Chapter Text
On the outskirts of Chandrila, a red brick farm house sat back from the road, its residents sleeping save for one young woman, whose window was open to the warm April night, letting in a soft breeze laced with sea air and jonquils. If she leaned out of the window far enough into the moon bright night, she could make out the sliver of sea that snaked inland between the two fingers of land that made up the bulk of the village to the south. To the north, the scattered lights of other farms and the pale glow of orchards in bloom. Tomorrow, she would take over as teacher at Chandrila school, but tonight she could dream and plan.
Reluctantly, she pulled herself back inside to begin getting ready for bed. As she brushed her hair, she made a plan for the morning. After washing and dressing, she would carefully arrange her hair, using the style in the photo she had tucked in the corner of the mirror frame. She'd torn it out of a discarded magazine left in the sitting room by a former boarder, and practiced it several times until getting its loops and twists down. She'd pin on her new hat at a jaunty angle, one that said grownup, but not stodgy. The angle of someone authoritative, but who wouldn’t say no to dancing a jig at a barn dance, if asked properly. She would eat breakfast, taking time to enjoy her landlady’s fried eggs with the perfectly crisp edges, then take her coffee out onto the veranda to enjoy the sunrise before setting out on a leisurely stroll to the schoolhouse. As she settled into bed with a book, she thought it might be nice to pick some flowers for her desk on the way.
In the morning, however, the traitorous sun had very much already risen when Rey startled awake to the sound of Mrs. Kanata yelling last call for breakfast up the stairs.
Bleary eyed, she looked about her room, which should have been dim and grey but was instead flushed with a pink glow. She remembered the grandfather clock downstairs striking three just as the hero confessed his love for the heroine in her novel. She rubbed her eyes and picked up her alarm clock. The hands stood frozen at half past four.
“Rey Niima!” Mrs. Kanata shouted again. “The kitchen is closing in five minutes whether you've eaten or not!”
“Coming!” Rey called out as she stumbled out of the bed. She splashed water on her face, yelping as the stinging cold, and began pulling on her petticoats. She said a quick thank you to herself for carefully planning her outfit and laying it out. Her wardrobe didn’t contain many choices, but she had deliberated over it as though she owned a hundred dresses, finally settling on a green and white striped shirtwaist with lace at the collar, her dark grey skirt--not her favorite skirt, but her newest--and of course her little straw hat, the only indulgence she’d allowed herself after she had been offered the teaching position. The green velvet band matched the color of her eyes when the light hit them just right.
There was no time to do anything with her hair other than run a brush through it a few times and fashion a thick braid in the back. The hat still looked nice, however, and if she hurried, she might be able to fill her flask with coffee and grab a scone on the way out the door.
She careened down the stairs, finding Mrs. Kanata standing at the back door with a lunch pail, Rey’s flask, and small napkin wrapped bundle in hand. Her landlady had been nothing but kind since Rey arrived a week ago, and her eyes pricked with tears at this additional act. No one, not even the nicer landladies and house mothers at college, had ever cared so much about making sure that she had enough to eat. Rey kissed Mrs. Kanata on her wrinkled brown cheek as she raced out, apologizing for not being able to sit down. She flung her coat on and sprang out the door. Halfway to the gate, the cool spring air crept up her skirts and she stopped. She had forgotten to put on her stockings.
Here arrived a big decision. She could make it to school right on time if she started immediately, walking at a brisk pace. If she went inside to put on her stockings, she still stood a good chance of being on time, so long as she ran part of the way.
No one would ever notice her missing stockings, if she were careful, and she would only have cold toes to show for it. Showing up to school wheezing, out of breath, and disheveled, however, would be shockingly inappropriate, and every parent in Chandrila would know about it by dinner time tonight.
“Nothing to it,” Rey said, and headed toward the gate.
The morning was glorious, the sky deeply blue with streaky clouds, no sign of the slapping sting of coming snow in the wind’s sweet kiss. Only a week ago, when she first arrived in Chandrila, there had been patches of snow on the ground, but as she stepped into the lane from under the cherry trees that framed the gate, she spied that the buds were on the verge of blooming, with little pink points emerging from the green. A glance is all she got, though, and she steadfastly ignored the yellow jonquils and purple crocus lining the road, as well as the trickle of a nearby stream begging her to come take a look. Moving to the center of the lane where it was less soggy, she trudged on, nibbling on the sausage biscuit that Mrs. Kanata wrapped for her. She looked straight ahead, practicing her introductory speech in her head and tuning out the different calls of birds, all of them delighted for the final thaw. If she turned to look her pace would slow.
Oh, but just there, is that a cluster of late snowdrops underneath that juniper tree? Yes, they were, but she sighed and continued resolutely on her path. So caught up was she in ignoring everything going on around her, that she failed to notice the sound of a horse and cart coming up behind her until it was almost on top of her.
“Whoa!”
A deep voice broke through Rey’s reverie, and she turned around and found herself nose to nose with a shiny black horse. It snorted at her and shook its head.
“Oh my lord!” she cried. She’d never been afraid of horses, quite liked them, in fact, with their soft eyes and long lashes, but encountering one so close, out of nowhere, might frighten even the most experienced horsewoman. As she stepped back, her heel sank into the wet earth, and while she managed not to fall on her backside, she overcorrected and lurched forward. Instead of falling to the ground, however, she fell against what felt like a tree trunk, but that was impossible, wasn’t it, in the middle of the lane? She looked up, past a black waistcoat and white shirt, into the face of a man. It wasn’t a bad face, what she could see of it in the shadow cast by the brim of his flat cap; handsome, but not in an Arrow Collar Man sort of way. More like a dashing villain from one of her novels, with his odd angles and wide mouth. A mouth that was decidedly unamused.
“I dropped my breakfast,” she said. For there wasn’t much else she could think to say.
