep for a few hours. The library gets colder when I damage the books, so I try to avoid that.
But if I go back tonight… Momma is going to kill me. I’ve run from my responsibilities here two days in a row. But without Jill here... we can all breathe a little easier. I’m just thankful she felt like going to Becca’s for a bit. I hope they’ve had fun.
But I need to go back.
A part of me knows it’s only to get away from my life, an escape. But I am also doing it for my sister, to find answers not even the choicest healers in the city know.
I take the stairs two at a time, coming to the dining table in the center of the room. Jack already has half a hotcake from my plate in his mouth.
He looks at me with guilty hazel eyes, giving me his best innocent puppy-dog eyes, and I refrain from poking him with a knife as I sit… barely.
Instead, I put him in a headlock and muse his hair.
He bats me off, giving me a stink-eye, but it doesn’t hide the twitch of his lips nor the way his eyebrows aren’t quite so furrowed.
He spits out my hotcake and puts it back in my plate, a half-chewed, gooey mess.
I look from him to the cake, pursing my lips.
He shrugs and looks away, whistling.
“Don’t kill your brother, Aria. I’d have to explain it to The King when I died and I’d much rather not, if it’s of no mind to you,” Momma says from the kitchen without glancing back, and I take my hand off the fork.
Jack breathes a sigh, and I give him a warm smile to let him know I was teasing.
Then I pick up the cake with two fingers and sling it back on his plate along with another one the gooey thing had touched.
His eyes sparkle. “Thanks, sis!”
He digs in, acting as if he’s still starving after his own hotcakes. I feel a pinch of guilt. He needs to eat more, but we’re barely surviving as it is. Hopefully things will get better and we’ll find more game in the woods as flowers bud and grass shoots from the cold ground.
A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
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“Momma,” I say, pitching my voice so it reaches the shabby but lovingly kept kitchen. “I’m off to the market.”
“You and I both know you’ll be gone the night through. Be a useful rascal and take the eggs to the baker while you’re gone,” she requests... or something similar. Her voice is pitched around a small spoon in her mouth and she juggles two split logs in her arms. Let’s just say I know what she meant. Mostly.
She spits out the spoon onto the small counter beside a little bowl that counts as a washing station. “And don’t forget the wool for Miss Retha.”
“Already done,” I reply, kissing her cheek with eggs and wool in a basket dangling from my arm. I gathered them just after breaking my fast, thankful the little cluckers are laying again after the long winter.
The iron stove smokes around the edges in impatience, not having enough wood to fuel its belly. If the fire isn’t producing enough heat to send the smoke up the stove pipe… we could be in trouble. We exchange a concerned glance. I shrug my shoulders. She huffs out a breath, opening the door with one arm and almost tipping over the logs in her arms. I cough as a billow of smoke enfolds the little kitchen, my eyes stinging. Momma chucks the two logs in her arms into the smoke and I shove the squeaking door shut.
Momma wipes her forehead. I hand her the wooden spoon.
She pinches my cheek in thanks, laughing when I roll my eyes and rub the spot.
Her eyes water when she turns from checking the food to escape the smoke still billowing from the stove. She swipes at the ribbons of grey smoke around her face, trails of it following her from the now murky kitchen. I open the front door, taking a deep breath of fresh air to calm my aching lungs.
“Thanks for the help, sweetie. Couldn’t you have been two minutes sooner?” She swats my backside with a stained towel with a smile tipping her lips.
A laugh bubbles from me as I dance out of the way of any further shows of mock-ire.
Her smile is both pinched and yearning, and I know we’re both thinking of how much needs done before Jill returns in the morning. Guilt curdles my stomach. I should probably stay and help around the farm with the chores. But that isn’t my passion. I need more than this, and so I’ll go to the market and the library. If I have time after all that, I’ll wander the streets watching for criminals—which is both a purpose and an escape.
Don’t get me wrong, I love my family dearly and wouldn’t trade them for the world. It’s only.. it’s been years of dealing with a family sickness no one knows how to cure. It has put us in debt more often than not, and I couldn’t abandon my mother to deal with the sickness and what it’s brought. Not alone. Even when most women my age have children on their hips and a household of their own long before my age.
So instead of leaving like I sometimes desire, I escape into town, researching my sister’s symptoms and helping the citizens in the small ways I can. Mom knows, and she understands I must do this for my sanity, even if I leave her somewhat high and dry at home.
Momma gives me a knowing smile, patting her hands on the off-white stained apron layered over her plain wool dress, her rigid edges showing slightly through the worn fabric. We’ve all become thinner over winter. With spring comes more eggs as the chickens lay and hopefully more coin to pay off our debts to the healer’s guild.
“Try to come back in one piece. It’s hard enough worrying over your sister. I don’t know what I’d do if I lost you.” She takes a deep breath and morphs her face into a glowing smile for my benefit, but I see the strain beneath it in the shadows beneath her pale eyes and the way her eyes don’t crinkle at the corners like they used to.
If I could choose to keep my sanity without being trouble myself, then I would. I don’t mean to worry her, but I was boiling in a pit of self-pity before I came to use the things Pa taught me for the betterment of the city. Now I have a purpose.
“Be safe and watch out for those wolves.” Her bright blue eyes that are twin to mine twinkle with mischief in her wrinkle lined face. She’s not all that old... but life has been hard. Stress will do that to ya. Her hair is prematurely gray, the brown it used to be slowly fading into the silver of wisdom.
“Always!” I say as I head out the door, pulling on my deep red cloak.
“Grandma!” I call as I step through the door.
A deep, throaty growl meets my ears from around the side of our quaint little cottage. A pure white Timber Wolf, at least my shoulder high at her shoulder, steps through my garden of herbs on silent paws. Her size would be her most intimidating feature, if not for the claws she flexes and retracts at will, or her four-inch saber teeth curling at her jaw. She bares those fangs, showing huge pearly whites the size of my finger.
I roll my eyes. “Oh, cut it out, Ran. You know your fangs are huge. I know your fangs are huge. Can’t we just go?”
She whines, getting down on her belly to crawl over, thick muscles made for climbing and shredding now used to beg. Her big brown eyes watch me with a pout as only a special sort of—pet—acquires for their arsenal. If you own a dog or cat or wolf or rabbit (do not let Ran see the rabbit, she considers them a delicacy)… you know every sense of willpower disappears with those big, adorable eyes.
“Oh, alright. Make it small,” I concede, knowing full well I shouldn’t.
She hops up and spins in a complete circle three times, while thoroughly treading my mother’s dahlias, “Watch… the flowers,” I say. Too late. “Why me!” I ask the sky. I merely get a vague sense of humor from The King in response.
“Oh, sure, Great King, don’t answer. I’ll just keep a big bad wolf as a pet because she turned up at my grandmother’s home when I was supposed to be visiting my grandmother. Instead, I feed a wolf, whom I have been warned of for ages, my very own blood, somehow bonding us for life!”
“You done yet?” Momma asks from the doorway, humor coating her voice.
“I am now.” I release a sigh, straightening my shoulders.
“Love you always and forever, hon. And don’t forget to walk your sister home from Becca’s.”
“Will do. Love you, too, Momma.”
I then look over at the gigantic wolf still spinning circles on my mother’s flowers. I can’t help a small, begrudging smile at her excitement that I both see and feel deep in my soul. Whatever I may say, I wouldn’t change what happened for all the worlds.
“Come here, beaut.” She yips and comes running full tilt.
“Easy now, just a small hug—that’s all I agreed to.” She gently barrels me over with her shoulder and licks my face. Gooey slobber tickles my cheeks and neck, the warm liquid reminding me of warm, slimy egg whites. Yuck.
“Hey… HEY!” I shout. “That’s quite enough.” I scowl, even as I bite my tongue to keep from laughing.
She gives one last, leisurely lick for good measure, then steps back, panting, her tongue lolling out the side of her mouth. I sit up, drool dripping off my chin. Double yuck.
I flick slobber at her. “That… is always gross. But I still love you.” She yips and sends her version of love and undying loyalty through the bond.
I smile and return the feeling. “Let’s go, beaut.”