The Reaping

The Reaping Chapter One

A wonderful quiver of joy hit low in my stomach. He promised me a dance tomorrow, and perhaps many more. He was very much a grown man, almost halfway through his twenty-first year. He should be married already, with a child or two, but for reasons unknown, he hadn't wed yet. I liked to think he waited for me to grow up. Giggling, I hid face against the inside of my arm.

Ez stretched and jumped down from my lap in search of some mice for an afternoon snack. He loved to wander the fields and in the forest but always returned before sunset, where we sat out the night, listening to those wretched sounds from the forest animals. But that was hours away yet, and I still had so much to do. My next chore, which really didn't feel like one at all, would be a visit to my Nonnie, my mother's mother.

Wanting some exercise, I grabbed my light-yellow shawl that matched my dress and strolled down the path to Nonnie's house. I enjoyed the warm breeze as I waved to the various villagers I'd known all my life. Many enjoyed picnics at the tables by the square in the bandstand and others fished in the pond. I smiled and called out greeting, which some returned. I continued with more of a skip in my step.

Gilbert Mason wiped down a horse in the open doorway of the town stable. He gaped at me as I passed by. Over the past few months, he'd made me very uneasy, looking at me in ways a man shouldn't. He had always been a loner, a bit off in the head, a man near thirty who didn't have a wife or child. A hard worker who loved horses, but one who disturbed me in ways no one else did. I wrapped my arms around my waist and kept going. It was rude on my part not to call out a greeting, but I didn't want him to take notice of me.

I'd become a paranoid ninny.

I shook off those awkward feelings. Nonnie's house stood right off the lane near the edge of the square. A very wise woman, not yet in her sixtieth year, she was one of fifteen elders who decided on the village rules we all adhered to.

She sat in a rocking chair on her front porch while she did some cross stitch. She finished sewing a flower on the panel whenI reached the first step.

She placed her stitching in a basket on the floor next to her foot. "Hello, my darling butterfly. How are you on this fair day?" Her contagious smile made me give her one in return.

I'd always been called a butterfly by Nonnie, her special nickname, since she first held me in a swaddling blanket. She once said as a babe I never wanted to lie still, often flapping my arms much like butterfly wings, as if I wanted to fly far away.

"I finished my laundry and wanted to see how you're fairing." I walked up the steps while she grabbed her basket. I admired her when she stood upright, a tall woman, remarkable from her shiny golden locks with a touch of gray to her peaches and cream complexion. I sorely lacked, with a nose too big for my face and thin lips that made my chin too long and narrow. I wasn't lucky to have my mother's pretty face either.

"You stopped by because you want a piece of the cherry cobbler I made for tomorrow."

I could never lie to her. "That also."

She let out a husky laugh and tugged on a wayward strands that had escaped from my braid.

"Come in for some cobbler and tea." She opened the screen door and disappeared inside. I glanced off in the distance at a puffy white cloud in the horizon.

Hopefully a sign of the much needed rain to come.

*********

No matter how often I visited Nonnie, her house always smelled welcoming, with a combination of lemon and cinnamon from her cleaning and cooking. She loved to cook; her kitchen was her sanctuary and the room I loved most. I never thought of my own under-used kitchen in that way. I was not the best cook. I ate simple meals even though Nonnie tried her hardest to teach me our family recipes. Content, I enjoyed a piece of her homemade cobbler, oozing with sweet cherries.