Hello! What a strange feeling to be back in the land of fan fiction. I've written fan fiction stories here-and-there throughout the years, but nothing has been able to reignite my interest in the task quite like this miniseries. I have a few ideas where I would like to go with this tale, but frankly for the time being, I am just testing the waters to see if anyone is willing to read my little story (which, if so, please feel free to leave me feedback as I am still unsure of myself in this trying medium). I really hope you enjoy this first small bit. Thank you for reading.
It was the faded blue of late afternoon, sinking down into the depths of purple night, with the sky in between paled to a watery amethyst. Daisy McCoy sat in the old pews of the courthouse, near the door, where she could feel the summer air breeze in and around her. It jumped from person to person within the close confines, carrying with it the scents of sweat, heat, hay, and manure. These were country folk who surrounded her, worked and worn to death by the duty of survival. It was no small wonder that they carried the vestiges of their toil throughout their daily lives.
The smack of a gavel rang through the room, and all fell silent under the watchful eye of the magistrate. Daisy knew little of the man beyond the fact that he was a Hatfield, and that fact alone seemed to signify an unfortunate outcome for her family. She squinted her eyes past the penetrating light of the falling sun that shot through the windows, up to where the man sat at the front of the room. To her, he certainly looked like a Hatfield: dull, stern, and aggressively pig-headed. So much so that even here, in the most seemingly trivial of events, his brow hung low and stark over his dark eyes, forbidding mockery of his courtroom and its rules.
As the magistrate spoke, addressing the issue of whether or not a certain sow belonged to one family or the other, Daisy's eyes roamed the room. It was not that she did not care for the issue at hand, for an entire pig could service the family in food for close to a year. And with the price of any and all seeming to rise every other day, not to mention the rise of members in an already full household, any bit of food was worth its weight in gold. Still, Daisy could not fathom the anger that one bit of confusion incited in grown men, her father being one of those men. Her eyes rested on the back of his head as he sat at the front of the room, proper and pious next to her mother. His movements were rigid and unnatural as he listened to the magistrate's words, as if his weathered limbs were carved of stone.
Across the aisle, on what served as the unofficial Hatfield side of the room, "Devil" Anse, as they called him, seemed more at ease. His shoulders were slouched, his back resting up against the pew as if he felt entirely candid within the confines of such a trying situation. Despite his casual demeanor, Daisy knew that his eyes, if not his entire face, held the same grim promise as his relation at the front of the room, who banged the gavel again to silence the excited titters and laughs of his more wayward family members.
"Y'all keep quiet back there," the magistrate called in his deep voice, and Daisy was reminded of thunder rumbling over the fields. The rowdier ones in the bunch slumped down into their seats, for the moment chastised for their behavior, and the proceedings continued.
Up above, people hung over the rails of the second floor, their faces red and soaked from the heat that rose up in the building. Daisy scanned the faces, imagining the people as the gargoyles she had read of in a book about a place called Paris. Daisy was lucky to be able to read, and even luckier to have an older sister like Roseanna who took her into town on special occasions to buy books about far away and wonderful places. Daisy couldn't quite picture Paris as a whole; she didn't know what such a large town would look like. But the little details, the sides of buildings, the shop windows, the children running through paved roads – that she could see.
The sunlight filtering through the cracks of the roof struck a blond head and illuminated it like bright wheat. Daisy's gaze followed the tall and willowy Johnse Hatfield as he circled the people upstairs, squeezing into an empty spot on the far side of the railing. Daisy couldn't claim to know many of the Hatfields by name, but it was a fact that any and every girl within a 20 mile radius knew who Johnse Hatfield was. Daisy studied his face and wondered what appealed to the girls who fawned over him; what wrought in them the flushed whisperings and ecstatic giggles. If Daisy were being honest with herself, Johnse looked to her like a walking loaf of bread, bland and unseasoned, in need of flavor. As was typical with Daisy's imagination, she began to imagine the cool and aloof Johnse with large bits of rosemary and thyme stuck behind his ears, encircling his forehead like a crown. The mental picture sent laughter boiling up and out through Daisy, and she quickly clasped a hand around her mouth, nearly choking on the sound.
Across from her, on the Hatfield's side of the aisle, a laugh met hers.
The echo of her amusement was deeper, masculine, and Daisy felt the hairs on her neck begin to rise like the hackles of an incited dog. All day long, much like all her life, Daisy had felt the demeaning gazes of those who bore her ill will. They came from Hatfields and their relations; from people who knew nothing of Daisy beyond the fact that her father was Randall McCoy. But for most people, that seemed reason enough to dislike her, to judge her, even to ridicule her. The adults remained quiet, letting their conviction shine through their eyes like the afternoon sun, but the kids were more verbose with their hate of Daisy and her family. They called out to her during those unfortunate occasions when the Hatfields and McCoys were forced to co-mingle: "Look at that one, she got hair as black as pitch! Must be one of Randall's bastards!" "My, have you ever seen such big ole eyes on a girl? She looks like one of my hounds!" "The size of that one! I do believe we've got a hog in a skirt!" The insults piled one atop the other like a heap of bones, hollow in their meaning, especially to the obstinate Daisy, who wouldn't allow herself to be demeaned by friend or foe. At least not on the outside, where a single tear meant victory for the opposition.
She spun in her seat, screwing up her face in her most intimidating visage, ready to give the pesky Hatfield what-for and send him back to his clan with his tail between his legs. But she was met by something unexpected. Only one eye stared back at her. The other was covered by a bandage, wound around the head to hide whatever lurked there. The eye she could see was deep and bright, no longer smiling or laughing, but staring at Daisy in a sort of hushed hesitation. The rest of the face was young, clean, handsome in a broad and quiet way that seemed to exude a sort of familiarity. The expression was open and calm, not asking anything of Daisy; merely looking, and listening, and waiting for something to be conveyed across the barriers of the room and all that sat inside of it. A long strand of hair the color of dark amber fell over the lifted brow, and Daisy thought that she could see awe in that brow, in the way it rose towards Heaven.
Here was a Hatfield that Daisy did not know, and as the two stared at one another, she suddenly knew that this boy, this man, had been watching her for some time.