sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
We just got home and yea a new chapter and a CLIFF at that lol.
Story Fel By the Wayside (Complete)
- Thread starter Kathy in FL
- Start date
See Kathy, you're just as bad as Pac. Evil child.......LOL
Very good chapter. The way you describe the different fruits taste and texture is so spot on I can taste them.
I've started drinking more hot tea and putting candied ginger in it. Soooo good. I've been watching videos on YouTube on how to make it. It's so expensive in the store. About $3 for about 6 oz. The candied pineapple made me think of it.
Thank you.
Very good chapter. The way you describe the different fruits taste and texture is so spot on I can taste them.
I've started drinking more hot tea and putting candied ginger in it. Soooo good. I've been watching videos on YouTube on how to make it. It's so expensive in the store. About $3 for about 6 oz. The candied pineapple made me think of it.
Thank you.
Two chapters in one day was a wonderful gift, Kathy, but your description of your visiting snake was hilarious! Thanks for the laughter that I desperately needed.
Yeah, but how do we get rid of Francine? Drink the water Francine, drink the water.
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
I was hoping for another chapter before we headed out to town to a meeting this evening lol. Still snowing here to.
MrsClaus
Keeper of all things
How long should we wait before sending out a rescue party to find her?
I can't drive and type at the same time ... well, I could I suppose but they'd both suffer. Let the BOL and am now home. And thank you all for being so funny ... really helps on those days that feel less than constructive. This chapter wasn't an easy one to write.
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Chapter 47
Cor ran to the door and I had to practically trip him to stop him. He glared at me and I glared back and hissed, “Did you leave your brain in the south?! Just because that’s a friend’s voice out there doesn’t mean they aren’t being coerced! I swear, it’s a wonder all the land east of the Mississippi hasn’t been overtaken by Outlander clans the way you all react.”
That stopped Cor and as the banging started again I called sharply, “Jonah, you out there? Are the boys behaving?”
I heard a scuffle and a muttered, “Get out of the way before she scalps you son.” More loudly he answered, “Yes Gilly, the boys are behavin’ such as they are.”
I peeped through the door hole and saw Jonah standing there in torchlight bright enough that I could see only a single man was with him, then cautiously opened the latch. Both Jonah and the man with him had eyes wide and glued on the Green River blade that I had pulled and ready. Jonah was the first to recover and then snorted and said, “Reckon I know what you’ve been doing at the blacksmith’s now don’t I.”
Cor, getting impatient, bodily picked me up and moved me to the side so he could step out but was putting his own blade – a Bowie by shape – in its sheath which got an approving nod from the two men. Talk about your double standard.
Cor asked, “What’s the trouble Jonah?”
“Miss Francie is fit to be tied and making a spectacle of herself. Rider came from the Lathrop estate. He’s half dead near about. They done got attacked and some of her female relations been took. The Cap’n begs you to come and hep get her calmed down and hear what the man’s saying.”
Hours later, at dawn, a reluctant – and exhausted – Cor had halved his men and left to go lend aid and succor to the Lathrops. Before he left he drew me aside and said, “Stay sharp Fel and keep an eye on Francine. I’ve never seen her like this. I can’t be sure this isn’t a gambit by her family but somehow I don’t really believe it is. And if it is, Francine doesn’t know it … that hysteria over her relations is real.”
I nodded. “Just be safe and come back as soon as you can. And watch the road and your back. They’ll fan out into the trees and hit you from both sides if you aren’t paying attention. Keep your guard up.”
He stopped for a moment then reached out and gently tugged my braid. “I’ll be back, just take care of Francine and the baby for me.” With that he rode away.
I turned to Jonah to ask him if there were any men amongst the ones that Cor left behind that he didn’t trust when Topher came running up to me. “Mrs. Wiley says come right away!”
I could hear it as soon as I walked in the imposing and heavy front doors of the main house. Francine was screaming and crying to the point of wailing;
like some women get when they are grieving. I bolted down the hallway to the parlor to find Winnie and Mrs. Wiley trying unsuccessfully to control Francine who was struggling. She was so loud that Topher had his hands over his ears. I walked up and slapped Francine’s face, breaking her hysterical focus, and she went still in shocked disbelief.
You could have heard a feather hit the floor. Everyone stood frozen where they had been. I asked Francine calmly but seriously, “Are you trying to lose this baby?”
“I … I … I am losing my baby,” she moaned clutching herself. Winnie and Mrs. Wiley did a double take and after ascertaining she wasn’t playing a cruel joke tried to guide to guide her to the settee but she wasn’t cooperating as she seemed set to have hysterics.
I dashed from the room and whistled for the man that usually runs for the village when there is an emergency. He’s Lollie Hudson’s son from her first marriage. “We need your ma lickety split. Do what you gotta to get her here safely. Tell her it’s Miss Francine and that it is very serious … tell her the message is from me.” Then I turned to Jonah. “I need two men to carry Miss Francine upstairs and I need the boys assigned to kitchen duty to get in there and take over while Mrs. Wiley does what she needs to.”
The Captain had followed me in and then followed me out. “I’d best send a rider after Cor.”
“No.” He looked at me sharply. “Look Captain, any rider coming up behind them that fast is liable to get hurt or give their position away to the enemy or even run into trouble themself. Let Cor stay focused so he can stay safe and once Lollie gets here we’ll see what is to be done on our side of things.”
He still looked like he wanted to object but I was past caring. I had seen all those men in the yard just milling around and it tore my last nerve. “Hey! You lot! You gonna sit on your thumbs and spin all day?! Set a perimeter like Cor told you. I don’t want to hear that a gnat escaped your notice!” When they were looking at me like I’d grown a third eye on the end of my nose instead of moving I used my Gramp’s best gonna-tear-me-an-arm-off-if-you-don’t-do-what-I-say voice and shouted at them, “Move!!”
When I got back inside the two men were gently carrying a whimpering Francine up to her room with Winnie and Mrs. Wiley hovering around her. I started to follow them up when the Captain grabbed my upper arm. I was in no mood and turned to give him a sharp look.
“Do no usurp authority you do not have,” he growled.
“Then don’t make me have to. Cor left orders; he’s the boss around here. His orders weren’t being followed. Now he’s asked me to look after Francine. I can’t do that and wonder if the men are going to do their jobs. You want to lead then get out there and lead. Or you stay here and lead. But you can’t do both. Whichever you are going to do you’d better do it quick.”
I’m not sure what he would have done but I’d struck a nerve and he was not at all happy with me. I respect the Captain but he was a little slow in acting when it was him as should have been chewing some legs off of the men instead of me. Maybe he’d grown a little soft after months at home with Winnie and the baby. Maybe he wasn’t used to Cor actually leading and ordering. Either way he opened his mouth but was forestalled by a call from outside. I went on up the stairs and after seeing that Francine was willing to be bossed by Mrs. Wiley I started to fetch and carry what Lollie might need.
An hour later a disheveled Lollie came through the kitchen as I was putting more wood in a box to take for the upstairs fireplace. Lollie was in her element and all business though there was still a kindness to her that couldn’t be hidden. As she took off her outer wear and put her basket down she asked me, “I don’t like to walk in blind and my boy was nervy as a nannie in heat. What is the situation?”
I explained about the Lathrop estate, Francine’s hysterics, then how she started having pains. “We’ve got her up upstairs and in bed with her feet elevated. We are doing what we can to keep her quiet but I didn’t want to give her anything before you came. My sister – the one that married Mona’s son – sent Cramp Bark and a few other things if you need any supplies.”
She stopped and looked at me, “You know how to dose women in need?”
I shook my head. “I’d never dose anyone else with someone trained around. My Gran wanted me to follow her into midwifery and yarbs but she got frail and then got dead before there was time to do it properly. I know some things, but only for emergencies.”
She patted my arm. “Didn’t mean to be sharp Fel. I know you’re a good gilly. I just have to be sure she hasn’t taken anything else before I can prescribe anything. Is she spotting?”
“She won’t let anyone near her. We even look like we’re trying to do more than she wants us to she starts to get hysterical. Doesn’t make any sense to me. She does have pains, I’ve timed them, but they are far apart and lazy.”
Lollie pursed her lips. “Well, let’s see what she’ll let me tend to.”
Lollie, with liberal application of tough love and good sense was able to get Francine’s pains stopped but she wasn’t at all happy at what she’d discovered. “She’s been spotting more than a few hours,” she told Winnie and I privately. “Something is going on here and I’m not the least bit comfortable with it. I’ll stay by her side for the next few days. I don’t like her signs or how she’s acting. I hate to say it but I don’t think she’s telling us the truth of it.”
Lollie wasn’t the only one uncomfortable with that knowledge. I tried to talk to Winnie but she wouldn’t talk. Then I remembered that she’d lost babes and must be reliving the nightmare. Then I tried to talk to Mrs. Wiley but all she did was get sour and I wondered if she’d been through it herself. I started to feel like a heel and then did what I could to help throw a quick, warm meal together.
Noontime came and went. It was the three o’clock guard change when a man came running down the road followed by a volley of arrows. The raiders were at the gates.
I sent Topher to secure all the doors on the house and to set the women to closing the shutters on the second floor; the ones on the first and top floors had already been closed to retain heat so that Francine wouldn’t catch a chill. I then ran back and forth between the areas overlooking the avenues that I would have picked to sneak up on the house. Sure enough there were men coming from those directions. I didn’t recognize the leathers they wore but some of Cor’s men cursed, recognizing the cloth clothes and head gear worn by some that didn’t look like any Outlanders I had ever seen. They were men from territories to the east of Kipling which proved the rumors of unnatural alliances.
We all knew to destroy as many invaders before they came near the house as we could. Any that escaped the arrows would then be faced in more dangerous hand-to-hand combat. It didn’t take long for me to turn savage. I decided to take the battle to the enemy and slipped over the stone fence and into the hedgerow.
These men, though fierce, were poorly led and were themselves either stupid or overconfident. They assumed that no one would dare face them and turn their own tactics against him. And I wasn’t the only one that decided to take advantage of that; a few of Cor’s men followed me out and nodded as we took turns luring the raiders to their doom. A fighting party hunted down the few that escaped the Coreman troops and brought the only five that lived to the yard of the house.
Unfortunately the Captain and I strongly disagreed upon their fate.
“Did you or did you not leave a whole troop of highwaymen strung up in a tree when you brought my sisters and I to this land?” I asked him fiercely.
“I don’t care for your insolence Fel. I’ll have information from these men …”
I spat, “You’ll get nothing. Look at them. Listen to their curses! Do you want to see them, their children, and their children’s children forever at our gate?! They will never surrender and they will never willingly stop! Death is the only coin that will stop them!”
At that moment one of the men got loose from where he’d been tied and grabbed the Captain at the same time pulling the Captain’s short sword from its scabbard. I saw blood and started screeching as a man of my town would have. I grabbed the knife off my belt and lept on the escapee opening his throat from ear to ear in one smooth move before he could do the same to the man, that despite all the circumstances surrounding it, I had come to respect as I would have an uncle. I turned to the remaining captives and grabbed a tomahawk and stone war club from the pile of weapons taken from the dead and before anyone could stop me, and in a few precise blows, ended four more lives.
I stood there, my chest heaving, then chucked the weapons to the side and started checking the Captain for injuries as he was covered in blood and still gasping for breath. Spotting a slice in his neck where I almost hadn’t been fast enough I pulled him to the steps and started ripping my shirt to make a pad to staunch the blood that was pouring down his neck.
The pad was nearly soaked through before Lollie arrived and pushed my shaking hands away to fix a more proper bandage. She turned to me and put her hand on my forearm but the Captain stalled her speech by snarling at me, “This is not the Outlands! We do not kill our enemies like savages! And we certainly do not then ignore their lifeless bodies while they draw flies just to tend to …!”
I hissed like a cat right back at him, half because of the scare he had given me. “Get it through your thick civilized skull Captain … these men will not stop until we are dead or they are. Look at what almost happened to you. How would I answer to Winnie for that?! Outlanders like this will fight, lie, cajole … whatever it takes until you let your guard down and then they will laugh with joy while slitting your throat. Their sole reason for being on this side of the Mississippi is revenge for some imagined injustice that happened generations ago. You cannot fight an Outlander by your outsized code of honor … if you persist, you’ll die and take a lot of innocent people with you. The only reason there weren’t more injuries is likely this is a pathetic band that’s been kicked out by the main group to harry and create chaos so to soften the estate up before the main body strikes. Had they been better led they would have struck at night or before first light. For whatever reason these did not and that is the only reason we routed them as easily as we did. There was no loss of life this time thank God.”
Lollie pulled at my arm and I was forced to turn to her. It had finally gone dark and the bonfire where the bodies of the raiders were being destroyed illuminated her face reminding me of my Gran right before she spoke something awful. “Mistress Fel, you need to come. Miss Francine lost the baby.”
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Chapter 47
Cor ran to the door and I had to practically trip him to stop him. He glared at me and I glared back and hissed, “Did you leave your brain in the south?! Just because that’s a friend’s voice out there doesn’t mean they aren’t being coerced! I swear, it’s a wonder all the land east of the Mississippi hasn’t been overtaken by Outlander clans the way you all react.”
That stopped Cor and as the banging started again I called sharply, “Jonah, you out there? Are the boys behaving?”
I heard a scuffle and a muttered, “Get out of the way before she scalps you son.” More loudly he answered, “Yes Gilly, the boys are behavin’ such as they are.”
I peeped through the door hole and saw Jonah standing there in torchlight bright enough that I could see only a single man was with him, then cautiously opened the latch. Both Jonah and the man with him had eyes wide and glued on the Green River blade that I had pulled and ready. Jonah was the first to recover and then snorted and said, “Reckon I know what you’ve been doing at the blacksmith’s now don’t I.”
Cor, getting impatient, bodily picked me up and moved me to the side so he could step out but was putting his own blade – a Bowie by shape – in its sheath which got an approving nod from the two men. Talk about your double standard.
Cor asked, “What’s the trouble Jonah?”
“Miss Francie is fit to be tied and making a spectacle of herself. Rider came from the Lathrop estate. He’s half dead near about. They done got attacked and some of her female relations been took. The Cap’n begs you to come and hep get her calmed down and hear what the man’s saying.”
Hours later, at dawn, a reluctant – and exhausted – Cor had halved his men and left to go lend aid and succor to the Lathrops. Before he left he drew me aside and said, “Stay sharp Fel and keep an eye on Francine. I’ve never seen her like this. I can’t be sure this isn’t a gambit by her family but somehow I don’t really believe it is. And if it is, Francine doesn’t know it … that hysteria over her relations is real.”
I nodded. “Just be safe and come back as soon as you can. And watch the road and your back. They’ll fan out into the trees and hit you from both sides if you aren’t paying attention. Keep your guard up.”
He stopped for a moment then reached out and gently tugged my braid. “I’ll be back, just take care of Francine and the baby for me.” With that he rode away.
I turned to Jonah to ask him if there were any men amongst the ones that Cor left behind that he didn’t trust when Topher came running up to me. “Mrs. Wiley says come right away!”
I could hear it as soon as I walked in the imposing and heavy front doors of the main house. Francine was screaming and crying to the point of wailing;
like some women get when they are grieving. I bolted down the hallway to the parlor to find Winnie and Mrs. Wiley trying unsuccessfully to control Francine who was struggling. She was so loud that Topher had his hands over his ears. I walked up and slapped Francine’s face, breaking her hysterical focus, and she went still in shocked disbelief.
You could have heard a feather hit the floor. Everyone stood frozen where they had been. I asked Francine calmly but seriously, “Are you trying to lose this baby?”
“I … I … I am losing my baby,” she moaned clutching herself. Winnie and Mrs. Wiley did a double take and after ascertaining she wasn’t playing a cruel joke tried to guide to guide her to the settee but she wasn’t cooperating as she seemed set to have hysterics.
I dashed from the room and whistled for the man that usually runs for the village when there is an emergency. He’s Lollie Hudson’s son from her first marriage. “We need your ma lickety split. Do what you gotta to get her here safely. Tell her it’s Miss Francine and that it is very serious … tell her the message is from me.” Then I turned to Jonah. “I need two men to carry Miss Francine upstairs and I need the boys assigned to kitchen duty to get in there and take over while Mrs. Wiley does what she needs to.”
The Captain had followed me in and then followed me out. “I’d best send a rider after Cor.”
“No.” He looked at me sharply. “Look Captain, any rider coming up behind them that fast is liable to get hurt or give their position away to the enemy or even run into trouble themself. Let Cor stay focused so he can stay safe and once Lollie gets here we’ll see what is to be done on our side of things.”
He still looked like he wanted to object but I was past caring. I had seen all those men in the yard just milling around and it tore my last nerve. “Hey! You lot! You gonna sit on your thumbs and spin all day?! Set a perimeter like Cor told you. I don’t want to hear that a gnat escaped your notice!” When they were looking at me like I’d grown a third eye on the end of my nose instead of moving I used my Gramp’s best gonna-tear-me-an-arm-off-if-you-don’t-do-what-I-say voice and shouted at them, “Move!!”
When I got back inside the two men were gently carrying a whimpering Francine up to her room with Winnie and Mrs. Wiley hovering around her. I started to follow them up when the Captain grabbed my upper arm. I was in no mood and turned to give him a sharp look.
“Do no usurp authority you do not have,” he growled.
“Then don’t make me have to. Cor left orders; he’s the boss around here. His orders weren’t being followed. Now he’s asked me to look after Francine. I can’t do that and wonder if the men are going to do their jobs. You want to lead then get out there and lead. Or you stay here and lead. But you can’t do both. Whichever you are going to do you’d better do it quick.”
I’m not sure what he would have done but I’d struck a nerve and he was not at all happy with me. I respect the Captain but he was a little slow in acting when it was him as should have been chewing some legs off of the men instead of me. Maybe he’d grown a little soft after months at home with Winnie and the baby. Maybe he wasn’t used to Cor actually leading and ordering. Either way he opened his mouth but was forestalled by a call from outside. I went on up the stairs and after seeing that Francine was willing to be bossed by Mrs. Wiley I started to fetch and carry what Lollie might need.
An hour later a disheveled Lollie came through the kitchen as I was putting more wood in a box to take for the upstairs fireplace. Lollie was in her element and all business though there was still a kindness to her that couldn’t be hidden. As she took off her outer wear and put her basket down she asked me, “I don’t like to walk in blind and my boy was nervy as a nannie in heat. What is the situation?”
I explained about the Lathrop estate, Francine’s hysterics, then how she started having pains. “We’ve got her up upstairs and in bed with her feet elevated. We are doing what we can to keep her quiet but I didn’t want to give her anything before you came. My sister – the one that married Mona’s son – sent Cramp Bark and a few other things if you need any supplies.”
She stopped and looked at me, “You know how to dose women in need?”
I shook my head. “I’d never dose anyone else with someone trained around. My Gran wanted me to follow her into midwifery and yarbs but she got frail and then got dead before there was time to do it properly. I know some things, but only for emergencies.”
She patted my arm. “Didn’t mean to be sharp Fel. I know you’re a good gilly. I just have to be sure she hasn’t taken anything else before I can prescribe anything. Is she spotting?”
“She won’t let anyone near her. We even look like we’re trying to do more than she wants us to she starts to get hysterical. Doesn’t make any sense to me. She does have pains, I’ve timed them, but they are far apart and lazy.”
Lollie pursed her lips. “Well, let’s see what she’ll let me tend to.”
Lollie, with liberal application of tough love and good sense was able to get Francine’s pains stopped but she wasn’t at all happy at what she’d discovered. “She’s been spotting more than a few hours,” she told Winnie and I privately. “Something is going on here and I’m not the least bit comfortable with it. I’ll stay by her side for the next few days. I don’t like her signs or how she’s acting. I hate to say it but I don’t think she’s telling us the truth of it.”
Lollie wasn’t the only one uncomfortable with that knowledge. I tried to talk to Winnie but she wouldn’t talk. Then I remembered that she’d lost babes and must be reliving the nightmare. Then I tried to talk to Mrs. Wiley but all she did was get sour and I wondered if she’d been through it herself. I started to feel like a heel and then did what I could to help throw a quick, warm meal together.
Noontime came and went. It was the three o’clock guard change when a man came running down the road followed by a volley of arrows. The raiders were at the gates.
I sent Topher to secure all the doors on the house and to set the women to closing the shutters on the second floor; the ones on the first and top floors had already been closed to retain heat so that Francine wouldn’t catch a chill. I then ran back and forth between the areas overlooking the avenues that I would have picked to sneak up on the house. Sure enough there were men coming from those directions. I didn’t recognize the leathers they wore but some of Cor’s men cursed, recognizing the cloth clothes and head gear worn by some that didn’t look like any Outlanders I had ever seen. They were men from territories to the east of Kipling which proved the rumors of unnatural alliances.
We all knew to destroy as many invaders before they came near the house as we could. Any that escaped the arrows would then be faced in more dangerous hand-to-hand combat. It didn’t take long for me to turn savage. I decided to take the battle to the enemy and slipped over the stone fence and into the hedgerow.
These men, though fierce, were poorly led and were themselves either stupid or overconfident. They assumed that no one would dare face them and turn their own tactics against him. And I wasn’t the only one that decided to take advantage of that; a few of Cor’s men followed me out and nodded as we took turns luring the raiders to their doom. A fighting party hunted down the few that escaped the Coreman troops and brought the only five that lived to the yard of the house.
Unfortunately the Captain and I strongly disagreed upon their fate.
“Did you or did you not leave a whole troop of highwaymen strung up in a tree when you brought my sisters and I to this land?” I asked him fiercely.
“I don’t care for your insolence Fel. I’ll have information from these men …”
I spat, “You’ll get nothing. Look at them. Listen to their curses! Do you want to see them, their children, and their children’s children forever at our gate?! They will never surrender and they will never willingly stop! Death is the only coin that will stop them!”
At that moment one of the men got loose from where he’d been tied and grabbed the Captain at the same time pulling the Captain’s short sword from its scabbard. I saw blood and started screeching as a man of my town would have. I grabbed the knife off my belt and lept on the escapee opening his throat from ear to ear in one smooth move before he could do the same to the man, that despite all the circumstances surrounding it, I had come to respect as I would have an uncle. I turned to the remaining captives and grabbed a tomahawk and stone war club from the pile of weapons taken from the dead and before anyone could stop me, and in a few precise blows, ended four more lives.
I stood there, my chest heaving, then chucked the weapons to the side and started checking the Captain for injuries as he was covered in blood and still gasping for breath. Spotting a slice in his neck where I almost hadn’t been fast enough I pulled him to the steps and started ripping my shirt to make a pad to staunch the blood that was pouring down his neck.
The pad was nearly soaked through before Lollie arrived and pushed my shaking hands away to fix a more proper bandage. She turned to me and put her hand on my forearm but the Captain stalled her speech by snarling at me, “This is not the Outlands! We do not kill our enemies like savages! And we certainly do not then ignore their lifeless bodies while they draw flies just to tend to …!”
I hissed like a cat right back at him, half because of the scare he had given me. “Get it through your thick civilized skull Captain … these men will not stop until we are dead or they are. Look at what almost happened to you. How would I answer to Winnie for that?! Outlanders like this will fight, lie, cajole … whatever it takes until you let your guard down and then they will laugh with joy while slitting your throat. Their sole reason for being on this side of the Mississippi is revenge for some imagined injustice that happened generations ago. You cannot fight an Outlander by your outsized code of honor … if you persist, you’ll die and take a lot of innocent people with you. The only reason there weren’t more injuries is likely this is a pathetic band that’s been kicked out by the main group to harry and create chaos so to soften the estate up before the main body strikes. Had they been better led they would have struck at night or before first light. For whatever reason these did not and that is the only reason we routed them as easily as we did. There was no loss of life this time thank God.”
Lollie pulled at my arm and I was forced to turn to her. It had finally gone dark and the bonfire where the bodies of the raiders were being destroyed illuminated her face reminding me of my Gran right before she spoke something awful. “Mistress Fel, you need to come. Miss Francine lost the baby.”
Jeepcats 3
Contributing Member
Hhhhhmmmmmmm?
Did she sneak into her forbidden teas?
IT seems kind of convenient for her to keep her world as it was not as it is.
Jeepcats3
Did she sneak into her forbidden teas?
IT seems kind of convenient for her to keep her world as it was not as it is.
Jeepcats3
223shootersc
Veteran Member
Fel is a true warrior, thanks for the new chapter
Lost or got rid of? :-(
Great chapter Kathy. Thank you.
I don't understand.....I actually posted this at 10:01 pm CT. It's showing 5:01 am. What's up with that?
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sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Thank you this was a nice treat when i got home. Looks to me that Francine did everything she could to lose the baby.
I'm not either.
It is not an easy thing, physically or emotionally, to lose a baby who at this point must be at least five months and probably more like six. It would be a very risky business indeed to induce an abortion by chemical means, whether herbal or poison, and one would be both stupid and desperate to try to do so. I hope that is not the case, but the story seems to imply it. This is a very dark turn of events.
Genevieve
working on it
I find it strange that the captain isn't using his head more about these raiders. I mean, come on, he's charge of security and such right? When they're on the road and such.
Just doesn't make sense that he would "lose his head" at this time. ( well, at least to me lol)
Why bother with asking questions from the raiders when you have an expert right there and is on your side? Have they had it that easy all these years? (Kipling that is)
As for francine....I know that stress and going into hysterics can induce miscarriage early in the pregnancy, but I've never heard of it that late. But, thats just me.
I'm thinking she was drinking those "teas" again.
Just doesn't make sense that he would "lose his head" at this time. ( well, at least to me lol)
Why bother with asking questions from the raiders when you have an expert right there and is on your side? Have they had it that easy all these years? (Kipling that is)
As for francine....I know that stress and going into hysterics can induce miscarriage early in the pregnancy, but I've never heard of it that late. But, thats just me.
I'm thinking she was drinking those "teas" again.
The estate seems to be somewhat like the old Manor houses in England. The Gentry all had education, titles and position solely based on birthright, and didn't have much to do with their bravery or ability to lead. Could be that's the cloth the Captain is cut from? The nitty gritty of World War I culled that crowd in a hurry.
Fel's world was never fluffy and she is well aware of the dirty details it some times takes to survive. If she was a shock to everyone's system before she is even more so now.
You are writing an excellent story Kathy and I need more.
Fel's world was never fluffy and she is well aware of the dirty details it some times takes to survive. If she was a shock to everyone's system before she is even more so now.
You are writing an excellent story Kathy and I need more.
Chapter 48
“No,” I said with a finality meant to demand that she be wrong.
“Now Gilly …”
“No. No, no, no. She … Cor needs … He … He told me to take care of … Oh God …”
The Captain expression of anger had turned to shock at Lollie’s words but somehow turned to even greater shock when he looked at me. My knees were trying to buckle and I heard buzzing in my head. No, it just couldn’t be true. Cor needed this baby, wanted this baby. He’d told me to take care of Francine and the baby and this happens.
I kept trying to hold it together and asked Lollie, “Francine? Oh no … nothing has happened to Francine?! Cor won’t be able to stand it!”
Lollie looked as stunned as the Captain by my reaction. Here I was the hard and heartless Outlander coming undone. I’d just killed five men, practically in cold blood, and yet now I was in an emotional panic.
“Easy Gilly,” she said like some would talk to a half wild horse. “Miss Francie is resting.” Under her breath I heard her mutter to Jonah who had come up, “Calmer than when that Lathrop rider got here with his news.”
A look passed between them at the time I couldn’t even begin to decipher. All I could wonder is what was Cor going to say. What if something happened to Francine too? What would it do to Cor?
I started to go in the house to pay my respects to Francine’s grief but Lollie held me back. “She’s resting I told yer. I’ve given her something to slow the loss of blood and while she’s not out o’ the woods she isn’t in any immediate danger. She needs quiet. I’ll let you know when she can have visitors.”
“Tell her … tell her …” I looked at Lollie and felt lost. “I don’t know what to tell her. I … I don’t know what I’m going to tell Cor.”
Jonah took that moment and stepped in. “Cap’n?” Whatever look passed between them meant something too but I was passed knowing or caring.
The Captain, using the handrail to come down the stairs, told me, “Fel, go to the kitchen and let Mrs. Wiley see to you. When the time comes I’ll tell Cor …”
“But it was my job to watch ‘em and take care of ‘em! Cor told me to …”
In a stronger, more authoritative voice, “Fel, go inside. You’re exhausted and as distraught over what has happened as the rest of us. Let Mrs. Wiley get you something to eat.”
Then one of the older boys that Topher used to follow around ran up and speaking to Jonah while trying to ignore me said, “We can’t find Mickey or Topher. We’ve looked everywhere you told us to Jonah.”
My heart added a layer of ice and threatened to crack. I croaked, “I sent Topher to the house!”
Quietly Jonah said, “He was sent to fetch arrows Gilly. No one has seen him since.”
As if to hold back the next terrible truth I said, “No! He shouldn’t have gone missing between the house and the weapons shed!”
“Calm down Gilly,” Jonah told me sharply but not unkindly.
“You aren’t listening. If they made it through that side they came through the forest. They …”
Jonah took me from the Captain who was beginning to look at me with a great deal of concern. “They did Gilly but my men did for ‘em all. They didn’t get to the food or water and weren’t able to set the backfires they planned.”
Trying to grab my threads that threatened to unravel I put my brain in gear and muttered, “The front attack was a feint. The real attack was supposed to come from behind and be too subtle to detect until it was too late.”
Jonah nodded. The Captain cursed and started calling for reports from the men under his command. He was beginning to remind me more of the man that had fetched me from the Outlands. Guess in Kipling they think they can take their warrior on and off at will rather than wearing it all the time. Da used to tell me that it was the same where he came from and for those men – and women – that couldn’t do that, life could be uncomfortable.
For the rest of the night I roamed as far from the house as Jonah and the Captain would permit. And when they thought I’d gone to sleep at the cabin, also under their orders, I slipped out of the tunnel I had dug – the real reason I had been digging out the old root cellar – and went tracking farther afield. Most of my forest traps had been effective though some had been sprung without doing any harm; all but two had blood on them and several still had an occupant. They must have turned cautious though because I found a spot where a large group had stopped while a smaller one had broken off and headed to the house.
They must have milled in that spot for a while given the evidence and how trampled the area was and then left the way they had come. I continued tracking their path and was deep into the forest when I found Mickey’s body.
Mickey was older than Topher but not much bigger. His body carried two arrow wounds but they wouldn’t have been fatal unless they became infected. The fatal wound was at his throat. I surmised he’d been taken but had slowed them down too much or become too troublesome so they had disposed of him. Tucked in Mickey’s hand was a piece of leather fringe that had been dipped in walnut stain to darken the end. I knew for a fact that it had come from the moccasins I had made for Topher. The only hope it gave me was that the boy was still alive at that point. But it also depressed me. I knew the kind of painful indoctrination he was in for. They’d wipe his memory of any life he had before they captured him or they’d turn those memories to their own purpose of hatred so he’d never want to return even should he have the chance.
I carried Mickey’s body back. I couldn’t bear to leave it for the animals until the men could collect it. The sun had been up for a few hours by the time I met one of Jonah’s patrols and turned the body over to them.
One of the men told me quietly, “Better get back to the house Mistress Fel. The Cap’n be white hot mad and Jonah ain’t much better. They’s be needin’ you.” My concern over the men’s anger was only a distant thing. The ice that had coated my heart had grown and expanded to cover the whole of me; mind, body, and spirit.
I stumbled into the yard, heading towards my punishment for disobedience but a voice from the porch stopped me. It was Winnine. “Fel, leave the men to it for a while yet. They are overset. You need to come hear it from Francine herself.”
I sighed, knowing she was right. I turned my feet to the house feeling Francine had greater cause to berate me and that I owed it to her to take it.
Strangely Winnie put her arm around me and drew me into a hug. “You have to be strong Fel.”
“She’ll get her pound of flesh Winnie,” I assured her. “I won’t deny her that.”
Surprise and then concern crossed her face. “That’s not what I mean.” After looking me over she asked, “Fel, are you all right? I realize this is all very difficult but … but you don’t seem yourself.”
I hung my head in shame. “I failed Winnie. I failed to protect Cor’s child. I failed you and the Captain by almost letting the Captain get killed. I failed Topher … he’s gone and I won’t ever see the boy again. Worst of all – as if it could be worse – I failed Cor.” I shook her off and climbed the stairs leaving her staring after me in shock.
I reluctantly faced Francine’s door and then went in. Immediately the hysterical woman on the bed started screaming at me, “You! This is your fault!”
Lollie bustled briskly about the room and said, “No Francine it is not.” She stepped between me and Francine and guided me back out of arm’s reach of the bed. She gave Francine a sharp glance and she at once stopped carrying on. A strange sensation filled the room. Normally caregivers are all kindness and understanding toward the grieving woman in such a situation but there was none of that that as far as I could feel. Lollie was not being unkind, nor were the other two women who were there – one cleaning the hearth, the other sitting by the bed – but their objectivity and lack of emotion was unnerving.
I kept waiting for Francine to continue her diatribe but all she did was glare at me. There was no doubt she was suffering. In addition to her emotional imbalance her hair was limp and lifeless, her complexion the color of paste. Great dark circles nearly swallowed her eyes and she grimaced often in pain. I turned to Lolli who pointed to the bundle of sticks that lay on a small table.
I stared at the bundle and then, after realizing what they were, it clicked. “No,” I denied. “No, she wouldn’t have.”
Lollie sighed and said, “She did and freely admitted to it.”
I shook my head still in disbelief. “She couldn’t have. I checked her room over myself several times.”
A shrug was my answer until Lollie added, “She didn’t need to keep them in her room when she had the keys to the pantry from her housekeeping ring. The only reason I found these half used things is because no fire had been laid in her sitting room yet. They were hidden in the tender.”
I continued to shake my head at the horror of it. Lollie saw I was struggling with shock and denial and she put her arm around me once again. “It isn’t just the sassafrass. We found the mugwort’s been gotten into plus several other things. But I think it’s the combination of the sassafrass and mugwort that did the damage.”
From the bed Francine cried, “It’s her fault. She wouldn’t leave me in peace, wouldn’t help me get what I needed. And then she turned everyone against me. No one would listen. Not Winnie, not the Captain … not even Cor!” Looking me and blatting like a sick goat she croaked, “You even turned my aunts against me. Every letter … EVERY LETTER … Aunt Muriel and Aunt Hazel would lecture me. They wouldn’t send me any comfort what so ever. They wouldn’t come to me no matter how I begged and no one would take me to them either!!”
She was quickly getting out of control and was struggling up off the bed. I ran over with Lollie to help hold her down. Lollie told me, “Hold her Fel or she’s liable to do herself worse harm. I’ll fix another sedative.”
Holding her without injuring her wasn’t easy. I almost had to put my full weight on her. She was screaming and crying, “Your fault! Your fault!!”
Suddenly I was wrenched backwards and ripped off the bed. I tripped and fell. I quickly got up but stopped in horror.
Cor.
He had Francine in his arms and she was crying into his chest while he rocked her. Then she pointed at me alike a shamaness and shouted, “She killed my baby. She’s a jealous huzzy and poisoned me. That wicked girl has killed our baby!”
Cor turned his shocked eyes to me. I could see the pain in them. I knew he was confused and grieving and likely had come straight up upon hearing the news. And my guilt tore at me, making me feel some of what he had to be feeling. His words though tore me wide open. “I asked you to keep them safe!”
I felt pummeled. So few words yet they left deeper marks than even the Headman could ever make even when he tried his hardest. But I wasn’t going to defend myself. I had failed. I had let him down.
I jumped when I felt Winnie put her arm around me and pull me to the door. As we stepped across the portal she turned to Lollie and said, “Explain things to him.”
“No,” I said with a finality meant to demand that she be wrong.
“Now Gilly …”
“No. No, no, no. She … Cor needs … He … He told me to take care of … Oh God …”
The Captain expression of anger had turned to shock at Lollie’s words but somehow turned to even greater shock when he looked at me. My knees were trying to buckle and I heard buzzing in my head. No, it just couldn’t be true. Cor needed this baby, wanted this baby. He’d told me to take care of Francine and the baby and this happens.
I kept trying to hold it together and asked Lollie, “Francine? Oh no … nothing has happened to Francine?! Cor won’t be able to stand it!”
Lollie looked as stunned as the Captain by my reaction. Here I was the hard and heartless Outlander coming undone. I’d just killed five men, practically in cold blood, and yet now I was in an emotional panic.
“Easy Gilly,” she said like some would talk to a half wild horse. “Miss Francie is resting.” Under her breath I heard her mutter to Jonah who had come up, “Calmer than when that Lathrop rider got here with his news.”
A look passed between them at the time I couldn’t even begin to decipher. All I could wonder is what was Cor going to say. What if something happened to Francine too? What would it do to Cor?
I started to go in the house to pay my respects to Francine’s grief but Lollie held me back. “She’s resting I told yer. I’ve given her something to slow the loss of blood and while she’s not out o’ the woods she isn’t in any immediate danger. She needs quiet. I’ll let you know when she can have visitors.”
“Tell her … tell her …” I looked at Lollie and felt lost. “I don’t know what to tell her. I … I don’t know what I’m going to tell Cor.”
Jonah took that moment and stepped in. “Cap’n?” Whatever look passed between them meant something too but I was passed knowing or caring.
The Captain, using the handrail to come down the stairs, told me, “Fel, go to the kitchen and let Mrs. Wiley see to you. When the time comes I’ll tell Cor …”
“But it was my job to watch ‘em and take care of ‘em! Cor told me to …”
In a stronger, more authoritative voice, “Fel, go inside. You’re exhausted and as distraught over what has happened as the rest of us. Let Mrs. Wiley get you something to eat.”
Then one of the older boys that Topher used to follow around ran up and speaking to Jonah while trying to ignore me said, “We can’t find Mickey or Topher. We’ve looked everywhere you told us to Jonah.”
My heart added a layer of ice and threatened to crack. I croaked, “I sent Topher to the house!”
Quietly Jonah said, “He was sent to fetch arrows Gilly. No one has seen him since.”
As if to hold back the next terrible truth I said, “No! He shouldn’t have gone missing between the house and the weapons shed!”
“Calm down Gilly,” Jonah told me sharply but not unkindly.
“You aren’t listening. If they made it through that side they came through the forest. They …”
Jonah took me from the Captain who was beginning to look at me with a great deal of concern. “They did Gilly but my men did for ‘em all. They didn’t get to the food or water and weren’t able to set the backfires they planned.”
Trying to grab my threads that threatened to unravel I put my brain in gear and muttered, “The front attack was a feint. The real attack was supposed to come from behind and be too subtle to detect until it was too late.”
Jonah nodded. The Captain cursed and started calling for reports from the men under his command. He was beginning to remind me more of the man that had fetched me from the Outlands. Guess in Kipling they think they can take their warrior on and off at will rather than wearing it all the time. Da used to tell me that it was the same where he came from and for those men – and women – that couldn’t do that, life could be uncomfortable.
For the rest of the night I roamed as far from the house as Jonah and the Captain would permit. And when they thought I’d gone to sleep at the cabin, also under their orders, I slipped out of the tunnel I had dug – the real reason I had been digging out the old root cellar – and went tracking farther afield. Most of my forest traps had been effective though some had been sprung without doing any harm; all but two had blood on them and several still had an occupant. They must have turned cautious though because I found a spot where a large group had stopped while a smaller one had broken off and headed to the house.
They must have milled in that spot for a while given the evidence and how trampled the area was and then left the way they had come. I continued tracking their path and was deep into the forest when I found Mickey’s body.
Mickey was older than Topher but not much bigger. His body carried two arrow wounds but they wouldn’t have been fatal unless they became infected. The fatal wound was at his throat. I surmised he’d been taken but had slowed them down too much or become too troublesome so they had disposed of him. Tucked in Mickey’s hand was a piece of leather fringe that had been dipped in walnut stain to darken the end. I knew for a fact that it had come from the moccasins I had made for Topher. The only hope it gave me was that the boy was still alive at that point. But it also depressed me. I knew the kind of painful indoctrination he was in for. They’d wipe his memory of any life he had before they captured him or they’d turn those memories to their own purpose of hatred so he’d never want to return even should he have the chance.
I carried Mickey’s body back. I couldn’t bear to leave it for the animals until the men could collect it. The sun had been up for a few hours by the time I met one of Jonah’s patrols and turned the body over to them.
One of the men told me quietly, “Better get back to the house Mistress Fel. The Cap’n be white hot mad and Jonah ain’t much better. They’s be needin’ you.” My concern over the men’s anger was only a distant thing. The ice that had coated my heart had grown and expanded to cover the whole of me; mind, body, and spirit.
I stumbled into the yard, heading towards my punishment for disobedience but a voice from the porch stopped me. It was Winnine. “Fel, leave the men to it for a while yet. They are overset. You need to come hear it from Francine herself.”
I sighed, knowing she was right. I turned my feet to the house feeling Francine had greater cause to berate me and that I owed it to her to take it.
Strangely Winnie put her arm around me and drew me into a hug. “You have to be strong Fel.”
“She’ll get her pound of flesh Winnie,” I assured her. “I won’t deny her that.”
Surprise and then concern crossed her face. “That’s not what I mean.” After looking me over she asked, “Fel, are you all right? I realize this is all very difficult but … but you don’t seem yourself.”
I hung my head in shame. “I failed Winnie. I failed to protect Cor’s child. I failed you and the Captain by almost letting the Captain get killed. I failed Topher … he’s gone and I won’t ever see the boy again. Worst of all – as if it could be worse – I failed Cor.” I shook her off and climbed the stairs leaving her staring after me in shock.
I reluctantly faced Francine’s door and then went in. Immediately the hysterical woman on the bed started screaming at me, “You! This is your fault!”
Lollie bustled briskly about the room and said, “No Francine it is not.” She stepped between me and Francine and guided me back out of arm’s reach of the bed. She gave Francine a sharp glance and she at once stopped carrying on. A strange sensation filled the room. Normally caregivers are all kindness and understanding toward the grieving woman in such a situation but there was none of that that as far as I could feel. Lollie was not being unkind, nor were the other two women who were there – one cleaning the hearth, the other sitting by the bed – but their objectivity and lack of emotion was unnerving.
I kept waiting for Francine to continue her diatribe but all she did was glare at me. There was no doubt she was suffering. In addition to her emotional imbalance her hair was limp and lifeless, her complexion the color of paste. Great dark circles nearly swallowed her eyes and she grimaced often in pain. I turned to Lolli who pointed to the bundle of sticks that lay on a small table.
I stared at the bundle and then, after realizing what they were, it clicked. “No,” I denied. “No, she wouldn’t have.”
Lollie sighed and said, “She did and freely admitted to it.”
I shook my head still in disbelief. “She couldn’t have. I checked her room over myself several times.”
A shrug was my answer until Lollie added, “She didn’t need to keep them in her room when she had the keys to the pantry from her housekeeping ring. The only reason I found these half used things is because no fire had been laid in her sitting room yet. They were hidden in the tender.”
I continued to shake my head at the horror of it. Lollie saw I was struggling with shock and denial and she put her arm around me once again. “It isn’t just the sassafrass. We found the mugwort’s been gotten into plus several other things. But I think it’s the combination of the sassafrass and mugwort that did the damage.”
From the bed Francine cried, “It’s her fault. She wouldn’t leave me in peace, wouldn’t help me get what I needed. And then she turned everyone against me. No one would listen. Not Winnie, not the Captain … not even Cor!” Looking me and blatting like a sick goat she croaked, “You even turned my aunts against me. Every letter … EVERY LETTER … Aunt Muriel and Aunt Hazel would lecture me. They wouldn’t send me any comfort what so ever. They wouldn’t come to me no matter how I begged and no one would take me to them either!!”
She was quickly getting out of control and was struggling up off the bed. I ran over with Lollie to help hold her down. Lollie told me, “Hold her Fel or she’s liable to do herself worse harm. I’ll fix another sedative.”
Holding her without injuring her wasn’t easy. I almost had to put my full weight on her. She was screaming and crying, “Your fault! Your fault!!”
Suddenly I was wrenched backwards and ripped off the bed. I tripped and fell. I quickly got up but stopped in horror.
Cor.
He had Francine in his arms and she was crying into his chest while he rocked her. Then she pointed at me alike a shamaness and shouted, “She killed my baby. She’s a jealous huzzy and poisoned me. That wicked girl has killed our baby!”
Cor turned his shocked eyes to me. I could see the pain in them. I knew he was confused and grieving and likely had come straight up upon hearing the news. And my guilt tore at me, making me feel some of what he had to be feeling. His words though tore me wide open. “I asked you to keep them safe!”
I felt pummeled. So few words yet they left deeper marks than even the Headman could ever make even when he tried his hardest. But I wasn’t going to defend myself. I had failed. I had let him down.
I jumped when I felt Winnie put her arm around me and pull me to the door. As we stepped across the portal she turned to Lollie and said, “Explain things to him.”
sssarawolf
Has No Life - Lives on TB
Francine is nuttier then a fruit cake. I hope Cor listens instead of going half cocked. Thank you so much.
Let Cor stew in all his own pain and loss. I know love is blind but it usually can still spot crazy. Besides he knew what kind of shape Francine was in before he left and it was his responsibilty to take care of it not Fel's. Yeah Lollie, explain it to Cor.
I hope Fel will leave that bunch of nutcakes and go find Topher. I hope that's going to be the next adventure.
Kathy, your story just keeps getting better and better and I need more faster than you can write it. Thank you for this new chapter.
I hope Fel will leave that bunch of nutcakes and go find Topher. I hope that's going to be the next adventure.
Kathy, your story just keeps getting better and better and I need more faster than you can write it. Thank you for this new chapter.