You Are My Light Part II

230 - Sledding

Inspiration - The 1925 diphtheria serum rally run to Nome / Movies Togo and Balto.

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"Hey, you're back!" 

The young ravenette looks up as she pushes her body weight against the modest door, trapping the loud, whistling winds behind the wood, metal and glass. She shivers despite the warmth of the fireplace burning in the hearth just a few feet away from her. The large dog in front of her shakes violently, trying to get the thick coat of snow from her fur. Mistress and mammal, they're unrecognisable until the mistress sheds her large fur coat from her body, removing the hood from her hair, and the dog finishes shaking out. "Why were you two summoned?" the honest, beautiful man asks his wife as she pulls off her snow covered boots and replaces them with house shoes. "Is it something about the shipment?" he asks.

"No, nothing like that." she sighs, looking from right to left. Her husband stands in the mediocre kitchen, his half brother stands at the stove, presumably brewing up the horrendously strong coffee needed to survive such a harsh winter in the north. His parents sit in the living room, his mother perched on the overstuffed, raggedy chair, holding a pair of knitting needles in her hand as she creates a pink and purple blanket. His father lays on his side on the floor, playing marbles with young Hercules and Margret. The others titter around in the background somewhere, she can hear her siblings-in-law's voices all around the cabin, as well as the dogs howling in the other cabin. She sighs at  the domesticity that seeps through the cabin they've been living in for the last years, and the sight of the dimness of the sky, the home lit by candles and lamps and the fireplace, it clenches her heart in a way she cannot explain.

"Then, what? Knox never sends for you unless it's absolutely necessary or he's gotten himself into a hole and needs you to bail him out. Whatever it is, it's gotta be big." he says. She sighs, looking back at her husband again. He's concerned, curious. She doesn't want to tell him, but she has to.

"It's the children." she says. He falters slightly, licking his lips, absentmindedly looking from her to Margot and Herc. Word of the horrid sickness going around several villages surrounding and including theirs, it's startled them all so much. It's no wonder Henry and Catherine chose to keep their children from the school. Mary blinks back the tears as she remembers how sick little Henri was for such a long time until Doctor Samuel Nostradamus finally found a few drops of the precious antidote. There wasn't enough to go around, more and more children got sick from it. And with the news Mary just heard- "Darling, they're getting worse." she sighs.

He licks his lips again, exhaling slowly. Henri had survived, but even after the antidote, he was still so horridly weak from it all that he stayed in his room from morning to night, and then all over again the next day. The younger boys had had to bunk up with the girls, and even then, more often than not, one of the pairs who had to share a single bunk bed with three stacks on each side of the room, found themselves in one of the married couples' bedrooms.

"What can we do?" Francis asks. "We've done all we can, only leaving the ranch when it's to exercise the dogs, or to get food, and even then, we never see anybody else. Mother and Father have been so worried with Henri, they've taken every precaution Samuel has said, what more can we do to help try and keep the spread down?" 

"That's the point, it's not enough, love." she sighs, reaching over for his hand. He gives it with a frown. This isn't how his wife usually acted. "Come, I have to talk to you." she leads him into their bedroom, closing the door behind them. Their bedroom isn't big, it barely fits the bed and their wardrobes, and little nick nacks they've managed to accumulate in their lives in the middle of a snow covered village in the middle of nowhere. Of course, both of them have made lives together, they've had little choice, since this winter wonderland is all they've ever known, having to escape Europe during the great war after it got too dangerous. He works tirelessly in the deliveries, while Mary does her job with her sled team, attaining trophies and recognition, and any other time, she was transport in the village and in between different villages. Married at seventeen, the two have grown up together in this wintery home, Francis knows Mary better than anyone, and had been her main support system when her mother and father and brothers had died from the last wave of TB three years previous. So, to see her now, so troubled, with almost the weight of the world on her shoulders, it troubles him in his own right.