Roots [29]

I don’t think you understand how this works.

How does it work?

Well, when the Beast’s wind blows, it says things to me.

Both of you? At the same time?

Well, if we are in the same place, yes. But otherwise no. It tells Tom different things.

So it speaks differently to you than it does Tom?

Yes! Yes, Mary, exactly.

And do you know why it only speaks to you two?

It doesn’t only speak to us. It spoke to you once, remember? It speaks to Aunt Martha.

Yes, but only that once.

Maybe, my dearest, sweetest girl, maybe some people are more in need of it than others.

Why does Tom need it?

I don’t know, darling. If I knew, I would.. well.

You still wouldn’t say yes to the poor fellow, would you.

Stop it, Mary. Don’t talk to me of such things.

Well. I think you’re stubborn and silly. And I think you have trained your ears to only listen to the silly things that old Beast tells you. Who knows how old those words are, and from which ancient tree they came. Who knows how long they have lived in these lands, and what hold they have on them. And you let them into your mind, and you let them make decisions for you. I think it’s all silly. I think you’re growing older, Laura, and you are putting roots where there is no soil.

Don’t you tell me where I ought to put my roots, Mary.

Well, I shall. I shall tell you. I think you’re wasting your time.

I am not!

You don’t laugh anymore.

I can’t.

The Beast has taken your joy away!

That’s absurd. If that was the case, my joy would have vanished ten years ago.

Something is not right, Laura.

I tell you, you don’t understand how this works!! Now stop it. Let us walk the rest of the way home in silence. The moon is large tonight. I want to feast my eyes on the world bathing in its silver light.

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December [27]

I like to think December is dressed in ermine. Her neck drips with rubies. She has a cane, silk pearl gloves, and her hair is done up in such a way as to declare she has all the time in the world. It gleams when the light moves on it, just so, and she does not wear a hat. No sir. A hat would destroy the effect she so longs to have on people.

Would you like an ermine coat, Laura?

Goodness me, no. What an awful thing to want to wear. I don’t know where I would even wear an ermine coat. To the town market? While I am weeding the garden? Milking the cow? Shooing chickens out of the kitchen?

Oh, I am sure you could find somewhere to wear an ermine coat.

Catch me wearing an ermine, Tom. Just catch me!

I take it you still despise December?

Oh, despise is too strong a word. I think December is very beautiful.

But she does not make you happy?

She makes me more sad than happy.

Sad, Laura? Why?

She is gloom. Doom. Darkness. She has disdain for the sun. She is lofty and cold. She would never embrace you in her ermine arms should you need comfort. Why, she is an icy woman with no heart.

December, with no heart!? It cannot be.

I am very firm in this conviction. She has no heart. If she had a heart, she would relent a little. Give us some hope.

I think she is very hopeful.

Does she give you hope, Tom?

She sent me a letter, last year. A letter that gave me a lot of hope.

Ahh. Yes. She did do that.

Daisies on a Teacup [26]

He stayed away for three years. Each term, when his fellow students would pack their trunks and shout their goodbyes, he stayed on. Always finding an excuse to stay. One summer he worked as an assistant for an old doctor who lived in a village not far from the Academy. Another, he found himself inundated with work that he had not managed to complete during term, and had a letter from Master Jeffman himself to say he required the services of one Thomas Norton, if his family would be so kind as to excuse his absence.

Each holiday when John stepped off the train alone, or arrived home alone, or exited a carriage alone, her eyes would lose some spark. Nobody noticed. She was still her energetic, cheerful self.

Nobody thought it odd that Tom did not come back. Not even John. He would cheerfully remark on his friend’s ability to throw himself wholly, completely into his studies. He would detail how well Tom was doing, the praise Tom received from Master Jeffman, praise which any for other boy was hard to come by.

And she smiled when her brother spoke of him. Gracious smile, and then a change of track in conversation.

Nobody noticed.

Until one day, she could not take it any longer.

She sat down, picked up her pen.

Dear Tom,

I do not know but that I despise December. It is cold. It is grey. Darkness arrives not long after it lifts. When I see the dawn, I see no colour, save for the few days of sunshine we are so blessed to have. Perpetual GLOOM, Tom. Daises on a teacup. The only thing I look forward to in December is John’s much anticipated arrival. We all wait for him at the station, you see, since he writes which day he will be here. Mary waits, too, and your mother. She expects you, even if you have written to tell her you will not be on that train.

We get up early in December, before the dawn struggles its way up our side of the hill. The Lake has finally, finally frozen around the edges. Not enough to skate on – never enough for THAT, but we still dream, Mary and I. She is preparing to set off to new horizons. Come February, she too will be gone and then it will be just me left. She will be an Educated Woman, and I shall be the last remaining farm girl.

I could spend the rest of my life here, Tom. Everyday I love it more. I love the wind blowing over the hills and meadows. I love watching the sun set itself over our lake. I love the rustle in the forest. I love the smell of pine and rose when I fling my windows open in late summer. I love, yes, begrudgingly, I love the frosty mornings of December when every leaf, every twig, every branch, every blade of grass is iced most delicately, the most beautiful handiwork ever seen. I have no desire to take myself off into the world, or throw myself into studies, or teach, or marry a rich man and sail the seas with him. I want to stay here. With my roses. With my beast.

Daises on a teacup, Tom.

Our John tells us you are doing so well. So brilliantly well. He says you will be a doctor so renowned one day that none of us shall ever hear from you again, you shall be wanted all over the world. Is that true? I know my brother, he embellishes a lot. He flourishes one’s positive traits until one becomes faultless in his description. You are not faultless, and I know you are excelling, but I want some grisly detail. I want to hear of the fun things you get up to. I want to know what you do when you are not wearing the tip of your nose away on the grindstone.

With Affection,

Laura

P.S. Can we possibly be friends again?

Image Credit

Freight [24]

It was the sound of the thundering freight train at 10pm every night that woke her. She knew that now. At first she thought it was something far beyond the reaches of man calling out to her. Something bigger than her Beast. Something deep in the underbelly of the earth, or soaring above the stars.

When the sound reached her dreaming ears it enveloped her completely. It dragged her by her heavy limbs from deep slumber and into the world of the living. Her eyes focused on the ceiling. Silvery in the light of the moon that always bathed her room on clear nights when the it was in its full form.

He asked her. She said no.

‘Why did you say no?’ her mother had asked, when she ran in sobbing after that fateful day in the garden.

‘I couldn’t lie to him, Mother,’ she told her mother, wringing her hands.

‘It wouldn’t be a lie, dearest.’

‘It would. It would!’

‘Well, who else are you waiting for?’

‘NOBODY!’ and she slammed the kitchen door as she flung herself out, threw herself up the stairs, stamping for emphasis, and then fell onto her bed in defeat. And perhaps some despair.

His face kept rising in front of her eyes when she tried to go to sleep. His face. She loved that face. The way he smiled, always. The secret smile. The boyish smile, when he made one of his numerous jokes or teased and teased and teased everybody who let him. The smile when he was just being himself. The smile he had ready for anybody he saw – and then the smile they reflected back at him. The smile when she spoke, the one she knew was only for her, the one she knew he didn’t even know he put on. He had no idea he smiled like that for her. The smile that she had wiped off his face so cruelly with only six little words.

She wanted to snatch those words back out of the air. Unwhisper them to the wind. Take them back and tuck them away where they belonged.

But where did they come from? They had to have come from somewhere.

Her heart felt sore. Yet the tears would not fall.

Image Credit: Euston Next Stop by Philip D Hawkins

Sunrise and Rainbow [22]

My sister sent me a text when I was downstairs in my mother’s house, working at the dining table.

It was 7am. The house was silent. Everybody was fast asleep.

‘There’s a rainbow outside’ she wrote.

Immediately I jumped up, yanked open the curtains, and this is what I saw.

On one side, a gorgeous rainbow. Then behind me, opposite the rainbow, the prettiest sunrise!

Needless to say today I did not manage to sit to write a proper blog post. But I can’t miss a day, not when we are this close to the finish line. Every day in November a blog post! So here is my contribution from today. My eyes are stinging with exhaustion, I am about to collapse into bed, hoping my kids sleep through the night tonight! And I am happy I managed to get a post out before November 22 ends!

In the Dusk [18]

His first visit home was tinged with sadness. He came because of her sadness. He did not say so, but she knew.

She was walking in the garden when she heard the carriage pull up to the house.

Just a caller.

It was the right time for it.

Twilight in October. Days shortening rapidly. The breeze not yet cold enough to usher her indoors. Face lifted to the stars, which shone silently in the clear dusk. Distant clouds pink and purple, the surge of breeze every so often rifling through the changing leaves. Not so brittle, not so soft, so the rustle they made was like sheafs of textured paper being flipped through y invisible hands. What stories would the leaves tell?

Any moment now, her mother would call to her. Would say someone or other had called in, and she was to make herself available.

Dreary sigh.

‘Ahh, Laura. The beauty of dusk does not soothe you tonight,’

She whipped around, and there he was. Taller, if that was possible. So brown. Brown so his green eyes lit up his entire face, and the smile that did not appear on his lips beamed from his eyes.

She did not know what to do or say, so she moved towards him and flung her arms around him, hiding her face so he wouldn’t see her tears.

Furiously blinking them away, she exclaimed, ‘Tom. What are you doing here!?’

‘I was long overdue a visit to my dear mother,’ he said, and when she didn’t let go of him, he added, ‘I came straight out here to find you.’

‘How did you know I would be here?’

She stood back, finally, and her eyes glittered, but her smile took over her whole face.

‘Twilight on a clear day – I would be surprised to find you indoors.’

She sighed again. ‘It makes my heart ache,’ she murmured.

They stood a little whole longer outdoors, as the dusk turned into a clear, shimmering night.

Evening in the Garden by Jakub Schikaneder

Company [15]

Republishing this as part of my NanoWrimo. It fits. It belongs. Is it cheating? Maybe, maybe! But it belongs.

A basket of strawberries, over a slender brown arm, gleaming in the heady sun of July.

A basket of strawberries, and fields rolling away with greenery and promise. Insects buzzing in the thickets nearby, birds chirruping, as a soft breeze swooping through the very tips of the trees, a gentle swooshing sound, bringing a coolness that prickled the tiniest hairs on her skin.

Perhaps now she would turn, and would see a tall, handsome figure walking up the hill towards her. Perhaps he would call on her to wait for him. She would stand, alright, and wait for him, and when he joined her he would whisk her away somewhere. He would have his motorcar waiting, and they would sail into the horizon. Where would they go? She wasn’t entirely sure, but it would be somewhere great. She would look upon his face and a thread of understanding would pass from his eyes to hers. She stood, now, in the long, almost still, summer afternoon, at the crest of the hill, with the scenery rolling away from her, far into the distance, and shadows of clouds drifting lazily across the sunny landscape.

And so, so still, almost like a picture.

‘Hi! Laura! Hiiii!’

She whipped around, her basket almost slipping from her arm. A tall figure, marching up the hill towards her. He was waving his hat madly, certainly not her mysterious handsome stranger. He was handsome, there was no denying that. Handsome, but so… so … familiar. For it was only Tom.

‘Oh. It’s you.’ she said, when he had reached her, and she continued to pick her way across the field. She lifted her skirts a little, the meadow grass rising high above her hem.

‘You say that like you are disappointed,’ he said, there was a small twinkle in his eye, so slight, and it irritated her.

‘Am I not the handsome stranger you so anticipated?’

She looked sharply at him, but there was only amusement in his eyes. Bright, mirthful eyes, as blue as the deep sky all around them.

‘No, not disappointed,’ she said lightly, shifting the basket to her other arm. He glanced inside. Strawberries of all kinds and colours tumbled over each other, small ones, big ones, shaped like tomatoes and hearts, bright red, gentle pink, red tinged with white and green.

‘I’ve come to drag you back for supper.’

‘Much ado about supper,’ she picked a wild strawberry from her basket and popped it into her mouth, ‘I’m not hungry’.

‘My sister sent me after you,’ he said, ‘I’m to bring you home immediately.’

‘Well you needn’t always do as you’re told,’ she scolded, severely, ‘I was rather enjoying my solitude and expecting to have an adventure, until you came along and dis-enthralled the occasion.’

‘Oh, I dis-enthralled the occasion, did I. And what occasion was this, that it commanded you to trail your muddy skirts in solitude through the fields?’

‘Never you mind!’ she snapped.

‘My, but you are sour today.’

She sighed, and then glanced at him. He was looking expectantly at her, and his face was so youthful, so carefree, and his eyes danced just so, in that boyish way of his, that she relented a little.

‘I was longing for an adventure,’ she said, finally, stooping a little to pick a wild stalk from by her feet, ‘and I supposed, when I saw your figure in the distance, that you might be it.’

He contemplated her for a few moments, and his face was blank, and then he erupted into loud laughter, and she laughed with him, because it was frivolous and silly, and he made it seem so carefree, and it made her happy.

‘Ah, hence the disappointment’, he said, wiping his eyes, ‘come now, Laura, your adventure shall not forsake you, but it is time to go back for supper, else they’ll all be mad, and we shall have a merry time of it.’

Irritation set in again, and made her square her shoulders, ‘need they be so .. so.. rigid!?’

‘They are worried,’ he smiled gently, ‘John isn’t here, so I expect I am your company for the evening, and your mother wanted to make sure that you were available for it, and behaved like the lady that you are.’

‘Lady, indeed!’

‘Well, is the promise of my being company not enough to entice your stubborn spirit?’

Laura threw her head back and laughed heartily, ‘Oh, Tom. Company, really?! You aren’t company anymore. You don’t need me there to entertain you, when all the others are there. You’re simply — why, you’re part of the furniture!’

He regarded her silently, and the laughter vanished from his eyes. She didn’t notice, for her back was to him, as she sailed along ahead of him.

The breeze rustled through the tall meadow grass, the buttercups and wild daises rippling in wonderful waves across the sloping hills, the wind pushing clouds along in the sky, the leaves gently conversing with each other in the distant thicket. A loud motorcar announced itself on the road just beyond the field, whizzing past in a flash of silver and red, and then silence once more. Silence and the earthly sounds of nature, and the two of them, picking their way through the field and on to the road, her ahead, him behind.

Raspberries in Water [12]

You’ve seen it before, haven’t you? Floating around on the ether.

Tell me you’ve seen it?

A startle of light.

That’s the only way it can be described.

It tells the secrets of the universe.

Or at least this galaxy.

The earth spins around in space, you see. The stars are distant suns.

And when you think about the earth, do you think it’s a spaceship, that we are hurtling through the black vacuum of space?

Or is it an ecosystem of itself?

The Sahara desert is a graveyard of ancient plankton. It used to be a sea that dried up, and the sand is the old seabed.

Five thousand years old, it is said. Every day at noon, the winds lift the sand particles, really the ancient plankton particles, into the air.

And carries the particles over the globe we call earth to the Amazon rainforest, where they melt into the millions of raindrops that saturate the earth in that part of the world. The ancient plankton particles contain iron and essential minerals for life, for fertilisation, for the rapid growth of the thick undergrowth in the Amazon.

A whole entire world, yet all of its parts conspire to create one heaving, breathing being.

Do you think the earth breathes?

Gardens [11]

She was a rose garden.

The kind you see in old houses. The ones where the Lord of the Manor builds a stone garden for his wife and fills it with roses. He carves her a bench to sit on, and tells the gardeners to clear off at 10 in the morning so his lovely wife can sit in the silence, the breeze gently ruffling her skirts, and contemplate.

She was the rose garden.

The gift that gives.

Gave.

A smile when things go wrong. Gentle hands to wipe away tears, caress a face, run over smooth silky hair.

He watched from afar for years.

He watched her roses bloom, but never for him.

She danced through life sunlight glinting on golden locks. Larger than life, large as life, real. But never tangible.

When she laughed, with him, at him, next to him, but never for him, his heart would ache.

She gave him her friendship, held it out on a gilded plate. A bouquet of roses, their edges curly, their centres blushing, their scent tantalising.

She put her hand out, and when he took it, she let go.

He was there, you see, for all her joys and sadnesses, but never a part of them.

And he asked her. He asked her once, and she…

Said no.

She was the rose garden.

He only wanted one rose, but she was a rose garden.

The rose garden at Tatton Park, which inspires my thoughts. It was actually built by the Lord of the Manor for his wife, and he did indeed tell the gardeners to clear off at ten in the morning so his wife could enjoy the roses, undisturbed by anybody.

Night [9]

The night time is awfully romantic.

It changes a town.

Lights reflect messily on the rippling surface of the river, and when she walks across the bridge under the lampposts and the falling leaves of a dark, dark November night… why, the possibilities are endless.

She thinks things she would never dare contemplate in broad daylight.

Things she has tucked away in the furthest corners of her mind.

The streets, so familiar by daylight, have turned into magical avenues. Lined with tall trees, branches half bare, half covered with yellow and brown leaves. Leaves adoring each avenue, piling under the lampposts, which light up the night softly. Delicately.

Allowing room for thoughts to steal into her mind where they have no business to be.

Mellowing her firm heart.

There he was, waiting for her, just as Mary said he would be. He stood in the doorway of the post office, his cap pulled low over his eyes, arms folded to keep out the cold. Their eyes met and his lit up. Hers scanned the ground by his feet.

‘I told Mary I would walk you as far as the dorm block,’ he began, when she stopped in front of him.

‘That would be… thank you..’ she said, her voice low and demure.

‘I daren’t go any further than that,’ he went on and a wry smile took hold of his features.

‘Aunt Martha would hang you,’ Laura smiled then.

There.

That was not so hard.

Things were normal.

It was just the night, and these strange strange streets.

Grim November evenings, still gorgeously autumnal, the river and its lights, the students walking back from the ball, carefree laughter.

Endless possibilities.

Rendered skewed by the romantic nature of the night.

‘She would hang me, and roast my legs and serve them up with dinner,’

‘Thank you, Tom. For taking the time. You needn’t have bothered yourself.’

‘Don’t I always walk you home?’

Yes but this time it feels different.

‘Yes, and thank you,’

She did not see the bewildered glance he threw in her direction, nor the way his eyes lingered on her face as she looked up through the half bare branches at the beautiful old moon, which was witness to…

It was witness, that ancient moon.