Elora remembered that day like it was yesterday. She woke up like any other day to her mother's smiling face. In Elora's memories her mother was always smiling. On some deep level Elora knew that a woman with as many responsibilities as her mother had could not smile every day, but whether her mind had changed all of her memories so her mom was always smiling, or if in fact her mother always put on a brave smile for her, Elora did not know. What she knew is that her moms smile that morning was burned into her mind.
Elora woke up to a soft kiss on the forehead from her mother and the smell of eggs on the pan, probably plucked fresh that morning from Dena and Leona's favorite nesting place. Her memories briefly flitted to chasing those two chickens around the yard before returning to the memory of that fateful morning.
After kissing Elora on the head softly, and rising carefully from the bed trying not to wake up Grey, her mother returned to the stove. Elora knew that if she was smelling eggs her mother had fed the chickens already that morning, something Elora always tried to wake up early and do before her mother had a chance. Though her mom was always smiling (at least in Elora's memories) even at 15 Elora knew that her mother needed help with chores even though her mother never asked.
Elora couldn't be too upset that she had slept in later than usual, that night she hadn't slept well as she had spent the night cuddling and cooing to four year old Grey to help him sleep. Elora knew her mother would have taken care of Grey that night if she knew he had been awake, but Elora did what she could to get him back to sleep so her mother could sleep.
It was a biting Spring morning and Elora had to build up the courage to jump out of her warm bed into the cool morning light. Before getting up Elora scanned the room for her clothes. It took her eyes some time to adjust to the light, especially with the rays of morning sunshine that peaked through the window and the small hole in their roof. After scanning her and Grey's small room in their two room shack she saw her clothes in the corner.
Elora jumped out of bed and began putting her clothes on as quickly as she could. She had forgotten to put them under her covers the night before so they were just as cold as the morning. First she pulled on her brown knit pants. They were soft and surprisingly warm in the cold and yet comfortable in the heat. Next was her thick white shirt. Then her "dress", this had been added so the village women would stop saying she needed to wear a dress because she was a lady. In truth her "dress" was basically a black vest that ended above her knees, with two slits in the fabric so it didn't inhibit her movement. The village women stopped saying anything about her wearing a dress, but their looks of disapproval did not change since the addition.
Then finally Elora threw on her beautiful black cape and her boots. Her god mother, Gandred, had given her the beautiful black cape for her tenth birthday. At ten the magnificent cape swallowed her up as it was sized to fit a woman, not a ten year old girl. The night Gandred gave Elora her black cape was the last time Elora ever saw God Mother. At 15 the cape fit well enough that Elora wore it whenever the weather was cold enough to justify it.
Taking a break from her memories Elora looked down at the black cape she still wore at 20. Although the cape had been given to her by her God mother a decade earlier it still looked beautiful with little evidence of wear and tear. Her cape was unique as she could wear it in two different ways. On warmer days she could do up the top button and let it sway in the wind; and on colder days she could button it down the middle so it looked like a blanket wrapped around her and put her arms through two slits on the sides, this allowed her arms to move freely while still maintaining a warm blanket like feeling around her.
On this morning, just like on the morning her life changed, she had buttoned up all seven buttons to warm her from the morning chill.
Back in her memories Elora watched herself dashed to the table to gobble up the eggs, milk, and berries her mother had put on one of their chipped plates for her breakfast. Her mother had bartered some of the rabbit skins and rabbit meat Elora had caught the week before for milk and other food. Elora had found the berries just the day before as she had been out hunting. Between her mother's work as a midwife and her hunting, there was always food on the table for her, her mother, and little Grey.
It was an unspoken rule that before Grey woke up her mother and her said very little in the house. The house was so small that just a few words could wake up Grey, and although Elora loved and adored him, he was a bit of a little monster when he was tired.
Elora slowly opened the door out to their small yard to avoid it creaking, and then slowly shut it to avoid the thunk sound the door made when it closed. Dena and Leona were already strutting around the yard and she could hear Mouse's snorts as he waited impatiently for his breakfast. Their stable was small, farmers Tel and Leder had built it as payment for her mother attending to their wives pregnancies.
Elora loved Mouse almost as much as she loved her black cloak. She took good care of him knowing that her family was lucky to have a horse, let alone a horse like Mouse. Mouse was a beautiful grey, almost silver, color. Elora had never seen his equal. A few times every year her mother was approached with offers to buy Mouse, some of the amounts offered shocked Elora, but her mother never said yes.
As Elora finished feeding and brushing Mouse, and was about to mount him to spend another day hunting in the forest, she heard a scream from Grey unlike one she had ever heard the four year old make.
Elora immediately ran to the house, and opened the door to find her mother siting next to Grey on her bed. Something was wrong with Grey. Grey had been with Elora and her mother since he was a newborn and yet she had never seen him act like this. He sat stiff in their bed looking straight at her mother, yet he seemed to be looking straight through her.
Her mother was stroking Grey's four year old face and whispering "Grey, sweetheart, I'm right here. Come back to us".
Unflinching Grey said "Coming" in a voice Elora could barely recognize as his. Then he went slack in the bed and looked the same as he had when Elora slowly got out of bed that morning.
"Mom, what just happened?", Elora asked her mother in a whisper with fear in her voice. Even at 15 she knew something was wrong.
"I'm sure it was just a nightmare" her mom whispered back as she smiled at Elora. Elora swore she had seen fear in her mother's eyes just a moment earlier, but she was again smiling her typical smile.
Although Elora and her mother has whispered their conversation Grey stirred and rubbed his eyes waking up as if nothing had happened.
"Grey, are you ok?" Elora asked trying to hide the concern in her voice.
"I wants to see Mouse" Grey responded.
Grey loved Mouse, and nearly every morning he asked to see Mouse when he first woke up.
"Elora take Grey to see Mouse while I get his breakfast ready." Her mother said.
No comments:
Post a Comment