Chapter 1

Chapter 1

 

            Rosa stared out into the pouring rain.  Her hands gripped the door frame of the small thatched cottage where she lived with her mother at the edge of Hawthorne Village.  She watched the eddies of water swirl in the mud outside the door.  She could just make out the next closest cottage in the village through the branches in overhanging the footpath.  Her mother Melindea was leery of people and preferred to keep to herself: thus their cottage nestled right against the edge of the forest.  Even though their cottage was out of the way, the people of the village sought out Melindea for her gift of healing.

 

            Just this morning, Melindea had left Rosa behind again as she headed down one of the twisting trails through the dark forest.  Rosa begged to go with her, and yet again, Melindea found a reason to leave her behind.  “It’s pouring rain today, and you have no cloak,”  she said.  “Besides, if someone from the village needs help, you can care for them until my return.  You know nearly as much as I now.”

 

            Rosa stamped her foot as she remembered the morning’s conversation.  Her pleas had fallen on deaf ears.  She had never seen any of the larger world.  She rarely left the cottage and surrounding yard.  Her furthest journey was to the village, and that was only with her mother’s company.  Her mother didn’t wonder at Rosa’s impatience to escape.  She just didn’t see it.  Rosa looked back into the forest one last time for any glimpse of her mother’s return.  She wasn’t surprised to see nothing but the rain and mist through the trees.  When Melindea left to gather her healing herbs in the forest, she usually didn’t come home until dusk or even later.

 

            Melindea turned from the door and surveyed the single room she shared with her mother.  To her left a low fire smoldered and hissed in the great stone fireplace that filled half the wall.  Unlike most of the village cottages, this fireplace didn’t crowd the center of the wall, but hunkered to one corner closest to the door.  In the back corner, drying herbs and roots hung from the rafters.  Low shelves below stored a mortar and pestle, various bowls, and jars of lard and other fats for making ointments.  A long wooden table was pushed against the back wall.  It could be pulled out to make room for guests to eat dinner, a rare occurrence, or for an examination table to treat patients.  Two beds filled the back corner, covered with the brilliant colors of Melindea’s latest patchwork quilts.  Rosa let her eyes drift to the last corner, the corner where shadows hid the padlocked trunk.  Iron hinges and a stout clasp held the lid tightly against the box.  Thick leather straps wrapped the oak planks in a tight embrace.

 

            For as long as she could remember, Rosa had wondered what secrets the trunk held.  As a small child, the trunk had drawn her to the fancies of imagination.  She had ridden countless miles on a prancing stallion as she sat astride the trunk.  On other days, the trunk became her sailing ship, taking her to tropical islands she had only hear about in her mother’s stories or a fort to hide from dragons and equally terrifying WolfRiders that mothers in the village threatened their children with. As she grew older, she dreamed of what lay within the box.  Was her mother hiding piles of colorful jewels, maps leading to buried treasure, gowns of silk and damask?   Her mother refused to answer any questions about the contents of the trunk, saying only that none of it mattered any more.  If it didn’t matter, why didn’t she open it or get rid of it, Rosa wondered.

 

            As she stared at the trunk, Rosa fingered the key hidden under her apron.  She had found it during her mother’s last trip through the forest.  She had climbed up into the rafters to clean out the old herbs that had dried beyond their usefulness.  The wet spring had caused many of the herbs Melindea had collected to rot.  The key had been hanging from the rafters behind the rosemary and sorrel.  She had found it from above; she never would have seen it from below.  She hadn’t seen it all.  As she reached for a rotting clump of mint, she heard the metallic clunk as it banged against one of the nails holding braids of herbs.  She could tell from the rust covering it that it had not been used in a long time.  Forgetting her mother’s assignment, she climbed down the ladder grasping the key in one hand.  She scrubbed the rust off with sand and oiled it with grease for the lamps.  She tied it snuggly behind her apron and scurried to finish cleaning out the rotten plants before her mother’s return.  Ever since it had burned against her skin underneath her skirts as she waited for her mother’s next absence.  The cold metal

 

            Now Rosa held the key against the weak sunlight seeping through the open door.  She suspected it opened the lock to the trunk.  Did she have the courage to see what was inside now that she had the opportunity?  her  She rationalized to herself.  “I’m not really crossing her.  She never said I couldn’t open it.  She just wouldn’t tell me what’s in it.”  Before she could talk herself out of it, she crossed into the shadows and knelt before the trunk.  She stretched forth her arm and inserted the key into the lock.  She twisted her wrist.  To her surprise the key turned easily and silently.  The hinges creaked as she lifted the lid and the scent of mint and sorrel wafted out.

 

            Rosa breathed in the scent and wondered at the combination.  Her mother had warned her never to mix these two herbs.  Why were they stored together in the trunk?  She lifted the heavy canvas that lay in wrinkled folds across the top.  Underneath she saw a torn and stained dress.  She held it against her shoulders.  It had been made for a much larger woman.  Who had worn it?  Surely not her mother—at least not any time recently.  She lay the dress aside and peered at the object lying at the bottom of the trunk.  She gasped as she recognized the fine leather of a saddle, bridle, bit and reins.  She stroked the soft grain and felt something firm underneath.  Tugging it out from under the saddle, she pulled out a saddle bag.  Her fingers trembled as she struggled with the buckle.  The pounding of her heart sped up.  Somehow she knew  that the contents of this bag would change her life.

 

            Rosa pulled out a red cloak.  Its folds caught the flickering light from the fire across the room and seemed to glow.  Unlike the dress, the fabric was not marred by any tears or stains.  Rosa spread it out and guessed it had been made for a large man.  It looked like the cloaks worn by the WolfRiders, complete with hood and a leather clasp.  Even knowing that the cloak would be much too big, Rosa couldn’t resist the opportunity to try it on.  The swirled around her ankles as she fastened the clasp across her chest.  She pulled the hood over her head and spun.  To her surprise she did not trip over the hem—it just barely swept the ground above her toes.  It was a perfect fit.  Rosa stepped over the cottage threshold and out into the rain.  The cloak shed the rain better than a duck’s feathers. 

 

            She turned toward the path to the village from habit, but paused before she stepped out of the yard.  She knew her way around the village, but so did everyone in the village know her, too.  Surely, someone would mention seeing such a bright red cloak to Melindea on her next visit.   Rosa circled slowly, eying each of the paths that snaked through the undergrowth and disappeared into the forest.  Which one had Melindea taken this morning?  She couldn’t remember.  No matter.   What sunlight fought its way through the clouds seemed to focus on one path to the east of the cottage.  That path seemed to call to her.  “Come see where I lead,” it whispered to her heart.  Rosa walked across the muddy clearing, ready to answer the call when Melindea’s voice broke through the spell.

 

            “What are you wearing?”  she demanded as she strode out of the woods now behind Rosa.

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