Mystery of Joy
Chapter 1: The Storm
by Lynn Saunders
Our most intimate friend is not he to whom we show the worst, but the best of our nature. - Nathaniel Hawthorne
February 1913
Brittle pellets ping against the window frames, a rare storm raging beyond the glass. Outside, the trees are slick and cold, shimmering in the darkness, heavy with ice. Fires burn on the hearths, but keeping the bedrooms warm in this weather is difficult. They gather together in the servants' hall to pass the evening in pajamas and quilts, and he rests near her, near the fire.
She smiles at him in the firelight, and he has to pretend he's not taken with it, not taken with her, not completely, utterly besotted.
He's watching her needle as it goes, holding his book just so, feigning interest in the yellowing pages. She's beside him, calm and focused. It will be years before he tells her this, but he's his best self when she is next to him.
"Will you read to me?" She asks the favor without looking up.
He creases the spine and folds the book into his lap, proceeding in his gentle timbre. "The objects that had made a shadow hitherto, embodied the brightness now. The course of the little brook might be traced by its merry gleam afar into the wood's heart of mystery, which had become a mystery of joy.
"Such was the sympathy of Nature- that wild, heathen Nature of the forest, never subjugated by human law, nor illumined by higher truth- with the bliss of these two spirits..." He pauses.
She's watching him now, and a soft smile, barely perceptible, nudges the corners of her eyes.
He holds her gaze as he recites the rest of the passage. "Love, whether newly born, or aroused from a death-like slumber, must always create a sunshine, filling the heart so full of radiance, that it overflows upon the outward world."
No physical touch passes between them, but she burns. Oh, she burns.
* Bates reads to Anna from The Scarlett Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. The full text is available free online from many sources.
* This story adheres to angel-princess-anna's Banna timeline, which is posted to Tumblr.
* Don't worry, the next 5 chapters are already written and need only to pass through beta. :)