CHAPTER 1 - PENNY #2
“It’s a good thing you’re here,” I said.
My pack slid off my shoulder to drop on the floor with a thunk, and I followed it by sinking to my knees.
Digging into the wadded mess, I found the stiff corner of my sketchbook and took hold.
I hauled it out and thumbed through the pages while talking and counting on Warren to listen.
“In all of the excitement of the past month, I realized we never discussed Sayla’s dowry.”
A loose sheet slid out from between the bound parchment.
A familiar page covered with sketches and a block of text I’d scrawled one desperate night.
The makeshift deed I’d made for Kit, once read by candlelight, was now exposed for all to see.
I’d been willing, what seemed like so long ago, to give Kit my entire world.
Everything I had to promise, I promised to him.
Strange to think the farm and its trappings had become so inconsequential when weighed against the present I found myself in. The future I pursued.
Another dive into the bag produced a coloring pencil in a shade of bluish purple. Like the bearded irises that sprouted in the clearing where we buried Father. Like spring. Like new beginnings.
Flattening the deed across the floorboards, I scribbled out Kit’s name. Mother, Sayla, and Warren had formed a circle around me, looking on while holding untold questions. I would soon answer them all.
I wrote Warren and Sayla’s names in the narrow space between lines of text. Legible but cramped. As legal as I could make it. Then I stood, prompting the others to step back as I handed the page to Warren.
“Congratulations,” I told him. I meant it. “You own a farm.”
Sayla gasped again, this time with delight, and she flung her arms around her intended’s waist. Warren gawked, first at me, then the deed, then around the farmhouse that was now his home.
When he returned to me, his round eyes glittered with joy. “Really?” he asked.
“Yes,” I replied, and took his hand when he offered it for a shake. “But I’m taking the horse.”
Warren’s delighted expression shifted to a frown. “The horse?”
I crouched and began re-stuffing my pack while Sayla did as she’d promised and told both Mother and Warren what had happened. Kit was gone, and I soon would be, too. Leaving the farm in good and capable hands, set to produce a record harvest.
For the first time in my life, I felt proud of what I’d done here. Not as much the plowing and planting but in finally giving my family’s property a chance at success. Thinking of it thriving for generations to come gave me a measure of peace.
Judging by her acceptance of my departure, my mother must have felt the same. When I rose with the bag balanced across my back, she was teary, but far from devastated.
Warren reached to shake my hand again, pumping my arm up and down while Sayla went to the kitchen and Mother stood by.
My sister returned with a knapsack full of food that she shoved into my arms. I shifted my pack around to add the supplies to it and had barely tied it off when Sayla grabbed my face and pulled me in to kiss my cheek.
“Good luck,” she said, blinking back tears of her own. “And be safe.”
I nodded. “Thank you.”
It seemed like I should cry, too, but my emotions were too tangled for any one to stand out. I was happy, sad, and still so scared. For Kit. For myself.
Mother waited until Sayla and Warren moved aside before making her approach. She wrung her hands at her waist and turned her face aside as though trying to hide her own muddled feelings. When she didn’t reach for me, I went to her instead, folding my arms around her and pulling her close.
This goodbye might have been my last one. Try as I might, I could not shake that possibility. If Merrick had his way, if Ashpoint swallowed Kit and me, these could be my final farewells. My mother could lose another son.
But I hadn’t left the farm to ruin, and I wouldn’t leave Kit to it, either. I refused to let him face the darkness of the world alone.
After a lengthy embrace, Mother pulled back to fix her glistening eyes on mine. “Are you sure you can’t stay?” she whispered.
Bending in, I kissed her forehead, then rested my hands on her shoulders as I struggled to hold her gaze. “Mother, he needs me. I have to go.”
A moment. A blink. Then, she nodded. “I understand.”
She brought her fingers to my cheeks, dragging them through the trails of moisture that proved I was crying after all. For a moment, I couldn’t breathe. Air went stale in my lungs, and I didn’t know if I was too empty or too full.
“I’m proud of you,” she said, drying my face with slow swipes of her thumbs while I studied her features. Memorized them. Just in case. “You’re a good man. And you’ll make a fine husband.”
I memorized that, too. The words had weight, and they settled on my heart. It hurt, but in a good way.
Mother smiled again, but I barely saw it. I was too busy hugging her, pressing my face into her neck and feeling her hair against my cheeks. I needed to be small one last time, to collect my bravery before I had to be bigger than I had ever been.
There was nothing else to say, only to do, so I pulled back, waved goodbye to all of them, then dashed out the back door. Toward the barn and the horse. Toward Ashpoint.
Toward home.