CHAPTER 2
As the day wore on, Anna felt her strength waning. Having spent all morning painting the shed had sapped her strength; the energy that the big breakfast had provided was all but gone.
It hadn't helped that Tom had turned the whole thing into a race. He had wanted to see who could get their side of the shed painted first, and, after goading, teasing and taunting her, Anna had accepted. It had been a close competition, but in the end, Anna had pulled out a victory.
Tom had said that the sun was in his eyes, and that he would have won if he hadn't been distracted. Anna had called him a "big baby" and told him that the sun had been in her eyes too, so it was more than fair and he should "quit whining." Tom had then made a face at her and went to off to mend the fence. Anna realized that, despite being well into his thirties, Tom could be very childish sometimes.
But as he walked away, Anna thought that she could see him smiling.
She suspected that he had let her win, and that knowledge had made her victory seem very hollow.
She didn't tell him that though; she didn't want to hurt his feelings when he was only trying to be nice.
As she wiped the sweat from her brow, it occurred to her that this day was unusually hot, especially in the chicken coop. Most days on the farm had been warm, but this one was a real scorcher.
On days like this, when the heat was intense and the humidity unbearable, she would imagine that she was not a guest of the farm, eager to help, but a slave pressed into service against her will.
She pictured herself as a lonely orphan, dressed in filthy rags, her ankles bound with shackles so she couldn't run away; a helpless slave under the lash.
In her mind, her grandmother filled the role of the evil wicked Witch who had imprisoned her, and Tom was the noble prince trapped as the Witch's husband-to-be, having been seduced by her evil spell.
Of course, the chicken coop wasn't a chicken coop at all, but was, in fact, a very dangerous cave, where the wicked Witch kept her most monstrous creatures known as hen-beasts.
Hen-beasts produced great treasures for their masters, but they were never really inclined to give them up without a fight. Anyone trying to take a treasure from a hen-beast often lost an eye—if not their life. The wicked Witch desired them greatly, but instead of risking her own life, she had sent in her slave to get the treasures for her.
Many of the other slaves had sustained life-threatning injuries while performing this or some other task for the wicked Witch and she never seemed to care if they were maimed, scratched, dimembered, burned or otherwise injured, just so long as she got what she wanted. After all, the Witch could always acquire more slaves to replace the ones she lost, if she deemed it necessary.
Such thoughts made the day go by faster and made the heat seem less intense, the humidity less oppressive, and it surprised Anna to learn that her imagination was so vivid; she could practically hear the sound of her chains rattling as she walked.
Whenever Anna thought of herself as the helpless orphan-slave, she would sing a little song to lift her "enslaved spirit."
As she reached under the hen-beasts to get the priceless egg-treasures she had come to collect, she sang another verse of her freedom song:
Someday, I'm finally gonna let go,
I know there's a better way,
I wanna know what's over that rainbow,
I'm gonna get outta here some-day…
Some-day…
For some reason, every time she sang that song she found herself thinking about the strange boy from her dreams. She thought that maybe they had sung the song together, that maybe she had taught it to him, or that maybe he had taught it to her.
It occurred to Anna that he might have been a friend she had when she still lived with her parents, back when they were still alive. She had dreamed of him every night for weeks now, and, although she had memorized every detail of his freckled face, she still knew as little about him as she knew about herself; she didn't even know his name.
Her Grandmother hadn't remembered him when Anna spoke of him, either. Maybe he didn't exist at all. Maybe Anna never had any friends at all. Maybe she just dreamed him up because she was lonely. Maybe she should just get her head out of the clouds and do as she was told; the wicked Witch didn't allow much time for idle daydreaming.
As she stooped to collect the last egg from the last hen, her Grandmother's voice rang out across the farm. "Anna! Anna, dear, come inside and have some lunch!"
"Coming," was all Anna said as she took the last egg-treasure from the hen-beast and then trudged off to do the bidding of the evil wicked Witch, the sound of her chains rattling as she walked being the only noise she could hear over the moaning of the other slaves as they went about their dangerous, tedious and seemingly endless labor.
Lunch was delicious: a bowl of tomato soup, followed by a tuna fish sandwich with a side of potato chips and a few sweet pickles. Tuna fish didn't bother Anna like ham and bacon did because there weren't any fish on the farm.
As she drank down the last of her milk and stood up to leave, it occurred to her that her clothes were probably dry by now. Handing her empty plate and glass off to her grandmother, Anna walked out the back door and headed toward the clothes line.
Squeezing the material between her fingers, she realized that her blue jeans were mostly dry, but were still too damp to be worn. Her white T-shirt was almost completely dry, as was the blue sleeveless over-shirt with the Pegasus symbol on the front.
But her red hooded coat was completely damp.
Anna sighed. She supposed that she would have to wait until tomorrow to change back into her old clothes; boy, how she missed wearing them.
As she turned to leave, she noticed that Tom had followed her into the backyard. He was standing a good distance away, with his arms folded, watching her.
With a blush that made her face as red as the dress she was wearing, she realized that her pink cotton underpants were on the line, too, flapping in the breeze like a flag waving in the wind. It seemed to Anna like they were trying to get his attention, in a deliberate attempt to embarrass her; no doubt because of a spell cast on them by the evil wicked witch.
"That old crone does enjoy her petty torments," Anna thought ruefully. She casually stepped in front of the clothesline to block Tom's view, but she was sure that he had seen them.
As Tom approached, and her blushing intensified, she tried not to let him know what she was doing.
"Oh, um, hi, Tom," she said with a nervous smile. "What's going on?"
"That's what I was going to ask," Tom replied as he stopped in front of her. "What are you doing out here? The laundry's not ready to be folded, yet."
Anna realized that he hadn't noticed her movements, so she relaxed.
"Oh, I was just, um…" she trailed off, not knowing what to say.
"Wishing you could change back into your old clothes?"
Anna was shocked. How could he have known what she was thinking? Then she realized that she must have done a lousy job of hiding her sentiments.
"Yeah, kind of," she said, feeling foolish. Suddenly, she realized something.
"Tom, please don't tell Grandma," she begged. "I don't want her to think that I don't like the dress she gave me to wear."
"Don't' worry," Tom said. "I'll forget everything I saw today."
"Thanks, Tom," she said.
"No problem," Tom replied, before patting her shoulder and starting back toward the house.
"Oh, and, if you want," he said, as a whimsical smile played across his face, "I'll even forget that I saw your underpants hanging on the line."
Tom continued on his way back toward the house and while Anna was sure that he would keep his promise and not tell her grandmother about the clothes, she was also sure that he would never forget her painful blushing.
