I'm not sure where this challenge has come from, I can't find it, but I thought I'd jump on the bandwagon and do The Seven Loves of Elsie Hughes.
Seven Nights, Seven Loves
1.
She was born in the middle of the night. Elsie was there, it was one of her first clear memories for a number of reasons.
She remembers the strangeness of it all, all the men seemed to have vanished; her father, her older brother; her uncle. She wasn't usually awake this late, anyway. There was bustle, confusion. Everyone seemed to forget that she was there so she loiters in the corner of her mother's bedroom by the table she is no taller than, unnoticed.
Her aunt took charge. She remembers the fear of seeing, hearing her mother's pain, of not being sure what's causing it. Frightened, yet unwilling to move, in the strange childish belief that if she is there things can't get too bad. Shadows from the fire in the corner of the room stretch and dance about her.
She remembers drifting hazily to sleep, sitting there against the wall in the corner, exhausted by all of this horror and activity.
By the time she wakes up, everything is quiet. Activity has lulled. Fear floods her small body once more; it is only now that she realises that the commotion held some comfort for her. Then she is noticed: by her Grandmother, sitting in a chair at her mother's bedside.
"Elsie," she says, "Come and meet Anne. Come and meet your little sister."
She advances timidly. Her mother, she realises, is not dead, but just propped up rather weakly. And holding something in her arms. Grandma lifts her to sit on the bed. Her mother pats her softly on the head, and it is only then that she realises that her curly black hair is sticking out at all angles.
She peers at the little face between the blankets, this sign that the horror is past and all is well. And she loves it, with every fibre of her three-year-old being.