The next day dawned bright and warm. Sage got up with the sun, just in time to poke her head over the ledge to smile a goodbye at her father. She never could figure out when her parents slept; they seemed only to work more quietly at night.
She pulled yesterday's skirt in from where it hung and fastened it over her shift, then laced up her vest. Today she'd wear her usual clothes until it was time to change into her new skirt.
The new anklet caught on her bedding and felt heavy against her skin, sticky too from the heat. Still, she looked at it and the imprint it had left on her while lying down with a quiet glow in her chest. Most of the younger women in town wore one's like this and it would be the first time in a long time that Sage wouldn't be the shabbiest among them.
After she'd braided her hair she climbed down the ladder and silently began to help her mother, who didn't even seem to notice her presence. Her mother was always quiet in the morning, planning and thinking, and she sometimes wouldn't realise Sage was awake for the day until half the morning work was done.
Today they were preparing tea. Pots and jars full of various plants, both fresh and dried, were pulled out of storage to be chopped, measured, and mixed. Sage took over the prepping of ingredients and watched as her mother expertly combined them in a few clean sacks. Everyone agreed that no one could mix tea quite like she could, especially in large batches like this.
When her mother finally woke up to her presence she gave Sage some breakfast and sent her down to help her father. He was collecting dozens of small pottery mugs together in his workshop to bring down to the village centre.
"Hello again." he said to her cheerily.
"Did you make enough of these?" Sage asked, surveying the pile.
"I hope your morning is going well too. I'm not sure, actually. I made them blue this year and I ran out of the glaze faster than I was hoping to. If I could go back I'd tell myself to thin it out a little more."
"It's such a pretty shade though." she answered. "Just like the sky when it's starting to get dark."
"Mm, they should sell well. Maybe it won't just be your mother's tea bringing in the customers this year, hey?" he wiggled his eyebrows.
She only smiled, even when he added a prodding elbow to reinforce his point.
The day trickled by. Sage heard the tiny tinkle of her anklet as she hurried back and forth from her father's shop to their booth at the centre, pretty fairy sounds haunting her every step. She saw other people out and busy too, when she peeked up from her tucked chin. Some were setting up food stations like they were, others were erecting the wooden beams draped with summer flowers that would designate the dance floor. Sage glanced over at the woman sweeping there with a flutter in her stomach; it was only hours away now.
She did not see Brooks again all morning. She'd wondered about him when she helped her mother, felt anxious that she might pass him when she helped her father, jumped when she heard someone mention his name, but he himself remained hidden. That was good, it would give him time to forget meeting her. Her parents told her that not everyone remembered things with the same intensity and embarrassment that she did, so perhaps it could be out of his head by this evening. Or even already! She'd like to think he wasn't thinking about their encounter.
Finally, the afternoon came and brought a gaggle of girls to her front gate. They'd come to collect Sage and she'd hurried back from her father a few minutes before, out of breath and terrified that she would miss them and be forced to search them out. They were all the other girls in the village who were also turning eighteen that year, also just beginning to wear their anklets, and also going to open the dancing that evening. They were all going to practise the dance they'd do together.
They walked towards the woods and she trailed along behind. Excitement was high, and giggles were rampant. Everything was funny today.
"There! Won't that space be big enough?" said one called Shell, pointing at a meadow-like area near the forest's edge.
"Anyone coming this way would see us." Someone else protested.
"Who's walking to the woods on a festival day? Everyone's in town getting ready."
"Everyone but the boys."
That started another round of giggling, and they made their way over an old fence and out onto the grass. Shell took charge again.
"We should go in order of height, so Cammy should be first."
"No, what if our skirts look bad next to each other?" Cammy answered "We should figure out an order by colour, what colours is everyone wearing?"
The others called out their colours and much debate ensued over shade and effect.
"Sage will be in green so she should go between Ellie and Garnet." Shell said from her assigned place; they were mostly all in a row by now but Sage remained quietly waiting.
The two girls moved to make space for her and she felt a hot panic rise, she opened her mouth but Cammy interjected.
"No, her skirt is a darker green so it should be near Nell's purple, you had purple didn't you, Nell?"
"It's light though so I like it next to pink like this, the green will be fine between Garnet and Ellie."
"It's red," Sage whispered.
"Hm?"
"I have a red skirt." Even more quietly.
"Did you say red? You have a new skirt for tonight?"
She nodded, cheeks flushed and shoulders hunched. The other girls all paused for a moment and she felt a couple sets of eyes drop, not for the first time, to the anklet she wore.
"Ohh, and it's red? I guess that should be down at the end then, by the orange." Shell said finally, and Sage hurried to take her place.
The rest of the rehearsal took a long time. The routine was repeated every year and very simple, but none of them could remember it exactly the same so every step was under discussion. Sage felt some strong opinions on it but voiced none, even when they finally decided on a step that she was sure was wrong. Finally, shadows appeared at the edge of the woods and they disbanded to run home and change.
Some boys had indeed walked by while they were there and now a few of them loitered by the fence to walk back with them. Sage kept her head down and didn't take note of who it was until a hand reached out to offer help when she climbed up over the fence. She didn't take it but she did glance up at its owner before snapping her chin back to her chest. It was Brooks.
He was being peppered with questions by the others and didn't speak to her, but he did seem to walk slowly as if, in her imagination of course, to keep closer to where she walked at the back. However, everyone was following him so all he succeeded in doing was to slow down the entire group.
"No, I'm not engaged. I never went there to get engaged! I was just visiting the Chief there to learn, that's all."
"Yeah, right, like you can't learn from your own father. He sent you there to meet that girl. What happened, didn't she like you?"
"You're talking like there was only one girl in the whole village."
"What, none of them liked you?"
Everyone laughed and one of the girls chimed in.
"I'm glad you didn't go to bring somebody back here, we have too many girls as it is. We'll barely fit on the dance floor this year."
"Yeah, with you looking all over the map for a wife the rest of us are stuck drowning in options. You girls better be real nice to me or else you'll have to be waiting for somebody's little brother."
"I'd rather do that than see you on the other side of the hearth for the rest of my life!"
Taunting and laughing, the group walked on past Sage's house and she quietly dropped back and stopped to open the gate. Before she went in she looked over her shoulder at them and caught Brooks' eye. He had turned his head back and was watching her leave.
*
Sage's Dad is 10/10
-Laura
आप पढ़ रहे हैं
The Girl in the River
काल्पनिकSage is a shy girl who works hard with her parents and has very few things to look forward to - until an encounter with the popular boy at the river changes her life forever. This is a wholesome little novella with a cinderella type feel, set in a s...
