Against Her Will

Chapter Three: All Alone

Chapter Three: All Alone

Nine days. It had been nine days since Temperance had waken up upon a dead man's chest. Nine days since Charlotte had fallen ill. In those nine days Temperance had lost everything. 

Charlotte. Jessica. Her mother.

They were gone now. 

Dead. 

Nine days. Barely over a week. 

She wondered as she finished tossing the last shovelful of dirt over her mother's grave why she had not fallen ill as everyone else had. Why had God spared her and taken away everything in the world that mattered to her? 

Tears had long since stopped falling. There had been too much loss--too much pain--her body and her mind were now numb to it all. Her arms ached from all the digging she had done. Temperance was certain the four graves she had dug were not as deep as they should have been but they were the best she'd been able to manage. 

The tiny crosses she had managed to craft and the fresh mounds of dirt were all that told the world that Thomas Hall, Gregory Hall, Joseph Hall, Herriot Hall, Jessica Hall, Charlotte Hall and Robert Thompson had existed at all. 

Somehow Temperance managed to drag her exhausted body back to the cabin. Night would be falling soon. She had never spent an entire night alone before and the thought terrified her. 

Going into her mother's room, Temperance curled her body up in the spot her mother had been laying in not long before. She clung to her pillow, which still smelled like the soap that her mother had always used in her hair and she simply became lost in a trance. 

Time ticked on. Hours passed. Still Temperance lay there. She felt nothing. Saw nothing. Heard nothing. Her body and her mind had endured too much and quite simply shut down. 

Alone. 

That was the only word that continued to echo inside her mind. She was completely alone. 

She knew she would have to make the journey into town. She would have to tell people about her family and try to find somewhere she could stay that wasn't here. This home way out here was not safe for a girl alone. 

But for now she simply lay there. 

Darkness encased the room, then sunlight, then darkness again. 

It wasn't until a rumble of thunder shook the cabin walls on the second morning that Temperance was rocked from her trance. 

She sat up quickly and drew a gasping breath as pain radiated through her stiff body. 

With confusion she glanced around, not understanding where she was or how long she had been there. Hunger pangs crippled her and her mouth was painfully dry. 

Temperance rose from the bed and nearly fell when her numb legs and feet refused to hold up her body. Using the bed as a crutch, Temperance shook them out and waited for the feeling to return. When it did it came roaring back with that painful pins and needles sensation that had her whimpering in pain. 

She shuffled her way out of her mother's room and curled her nose when she realized she had soiled the bed--and herself. That had to be dealt with right away. 

After washing in the rain that was pouring off the eaves of the house and drinking her fill of the cool water, Temperance slipped into her only other clean dress and then stripped her mother's bed and tossed the soiled sheets onto the back porch. 

Next she went to the cupboards and found a jar of canned apples. Without wasting time warming them up, Temperance quickly devoured as much as she could of the fruit--though that only ended up being a quarter of the jar. She'd been too long without food and her shrunken stomach couldn't hold any more than that. 

She worried about the animals... she hadn't fed or watered them since Charlotte had taken ill. They were probably dead or dying--just like everything else around her. 

Temperance slipped on Robert's coat, put his cap on her head and rushed out through the storm toward the barn. Her bare feet slipped and slid in the worsening mud. She grabbed a bucket that had been outside and was full of rain water and entered the barn, happy to see that while the mule and cow were looking quite hungry and haggard they were still alive. Jessica had always been guilty of overfeeding the animals but just now that seemed to have been their lifesaver. 

Temperance poured a bit of the water into each of their troughs and gave them some fresh hay and feed. Cleaning their stalls would have to wait--her arms simply couldn't manage the task today. 

Next Temperance fed the pigs and the chickens, happy to see they had all survived as well. Perhaps it was only the people in the world that were dying.... 

With all the death that had been occurring around her, Temperance couldn't help but wonder if maybe the entire world was gone... perhaps she truly was all alone. 

She stripped off the soaked hat and coat once she was back in the house and then she curled up upon the sofa. The thunder and rain were the only sounds that filled the oppressive silence that pressed in on her from all directions. 

It was no use attempting to get to town in this weather. It was a three hour trip in good weather and in this rain and mud it would take much longer--she was better off waiting here until the weather broke. 

Temperance knew that she shouldn't but that didn't stop her from grabbing up Robert's canvas sack from the corner of the room and pulling it to the sofa. It wasn't right to go through someone's things but since Temperance had fancied she'd marry the man one day--and since he was now dead and buried in her yard--she did not think he would object to her snooping. 

She pulled out a stiff wool blanket, a clean white tunic shirt, a canteen, a pouch of gunpowder, ammunition for a gun, a pocketknife and some dried meat. Rummaging further still Temperance found a leather bound book. 

She pulled it out and realized it was a journal. She knew she shouldn't read it... but she couldn't help herself. She needed something to do to pass the time and maybe there would be stories of her father and brothers written inside. 

Temperance opened the journal and lost herself inside the pages. She started at the beginning and read through the eyes of an awestruck young man seeking adventure. He spoke of new friends and she smiled faintly when she recognized the names of her family. Throughout the journal however his voice changed. 

He spoke of terrible tragedies, gruesome truths of war and things that caused Temperance's stomach to churn. He lost that awestruck tone and quickly seemed saddened and annoyed with it all. 

Toward the end of the journal he spoke of the death of her father and brothers. He spoke of the promise he had made to tend to their family and the journey he now had to take. He had seemed upset to have to do so. 

Then she arrived at the last entry. It was dated for the night that he had dug those graves--the night he and Temperance had sat together upon the porch. Temperance saw her name--he'd written it so carefully; each letter was drawn out with painstaking attention to detail and Temperance felt her heart ache. 

He spoke of how beautiful she was. How her red hair shone like copper and her green eyes sparkled like emeralds--which he'd only seen one time on the ears of a rich man's wife. He spoke of how he hated that he'd had to bring her such sad news but that he had been impressed by her strength and courage. He spoke of how he hoped that one day he could properly court her just as soon as she grew old enough. He had no longer seemed upset about coming to take care of her family--instead he'd gone so far as to say his ending up there had been a gift from God and one of the few he'd ever received in his life. 

Temperance closed the journal and looked at the clock... it was nearing nightfall once again. She hadn't realized she'd spent so long reading. The storm outside had stopped and the rain was no longer falling. Crickets chirped and frogs croaked. 

All alone. Temperance was all alone.