I gracefully apologize for not being able to post this chapter yesterday!
and by the way, if you are enjoying this story, go and tell your friends!!! this book will soon be published and available to purchase!
Byyee!
-Elena
ChapterFour
Artie
That was the first time I saw him. A best friend I hadn’t even met yet. Right over there waiting for me. I didn’t know it then, but I had a feeling.
He was whistling as his wagon crested the hill and down again. I could hear his tunes, sweet like a bird. When he stopped his horses with a gentle pull of the reins, he hopped down and came into view a little better. I studied him as well as I could before he came over.
A nice boy, with brassy hair that fell on his shoulders. His straw hat hid his eyes. He looked a mite shabby, but then, everyone here did. His clothes were a bit torn and old but they were that of a farm boy, who loved to run and play and go on his own little adventures, alone.
That was something I could always do, for some reason. See something in a person’s eyes or hear it in their voice. It was like a window—a little glimpse into their heart.
You’re lonely, like me.
He approached us with an easy stride and when he reached us, he looked at us strangely.
I looked back at him.
I at last caught his eyes. Sharp, keen and smart. They were startling emerald eyes. Or maybe blue. Green like a forest and blue like the water all swirled around. I had a feeling he had a few stories hidden within those eyes.
Henry cleared his throat. “Ahem.”
“Hi,” the boy said. He nodded to himself and looked us over, examining us like a fossil. It made me feel important.
“And you are…?” Henry pressed.
The boy blinked, taken aback for a short moment. “Oh, I’m sorry. I just ain’t ever seen English folk.”
“And we’ve never seen…” Henry looked him over from his hat to his boots. “Whatever you are.”
“I’m Arther. Arther Ferguson. But you can call me Artie,” and he glanced at me and smiled. His smile ceased when he looked at Henry.
“Are you the one to take us to Averdeene?” I spoke up, shyly.
“We’re in Averdeene. But I reckon I’ll take you to the Lovingale. That is where I’ve been paid to send you, right?”
“I…I think so,” I looked at Henry for confirmation.
“Father didn’t clearly specify. But I believe it to be true.”
Artie smirked. “I believe it to be true, too,” he said in a humored polish voice that made me and Claudia laugh.
“The Lovingale…” Henry trailed off. “I guess we should go.”
“Is it really called the Lovingale?” Claudia wondered earnestly. “That…that sounds quite elegant, actually. I could tolerate a house called the Lovingale.”
“We haven’t even seen it,” Henry scorned.
“It’s a good little house. A nice little row of ‘em down on what we call the Everstreet.” He looked at me again. “I have a feeling you’ll like it if you aren’t to acusted to proper stuff.”
“If you mean, accustomed,” I corrected with an airy chuckle, “then I think we are perfectly capable of making up our minds to like it.”
Henry rolled his eyes. “Then let’s get on with it.”
We piled into the back of the wagon and rode down the path and up the hill. We went through trees and I almost fell when I reached out my hand to touch the water of a stream we passed. Everything was all I ever wanted but never really knew I wanted it.
The air was so thick and hot it was unlike anything I had ever experienced before, but then, it felt so refreshing to experience something new.
To feel a new feeling felt rather remarkable.
Everything was so humid and heavy that when the breezy wind passed through us, I was so glad. My sister and brothers were fanning themselves with their hats.
“It’s so rainy and cloudy in England,” Felix complained. “Here I am, dripping. How will I ever get used to the heat? And—” he swatted away a mosquito. “I can’t even breathe without the fear of inhaling something.”
“Do you like the weather?” Claudia tugged on my sleeve. Right now, she looked so tiny and childish. She always pretended that she was “practically an adult” but really, she was just a dear and I tried to be as much like my mother to her as I could. It felt unfair that Felix and Claudia hardly got to know Mother.
“Not immensely,” I answered, looking around.
With my one hand I held onto the side of the wagon and with the other, I held onto my hat, the silky sash blowing behind me like a tail.
Claudia told me the sun shimmered on my dark hair. My hair was a mix of orange and brown, but it was dark and long and was anything but straight. Mainly waves, with a few curls here and there. I wouldn’t have been so fond of my hair, if I hadn’t known that my auburn hair was inherited from both my mother and my grandmother. I liked that small bit about me.
“Artie?” I said his name and Henry stared at me.
“Yes’um?” he glanced over his shoulder.
I suddenly couldn’t think of what to say, so I held my tongue.
He chuckled lightly and clicked his tongue. “Don’t worry, I’ll go first. What’s your name?”
I felt Henry warning me. “Ann—” I stopped myself. “Ingrid.”
He stared straight ahead and didn’t say anything.
“This is Felix and Claudia, and that’s Henry,” I was turning a pale pink and I didn’t know why I was so shy. Maybe because I was much richer than he. Or maybe because he was so distant.
As he talked and told me his age, fifteen, a year younger than Henry, I listened to the rhythm of his voice. A rhythm can tell anything, like a song. Well, almost anything.
We passed trees and little streams, and the long grasses swayed and tickled my fingertips which were eager to meet them.
But then, suddenly, we were nearing a bright cleared area. I balanced on my knees and saw a meadow, lonely and beautiful, the wildflowers just beckoning me to join them in their dance.
“Can we stop the wagon?” I asked, anxiously.
“Ingrid,” Henry said tryingly. “We’re not stopping the wagon so you can get out and fall all over yourself.”
“Please do,” I said when I couldn’t bear it anymore. “I just can’t sit here when I feel like moving. We’ve been sitting in a train for ages. I need to run. I long to run.”
Artie halted the horses and out I leapt.
I was not from around here where there were furious rivers and hazy summer nights and skies so decorated with stars you could barely see the blackness behind them. I had that feeling I would experience such things the moment I leapt from the wagon. The flame inside me was kindling and I felt it growing.
These wonders were foreign to me and as if I might be stripped from them, I bathed deeply in the wonderful things around me and held on tight to them.
I decided then and there that no one, not even Father, might make me leave this place where everything was so wild and free.
I had come a long, long way, from the foggy wisps of Boughsberry, England.
I was here in a place called Mississippi, somewhere wonderful and strange.
I scanned the field before my eyes. It looked limitless, stretching onward without end for miles. It was the end of May, when spring was just in its fullest blossoms, a miracle in itself. The wind was a gift to the warm air and already I was grateful. But I could tell, in the morning, there might be a hint of a chill, like the earth wasn’t quite ready to let go of winter yet.
I felt a brilliant sensation as tall grass swayed around my legs and a breeze passed through my hair and set the flowers to dancing. A sensation that was not possible to be put into words. Here in a little town called Averdeene, I felt the indescribable.
And it felt wonderful.
“Ingrid?”
I didn’t really hear him clearly until he tapped my shoulders. I turned around. “Henry, don’t you feel it?” I saw crimson specks in the distance. Flowers. Roses and other kinds of living, growing things.
“We have to get back.”
As we rode, we all grew more nervous as our destination was reaching for us faster than we could understand. Maybe faster than we really wanted it to. I saw so much I was bursting from all the lovely views, unable to take in all of everything in such a little time.
We were a bit frightened. We didn’t know what to expect.
“Artie?” I said his name again, so I could distract myself from being nervous. “Do you have a family?”
He shook his head cheerfully. “Nope. Just me. I’m alone.”
“Oh,” I said quietly. “Does it ever get lonely?”
I could sense a movement in the corners of his mouth. A slight twitch. “Sometimes.”
And then—and then everything changed and I felt a tickling butterfly inside me and I felt nauseous and nervous and a hundred other things.
You ask why?
Well, we had arrived.
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