X-Marks: Stealing Shadows

Madelyn

Lose a barrel, lose a head.

This was heard in every waft of warm air above the canopy. It was the day of harvest. The sky was a blinding blue, and the leaves were glossed with rain from the night before.

"Great job, everybody!" Richard said.

A line of women picked roots and vegetables from long clay planter below him.

"Not a sprout can be left in sight," Richard shouted more.

It was the third time Richard had come to remind us and it wouldn't be the last. I had found the best place to hide the bad crops was under the planters. It took effort to lift them when they were lodged with soil and water. I was sure the Allies would never bother to look under them.

I ripped up the last row of sprouts and scraped pieces of clogged dirt from under my fingernails. We had planted them in the hopes of having more crops for our dues, and now they were being ripped from their roots and burned.

If the Allies saw anything not allowed for our rations, they would be back for a higher more impossible amount of dues. With only weeks until winter no one wanted that.

I ran my thumb over a plant's tender leaves. It was beginning to show buds. I tore it from the planter. The cold, hungry months of winter were coming, and all this was wasted out of fear. It gave me hunger pains just to think of it.

"You got anything for me?" Alun said from above.

Alun stood tall, his back faced the noon sun and his gold hair shined. I had always liked visits from Alun. He was built like a brick-wall, but his manner was as gentle as his hazel eyes.

"I only have a few," I said and reach for my meager pile of potatoes.

Alun tousled the top of my head.

"Every bit counts. Remember, lose a head!" he said and tossed the potatoes into his barrel.

I pressed my lips together. I always disliked the saying. As common as it was, it was still unpleasant to think of. To me, it was the strangest of all traveler ways.

"Suppose no one told you," Alun said and crouched down, "That's just what the old ones say to get us young bodies to work harder. So quit your lagging, and get back to work!" he said and wrinkled his face to look like an old man.

I tossed the last potato into the barrel and covered my laugh.

Alun gripped the barrel under his sun-soaked arms and waved goodbye.

I had heard many stories about Alun from Buggy. The pair were charm mates since they were old enough to stand and cousins by marriage. Buggy told of all the times he had squandered his charms to Alun. He said the stories in a way that made me want to lose to Alun just to experience the thrill of these games.

Of all Buggies tales, the only bitter moment was of his most meaningful loss to Alun, but it wasn't a charm. She was a peach-haired girl named Madelyn.

Alun was engaged to wed Madelyn and all in secret. They hoped to reveal the future occasion once her father was back from Ally the post.

"But, you can't tell anyone," I remember Buggy saying one day in nans kitchen.

It was one of the few times Buggy, and I had ever been alone, almost that is. Nan was asleep in her chair with no sign of waking from her snoring slumber. It was just as close to being alone.

"I promise," I said and finished wiping a dish dry.

With the secret already given, there was no other way to answer.