And her name was Martha

She was a lady
So tiny and so quiet
Gave up so little to be known
Surrendering all for love and light

She came so quickly
So small for too little time
No time to learn
No time to wonder at the future

Her clothes were white
Her face just a glimmer
Her voice still so faint
Her eyes pure in life

She came and went in nighttime
She had my heart with one breath
She was a dream I could not wish for
And her name was Martha

True Deceit

CHAPTER THREE

Under the I

Truth can carry nothing without belief held by at least those exchanging it. Give a man his normal day, and he will believe all to be well. Give him an extra length of crop or draft of ale and all will seem splendid. Give him less than he expects and he’ll push on to make the next day better. Truth is only seen when discovered and believed.

The owl of the tree was gone an hour when Annika decided waiting couldn’t help anyone. Seth usually came trudging up the hill a full hour before the sun had traveled its length down the same, but he had yet to break the horizon. Either his back had chosen today to give up amidst his journeying, or an interest had kept him at a spot on the road. Both circumstances kept where he could be found, so Annika loaded up the cart and began down the road.

The sun’s descent had taken what little heat it had offered with it. But a gleam of light held above the bottom of the hill to light the road for the old mule. A poor brute and old, but the creature was gentle and didn’t ask for much to feed her. Annika had tried to keep her coat clean of mats and pests, and what she wouldn’t accomplish, winter soon would, when she was either tramping in the cold or settling under the shed roof. At the moment, a particular school of flies tried to rest upon her flank, and she chose to have none of it.

“Enough, Tabitha,” Annika cried. “They won’t stay away because you swat at them. They don’t bite, so give then rest, and me too from smelling your end.” Her patience, so cultivated for waiting, had shriveled over the hours she had expected Seth to appear at the door. Internally, she chided herself for chiding the mule, when the boy would be the one to chide in the end. Her annoyance couldn’t last too long, though, and soon her fretting became predominant.

Afore long the shivers lacing her frame were solely from the air’s grip. Annika wondered at this weather, at the climate itself holding any bearing on this day. So bundled, so trusting in the mule’s directed foot, she kept as warm as able with her face buried in her shawl. When the cart jolted steady behind the halted beast, she first jostled the reigns to reconcile their progress. Still, the girl stood. Annika looked to the road to find it gone, and the school house itself before her sight.

Panic took her first, for fear they had passed him lying on the road. Yet, Tabitha would never have left his side had she seen him, for his charm extended to all the creatures they kept around. The buildings she faced and those she didn’t were all locked tight, all cold and lightless from an outside view. Something rustled on the door of the school house, the only movement anywhere. Annika launched herself over the edge of the cart, battling the wind to advance towards that movement.

The piece was of parchment, folded as a letter and tacked to the door. Aeolus had favored fun over kindness, attempting to dislodge the paper from the tack. A rectangular slit had formed around the pin, though the piece still held. On the visible fold was a mane that Annika had never been called, yet she saw it was for her. Without notice to the cold, her hand shook as she grasped the paper, letting the pin fall to the dirt and disappear with the torrents.

She would that she had come but an hour later, that the piece had been taken with the tack. She would that she hadn’t even grasped a corner of the paper. Though she would unfold the sheet to find what words must be writ, she needed not to see them to know the truth. She would that she didn’t have to believe, that she could think that Seth was somewhere he could come back from. With that name that none called her by, she knew the truth. Oh, what a cold day that the wind tried to cover.

True Deceit

CHAPTER TWO

Amidst the Son

Annika came up the foot-worn road towards the house under a cold, cloudless sun. October days gave cause for cotton skirts and no stockings, but that day it seemed the sun took a wider path across the sky. And yet, its pace must have accelerated, making Annika rush to bring the cat in.

Seth had found the little ginger kit half drowned on the banks of the river. Every night he would walk from the moment Annika fell to bed till two hours into the early day. It had been only two months since the poor cat had been found, and had Seth not been out at night before the morn, the tiny creature would have frozen in his fur.

The boy has a good heart, Annika thought, But his memory can’t run past a snail. Seth went to school in the town down the road, and he refused the ride Annika offered every morning in the mule cart. He left very early, after Annika had fallen back to bed for the morning, and he always forgot to latch the kitchen door. That cat could push his way through, and every day Annika trudged down the hill to collect the miscreant.

The kit mewed from the folds of her apron. She couldn’t hold him in her arms past a moment afore the sneezes and coughs overtook her. She would drop the apron straight into the wash when she reached the house. Despite his mischief, the creature held charm, and she hated not being able to reassure him with a scratch to his ear.

Once inside the swinging door, Annika dumped the kitten on the rug for wiping shoes. He’d need a bath and wouldn’t be allowed past the kitchen till he’d had it. The poor cat would be trapped between a locked door and a solid one, trafficking the tiny square for hours. Seth loved the kit, but he didn’t always consider how to best care for the thing.

Annika disappeared into the fire place room where she picked at a single log she let smolder. That the weather was out of season barely took notice in her mind. It had been near three weeks since the last of Robbie’s letters had come. She knew the work at sea took many hours away, and she would hope he’s take sleep over letter-writing when he needed. Still, they needed more flour and salt, and Seth’s shoes had been abandoned a month past for all the holes they bore. Annika knew he wouldn’t be forgetful of this, and so her mind chose to toss around the worst reasons for a delay.

Many folk in this land were not strangers to superstition, and Annika lived by the habits these created. Salt over the left shoulder, rosemary at the garden gate, and she still let spiders take residence anywhere in the house, though it gave her less peaceful hours of rest. She had not given in to believing in sea beasts and vengeful weather gods, though. Whatever kept Robbie was human enough, as he had not been opened to any other world.

Though she could work diligently through present worries, Annika let herself droop when reminded of past terrors. Seth parents knew such a world all too well. Annika had known his father best, even having been courted by him in her younger years. All his secrets were held in her mind, locked tight with never a key made. Seth’s mother knew all, and suffered for it as her husband had. They had only been dead two years, and the newly teen’d Seth had come to live with her and Robbie.

The cat scratched from the kitchen side, but Annika held her ground against his pleas. She almost felt a mother to him, though her love did not extend as far as Seth’s. The boy knew nothing of the forces his parents delved in, and thought Annika his true aunt, kin to his mother. Robbie knew all the facts, though his grasp of understanding could only extend to his imagination. Annika would never let such a world touch her Ever-Love.

Again the ring was turned about her finger, gleaming amidst the shadows of the hearth. To all around, it was an Ever-Bond, sacred and binding. None but those two knew it only a Promise, though the effect on their souls was just as strong. Annika herself could have completed the rite, but they were young when first in love, and Robbie wanted all to be proper. His voyages were to keep them steady and living well, and the wait to give his darling time to consider her options. It had been years afore he had needed such a job to keep the up. Annika held patience, and she knew he’d find her ready upon his return home.

She was lucky to hear the light rapping on the outer door. Annika knew she could look a fool rushing so blindly to answer the knock should it have been but in her head, but none but the cat could notice her fumbling. Lucky again, she opened the door to a face grown familiar over many months. “Oh, Terry,” she said. Here was the parcel-man, delivering a treasure greater than that within his palms.

“Good afternoon, Mrs. B.” Terry was a small man, built for speed, as some would say. The speed he could offer afforded no rush to his deliveries, as his land travel was confined to a wagon and an ox. “The sea ain’t been kind this week,” he said. “But I reckon Mr. B’s fairing all right.”

Annika hated being rude, and though Terry had declined on every prior occasion, she still offered him a spell of rest inside. “Na, ma’am,” he said. “If I don’t shove off now, I’ll miss the ship out of here, and Robbie’ll be waiting an extra week on your letters.” He gave her a wink so gentle and pure, and she smiled at his eyes and his hands extended towards her. She took the package and gave him a nod, and they both knew she wasn’t rude in any sense.

Even the cat gave her a pathway to the table, reprieving her legs from pawing for the time. The table sat a full foot from the chair, though she didn’t scoot to close the gap, but rather leaned to dump the solid contents on the surface. The coins and bills were comfort, yet not that which she shook to behold. Twelve folded parchment parcels fell into her lap, a veritable hoard of heavenly plunder. The way she tore through each one, and how she poured over every word, could seem greedy, but none would fault her for it.

Always yours, as he always signed it. His ‘i’s almost curled over backwards under the dot, which was as close to a dot as any could make it. Annika devoured each of these with the broadest smile, cooing over descriptions of long nights and cold cabins. She would she could comfort him, though he always told of how she had saved him in the same way he saved her then. When she had finished, all were tucked into a chest beneath her bed, to join the dozens that she cycled through each night when Seth believed her sleeping.

One Hope

As days grow cold,

Nights grow silent.

Warm summer stars

Now fade to grey.

The wind’s great breath

Bears icy end.

Black rock valued

With gift of life.

Motions slow while

Flames are dancing.

Stillness broken

By crack’ling hearth.

Desolate cold

And frozen to touch.

Beautiful viewed

With glass between.

Sweet, drifting flakes

Of Hallmark’s pride.

Slicing current

Turns sugar sour.

One’s lone escape

Rests package small.

Unflickering flame.

Pureness of heart.

Oh Fire

If fire were this hot

Every flame would explode.

The heat in every inch,

The moisture across the skin,

The dripping, molten longing.

Eyes are melting and\

Legs are boiling with

Instinct pulling lover

To god.

Hands prick with millions

Of nerves grazing nerves,

Lip taking lip,

Breath evaporating

And sticking to the brain.

A solid form takes hold

Of a liquid, blazing body.

This god can hold lava

And kiss its falling hair

And look it in the eyes

And take it into his heart.

Fire is ice compared to this.

Intrusion

A flicker.

Loss of flame.

The room grows cold

Once the lights go out.

Muffled sounds now

Resounding clatters.

Not one shadow

For naught one eye.

Stillness savored

In knowing notion

Will be needed

Very soon.

All now silent;

But no less movement

Of blood in veins

Running hot.

A high growl

An unknown scent.

A muffled curse,

A hastened escape.

Light rekindles.

Eyes search.

At the door

Is the Devil’s dog.

Perpetual Motion

The clicker-switch signals synapse

To fire up ignition lights way on down the line

Rotating cogs stick in rusting joints

Awaiting a reward of new-day's oil

Movements still triggered by tumbling cues

Reacting in jerks and slow alterations

Methodically trapped in a warehouse square

Upon frameworks cornerstoned by concrete

By negligence of night's gone floor crew

And time bearing no breath to remediate

All objectives taken fully and schedules too precisely

With pieces leaving conveyors into baskets on the floor

Tumblers whir past preregulated speed

Ever falling below preceding procrastination

Gears barely catching under varied attentiveness

Wires stretch across coils steaming beneath rubber

Every corner worn to cutting plateau

Each edge now smoothed by fan belts and pulley ropes

Time turns niches into flexible notches

Once-snapped levers glued back to functioning

Efficiency on paper sheets shown for profit bound

Such a change in protocol over years of cutting turns

In a cornered high-pipe chimney floats a fire's smoke

With no purpose but assurance things are running

Machines spread fifty yards across

With parts a ton a block a set

Once clanging and crashing when pieces choose slip

Now tinker in perpetuum on knacking support pins

Every day the trucks roll out in directions universal

While one entry door is trafficked far too thin

Foundation never sways under flood nor fire

But ceiling cracks drip onto wheels and cranks

Despite red metal the parts never halt

Till pulling switches ceases all violently

A sleeping building ever-humming in a generator's care

Forgetting daylight duties for a time

Product after product is absorbed by the masses

Craving without knowing any are asking

Old mechanics fashion new equipment noiselessly

And no repairman will soothe the groaning cogs