First Love, First War, First Step |√|

Sorrow

I sat across from Widow Anna, who was cooing over her granddaughter.  The tiny swaddled babe had been born less than a month ago, but much like me, she had lost a parent.

"Your daddy would have been proud of you," she whispered to the sleeping infant as I nursed a mug of tea.  "You're going to grow up in a better world than he did, thanks to those looking out for your future."

She had such faith in the new generation of Igniters despite the fact that there were only four of us remaining right now.  As I gazed at the two of them, I recalled that Anna had told Luke that she expected babies from us.

That thought sent a well of sorrow that threatened to consume me.  We would never fulfill that for her now, and I felt the emptiness more than ever.

"Anna," I said, wrapping my fingers so tight around my mug that they turned white, "do you still have that box that I gave you?"

The older woman's attention fixed on me, and she shamed me with one scathing look.  "Young lady, when I say that I'll keep something safe, it remains safe.  Why ever do you doubt that?"

"I was merely wondering because I would like a certain picture from its contents.  Would you mind retrieving it?" I asked, managing to keep my tone light.

She stood up and extracted the mug from my grasp before laying the baby in my arms.  "I'll go fetch it while you look over little Lucia."

While Anna puttered about in another room, the girl and I regarded each other in shock.  She blinked up at me with sleepy eyes, seeming unable to decide what she thought of me.

Gently, I touched her soft cheek, starting to realize that this is why the Igniters had to succeed.  This babe was part of a generation who would be able to taste freedom that had been snatched from the fingers of everyone who had lived before her in Cineres.

Such innocence still lingered within her eyes, an innocence that I had lost long ago.

"Which picture are you looking for?" Widow Anna said, placing the box on the table in front of me.

I unhooked an arm and gently trailed a finger across the grain of the box.  "One of Luke and me.  I'm going to go see Meara today, and I was hoping that it would help me talk to her."

She took back Lucia as I opened the lid, unprepared for the flood of tears that would spring to my eyes.

If this is how I reacted to a simple box full of papers, how would I respond once I actually went to Luke's grave and saw what they had branded him in death?

"Is that boy Matthew driving you to visit Meara?" She asked.  "I fear, in some ways, he is much like his parents.  Far too determined to get his way, no matter what the cost is, and if I remember his father right, he is a sneaky little thing.

"Percy always had more secrets than one person had any right to, and I'm sure that he took many more to his grave.  Be careful what you let slip in front of anyone.  Even the most ordinary of people can become the most dangerous to you."

I nodded slightly before gently cradling a photo of Luke and me, taken long before we had married but only shortly after we had shared that first kiss.

Had I once truly looked that innocent and carefree?  Had it truly only been two years ago?

Unwillingly to look at myself, my younger happier self, any longer, I tucked the picture away and shut the lid on the box both on the table and in my mind.

"Thanks, Anna, for everything," I said, kissing the widow's cheek before bending and kissing little Lucia's forehead.  "Goodbye, little one."

Luke's mother was the one to answer the door, and at the sight of me, her eyes filled with tears.