A long wait for a long chapter. Hope you enjoy let me know your thoughts in the comments!
1st of Agust 2020 UPDATE: Hi everyone! I'm so sorry that I havent't updated this story in a while (November I think - god I feel so guilty), but I just wanted to let you know that NO this is not the last chapter and I really hope to be able to update soon. I've been really busy with university and some other projects I had going on, but i really care about this story so even if it will take time I'm really committed to finish it. Thank you for the patience and I hope to give you soon a new chapter.
p.s.: HOW GOOD IS FOLKLORE?!? And how good it goes with this fic aesthetic!? Seven is like the perfect song for Karlie and Taylor's childhood relationship!
--------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------
As the sound of laughs and the tingling smell of alcohol started to fade behind her, Karlie reached the town's bank. The white Victorian construction had a large and overly decorated façade as people walked up and down the steps leading to its opened door. Five horses were tied at the drinking trough in front of it, lazily waiting for their owners in the midday sun. The town looked busier in that area as people walked in and out of the bank, which also acted as a post office. Just one man was standing still, his back resting against the white wooden wall nearby the main entrance. His tailored clean clothes immediately caught Karlie's eyes, he was wealthier than the other passers-by, a large golden pin shining over his chest.
Fancy clothes for a small town's sheriff.
The man had his dark blonde hair slicked back and a cut short beard. As Karlie passed, her steps uncertain, she could feel his bored gaze following on her. The woman gave him a nod as a greeting, meeting his bronze eyes as she brought a hand up to her hat. He replied with a spit in the red sand at her feet, not sparing her a second gaze as he walked inside the bank.
What a warm welcome. She thought, diverting her eyes.
She had met men like that, ready to despite you just because of what you were wearing or your general attire. Maybe in Philadelphia, her male clothing would have just drawn some whispers, but she should have known that things would have been different in a small town like Grace State.
Maybe that was also the habitual welcome the sheriff gave to strangers, it wouldn't have been too surprising. She knew that town's like that didn't usually reserve a too warm welcome to newcomers, especially to those who came from the north. Even she hadn't opened her mouth, her clothes and the thick drops of sweat running down her neck where a clear enough sign of where she was coming from.
Not that the sheriff's opinion mattered. She wasn't planning to stay there for too long, was she?
A few meters ahead Karlie could see the hostel, a tall building than stood out from all the others in town, with tall green painted wooden walls and an old yellow sign hanging over the entry. The place looked cleaner than the brothel she had just passed, and even if a couple of inebriated looking man stood on the covered porch they were just happily chatting with the barmaid, a young woman with short, messy brunette hair. For a second the woman seemed to be looking in her direction, but before Karlie could focus on the greyish blue gaze the girl had already diverted her eyes on the jug of beer in between her hands, rising it in a cheerful shout. The two men at her side were quick to follow, one of them nearly tripping backwards in the act. The girl held him by the neck of his shirt, making steadying him on his feet as they both burst out laughing.
She had been so fixated on her mission, or whatever that journey was, that she had barely noticed the people she came across until then. Her eyes had zoomed out of families giggling together on the train, friends chuckling in the waiting rooms of the station, couples kissing and waving goodbyes. But something about the barmaid's laugh made her glance up to the group of friends on the hostel's porch, before leaving the building behind her. She knew well that she could have come there later, but she also knew that she wouldn't have been a friend, a known face, someone the barmaid would have shared a beer with and make small talk to.
For the first time since her father had died, she felt truly alone. Which was funny thinking that she had made all that road to find someone.
But there is no one here waiting for you.
As she walked her leather case kept swaying up and down at her side, her few most important belongings in it. She wondered who she would have been if she and her father had never left. A co-worker of the loud innkeeper? Helping out one of the sweaty looking countrymen selling their goods in town? One of the desperate figures she saw dragging their feet into the back, begging for a loan? Once she would have sworn that if she had stayed, she would have certainly still worked at the Swift manor, maybe taking her father's place in the stables, but even the girl she saw at the brothel had worked there, and it didn't seem it had ended too good for her. Maybe the civil war had hit Mr Swift business more than she had imagined.
What do you know after all? This is not your home, nor it has been in a long time.
But as much she repeated that to herself, not even the thought of the tall buildings and the busy streets of Philadelphia gave her the sensation she was looking for.
A warm soft embrace in which she could hide, a fainting smell, too sweet to be the one of the oranges she linked to her mother's memories, but at the same time too strong and vivid to be the delicate smell of vines and earth she associated with the white manor's gardens.
Did she even ever have a real home?
The sun was still shining above her, sending bursts of heat along the woman's body as she tugged at the collar of her shirt. She was looking forward to the sun to set, finally having the chill of the night cooling her down and the comfort of a bed beneath her. She was tired as she had never been in the last years of her life and she hadn't slept in something more comfortable than a train seat in days, but she couldn't have waited longer.
All that road, all the time it took, she wouldn't have been able to spend another night without knowing the truth. She knew that it wasn't rational and that she had no reason to be there. What if Taylor didn't miss her? What if she had just got bored of her or forgot of her childhood friend?
For years I had been nothing but a pen friend, not much more than an imaginary one if you think of it. And everyone knows what happens with imaginary friends when the time comes.
Karlie felt her body quiver, she had no idea of what she was doing.
Maybe it's just the trauma of losing my father. Maybe I'm not able to let him go, to let go of this country and my subconscious found a way to make me believe that I had to do this.
But you promised.
Karlie let out a deep breath, trying to ignore the battle going on in her head as she kept walking under the curious gaze of the town. She was there, it was too late for afterthoughts.
The more she distanced herself from the town's centre the more she could feel the soil underneath her feet getting uneven. Wooden houses rose on both side of the road, so small in comparison to the bank or the hostel that they looked more like stables than actual houses. Some of them looked abandoned, others had clothes hanging from the windows and goats grazing the yellowish bushes growing here and there.
Barefoot kids run around freely, their clothes worn out and oversized. As they ran and play their feet lifted the red sand covering the ground, getting attention from some of the goats while others stayed unbothered. Karlie smiled towards them, remembering when it was her little feet the ones running around that same street, Taylor fast on her heels. Even if she had been younger Karlie had always been the quicker one.
The hill with the white manor wasn't too far, and she could remember clearly the two of them running in between the vineyard to reach that very same road as they venture in town. The memory was printed in her mind: the smell of earth and mud in her lungs, Taylor, her puffy white gown, running after her, the girl's curls all over her flushed face as she tried to keep up with her.
Karlie chuckled to herself wondering if Taylor was fond of those memories too. Maybe when she would have reached the manor they could have had a tea together, chatting about the past, remember their foolish games and their mischiefs.
I would like that.
She had never thought of what she would have told Taylor when she would have had her before her eyes. It was already hard just to imagine that: her soft face deprived of the childish fat, her innocent blue eyes, her signature pout, now coloured with pricey lipsticks. But a tea, maybe in the garden beneath their tree, the thought alone brought a smile to her lips.
By the time she had left the town her black leather shoes were covered in reddish dust. The twenty-four-year-old could tell that it hadn't rained in days, but nevertheless, the weather didn't give any sign of changing soon. As Karlie kept moving underneath the clear blue sky, she felt glad for the cowboy hat covering her eyes.
There were no longer businessmen or drunk men crossing her path, neither ridiculously undressed women. The people around her were too busy driving their carts or moving overflowing wheelbarrows to spare a gaze towards the well-dressed stranger. Karlie could see the strain painted on their faces, the drops of sweat running over their features. She knew how it felt.
Those were memories from long ago, but she remembered the burn of her muscles and the shivers running down her legs as she climbed into bed in the evening. Her thumb instinctively ran over the smooth palm of her hand, feeling the small invisible scars that her long-ago vanished callus had left.
Before she was ready, she found herself in front of a well know crossroad. A small path on her left led up the hill to a rusty gate. The gate, too far from the girl for her to notice, was covered in reddish crumbling rust and the white paint that had once covered it had completely disappeared. On her right instead, there was a larger road with deep, dried holes left by the carriages' wheels. If she turned left, she would have reached the white manor main entrance, the one used by distinguished guests and Mr Swift himself. She remembered running through those white gates with Taylor, their littles arms filled with sweets they had just stolen from the kitchen. The wider path instead had been always used by the workers and ran through all the Swift family's properties, the vineyard and the crop fields.
Maybe she wanted to relive long-forgotten memories or maybe deep down she still felt that skinny, stable's man daughter, not someone who should have come by the main entrance and so Karlie turned right, following the large path that ran along the small woods fending the white manor from view.
Bushes and dried trees grew on the left while on her right there was nothing but what endless fields. At a first glance that landscape looked nothing but a yellow desert of bushes, but the more she looked the more Karlie could see. There were orange spots here and there, where the desert had already taken its victory, or even green spots, where fat cactus grew in between the arid landscape. It was way different than the green fields she remembered from her childhood years, and even if the view was nothing but majestic she couldn't but feel a veil of sadness sinking upon her.
Without giving any more thoughts to the drought afflicting what had once been her home, Karlie took a turn into the core of the Swift's properties, leaving the endless fields behind her.
She hadn't met anyone since she had taken the crossroad, and now that she was starting to walk into Mr Swift properties it started to feel odd not having anyone around. She remembered how those fields used to swarm with life, with workers chatting with one another, children running after a fugitive goat or sheep and strong muscular horses dragging ploughs or overstuffed carriages.
The fields didn't seem to have survived the drought, and where once grew corn and cereals there was nothing but arid reddish sand and dry out shrubs. Some goats roamed in between them, unfazed by the solitary stranger walking on the path beside it.
Maybe Mr Swift switched to the breeding business after the draught. Thought the girl as she squinted her eyes looking for a shepherd. Though she had counted less than ten goats so far, so even if that was the case the business hadn't turned out better than the crop one.
Karlie kept walking, barely recognising the fields in which she had spent her childhood days. Those fields had once been green and fertile, with wet mud covering the grounds beneath the crops. She still recalled the refreshing sensation of it as she ran barefoot through the fields.
Now there was nothing, but dried bushes and the dull jingling of the bells attached to the goats' collars.
The woman halted her steps recognising the vineyard, or what was left of it. The wooden structures were still there, some forgotten onto the ground, others still standing lonely in the arid soil. Stems as thin as strings still ran from one wooden pole to another, twirling around the structures and looking as alive as one of those serpent skins you could find on the ground in spring.
For a moment Karlie felt lost. So many of her memories were attached to that place and seeing it like that, so abandoned, made all her memories and expectations crumbling beneath her. The girl felt her hand tighten around the leather case handle.
Nothing looked as the welcome she had forecasted. Not that she hoped for much, she was a stranger to that town after all. But if she would have said that an image of her, walking elegantly through the blooming gardens of the manor with Taylor seeing her from the top window of her house and running down in her arms, hadn't crossed her mind she would have been lying.
Karlie shook her head to herself, eyes fixated on a white chewing goat. She hadn't come back for a big entrance or the vineyard, not even for the white manor. She was there for Taylor, for the promise she had made to her. Nothing else mattered.
The girl resumed her walk along the path leading up the hill when she noticed that now, with vineyard turned to nothing but an empty field, she could see the stables on the other side of it. Her stables.
Karlie walked across the bare land, ignoring the cracking sound of the dried soil beneath her leather shoes, but as she reached the stable there was nothing there to comfort her.
The wooden walls looked as they were about to crumble, windows and doors broken or missing. The second floor beneath the roof, where she had used to sleep with her father, probably no longer existed, crumbled down completely as she could see from the entrance.
The place looked abandoned.
Her heart gave her a sharp pain, making her bring her free hand to her chest as she looked at her old home in crumbles. It looked like Mr Swift had lost all his wealth, giving up on his business and his workers. Karlie bit her lip, wondering if that was the reason Taylor had stopped writing her. Did she had felt too ashamed?
Almost unconsciously Karlie turned away, leaving those painful thoughts behind as she started walking along the main path leading up the main entrance of the manor.
Small pebbles covered the path under her shoes, the sound of them hitting one against the other marking her steps as she slowly walked up the hill. She was almost at the top when something hit her.
The white manor should have already been into view.
For a moment Karlie stood still, in utter confusion. Did she take the wrong road? Was this another hill she had forgotten about? Maybe the manor was on another one.
But her memories were as clear as the greyish pebbles beneath her leather boots, and with a lump in her throat, Karlie kept walking towards the top of the hill, a turmoil inside her head and her heart.
Nothing could have prepared her for what she found.
She couldn't have said that is was as the manor had never been there because it was clear that it had been. The walls still stood, she could recognise the perimeter of the house, made of black blocks of burn wood instead of the tall white walls. The second floor had completely vanished and only some of the inner rooms had a roof covering them. The living room was right in front of her no door or walls blocking her view.
The soil was grey under her feet as if the ashes of the fire never truly left. She took a step forward, stepping on some of the wooden beams that had fallen from the no longer existing roof. Some of the furniture was still there, black and almost unrecognisable. The woman took a few step forwards, standing in front of what once was the couch, the floral fabric now turned into ashes.
Karlie could feel nothing but the sound of her heartbeat ringing in her hears, looking around completely lost as she tried to put into words what happened.
A fire.
As the words formed in her mind, she felt her heart drop.
A fire had burned everything she had ever knew.
On her right, the door that gave on the kitchens was blocked by big burned logs, while on her left the hallway leading to the rest of the house led towards stairs that gave onto to the immaculate blue sky.
Karlie walked among the few walls who had survived the flames, wondering as something so perfect could have turned into that. Some bushes grew here and there in between the ruins, indicating that some time had passed since the fire occurred.
The girl found herself where the tea room should have been, three of the four walls were still up, and in some points, she could still make out the wallpaper that had once covered them. The oak table that had been in the middle of the room had vanished and barely anything remained of the elegant chairs that had once welcomed the wealthier ladies of the town. The leather of the sofa had turned black and what was left had been covered in the glasses of the windows after they exploded.
Pieces of glass cracked under her elegant leather shoes as she looked around, the warm summer wind leaving goosebumps on her exposed neck.
Her mind was silent, as she couldn't form thoughts about was her eyes were seeing. Her throat was burning, she didn't know if it was for the ashes surrounding her of the fact she had stopped breathing minutes ago.
The girl walked out of the house remains, as if searching for clean air, but even there, with her feet back on the dried red soil she couldn't feel better. But at least her mind seemed to be working again.
Maybe the Swift family had moved out and burned the house to take it down. Karlie turned back at the living room trying to look for personal objects like clothes, paintings and ornaments, signs that the family still had been there when the tragedy occurred. As she opened what was left of a drawer's cabinet the thing crumbled in her hands turning into broken pieces of wood at her feet. She tried with another piece of furniture, but couldn't find a part of the house who had withstood the flames.
"I'm sorry to tell you but they have already taken everything years ago, nothing left for you stranger."
Karlie jumped at the voice, immediately turning towards the sound.
An old man was seated on a rock just outside from the ruins of the house, his back towards the girl as he looked down from the hill. Even if she couldn't yet see his face the woman noticed his smudged clothes and dishevelled white hair, he was a farmer a shepherd maybe judging by the crooked walking stick at his side.
"What do you mean?" she asked walking again out of the ashes. It almost felt as she could still smell the smoke coming up from them.
"Outlaws, looters, poor things just looking for something they could sell at the market and bring home some bread. Whatever was left by the fire got taken as soon as the flames died down."
Karlie reached the man, meeting his unfocused dark gaze, pretty sure that he couldn't see much of her. The man's skin was dark and wrinkled, with a splash of freckles across his nose.
"It's a good place to bring my goats. No kids messing around." He added, sliding on the rock to make space for Karlie to sit.
Karlie thanked him, sitting at his side, only then noticing the goats still grazing around them.
"For how long the house had been abandoned?" she asked, the soft wind hitting the top of the hill stroking through the few loose locks of her blonde air. She could almost see the faraway railroad from there.
"Almost twelve years I'd say." Reasoned the man.
When Taylor sent me her last letter.
Thought Karlie gasping. Maybe the girl had moved away from Grace State and in the chaos of the relocation, she had lost her address.
Or she forgot about you.
Karlie looked down at her hands, resting her face in between them as she put her leather case onto the ground.
I came here for nothing.
Taylor could have been anywhere by then, leaving the big life somewhere in Louisiana or running after a tram in a city on the west coast.
"You wouldn't know where the family living here went, right?" she asked the old man.
That question was her last shot, the last chance she would have given to this foolish adventure of hers before taking a train back to Philadelphia. There were plans for her there, a transatlantic ferry ready to bring her to a new world, a new life.
Karlie raised her green gaze, meeting the watery eyes of the old wrinkled man. His skin looked almost bronze with the light of the sun shining on him. He wore an oversized shirt that looked as old as he was and looked unbothered by the almost too warm air surrounding them. He had probably worked in the fields, reasoned Karlie, she could see the signs of the wide chest and shoulders he had probably once had, but as time passed his strength had slipped away from him.
A goat bleat beside them, taking the man's attention away from the girl.
"Did you know them?" he asked without looking at her.
Karlie turned as well towards the landscape ahead of her. Resignation was running threw her, almost as a warm heavy blanket soothing you into sleep, but she didn't want to sleep. An acid sensation of guilt ran up her throat. She should have done something earlier, she should have come visit, it was her fault if she had lost all contacts with the only true real friend she had ever had.
The empty vineyard stretched below them at the bottom of the hill, goats roaming through it as the wind sent sand into the girl's eyes. She could also see their tree, its stripped branched protracting towards the sky.
"I used to work here." she replied, a veil of sadness altering her voice.
"But it feels like a lifetime ago. Everything looks so... different." She added breathing in, but the smell of vines and mud was gone forever, replaced by the one of the desert and the hint of smoke coming from the ashes behind them.
The man followed her gaze, running his eyes over the fields where the crop had used to grow.
"I get you've been away for quite a long time kid, haven't you?" He muttered, but Karlie could feel some kind of sadness in his voice too, something close to the sensation she had felt as she had looked at the arid landscape.
Karlie nodded.
So long...
"After Mr Swift died, things changed."
Karlie froze at those words. The generous, prodigal Mr Swift had died. The man who, after her father, she could say have risen her. She still remembered his composed smile, his light blonde hair slicked back as he crunched down to whisper funny things to her hand Taylor.
She didn't need to ask how it had happened, she already knew the answer.
War.
"He never came back, didn't he?" She asked, remembering Taylor's words in the last letter she sent her.
The old man nodded, chewing on something that smelled like tobacco.
Karlie closed her eyes, holding back the tears that were forming there.
She felt guilty. When the family who had once been her home had gone torn apart, she hadn't been there. Mr Swift had always been there for her. When her mother had died, it was him who had given her and her father a place to stay, a roof above their head and a job. She owned that man her life. But when his family could have needed her, she hadn't been there.
You were just a kid.
Karlie clenched her teeth, trying to hold back all her feelings.
You wouldn't have made any difference.
Rationally she knew that.
You wouldn't have stopped Mr Swift from going to the battlefront and you wouldn't have stopped that bullet.
But you could have been there for them... for her.
Karlie breathed in, quietly thanking the old man for keeping his gaze away. It was a hard fight, but at last she gulped down the pain, bringing her head up again.
Mr Swift was a good man, and she knew that he had lived his life at the best of his chances. Even if short, he had a good life.
Karlie looked at the shepherd beside her, silence surrounding them as he gave her time to grieve.
After her father's death, Taylor and her mother must have moved away, it would have been impossible for them to keep up with the man's business or maybe just too painful. Those vineyards, their very same house, everything would have reminded them of him, the girl wasn't surprised that they moved away.
"Where did the rest of the family went? Mrs Swift and her daughter?"
The man cleared his throat, but as he talked his voice sounded as raspy as it did before.
"At the bottom of the hill, there, near the big oak tree."
Karlie raised her brow, maybe the man hearing was tainted too.
"I asked if you know where they went." She repeated.
"It was a bad fire, kid."
Karlie wasn't following, but the man didn't seem interested in giving her more explanation as he gave her one last meaningful gaze.
The girl rose to her feet.
Her head felt like spinning, but she ignored it, as something deep inside her was screaming unheard.
I can maybe find answers in town.
Yes, that was rational. She thought nodding to herself, a lump growing in her throat.
She could have gone to the town hall, they must have kept a register or something. There had to be a way for her to find out where Taylor and her mom went.
She thanked the man for his words, to which he didn't reply and, as his eyes followed her, she started walking down the hill, arid soil and bushes all around her.
We used to roll down this hill, grass staining our clothes.
She thought, as a not so different sensation from the one she had as a kid rolling down the hill shook her head. Everything was quick and unstable as the world kept spinning around her. She had to keep walking, she had to reach the town, some sort of panic was going on beneath her chest, but her mind was still ignoring it, not ready for what her heart had already understood.
Something inside her was off, the man's word had twisted something deep inside her, but she just couldn't understand what it was.
As she kept walking towards town, she also got closer to their tree. It was still alive, but Karlie didn't think it would have survived much longer. The oak tree had lost all his foliage, and his branches looked like pale and rickety arms begging towards the sky.
It needs water.
Karlie looked down at his roots, wondering how much water it would have needed, she could clearly remember a well not far from there. But her thoughts were suddenly interrupted as she noticed a small white fence around the tree.
For some reason the view sent a shiver down her bones and, puzzled, she started walking towards it, barely registering her legs moving.
It didn't take long for her to realize that it wasn't a fence.
What...
The two crosses stood one next to the other, their white paint glistening in the rays of the midday sun.
Karlie's breath stopped.
There was no longer sun above her, no sweat running down her skin, no leather case in her hands which fell to the ground forgotten, scattering the letters on the arid soil.
At the bottom of the hill, near that big tree.
Karlie's knees gave in beneath her, her whole body shaking as she fully understood the man's words.
There she was. Her childhood friend, the girl who made her cross the country for a fifteen-year-old promise, the golden girl whose memories still sent butterflies to Karlie's stomach.
Right there in front of her. Below the white chipped cross, below the arid soil where Karlie's tears were falling. So close, but at the same time far a distance Karlie could not even start to grasp.
The pain was cutting through her heart as the blade who had engraved those words in the cross in front of her eyes, her fingers reaching desperately for those letters.
Taylor Alison Swift.