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Post by Deyla on Sept 22, 2006 21:22:33 GMT -5
Granma's hip is almost better, but good news continues. It turns out that she likes being waited on, and Big Joe (her son who lives in the big house with his family, except for Granma in her cottage, and Joey and Maybell in theirs) thinks that it's better that she not live alone. So they asked me to stay on for awhile.
I wish they had a bit more money, because they can't really afford to pay me, actually. So we came to an agreement: they will turn the attic into a real bedroom for me, and give me room and board and generous time off. In addition, I can keep making clothes and other items using all that old cloth. Finally, Big Joe and his youngest son Jamie (who is very good at this sort of thing) will make me an actual Hope Chest. Big Joe says that when the harvest is all in, he pays bonuses to all his hands, and if there is one this year, I will get it, too, even though I mostly don't get paid in cash. We also agreed that I can sell things I make with their materials from the dead people if I want, and I don't have to share the money with them.
So basically, this is a little less work than the heroes gig, although it doesn't pay as well. On the other hand, a bunch of the "work" is sitting with Granma and listening to her stories, cheering her up when she's down, and stuff like that. I can sew while I do that, and this time, the sewing is mostly for me. I repair stuff around her place that is getting worn, too, because her eyes are not what they use to be, so she mostly likes to knit and crochet and make lace, because she can feel with her fingers how that is going.
Granma makes lovely lace, both the pin kind and the bobbin kind. She says she will teach me to do it, and that sounds useful. Lace is cheap to make and expensive to sell, so it could be profitable for me.
She mostly enjoys ordering me around, and telling me how I do things wrong. Of course, I can clean just about anything, and I'm smart enough not to let things get too dirty. It's a small cottage, she's naturally a neat person, and there's no heroes tramping in mud. The work part is easy, and despite her hectoring me while I am cleaning stuff, she seems happy enough with my work. I like her fine.
In fact, it would be about perfect if it weren't for that twit Maybell. She isn't even a blood relative, but Granma dotes on her. So she spends just about all her time over here, whining. I think in four weeks, she has managed to hem about 5 or 6 diapers, and the hemming is just ugly. I could do better than that when I was 8 years old. Perhaps there was some advantage to being hit by Matron when I did a bad job, after all.
The worst part is when Granma decides that since "poor Maybell" is in a family way, she can't be expected to cook for her own husband. The girl is only about five months gone! What it will be like when she's actually close to term, I can't imagine. However, it's clearly in my best interest for Granma to keep liking me, so I am pleasant to Maybell, and I cook meals for the two of them. So far, I have managed not to be forced to do it in her kitchen. I just make extra of what we are eating and wrap it up for her to take home. I'm pretty sure she pretends to Joey that she cooked it herself, but whatever. Sometimes she shows up with fish or something that he caught and I make it into enough food for four people. There is no way I am cooking extra meals for that little brat and her husband.
The vegetables are plentiful and good, there is unlimited cheese and milk, and every day, the big house sends us some meat or fowl to cook, too. Granma has a starter she says she got from her grandmother when she got married, and I use that to make bread. I make thick chewy brown bread for every day and fluffy white loaves for when she goes to dinner with Big Joe and his family. Some of the white dough I make into dinner rolls that she can take with her so she doesn't feel like she is coming empty-handed, and the rest I used for loaves to make sandwiches with during the week.
Me, I like heavy sandwiches: thick slices of sausage on brown bread with mustard and bitter lettuce. Granma likes thinly sliced tomatoes with sweet lettuce, butter, and either a little chicken breast or some cold fried bacon, on thin white bread. We both love white bread with fresh cheese and herbs grilled until the cheese is all melted and runny. And I love making bread. It takes time, and when you are making it for only two people, it's not an onerous job. First, the magic of kneading it until it is silky smooth. Then the miracle of seeing it rise, first in the bowl and then on the baking sheet. Finally, it fills the whole cottage with a wonderful smell, and makes it feel like home, even to me, who has never really had a home. Hot from the oven, it tastes wonderful. We slather it with fresh butter and honey, and wolf it down.
One thing Granma doesn't have much of is canned stores. They said I could look at the root cellar at the big house and take what we will need for the winter months, but there is not much variety there. As the various vegetables and fruits hit their prime, I am canning up a storm. That root cellar was FULL of jars and rings and lids, and Granma does have a canning kettle so I am good to go. So far, I have stewed fruits of various kinds, and late summer berry jams. I made some pickles so that my heavy sandwiches can taste even better, and I'm canning up a storm with beans, late corn, and tomatoes.
I'm getting tired of working with the tomatoes. I've made stewed tomatoes, tomato sauce, thick paste, and even dried a bunch out in the sun under cheesecloth. We'll have lots of good stews and stuff, but not until I get done being tired of tomatoes!
Really the only thing we don't have yet is stewed apples and that has to wait until they are ripe. You know, at the orphanage, we bought cheap produce, often that had be damaged in transit and canned it all up for feeding 100 hungry children and their keepers. It was brutal. I now see that on a more reasonable scale, there is great pleasure to be had from this kind of work. True, it's hot and miserable in the canning stage, but the rows and rows of jars with their many different jewel-like colors make me happy. I put a row of them in the kitchen window near the herb box, and the sun shines through them, and it's pretty, and I feel satisfied with my work.
Cooking is kind of like sewing: the better the materials and the more careful you are with what you do, the better the outcome. And as the jars of food accumulate, and the piles of Hope Chest items grow higher, too, I feel a sense of accomplishment that has something to do with the fact that this work is for me (and Gramna), not for other people. Work like that is kind of satisfying in a different way that work someone just bosses you around into doing.
The bedroom alterations are almost done. I have a small room in the attic now, not just a cubby hole. It has an old iron bed, a small table and a wooden chair in it, as well as a rail to hang my clothes on. While they were doing the work, I cleaned up the table and begged a bit of paint from Jamie. I painted it a dark green. The chair was already a nice cheerful yellow. I am using some of Granma's old sheets, even though I have a nice new set I made. Those are for my Hope Chest, and while it's nice to have a place to stay, this is not what I'm hoping for, so they stay unused for now. There is also a small mirror, a little window that looks out away from the farm down towards the river, and a DOOR. The door doesn't exactly lock, but it does have a bar on the inside, so that I can lock myself in there. And best of all, there is a place for the Hope Chest.
The Hope Chest will be very simple, but that's okay. I showed Jamie my Little Hope Chest (after I took out the money and the journal -- he thinks I just store dried sausage in it), and he said he had some wood just like that. He can't do the silver chasing on it, but he told me where to get a silver lock for it. He said he can make it so it looks like it belongs with the little one, even if they don't match. And he's building in a special place to hold the little chest inside the big one. He told me to use that little one to store my money, and I told him that was a good idea, if I ever got any.
So I went to the shop he told me about and bought a silver lock that looks almost exactly like the one on the Little Hope Chest. I now have two keys to wear around my neck. I was threading the new onto the ribbon that held the one for the Little Hope Chest, when I remembered my silver chain. I rummaged in my bundle and found the thing.
I've never worn it. I don't know what to feel about it. On one hand, it's the only thing I have from the people I came from. The gold for my upkeep is long gone, and Matron would not hand over the note that came with me, so this is it. On the other hand, the people I cam from did not want me. So I've always thought I did not want them, either. So I never even tried on the chain.
But the keys sort of match the metal of the chain, and it's long enough that the keys themselves will lie down between my breasts. No one will see the keys, but they might see the slight sparkle of the chain. That would draw the eye, and that is always a good thing.
So I carefully threaded the chain through the holes in the keys and drew it down over my head. The metal of the chain is not cheap, and it tingles. When it first lay against my skin, I could feel it, like it had a spark in it or something. Later, when that died down, I was sure I had imagined it, so I took it off, put it on the table, and five minutes later put it on again. And again, there was the unmistakable feeling, just like a spark. When I hold it in my hands, it doesn't do that, which is why no one noticed it before, I guess. But when I put it around my neck, it tingles against my skin like it's settling in or something.
So there we are. In a week or so, I will have a Hope Chest for storing my dreams in. Meanwhile, my wardrobe continues to expand. It's not a long-term solution for me, but it will do while I figure out what is a long-term solution. I have a couple ideas, so some of my sewing just now is to help me with those ideas.
I'm still mad at the heroes for disbanding, but maybe this isn't all that bad.
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Post by Polrena on Sept 22, 2006 21:30:06 GMT -5
**Fantastic!**
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Post by Deyla on Sept 23, 2006 3:17:44 GMT -5
Except for Maybell and her stupid husband, everything is fine. I'm so mad at Joey, though. I'm not sure what he said to her, but she's decided to be totally jealous of me. Whenever we are alone together, she hisses at me like an outraged kitten and tells me to leave her "man" alone. Hello? He's a moron and a lug. Why would I want him?
For fel's sake, the guy knocked up Maybell. Proof positive that he's a moron. He also has no ambition, not even to make a decent life for himself and his family. Granma was telling me they practically had to force him to move into the cottage when he got married, because he couldn't see why a married couple with a baby on the way might want their own place. His concern? "What if Maybell can't cook as good as Aunt Bernice?" Doofus. Should have thought of that before you did the dirty with her.
I suspect Maybell *can't* cook very well, since he is now apparently complaining that her cooking is "sometimes good and sometimes bad". But the worst part about Joey is his lack of genuine interest in his own wife. He eyes all the serving women around the place, and when I see him in town, he's gazing at the girls on the street, too. I mean, he does seem infatuated with Maybell. If she walks by when he's eyeing someone else, his eyes go to her and he gets this goofy look on his face. But if she's not in the vicinity, it's like he forgets she even exists.
So I think he was caught by a pretty face and an accommodating body and never bothered to think about the person underneath. I don't like Maybell much myself. I think she's a whiny, lazy, spoiled rotten little brat, but she doesn't deserve what she got. And he doesn't deserve what he got, either, I suppose. They can't see one another clearly, and while the honeymoon lasts, I suppose they will have fun together. How much fun they will have when there is a baby to care for and no one to talk to but each other, I'm guessing not much.
The thing Maybell doesn't understand is that even if I *did* want Joey, I don't want him in his current state. He belongs to someone else, all tied up nice and legal. If I went after him, even if I got him, I could never have that. He would not be mine in any real sense, and that would make me just a plaything.
I can be a man's plaything anytime I want, and to men who have a lot more to offer than Joey Stonefield. Her fantasy is safe from me. I won't poach.
Besides, I don't think Joey knows how to play the game. Like I said, he's a moron. He wouldn't know how to flirt with danger and not get sucked in. He wouldn't know when to stop or how to read the signs that I was stopping. It would be a big ugly mess, and not just a lot of fun. There are plenty of boys and girls who hang out in Goldshire, and many of them *do* know how to play the game. They know how to make a girl feel special and how to have a good time without endangering anyone's heart or future. And they know how to give value for value received.
So I spend my free time up there, with them. And doing so has given me an idea.
There are plenty of girls in Goldshire who clearly want more than just some fun and games with the adventurers who are passing through. They offer more than I do, and they give free samples, usually. But I can pull a man (or the right kind of woman) off one of them in a split second.
The problem they all have is that they are way too obvious, and they can't compete with subtlety. One time I was up there watching a couple of them hold court at a table in the inn. And it irritated me for some reason. So I went to the ladies' retiring room and rearranged my hair and clothes just a bit. I still looked entirely respectable. I can't risk word of any outrageous behavior getting back to the Stonefields, after all, but more importantly, subtle just works better. A flash of cleavage when it looks like I am not showing any. Bending over just right. Thinking of ice and tightening up my nipples when I am talking to someone. All these things draw attention in a way that obviousness can't beat. Five minutes it took, after I wandered up to the table and asked if anyone knew where I could buy milled oats in town (you can't buy them there, and I knew it). They were all soft butter in the palm of my hand, and the obvious girls were left wondering what happened. So I tossed them their audience back, thanked everyone for trying to help me and wandered off.
Went back to the ladies' retiring room to put myself back into a less seductive state, and ran into someone pretty amazing. It was an older woman who had me beat on all suits. More respectable looking than I could ever be, and then in the flash of an eye, she turned herself into a living breathing magnet of desire. I could feel it welling up in me, and I had to fight to keep from falling into her hand like a ripe plum falling off the tree. She didn't even have to rearrange her clothes or her hair.
I stood there and stared at her, breathing heavily, and considering breaking all my rules, and she stopped. Then she grinned at me, and said, "You could learn to do that, you know." I must have gaped at her.
"I saw what you did. Rough around the edges and unpracticed, I think, but the talent is there. You could easily become the highest priced courtesan in all of Stormwind if you wanted to."
I swallowed hard. "Thank you, but I don't want to."
"No," she said, "I didn't think you did." Then she looked thoughtful. "You might change your mind. If you do, come to Stormwind." She handed me a card, and to my shame, I have never gotten rid of it. Just an address is written on it, in purple ink.
But the other day I was putting some of my recent projects into my Hope Chest, and I found the card. I turned it over in my hands and thought about that woman. If she is, or is associated with, the highest priced courtesan in Stormwind, then she knows someone who needs clothes of a very special kind. A kind I am very good at making. And someone who is probably willing to pay a very high price for that kind of clothes.
I can make dresses that the most uptight spinster would look at and think are respectable, but which are nothing of the sort. They allow the wearer to offer controlled glimpses of flesh, they reveal the shape under the fabric while pretending not to. They seduce while claiming to be all about modesty. And while low rent street girls don't need that kind of stuff, high end courtesans do.
I may have to pay the owner of that card a visit the next time I am in Stormwind after all.
I went up to the big house today to take them some of my preserves. It surprises me that they have so much less variety in their cellar than we have in our stores, but it's only fair to share what we can spare, since I'm using their produce to make it all. Miss Bernice had me put it down in the cellar and when I was rummaging around down there, the weirdest thing happened.
I had just put my pickles on the shelf, and had turned around to pick up the tomato sauce when my necklace shocked me. I was so startled that I almost dropped the jar. By the time I managed to get the jar under control, the feeling was gone and I could not make it happen again. Which is probably just as well.
All in all, things are fine. Once that baby comes, I suppose Maybell will be out of my hair, and that can only be a change for the better. Whiny and petulant was bad enough. Whiny, petulant, and jealous is worse.
Luckily, Granma is not an idiot. She told me not to take "Maybell's crotchets" seriously, that women having their first baby often act like that. Yeh, whatever. I personally think what I see is what there is, when it comes to Maybell, But at least I don't have to worry that Granma thinks I want Joey.
For the time being, warm and cozy in my attic room, with my Hope Chest slowly filling up, and a nice collection of things I can sell at the fall bazaar in Goldshire, things are looking up. I'm content to be where I am for the moment.
But I do miss Boswell. And his imp.
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Post by Deyla on Sept 24, 2006 15:47:59 GMT -5
The other day, a peddler came through Goldshire. I always like peddlers because they have things that are a little different than one can buy in town. While I have no desire to adventure and travel to exotic places, I do like the spoils of such travels.
This particular peddler was a spice merchant, and his wares were wonderful! They ranged in color from a selections of green leafy things to a wide variety of golds, browns and oranges. And, oh! the smells! No, I don't want to adventure to exotic lands, but I sure am glad that some people do . . .
The townspeople for the most part were not terribly interested in his goods, so I spent more time than I otherwise might have chatting with him, and deciding how to spent a few coins on his goods. Unlike many vendors of trade goods, this one seemed interested in how people used what he sold them, so he gave me a bunch of ideas for using the precious packets I did buy.
They are put away in my Little Hope Chest, now, mostly, but I will use some black pepper and some cinnamon for our cooking this winter. The rest are things I bought whole that I will have to grind later when I am ready to use them, but that way, he said, they will retain their flavors. I did not know that spices lose their oomph if you leave them around too long after they are ground, so his visit to town was even educational.
Anyway, this peddler gave me some interesting ideas of things to cook, too. For example, I think of cinnamon as belonging in sweet items, but he told me to put some in a beef stew and see what I thought. I'll tell you what I thought: heaven! It melds with the beef in a way I would not have predicted, and doesn't really taste like cinnamon anymore, but boy howdy is it good. Granma took one bite and said "I don't usually hold with fancy antsy food, but this is good!" Then she ate two servings, instead of poking at the second half of the first serving.
He also told me to serve fresh black pepper with fresh strawberries, dressed in vinegar. That sounds terrible, doesn't it? Well, it's long past strawberry season, but the stew was so good (just beef, onion, cinnamon, and water, plus a little salt on the meat before I browned it) that I will have to give the strawberry thing a go the next time I can get fresh strawberries.
Meanwhile, the little square packets of spices in all different colors gave me an idea. There are a lot of small scraps of solid colors in the dead people's fabric stash. I couldn't think what to do with them, but the array of peddler's wares looked a lot like they do, so I spread them out on the ground, and arranged them in a careful pattern, and I realized I can make a lovely quilt top out of them.
It's kind of unusual. I don't think I ever saw a quilt that was not made of cambric, with small tiny prints on the different pieces, and I can see that using solid colors like this will mean that I have to be super extra careful about the straightness of my seams, and the care with which I handle the corners of the pieces, but I think it will be lovely.
Granma thinks I am crazy to do all this work for such an unusual bedquilt that an unknown husband might not even like, but I love it. The fabric scraps are all these wonderful different fabrics, too, so many textures, even though the colors are all solid. I picked out fabrics that are only in the range of colors I saw at the spice peddler, except for a couple of bright light blue squares that I am using to give it a little more interest. There are velvets and silks and brushed cottons and some very interesting samples of woven textured materials I can't identify, but all of them are solid colors, looking like squares of spices, except the blue squares, which are made of a nice flannel, so it's color, not sparkle they add.
I am still working on a quilting pattern to use. I decided to use plain muslin for the backing, so the quilt pattern will be visible there, anyway. I am leaning towards something based on Boswell's imp pattern, just because. My biggest concern is whether I can find thread to match all these colors, because on the front of the thing, I want the color pattern to be what people see. If I can't find the right thread for quilting it, I may just tie the corners of each square, and call it a comforter and not a bedquilt. It will keep me warm and make me think of spices, either way.
This project gives Maybell something to feel superior to me about, though. This seems to encourage her to lay off the jealousy, which is good. I guess she figures that Joey wouldn't want someone cracked enough to make such a quilt. Whatever, none of her pinpricks bother me. Nothing that little brat says can hurt like some of what you get growing up in an orphanage.
Still, I don't mind poking back, so I have been making sure that the food I send home with her is really really good, and simple and basic, which I know is what Joey likes best. But somehow, I don't send food home with her everyday. Some days I tell her, "Sorry, they sent us only two guinea hens, so there isn't enough for you, also." Since she is lying to everyone and claiming she is doing all the cooking herself, she can't really ask the big house to send us more stuff, and they often send her different stuff than they send us, so when that happens, she is on her own, and she knows it. She pouts and whines and flounces around and then goes home and makes supper for Joey.
And he continues to complain that her cooking is so erratic. Serves her right for lying.
It's still two months until that baby is born. I am definitely looking forward to that, because Granma has already warned her that she won't be able to be over here all the time with a crying baby. "Time you learned to run your own household, once you're over the pregnancy itself," she said. Maybe I will even be able to stop cooking for the two of them.
Not much else is going on. I dried more fruit under cheesecloth, made some cherry preserves and canned it up, and repaired the cushions on Granma's settee. it's not an exciting life, but it suits me for now. The fall bazaar in Goldshire is in a couple weeks, and I plan to hunker down here through the winter, with an eye towards the spring bazaar, too. Between them, I may get enough money to move on.
Big Joe is going to Stormwind next week, and if there is room on the cart, he said I could come along, so I will take a couple dresses and maybe go visit that address. I can't decide. I suppose I will make up my mind when I am standing on the doorstep. Still, the quilt top is nearly done, and it would be nice to have a project for the winter that I knew would earn me money. Bazaars are such chancy things. Plus, at a bazaar, I really have to sell my best stuff, which I would vastly prefer to be able to put in the Hope Chest. My hopes are all first rate, so should be the stuff I am saving up for them.
I know I've been pretty lucky since I left the orphanage, all told. I am not learning to be a mage, and that's good. I have reasonable work, reasonable prospects, and reasonable company. Not bad at all.
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Post by Deyla on Sept 24, 2006 21:38:56 GMT -5
So the baby came early. Nearly 6 weeks early Maybell says, but I don't think so. The orphanage had a place where "wayward girls" sometimes came, and they left their babies behind to be raised in the orphanage when they went away. I've seen a reasonable number of babies in my life, and that baby was not 6 weeks early. No way, no how.
My theory, for what it's worth, is that Maybell lied about when she got pregnant, for some reason I don't know. Perhaps because Joey is not the father and she had to lie about the timing in order to get married. Perhaps because she didn't come clean with her parents when she first had to tell them, and she lied (she does it so easily), and then never found a way to reverse the lie. Whatever else, Joey doesn't seem upset by the early birth. He's walking about with a swagger that could knock over a whole city if he got close enough, he's so proud of himself and his virility.
Personally, whatever else I think of Maybell, I think that Joey is not the one who did all the work here, she is, and it would be nice to see him actually giving her credit for it. Not him, though. He's wandering around the farm, talking to the hands, and to all the visitors they are getting, about "my boy". Since his father is called Big Joe, and he's called Joey, they're already calling this one Little Joe. I hope he grows up to be the tallest and biggest of them all.
Granma is now watching Maybell a lot less dotingly, though. She narrows her eyes at her sometimes when she talks, she has her bring the baby over for an hour or so a day, and then she shoos them away. "Don't you have work to do?" she asks the new mother.
Me, I am keeping my head down, cooking, cleaning, and sewing like always.
The trip to Stormwind happened, and I did make my way to the address on the card. When I was standing on the porch, ready to knock on the door, my necklace started tingling really a lot. I've kind of gotten used to it doing that, but this was a lot more than usual. I thought about it more, and decided that I did indeed want to knock on the door, but the necklace got more annoying and painful, so I tried to take it off. I could not.
I know, that sounds bizarre, and so it was. First I went to lift it over my head and my hands stayed down by my sides. Then I forced my hands up to touch it, and when I tried to lift it, it was too heavy to remove.
So I was a bit freaked out, as you can imagine. Clearly, the tingling I had been feeling from time to time was not a figment of my imagination, which I had hoped it might be. While I was standing there, trying to decide what to do next, the door opened and that same woman came out of the house. She looked at me, and clearly recognized me. She seemed a little surprised to see me, and asked me if I wanted to come in and have some tea with her. I said I would rather she were my guest at a sandwich shop down the street, and she agreed.
So we left her porch, and the necklace calmed down, for which I was grateful. As we ate our sandwiches, I explained about my sewing, and she asked if I had any samples. I said I did, and she said, "Well, I need to see them on you. You really are going to have to come back to my house with me, you know."
I sighed and said I did know, and so off we went. The necklace by this time seemed a little more subdued, although I could still feel it against my skin. I knew I had to decide whether to trust her or not, because from the Goldshire time, I knew she could control me with my desire if she wanted, and I didn't think I could control her with hers. Still, I really wanted the money that I could make if this worked out, so I followed her back down the street.
We were almost to her house when the necklace poked me and I yelped. She was startled and turned around, and I was so shocked, I had my hand on the chain. Her eyes narrowed, and then before I could be sure I really saw the flash of fear in her eyes, her face took on a pleasant expression again.
She said, "Perhaps this will be more comfortable all the way around, if we find a different, private place for our conversation."
I sighed and said I thought that would work better. She thought for a moment, and then suggested I choose one. So I led her through some alleys and side streets until we came to the draper shop that Johnson sent me to last summer. I asked the lady to wait outside for a moment, and then I went in, best little sister demeanor cloaked around me. I was in luck. The woman who gave me the ribbon was behind the counter, and the shop was not too busy, so she had a few minutes to talk with me.
I thanked her for the ribbon that she gave me for my other dress, chattered a bit about the sewing I was doing to try to get a nest egg, and then told her I needed a place to show some samples to a potential customer, and did she have a private parlor I could rent from her for an hour or so. She said she thought she could help me, and so I beckoned in the other woman.
The proprietor looked hard at me when she saw who my companion was and I said in a whisper, "I only want to sell her dresses!" and she relaxed a bit, but she told the other woman behind the counter that she was taking a break and to watch the shop while she was gone. The other woman looked surprised, like my new big sister is not in the habit of taking breaks during the work day, which I believe.
Anyway, she led us to a neat, clean room up a flight of stairs, over the shop, furnished with simple, heavy chairs and a sofa, and a fire all laid in the fireplace. She quickly lit the fire, and then sat down in a chair in the corner and picked up her knitting.
"Go ahead, then," she said. "You can have all the privacy the two of you desire for doing business over samples of clothing."
Well, this was sort of complicated for me, but I'd come this far, I wasn't going to stop now, so I stripped down to my shift and then put on my first sample. It's the green wrap I made for my Hope Chest, the one that I tricked Maybell into not choosing for her trousseau. I could see that my prospective customer completely understood what I was trying to do with the design, and that she approved. She had me turn around and stand in several different positions, and all the while the draper watched us carefully.
I learned a great deal about subtlety that day, and I had thought I knew a lot already. But we managed to discuss the actual purpose of the clothes and the designs without being so blatant about it that the draper became alarmed. I modeled three other dresses, all with the same design sensibility, in a variety of fabrics, and she was impressed with my work.
She then asked me if I could work with silks without harming the fabrics, so I showed her a silk nightgown I had made for my trousseau. I told her, loud enough for the draper to hear, that I would not model it, since it was for my Hope Chest, but she was welcome to examine the workmanship, which she did, with an eagle eye.
At last, she looked up, and said, "You are hired. Write your name and address here." She pointed at a blank card, like the one I had in my pocket, and I complied. "I will send you fabric, general descriptions, and measurements. You will return finished garments. If they are acceptable, I will send you payment. If not, I will send a letter explaining why not, sell them to a local shop and send you any money left over after I recoup the cost of the materials."
I smiled a little tentatively at her, and noticed that my necklace was entirely calm at this point. She thanked me, thanked the draper, and left us.
I tried to pay the draper for the use of her room and for her time, but she was having none of it. "I'm glad to see you only wanted to sell her clothes in truth, Deyla," she told me. "She's a dangerous woman, and don't you forget it."
"No," I said, truthfully, "I won't."
I thanked her for her help, hugged her quickly and ran back to the market where Big Joe asked me to meet him. As I left, I saw her looking at me, much as one would look at a wayward younger sister of whom one is not sure one entirely approves, but can't help liking anyway.
A week later, a bundle was delivered to me at the farm, containing two lengths of silk, matching thread, and a page of closely written instructions. One is a deep midnight blue shot with just barely lighter blue, that will glow beautifully in the candlelight. The other is a clear yellow. For the first, there is no trim provided but for the second, there is a gorgeous ivory lace, yards and yards of it. The dresses will be beautiful beyond anything I have ever seen before, and certainly beyond anything I have sewn. How I would love to own such things!
I wish I knew why my necklace was so unsettled at the porch of my customer, or why it is now so quiescent. I wish I could take it off and forget about it, but it continues to refuse to allow me to remove it.
I feel more confused than I like to own, but I am settled here for the winter, with pleasant work to do and reasonable company. Things are fine. Aren't they?
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Post by Deyla on Oct 10, 2006 2:26:00 GMT -5
I finished the first dress. The blue silk slipped through my fingers as I folded the dress carefully, wrapping it in clean cheesecloth to protect it during its travels. Where the light touched the midnight blue fabric, it glowed, shot with lighter threads that were only visible at the proper angle. I knew it would look astonishing in a room lit by a hundred candles, or by lanterns.
After I folded it carefully, I packed it with great care, and wrote out that address. Despite the War and the general feeling of unsettledness since it ended, the mail system works beautifully, perhaps a holdover from the days Before, when things were not so uncertain. I placed the package in the hands of the mail courier myself, and grinned at him. He grinned back and tipped his hat to me.
And then I waited. For days, which seemed to me to pass so slowly as if time were actually standing still. I hesitated to start sewing the second dress until I received a response to the first. If there were errors, I wanted to know about them before I had the chance to make the same mistake twice. So I left the yellow silk and the ivory lace alone and worked on finishing the cutwork sleeping shift for my Hope Chest, and then I made myself five pairs of soft fluffy bed socks, in white lambs-wool, tied with brightly colored ribbons. I sat at Granma's knee and had my first lesson in making bobbin lace, and learned that my hands are capable of being quite clumsy when I try something new.
We laughed and I tried again. As I painstakingly made my first piece of lace, hours of work for only 6 inches of basic lace, she told me more stories of the world as it was in her youth, and I wondered, not for the first time, what it is like to be old, to live in a world you did not expect. I cooked meals for us, kept the cottage clean, and carefully pieced together about half my quilt top. And then a letter arrived. It was written on heavy vellum, in Her signature purple ink. And it was short and to the point.
"Lovely. Carry on. And do come have tea with us the next time you are in Stormwind."
I turned the letter over in my hands, before I realized where the payment must be. On the back of the envelope was a heavy seal pressed into dark violet wax, in the shape of a sprite darter, and burnished with golden dust. I carefully removed it from the heavy parchment envelope, and turned it over. On the underside of the wax, I found two gold coins.
Two. Gold. Coins. I sat there with the coins in the palm of my hand, while my necklace twitched where it lay on my skin. I looked at the coins, and knew they were worth more than the whole store of coins in the Little Hope Chest upstairs.
I was pleased, even relieved, to learn that my work was as good as I had promised her it would be. I leaned back in my chair for a moment and felt the shakiness in my legs and knew then, though I had not known it before, that I had been terrified of not meeting her standards. Three or four more dresses and I would be able to move to Stormwind and rent a sunny, safe set of rooms, with a kitchen, a sitting room, and a separate bedchamber. I might even be able to afford one with one of those new-fangled gnomish automatic chamber pots. And I would have enough money to stay there for three or four years, while I sorted out an actual future for myself.
At the thought, the necklace stopped with the twitching and actually stung me. How I have come to fear my necklace! It isn't any good at communicating anything directly, but it is very good at startling me, hurting me, and communicating its sense of not-all-right-ness. Often, I have no idea what it is objecting to, only that it is interested in what I am doing and thinking, or that it does indeed object quite strenuously.
There is a man in Goldshire who comes from somewhere in the desert. He is human, but not like those of us from around here. He is smaller, browner of skin, slanted of eye, and has straight heavy black hair that he wears tied back from his face, but which still falls below his knees. His eyes are so dark that they are nearly black. It is only in the fullest sunlight that one can see the hint of brown in them.
This man speaks with an accent that I suppose is from the desert, too. He has the scent of cooked spices clinging to him. I first met him at the peddler's table, both of us buying spices. Unlike me, he seemed to know just what he wanted, and he and the vendor babbled at each other in some language I could not understand.
He is famous among the townspeople for being able to cure headaches, when potions and even the ministrations of the priests of the Light cannot reach the ache. He says such a person has acquired a bad wind, and that the bad wind must be removed from the body before the headache will retreat. He rubs the face of the victim in a way that looks to me as if it must hurt worse than the headache, and then he pulls the bad wind out, from the spot between the eyebrows of the sufferer. A red spot appears there, varying in size and shape, depending, the man says, on the amount of bad wind that had to be removed. The mark fades within the day, and I know of no one whose headache has ever failed to be cured by this treatment, nor who had the headache return for many many months.
He cannot explain what a bad wind is, or how he knows who has it. Some people go to him with headaches and he shakes his head at them sadly, saying, "No, no, you have no bad wind!" But somehow he knows when you do have a bad wind, and if it is there, he can remove it.
My necklace reminds me of that. It can sense something, although since it can't speak, it cannot tell me even something so obscure as "you have a bad wind, Deyla". But it lets me know when something is wrong.
Once I was about to step into the barn on a sunny fall day, but the necklace started acting up, shocking me harder and harder as I got closer to the barn. So I gave up and went back to the cottage. Later, I learned that one of the farmhands had discovered a nest of vipers in the barn, and had been badly bitten by them when he stepped in through the side door -- the exact door I had meant to use! Well, he's recovered now, but it was unpleasant for him to be so ill, and for awhile they thought he might lose his foot, or at least the use of it. When I found out, I could feel the necklace preening itself, lazing against my skin in such a self-satisfied way.
I just wish it could talk.
Maybell and Joey have settled into some kind of routine. She seems dimmed somehow, as if motherhood and marriage are not quite what she expected them to be. And he isn't the least bit different than the first time I met him. I wonder if it's always the woman who gets diminished by a poor marriage?
And then I remind myself that she is a spoiled rotten little brat who could stand to do some growing up. Granma said to me the other day "Fifteen is not an ideal bride for 28, but they made their bed. I hope they learn to lie in it with some grace." I just nodded, thinking that the problem with Maybell is not that she is 15, but that she is self-centered and lazy.
I'm not a huge fan of Joey's, but if I had married him, you can bet I would make something better out of it than what she is making out of her marriage. After all, she had other good choices. She has a family who love her, and she had a place with them, which she gave up to marry Joey. She has some kind of obligation to make of it something at least as worthwhile as what she gave up.
And I would not have married him, anyway. It is neither a great romance nor a working partnership, and if a marriage can't be at least one of those things, what is it worth? Not much. You can't really forge a partnership with a man as vapid and foolish as Joey, I suppose. Value for value, I always say. And I don't take risks with men of Joey's stamp, no matter how attractive they might be, because I don't want to be faced with unpalatable choices.
There are girls in town who are "saving themselves for marriage", as a commodity to bargain with. I am saving myself for myself. If I ever decide to marry, I will give good value, and demand good value. In the meantime, there is plenty of fun to be had.
And my little store of coins grows now, seemingly by leaps and bounds. Sometimes I wonder how I got here, and then I laugh at myself for trying to understand fate. I simply do the best I can with what I have in any given moment, and hope it all turns out for the best.
Right now, I am midway through making the second silk dress. The dress itself is all sewn together, and I am now applying the lace as an overlay on the bodice, as deep ruffs along the bottom of the skirt, and forming the sleeves wholly out of falls of lace. I cannot imagine a life where I could wear such a dress, and I wonder if I am making a mistake in not letting Her teach me what she knows.
I just don't think that would be a very safe road to travel. So I dance on the tightrope of my own making, sewing dresses for Her, and hoping not to get trapped by it.
At this very moment, though, the sky is closing in. We'll have snow before morning, and when we do, I will be doubly grateful for the warmth of my little room, the protection of Big Joe and his family, and the grace of fortune that brought me here for the winter.
It could decidedly be worse. After all, I could be Maybell.
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Post by Celera on Oct 10, 2006 12:32:53 GMT -5
(Deyla is turning into quite the interesting and complicated young lady! Just don't start writing about food again, it was making me very hungry )
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Post by Deyla on Oct 10, 2006 18:34:32 GMT -5
((Oops! Wrote this before I saw your comment. Just read it after you eat, then ;-) ))
Granma decided to have her family over for breakfast one weekend day after the harvest was in. We spent all week getting ready. I made any number of things in advance, but the main attraction was to be a sticky gooey tea cake and a fry up, both of which had to be cooked on the morning.
The night before, I made a flaky pastry dough and put it to rest overnight. First thing in the morning, I rolled it out flat and cut it into triangles. I brushed each with melted butter and then sprinkled caster sugar, some of my cinnamon, some chopped nuts and some dried chopped apricots on each one. I rolled them up and made a pinwheel pattern in a cake pan that was already lined with melted butter, more caster sugar and a shot of brandy. While I did the fry up, I baked it, then turned it out upside down on a plate. The butter and sugar on the bottom had become a thick caramel, and the flaky, rich pastry stood up well to the strong flavors of the filling.
Meanwhile, I was frying rashers of bacon, scrambling eggs with herbs and mushrooms, and making Granma's Surprise. I don't know why it's called that, because it's just fried potatoes, onions, and apples, with a lot of black pepper. You fry them in some of the fat from the bacon rashers.
We also had cherry buns, bran muffins, plates of ham sandwiches on dark bread, slices of sweet fall melons, and pickles and chutneys to go with the eggs. Miss Bernice brought a tray of cheeses, too. Jamie and Joey helped me set up a long table out front of the cottage the day before, and all the family and help sat there and ate food nearly as fast as I could make it. Granma tried to get Maybell to help me out, but she wasn't having any of it. So then Granma tried to help me out herself, and I wasn't having any of that. She was having such a good time sitting at the head of the table, I couldn't bear to drag her away from it.
It was a lot more like cooking in the orphanage, but the food was a lot better. It was also more satisfying, because you could tell Granma was pleased to be able to host this party. Apparently she'd done it for years but had to give it up a few years back, because she couldn't do all the cooking and wouldn't accept help from the Big House. It was actually kind of nice to do something that made her so happy, because she has been very good to me.
Still and all, the cooking (and later, the cleaning up) reminded me why I don't want to do that kind of heavy work all the time.
At the end of the meal, Big Joe stood up (he was at the opposite end of the table from Granma) and said that the harvest had been very plentiful and profitable, even with Liam having needed so much care and medicine for the viper nest thing, and he handed an envelope to each hand, and one to me, too! There were jars of store bought special foods for all the kitchens on the place, and for Granma's kitchen a new mortar and pestle. Miss Bernice got a new salt cellar and bag of special salt form somewhere in Kalimdor. And then he had one of the stableboys pass out mugs of the newly pressed cider. It's not aged yet, so rather sharp tasting, but boy howdy! It packed a real punch!
Soon, people had musical instruments out and there was dancing on the lawn in front of our cottage. I tucked my envelope in my pocket and danced with the others. Later, I looked in my envelope. There were several silver coins, many more than I expected, given how generous they have already been to me, but I tucked them away in my Little Hope Chest, where between the money from the two dresses, my profits from the fall bazaar, and other savings, I now have nearly 6g pieces. That's as much money as was left with me when the priests in the Cathedral found me.
I've always wondered whether that 6g was a lot of money to the person who tucked it into my blanket. It's certainly a lot of money to me. But I'm not ready to abandon this temporary harbor yet. I promised Granma I would stay through the winter. I finished tying off my comforter last night, and packed it away in the Hope Chest. I have now got several lengths of lace I made my very own self. And yesterday a new package came from Her.
There is a sumptuous wine-colored velvet in there along with a slightly lighter length of shiny silk. The note says "These fabric go together well. Figure something out." The measurements are different this time: a more buxom figure than the last two dresses were made to fit. As I ran my clean hands carefully over the plush pile of the velvet and imagined different ways of combining the two fabrics, I could not keep my imagination from wondering what it would be like to wear such a dress. What are the lives of these women I have never met really like?
I remembered that both notes with payments had invited me to tea, and I started to think maybe I should accept that invitation. Just, you know, to see what I could learn about what happened to my dresses after I shipped them off to Stormwind.
Of course, you can probably guess that my necklace didn't like THAT idea at all. Ouch!
So I busied myself sketching ideas for the dress, and pretended that I haven't become oh! so curious about the fate of my work.
Tomorrow I will start sewing the new dress. I'm going to use the satiny silk to make thin cording that will lie along the seams of the garment, which I am placing strategically, since they will now be a design element as well as a structural necessity.. The shininess will catch the light and draw the eye momentarily to the part of the body where the fabric is. But the dress will mostly look like a proper, modest wine colored velvet dress. This is something I am all too good at.
And as I carefully cut out the pieces of fabric according to my plan this evening, I wondered if I could set aside enough money to make myself one of these wonderful dresses. In my hoped-for future, there will surely be a time and place to wear one, won't there? Zing! went the necklace, and I realized that if it does that often enough, I will learn to ignore it. Then it REALLY zapped me.
One of these days, I am going to have to find out more about this necklace. It's either my best friend or my worst enemy, or maybe both. But it unsettles me, no matter what else is true about it.
Anyway, the root cellar is full of provisions for the winter, I have good and pleasant work to keep me occupied and earning money, and Granma is excellent company. Even the necklace isn't bugging me all that much.
Like I said, not a place to settle, but a dashed nice place to winter over. When I think of sorcery, prostitution, even Maybell's arid marriage, I know I am doing very well for myself.
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Post by Deyla on Oct 20, 2006 2:55:45 GMT -5
It's Hallow's End.
In the orphanage, we used to make costumes out of butcher paper and old newspapers, paint and glue, and run around the city terrorizing the general public. Adventurers would come visit to make sure we had all the candy we wanted. I used to wonder why they never visited any other time, to make sure we had the things we really needed.
But now I sort of understand. It's been many months, and I often go days at a time without thinking about the orphans and their lives in that place. And if I, who have every reason to be aware, can let it slip my mind, I understand better and better how it doesn't ever occur to anyone who's never had to live there.
So I decided to make Winter Festival presents for the children in the orphanage where I grew up. I will send them anonymously, so that no one knows it's me, and I will send them by way of the priests in the Cathedral who guarded my necklace so carefully. But I will send them, and do my best to see that the children there receive them.
I have knit a bunch of plain white socks, which I am turning into stuffed bunnies for the girls. And an even bigger pile of grey socks with white heels and toes that I am turning into stuffed gorillas for the boys. The older children will pretend to think they are silly, but I imagine more than a few of these toys will become close friends, confidantes, and companions of a sort.
I'd say I wish I could do more, but I don't, really. I can't stem the tide of all those orphaned lives, but maybe I can do something to make their time in that place a little less bleak.
And I do know that I'm doing this to make myself feel better as much as for the kids still there.
Granma says what I have is "survivor's guilt", the sense that I lived through something that destroyed other people, and the worry that I don't deserve to have come out on top when so many people don't. I think she's crazy, but I'm making the toys anyway.
She just smiled at me with something like pity in her eyes and dug out a spool of gorgeous ribbons, all different colors, that I am using to decorate the bunnies.
There is a carved pumpkin head in our window, with candles burning brightly inside it. There are roasted pumpkin seeds, all seasoned with some of my precious spices, in a bowl on the table at Granma's elbow. There are pumpkin muffins that I made with the eyes and nose and mouth of the carved head. I put plump raisins and walnuts in those, too, and pie spice. I prefer muffins to pumpkin pie, although I will probably make one of those out of the carved head when we are done with it.
My days are serene, and I am feeling, if not precisely content, at least not anxious to move forward, I feel as if I am waiting for something to happen, but in the meantime, the rhythm of my duties and my recreation carry me along, almost soothing me. I am husbanding energy for whatever comes next, And money, too. Nearly 10g now. Unimaginable riches to a girl who this time last year was running through the streets of Stormwind, playing tricks on those who would not treat her.
I wonder what will happen next, and what I will make of it?
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Post by Annalira Delshannon on Oct 20, 2006 11:48:41 GMT -5
((I love it!))
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Post by Deyla on Nov 3, 2006 6:59:07 GMT -5
I'm bone-deep tired. Yesterday, a band of outlaws came through, and it pretty much wrecked my day, my night, and most of today, too.
Now understand, the woods are heavily populated by a band of folks who call themselves "freedom fighters" but who also seem to prey upon other people who are just trying to live their lives. Some people on the farms sympathize with them. And it's not hard to understand why, because life itself has been damned hard for most people since the War.
So many people died. The orphanage, which wasn't all that great a place before the War, went from having 25 orphans in it to having hundreds. Eventually, we had to split up into more than one Orphanage, and move into new digs in the rebuilt city. It was a chaotic time, the War. We'd evacuated the city, of course, when the attacks came, and were living in a refugee camp in the dwarf lands. We slept in piles of dirty children, huddled under shared blankets, keeping each other warm, and bruising ourselves on one another's sharp elbows and knees. Still, the dwarves were generous, and we ate fairly well, although we did have to skin, clean, and cook our food over open fires. I spent a lot of time gathering fuel for those fires. The work kept me warm and kept my mind off the surprising fact that I felt displaced. I wouldn't have thought I would, being as it was just the stupid Orphanage we were evacuated from, but it was all we knew.
And then the dying started back in the city, so I guess we were lucky not to be there. And first a few new children came to join us, and then we were overwhelmed. So were our hosts -- food got plainer and less plentiful, although we never really starved. My memories of that time are not my favorite memories, in a lifetime that hasn't provided all that many good things to remember. But I was just a little girl then, even though I thought I was pretty grown up. And when they say children are resilient, they are right. Plus, we were lucky to have Matron, even though she's a mixed kind of luck. Whatever else I could say about her (and I could say a lot!), she kept us together, safe, organized, and fed. And when the city was rebuilt, she led us back again.
So in a way, the War wasn't so bad for us. None of us died, and although a lot of the new orphans had been through a lot of horror and terror and real scary times, those of us who'd never had families actually survived the War okay.
Still, the new city cost money to make, and lots of people in the Kingdom had suffered real losses. So some of them can't see the point in paying to rebuild the city, and those ones tend to sympathize with the outlaws.
Others of the farm folks don't care at all for the outlaws, and they fight them and try to keep them contained. Me, I never cared much one way or the other. No scruffy outlaws would have dared approach the band of heroes, and I've been so busy on the farm since I got here, I hadn't really thought all that much about them.
Meanwhile, families are trying to get along without the sons and daughters they lost in battle, and care for those who did come home, but not the same as they left. There are people like Joey, who was a little older than Maybell is now when the War was going on. He did not go to fight, because he had two older brothers who did go, and someone needed to stay on the farm and help his daddy. After all, during the War, most people who COULD fight did, and there wasn't a lot of help to be had on the farms. Even so, the farms had to produce food and supplies for the people on the frontlines. And maybe not getting to go fight when he wanted to so badly is part of why he turned out like he did. But I guess it's a good thing he didn't go. One of his brothers died, and the other one who went to fight, well they think he was taken by the Plague, and don't know if he survives in any form, and if he does, whether he even knows who he is.
Also, the farms were the refuge of people who had to flee the burning city, and who were lucky enough to know someone with a safer place to run to. The problem, of course, is that Elwynn was not nearly as safe as the dwarf lands. We had a horrible journey to the land of ice and snow, and then when we got there, I was never really warm again until we came back. But it was safe.
So here we all are, trying to pick up and go on, most people acting like the War never really happened, or it was only a bad dream. But even I know it changed everything. The world is a scarier place than it was Before.
And here, part of the reason is the outlaws. They get hungry, too, but outlaws don't seem to be real big on farming or hunting or other things that normal people do when they are hungry. So they sort of expect the farm folks to contribute to their cause by feeding them and supplying them. It's ironic, I think. Their big complaint is that the nobles are taxing the farmers and other little people to death, but they do the same thing. They just call it "contributions" instead of taxes.
And near as I can tell, there's not a heap of difference in what happens if you don't pay. The city guard collects taxes by force, if they have to. And the outlaws punish those who don't contribute. I guess it's easier, a little, if you actually think one side or the other is right. Me, I don't know who is right, I just know that everyone suffers. So I am not comforted by the thought that at least half my taxes and contributions are going to a cause I can support, I just have to watch my hard earned money dribble away.
Well, and that's part of why I'm so tired. I don't really want to give up my gold, or even my silver or my copper coins. So when the city guard came through to collect taxes, and they made an offer for something different, I jumped at it. Seems that non-land-owners (like me) either have to hand over money, or we have to do "voluntary community service". I chose the latter, as I'd far rather pay with my muscles than with my money. So I got sent to the logging camp, where I lived ten days lodged in a bunkhouse with other women, and spent twelve hours a day lugging wood around the place. It was brutal. The food was worse than orphanage food, and sparse, too. You could get more food by sleeping with the foremen and lumberjacks, but I don't do prostitution, and I'm not changing my mind for the possibility of two servings of thin tasteless soup instead of one.
So at the end of the tenth day, I spent one more night in that bunkhouse, and then (with no breakfast, since I wasn't on service anymore, so not entitled to food), I dragged myself back to the farm, where Granma greeted me happily, and sat me down to my first real meal since I'd left. I had just finished the bowl of stew, and was sopping up the sauce with some cornbread she'd baked for me, when we heard a horrid sound coming from the direction of the Big House. I pushed away from the table to fast that the chair and my bowl both ended up on the floor, but even Granma didn't mind -- she just hobbled over the Big House as fast as she could. I got there first, being able to run okay, even though I was tired.
It seems that the outlaws had come through and decided to help themselves to the entire contents of the preserved food in the cellar. Miss Bernice wasn't having any of that, and she got into it with one of the outlaw leaders. They were screeching at one another when another outlaw decided to shut her up, and smacked her hard across the mouth. It worked, too. She spent the next little while huddled on the ground, sort of whimpering, while the band removed all those lovely jars of food, the garlands of dried onions and shallots, the sacks of ground grain.
Granma got very quiet, just as my necklace started to buzz. "Deyla," she asked me, "Can you get to the barn without them seeing you?"
I nodded. "Take your satchel that you had for the logging camp, and go to the barn. Climb up in the loft and hide under the hay. Don't come out until I send one of the women to get you."
So I did.
The straw was itchy, and the day got hotter as I hid there, but I didn't come out. Eventually, the heat started to die down, and the light faded, too. Around a million years after I'd crawled up there, Ma Stonefield (she's married to Big Joe) came into the barn and whispered my name.
I crawled out from under the straw and scampered down the ladder. She looked defeated as she led me out of the barn without a word. But when we got to Granma's, neither she nor Miss Bernice looked defeated. They looked like some of the heroes did when they headed out to fight something, with that glow in their eyes that said, well, Granma might be old and frail, and Miss Bernice might have a mighty big bruise coming up on her face, but they were not defeated, and had no intention of being defeated.
Granma looked at me for awhile, without saying a word, and I stood there, so tired and stiff, and stared back at her. Then she finally said, "There is another cellar."
I could hear Miss Bernice gasp, as if she never expected Granma to tell me that. But the old lady just shushed her daughter. "We need her strong arms and legs. Maybell is worse than useless and can't be trusted. But we need at least one young woman, and so Deyla is our only choice." Something in me sung for a moment to hear Granma say that about Maybell, but I soon forgot about it.
Miss Bernice and Ma Stonefield led me across the fields and up into a hilly area, where rocks jutted out of the earth. Eventually, we wound up at the base of a cliff, totally blank with no marks on it at all. None of us had said a single word as we made our way from the farm to the cliff. We were very lucky that it was a full moon, because else we would never have been able to make that hike.
At the base of the cliff, Miss Bernice started talking, in a low, urgent voice. She pointed out to me how to find this particular spot in the hills, by lining up three landmarks, which she called "triangulating". Then she showed me a smallish outcropping just behind where we stood. Hidden in that pile of rock were several rocks which had been specially carved, with funny shaped protrusions. There were eight of them. And there turned out to be eight funny shaped holes in the blank cliff wall. Which I'm sure you will be shocked to hear fit the rocks perfectly.
Ma Stonefield told me that there is a second set of rocks hidden on the farm, if anything ever happens to these, but that in all her lifetime of coming up here, nothing has ever happened to them. I'd think not, since I can't think of much reason why anyone would make the effort to come to a desolate, stupid cliff face. But just as I thought that, Miss Bernice, reached out and pushed the cliff, and it moved.
Someone in the past of the Stonefield family was a stone mason of extraordinary skill and cleverness. The eight rocks unlocked a perfectly counterbalanced door, and behind it was a small storeroom. On its shelves were more canned goods (not the ones I'd made, of course, so a limited variety, but a lot), and a whole bunch of metal bins. There was a sledge, too, and some tarps and rope, for which I was very grateful. Because it became clear that we were going to move a whole bunch of this stuff back to the farm. And we were going to do it then, in the middle of the night. When I was already so tired and stiff I could hardly walk.
But I knew why Granma made me hide, and she was right, and I knew I owed these people my loyalty, if not my life, for the care they have shown me since midsummer. So I did my damnedest not to sigh, and helped load up the sledge. Miss Bernice showed me how to tie the tarp over the stuff. Then we shut the door, removed the rocks from the keyholes, put them back in the pile of scree around the little outcropping, and started off back towards the farm.
It had been a moderate walk up to the cliff, but the return trip, dragging that sledge, was awful. On the downhill part, it tried to slide away from us, and we let it go in front of us, while we walked behind, holding ropes to keep it from actually sliding down the hill. My arms and shoulders and calves hated that. Then we got it onto more or less flat ground and it did not want to move, so we pulled on the same ropes and dragged it.
I did see, of course, why it could not have any wheels on it, but a sledge is hard going, even when a person is not already plumb tuckered out from all that voluntary service. And the older ladies wore out pretty quickly, too. So we panted and heaved and pulled, and around dawn we got that thing back to the farm.
"We'll put these things in the cellar below Granma's house for a couple days," Miss Bernice said when she'd caught her breath, and I nearly screamed with frustration as I realized that mean that in a day or so, we'd be moving all the goods to the Big House.
This morning, they sent me up into the hills with the almost empty sledge, to return it to the storeroom. Which I did. It took me a bit of time to find it in the daytime, and I was interested to note that it's just as invisible in the full light of the sun as it had been in the full moon last night. There's still a lot of stuff in the storeroom, and now it even has some of my canning in it, too. Because "Since you are going up there anyway, Deyla, you might as well replenish the supplied there with some of the jars from my cellar," Granma said to me.
I'm grateful that they trusted me to help them, and bound and determined never to reveal their secret, but I'm bruised and battered, and stiff, and just tired. I haven't slept since the logging camp, and I exhausted when I got here from there. I'm about to put my pen down and crawl into bed, but I wanted to write this all down, because I think I learned something important.
Like I said, I was surprised that they shared their secret with me, and sort of gloaty that they didn't share it with Maybell, who is even a member of the family. But then I realized that it meant that I AM kind of a member of the family. Because there are other serving women around the place, and they picked me. And even if it's not a real family, it's the closest I've ever come. And that feeling of even sort of being in a family is worth the bruises, the soreness, the stiff muscles, and the days of aches and pains I know i have in store for me now.
It could be worse, in so many ways I can't even tell you.
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Post by Deyla on Nov 8, 2006 20:03:05 GMT -5
I slept for quite a long while. When I woke up, it was full dark, and I knew I had slept the afternoon and most of the night away. Although my stomach rumbled, I stayed in my bed, with the covers wrapped around me like a cocoon.
So much to think about, all of a sudden. I don't remember ever being trusted with someone's serious secret before. In the Orphanage, we traded our childish secrets or held them to our chests and hoarded them, since often our secrets were our only possessions. Since then, I hadn't thought much about the value of secrets. Or of trust.
It strikes me that my sojourn here is quite different than my time with the heroes. (You know, before they disbanded, which I used to think was a disaster.) They took me in, and from the very beginning, they trusted me to sleep in the same cottage as their well-loved Granma. Then when she got hurt, they trusted me to look after her. They trust me with the dead people's fabric. And now the women of the family have trusted me with a secret that they didn't even share with Maybell, who is actually part of the family.
Johnson never trusted me for a second. He never trusted any of us, without stopping to find out if we were trustworthy. So I cheated on him. I took all the possible time he would allow me to do tasks, I pretended to be a different person than I am for his benefit, and I allowed him to believe false things (even lied once or twice).
But the Stonefields have trusted me, in increments, giving me reason to be trustworthy. And I have been. Other than winking at Maybell's lies to Joey about just who is cooking her dinner, I can't think of a time when I've been less than honest with any of them. And it's paid off, for all of us.
I never realized that Johnson (and Matron, with whom he has a great deal in common) might have been creating some of the deceit around them. I won't apologize for lying to Matron whenever I could, or for deceiving Johnson. They were in positions of power over me, and both of them were willing to use that power to their own advantage. In that kind of situation, I'm pragmatic enough to do what I think I have to do in order to protect my best interests. After all, under the condition where the person with all the power has set it up as an adversarial relationship, I'd be a fool to give away my only weapons.
I don't think I am the most honest person who ever lived, but I am interested to see how being treated as if I am actually elicits that kind of behavior from me.
So, when the heroes disbanded, I thought it was a disaster. And maybe it was. I doubt I will ever stop missing Boswell and Pipniff, for instance. But look what I have gained!
Johnson would never have let me spend the time he was paying for making dresses for Her, or filling up my Hope Chest. He would not have ever said "thank you" when I did my job, but it's nice that Granma does. And he would certainly never have trusted me with any secrets of the Halls. All in all, I'd be a poorer person for having stayed there, in every single way. I'd have far less money, far fewer items put away for my hopeful future, and far less of the intangible goods like this sense of belonging.
I guess I'm glad they disbanded. Because had they not, I'd be a lot worse off, and I wouldn't even know it.
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Post by Deyla on Nov 17, 2006 5:26:39 GMT -5
Granma and I are going on a trip. Everyone expects me to be excited, because after all, it's an adventure. Puke. If I wanted adventure, I'd be in that hick stone building learning to cast spells and throw fireballs around. See how I have a comfortable place to stay instead, how I like cooking and cleaning and sewing better than adventure? Yeh.
Anyway, we're going to Westfall. Seems we need oats and corn, since we lost all of ours in the raid, and there's a small farm there owned by Granma's youngest son. We're taking them supplies that don't grow well there, stuff that needs an orchard or a vineyard to grow.
Jamie is taking us. He's out back right now packing up the wagon with the supplies we will take with us, and our gear. There's apparently a hostel on the edge of this district where we can stay before we cross the river, but we'll need to camp out one night on the way there. The only time I camped out before was when we were evacuated during the War. Jamie assures me this will be much more fun and a lot more comfortable, but I dunno.
Maybell is pouting because she wants to come with us, but Granma told her not to be ridiculous. She's a nursing mother and needs to stay with her baby, and Granma also told her that she wasn't about to take a ten day trip with a squalling baby. So that little twit is pouting. Boo hoo. She hissed at me and I told her I would be glad to give her my spot in the wagon and I would even stay home and take care of the baby, but I can't feed him, so she's kind of stuck.
I love doing that to her: she gets all up in my face about something and I puncture her pretension like poking an inflated bladder with a pin. Poof! goes all her oh-so-righteous indignation and she just stands there and sputters at me.
Westfall is supposed to be even more overrun with the outlaws than here, so we had to get chits from the outlaw leaders here to prove we've paid our contributions. Otherwise, we might have to give up our supplies we are taking with us to more outlaws. We have a letter from the local head outlaw honcho and also three little metal things on a leather thong. Granma says we have to carry both the little chits and also our personal proof of having paid our taxes. So I have a little leather pouch tied around my waist with the chit in it, and also the certificate of my stint at the lumber camp.
We'll be working hard when we get there, I bet, unloading this wagon and then collecting the things we are going to get, and loading it up again. Granma sent a letter to her son to tell him we are coming, and he answered and said he would find places for us to sleep. It didn't sound like he was all that happy about having us come along.
I dreamed about Boswell and Pipniff last night. Pipniff was dancing in the parlor of Granma's house and cackling more. My necklace was purring, if you can believe it. It purred so much, like a happy kitten, that it woke me up. Which was ind of too bad, when you stop to think about it. Because I like Boswell, and I was glad to see him, even if it was only in my dreams.
My sole consolation today is that in two weeks, this whole adventure trip thing will be in the past and we can settle in for the winter. And I've lived through a winter in a tent in the dawrf lands. This won't be worse than that winter, for sure.
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Post by Robbyn Jonathan on Nov 17, 2006 20:31:37 GMT -5
((cheers! Love the perspective on the Defias & the Stormwind militia. She lives in the same world as Robbyn))
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Post by Deyla on Nov 19, 2006 9:21:52 GMT -5
((Of course she does! How else would he have been able to ogle her chest on his birthday? ))
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