Elyria rolled over on her back after dislodging her feet and ankles from the weight of her pups. One and Two rose, stretched and settled in again. They howled little yawns that startled themselves. They moved closer to each other, enclosing Elyria’s legs between them.
Elyria felt the walls of her hut closing in on her. She wanted to get out and move around in the woods. She needed to collect the early spring roots before they began to flower. The tender savory onion and fennel bulbs would wake up tastes that had been asleep during the winter months. Many delicate greens would begin sprouting soon and they would add zest to the last of the dried winter meats and the turnips left in stone cellars. A collection of dandelion heads and their tender young leaves taken down to town would get her some of the home crafts that the village folk made while snow blanketed the mountains and salt mining came to a halt. Her wishes included Mother Strobl’s soft wool yarn, an oak bowl from Max Carver, a chemise sewn by Brigitte and if she managed to find early mushrooms, she might get a goat from Hans Herdsman. Fresh milk to drink filled her mind and Elyria drifted off to sleep.
Loud banging and One and Two’s barks jolted Elyria out of a pleasant dream of sun bouncing off of the lake. The cubs stood in front of the hut’s door, the hair on their muzzles standing up, their growls competing with the banging on the door. Elyria jumped out of her bed and grabbed the short sword she kept by her at all times. She inched up to the pups, trying not to startle them from behind. They continued to growl, their ears twitching back and forth picking up the varied sounds. The pounding went on as Elyria sorted out other noises coming from the other side of the barricaded oaken door, not worrying that any damage would be done to it. Made of planks the thickness of a man’s neck, the hinges were not the usual leather but of special iron construction. She moved in closer and heard horses whinnying through the rain. It sounded like three horses although it was hard to be sure through the pounding, yelling and storm. One of the horses beat the ground with its hooves creating great vibrations along the floor of Elyria’s home.
She only heard the one man bellowing on the other side of the door. Other men could be holding the horses. Elyria tried to imagine why they might be outside her house in a raging storm. She untacked a corner of the oiled pig skin covering the window to the right of the door and peeked out.
She caught a glimpse of a dark cloak flapping in the wind and rain. The water poured down from the sky and whipped around in changing angles. She saw the reins of the horses all meeting together and ending somewhere in the folds of the cloak. One of the horses pulled at its handler and bucked, attempting to rear. It thrashed its head and Elyria saw its wild and angry eyes in the flashes of lightening that ripped across the dark sky.
The pounding stopped. Elyria saw the reins pulled off to the left and the horses followed. She heard nothing but the rain. As the minutes passed, the thunder moved off, the time between the lightening and the thunder growing longer and longer. She pulled the tarp closed on the window and breathed a deep sigh. She relaxed her shoulders and sat down on the floor, leaning against the stone wall. The man had moved off. She did not recognize any of the horses, so it couldn’t be anyone from the village with a sickness need. So how did this person come across her hut? It didn’t lie on any normal path. She tried to puzzle it out but no good answer came to her.
Some little time passed and the storm lessened. Elyria lit an oil lamp. She prepared some dried meat for One and Two’s evening meal. Her porridge, cold from the lack of a fire, filled her belly. She drew water from the natural well in the back corner of her hut. She filled a bowl for the puppies and a cup for herself. She pulled out her spinning, not needing much light from many years of practice. The spindle moved between her fingers, up and down, lulling her into a peaceful state. The wolves curled quietly at her feet. They snored gently and she smiled to herself. The rain pattered on the roof. Elyria rolled up her wool. She dropped the spindle on One’s head as the banging started again. This time she heard the man bellowing through the door and over the hysterical howling of the dogs.
"I heard you moving around. I see the light through the cracks." He pounded on the door with both fists. "I demand you open up, in the name of the gods."
4 comments:
Hey this is pretty good! Make sure you keep it going, you clever gal.
BTW it'd be nice if you could write a short synopsis for the story, like what you'd get at the back of a book. I usually like to know what I'm reading about!
Thanks Jay. Praise from a clever lad such as yourself is prized indeed.
Good idea about the synopsis. I will do that. It'll help me focus, too.
This is my NaNoWriMo or two. I can't seem to get my shit together for the real one.
I will attempt to keep writing, with no concern for my internal editor. I will not spend eons researching names or looking up historical references, or any of that really interesting crap that keeps me away from telling the story.
We'll see how it goes.
This is really great writing, especially if it is first draft material off the top of your head. I am sort of different from the Jay person, who seems to want to be told what the story is about. I prefer to be left in the dark and slowly discover what is going on little by little as I read and think about it. This is an interesting character. My first impression is sort of a Xena or Sonya or even female Beast Master or Tarzan type. She is living alone with baby wolves off the beaten track. I can see in this early episode some of her traits of self-reliance and making use of things around her to survive which she used in the Jan. 08 episode where she escaped from somewhere. There seems to be a theme of the strong independent woman. I'm going to try and catch up for when you post the next episode. But no rush: I like to take my time reading and thinking about it.
Tom: You can't imagine what your feedback means to me. I really appreciate your comments.
Other than spellcheck (because I'm a horendous speller) and fixing a few obvious mistakes (like changing the spelling of the names of my characters) each entry is a first draft.
I have found that if I just write to get what I want to say on paper I stay on the story track better. Later, I will go back and edit.
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