Today was going to be a bad day, I wasn't sure why, I just had that feeling, you know that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach right before you get bad news? Well I did, and this morning it had started from the moment I woke up.
I went about my morning routine as normal, dressing and making sure the younger children were all dressed and sitting at the table for breakfast.
It was a sparse affair of bread and cheese as usual, even the tea tasted more watered down than usual.
"Quickly children, Tully, Ryder, make sure you are ready to go with your father." Mother calls out, coming in from outside with a load of wood in her arms. Tully stands quickly to help her with the wood and sets in down by the fire. She smiles at him in thanks. "Winnie, Ruth, you are both to go to school and I want you straight back here when you're done, no taking the long way and getting into trouble."
"Yes mum." They call out together.
Tully and Ryder are already heading to the door with a wave over their shoulders where father would be waiting for them, they are eighteen and sixteen and had finished school years ago, now they went to work with father out in the woods hunting. I wished I could go with them, I don't think I would be able to kill anything, but just being out in the woods would be an experience.
"Dae, you can get started on the chores." She says to me and I finish my piece of bread and start clearing the table.
That feeling of dread follows me throughout my day even though my day went on as any other. I clean the dishes and the kitchen, helping mother with baking bread, then go out into the garden to harvest some vegetables, next out to the animals, feeding the chickens and the goats. My days were always the same, monotonous and dull. And why was that? Because I was born a female. I had finished my schooling the day I started bleeding. I was officially a woman and my sole purpose was to prepare to become a wife and breed more children.
It had been that way for years, ever since my people made the treaty with the fae to get more land. It's been over a hundred years since the treaty was made, and now, every few decades the fae come to collect girls who are unmarried and over the age of eighteen. Those girls are taken to the fae kingdom and never seen again. Then the fae increase the borders of our land and all is good in the world.
That is how we are told to see it anyways. Our offerings are a blessing for our people, without the fae increasing our borders we would run out of space and not have enough room to farm or hunt, our already crowded villages would become even more so, everyone crammed into tiny huts, sharing beds and starving.
It has been almost thirty years since the last offering was made. They never told us when they would come, there was never any warning, my mother had been a teenager when they came last. She had told it like a story, strong handsome males in shining armour riding into the village on horseback, choosing the select few that met the rules of the treaty and whisking them away to a life of lavishness and happiness, being looked after by the fae lords and treated like princesses. As I grew older, listening to her tell the story to my sisters, preparing them just in case it was their future, there seemed this kind of want in her eyes when she spoke of the girls that were chosen. Like she imagined their lives in the fae kingdom, imagined the kind of lifestyle they would live, and I couldn't shake the feeling that she had wanted that life, that she had wanted to be one of the chosen and offered to the fae kingdom. Instead she had married my father and stayed here in the village, living a simple life of hard work and selflessness.
She had given the village six children, the youngest was Raine, he was almost four now and would keep both of us busy during our days.
The village elders never made it a rule to have more than four children, but it was always encouraged and those who did were always treated differently, at least that is what I thought. My mother was always treated kindly by the other women in the village and those that would come from neighbouring villages. She had even managed to be lucky enough to keep all of her pregnancies and not lose any, there were many other women who were not always so lucky. They were never blamed, but it was hard to look at them for a while after, there was always this pain and a level of shame, almost as if they blamed themselves for what happened.
And then they would usually fall pregnant again as quickly as possible, their poor bodies being used over and over again to fulfil this need to produce a child.
I tried my best not to speak about it, my own thoughts on the idea of breeding and childbirth were not the correct thoughts so I kept them to myself.
"You know, it won't be long before you will have your own to look after and raise." My mother says, coming up behind me in the kitchen after putting Raine down for a sleep. I stand at the bench peeling potatoes, it's almost like she was listening to my thoughts and I can hear the words she is going to say before they even come out. "Deidre says there are a few young men from the next village over that plan on visiting soon that are looking for wives." She starts and I grip the knife in my hand tighter.
"Mother, please don't start, we've had this discussion too many times already, we don't need to have it again." I say, trying my best to keep my voice even and my temper reigned in.
"Dae," She sighs softly. "You have known this will be your future, that this is what is expected of you, that your duty to our people is to become a wife and have children. Why are you still so against it?"
"It's not that I am against the idea of it, I just would like more time, more freedom in my daily life to explore and to live like the others do." I answer, the cold wet potato half peeled in my hand.
"And by others you mean the men? You know that isn't possible. Women are too valuable among our people to let them go off into the woods or traipse around in the wild. We are kept within the village so that we are safe." She says placing her hand on my shoulder.
"No, we are kept inside the village to make sure we can breed as many children as possible before we become too old to be of any use." I mutter to myself and instantly regret it.
My mother turns me around, holding both my shoulders and forcing me to look at her. We are the same height, with the same bright blue eyes. She smiles at me, that warm caring smile that I could never replicate, I didn't have that within me, that warmth, that ability to care about other people in the same way she did.
"Daella, I know you are scared, that you wish you had more choices for your future, but this is our life. We are here, helping our people, growing our village, making our people strong, it is a gift and a blessing and while you do not see it that way right now, that will change when the time comes." She smiles brightly before a flicker of concern crosses her expression. "It is however, your decision on whether or not you allow yourself to accept your future and be happy and fulfilled, or whether you decide to go against it and become someone withdrawn from the world around her and withdrawn from the people who love you."
"I won't make a good wife mum! I have a temper and I'm selfish, I don't want to stay inside all day cooking and cleaning and waiting for my husband to get home. I want to read books and take long walks and live a life where I have choices that are my own, not ones that are made for me!" I tell her, trying to make her understand.
She smiles sadly at me, tucking a strand of my dark brown hair behind my ear. "Dae, you are so much like I was when I was younger, you have a spirit that is restless and wild and craving adventures."
"I'm nothing like you, you are kind and patient and caring. I've never seen you get mad, even all those times one of the kids would get into trouble or run and scream through the house." I disagree with her.
She shakes her head, the sad smile still pulling at her lips.
"I wasn't always like this. When I was your age I was very much like you. Then I met your father and I thought we would have adventures together, but I fell pregnant quickly and you came along and my world changed, it was no longer about me and what I wanted. Your father changed as well, from the moment I told him I was pregnant, he treated me with such care and kindness, sometimes it drove me mad, other times it only made me love him more." She smiles at the memory. "We both changed and became the kind of people that would love and care for their children."
I stand looking at her, not believing her story, that we were similar, that she had wanted the same things I want now. It seemed unbelievable to me that the woman I had known for nineteen years, who had never raised her voice a day in my life, could ever be anything like me. I had done my best over the last few years to try and hold back my temper, to use words instead of shouting, sometimes it helped, others it was impossible.
Was what she was telling me true though? That the moment I have a child I would change completely? I would no longer be me.
"Why don't you go outside and get some fresh air and I will finish the potatoes." She says holding my face in her hands before kissing me on the forehead. "I love you Daella, I wouldn't change any part of you, I want you to know that." She smiles at me and I smile back, hugging her.
It was late afternoon and the girls would be back from school soon, as long as they actually did as mum had said this morning and didn't get into trouble along the way. At least I wasn't the only one with a wild spirit. Maybe that was where we had all got it from. Though I'm pretty sure most of the trouble was Winnow, and Ruthlyn just went along with it.
I walk out the back, taking a deep breath, I didn't want to think about our conversation, about my future, about the life I would end up living. Even after her words of comfort and assurance I still believed it was something impossible, that the version she saw of me did not and never would exist.
My spirit was wild, and somewhat rebellious, even now it didn't want to stay here watching the forest in the near distance, listening to the birds calling out. It wanted to run, it wanted to run as fast as it could into those trees and touch every leaf and twig, it wanted to drink water from a stream and watch wild animals play.
The life my mother has will never make me happy.