I do not own The Last of the Mohicans.
I have loved it for nearly thirty years.
A Breed Apart
Worlds Apart
In Portland Square, she would have been awoken by a serving girl around eight.
Spent some time in sleepy reflection.
And then dressed, at least partially, for breakfast.
Attended by Cora, perhaps. Aunt Eugenia.
Light discussion, plans.
Thereafter dressed further for the day.
Of reading. Writing. Stitching.
Light conversation.
Lighter food.
Strolls through the garden.
Giggles with the girls.
Afternoon repose.
Followed another change of clothes for the evening.
More light sustenance.
Approved musical entertainment with friends perhaps.
Quiet reading.
Murmured conversations.
And then bedtime preparations.
Unbustling.
Washing.
Prayers.
And bedtime.
Not an unpleasant life.
In fact, she had rather enjoyed it.
And then . . .
"-Boston! I'm going to see the red-skinned savages of the Americas!"
. . . she had left home.
"Oh Alice, what an adventure!"
And never returned to that which she had known.
Here, on the American frontier, she rises everyday with the sun.
Regretfully but resolutely leaving the warmth and relative comfort of the bed she shares with cold-feeted Mary.
She and Rebecca, now greatening with winter child, rising together.
Donning additional layers against the freezing world beyond their beds.
Pinning hair, washing faces in the cold water of the basin.
Rebecca, turning to the hearth and tending of the food kettle therein.
Alice, awakening Mary, the younger girl attempting to burrow further under her covers.
Tom, groggily rising, shuffling for the coffee cup set on the table.
And the boys of course . . .
"Daniel, hey-"
"-sh'up-"
"Daniel . . . Daniel . . . Daniel . . . DanielDanielDaniel-"
"Ow, offa me-"
. . . rousing from their sleeping mats in the loft.
And the day otherwise beginning.
Alice is grateful for the knitted fingerless gloves in chill outdoor mornings.
The long hooded cloak wrapped round her shivering form.
She is not grateful for the chores that must be done.
But grateful that their completion serves purpose to keep them alive.
Water from the well, broken from the river if they must.
Animals tended, fed, made warm enough to live.
They all share in these chores, these winter upkeeps.
As the fields lie still and fallow.
Inside, sustenance must be provided to keep them alive.
Alice learns from Rebecca.
How to cook, how to stretch each portion to make the winter last.
The children practice their letters-
"Ah. This is boring. I want to stop!"
"Just a little more, John. For me? 'T' is for 'Troll living under the bridge'-"
"What are you saying, Alice?"
"My apologies, Rebecca. My father liked to have a little fun on long winter snows."
-dutifully by the light of smoky candles.
And Alice . . .
"I have always heard 'T' is for the 'Tick of the clock in the hall'. But to each his own."
. . . finds her whimsy and busy in the long winter.
She had plaited her hair.
There in the damp, hidden cave beneath the waterfall.
Sitting alone on a rock.
Her sister in the comforting embrace of the one Duncan so disliked.
Duncan, sitting with his wounded soldier, stoically turned away from his unrequited affection.
The father, the old one, so still, almost in a trance of rest.
The one who had held her left behind in the tunnel to watch and wait.
And she, Alice, to herself.
Still afraid. Still lost.
And yet . . .
He is strong.
He is quiet.
He held me.
The reassurance that had emanated from him, enveloping her with peace. Soothing down the white silent screaming in her mind.
That strong, quiet man.
Not red-skinned at all.
Just . . . darker than she.
With his strange clothes and gold bracelets and silver earrings.
And his dark hair with its long braid.
Her hands, thin and trembling still with the trauma and shock of all she had witnessed, migrating restlessly to her hair.
Wet, tangled. Unkempt.
Her fingers, unsteady and unsure, finding themselves a length to manage.
Working the strands, stringy and no longer clean and prim under her cap.
Her cap gone somewhere, snagged on a branch perhaps.
Her fingers had moved themselves.
Of their own accord.
To plait.
Over. Over. Over again.
Ceasing their tremble, little by little, moving with more nimble ease.
Waterfall droning, the lingering feel of his arms wrapped around her still.
And . . .
He is strong and calm.
I will be strong and calm too.
. . . she had been, for the moment, . . .
Though I do not know how.
. . . at determined peace.
"Do you think they'll come back? In the spring? Do you think Uncas will come back?"
Alice pauses in her twisting of Mary's hair.
The child has requested it; Rebecca, tired and weary of her beloved girl-child's incessant pleading, allowed it.
And so Alice is plaiting.
Until . . .
"Father says they will come back. Says they have good reason."
. . . the child gazing into the fire begins speaking.
"He smiled when he said that. Mother too."
And now Alice has stopped her work.
"But they wouldn't tell me why."
And must remind herself to resume.
"Do you know why, Alice?"
And Alice bites back a smile herself.
"No."
Sometimes she stands, facing the direction in which she had last seen his form moving away from her.
And she wonders.
"Alice? Are you coming in? Father says it's about to blow."
"Yes. Yes, I'm coming."
The red-haired man-boy that shadowed her so during the wedding celebration walks from several hills over.
To visit with her, sit with her.
His name is Joshua.
He is two years older.
He is . . . nice.
Engages her in well-meaningly tediously awkward conversation.
She does not know why.
He sits on the porch.
"There is a young man here for Alice."
And talks with her.
"What do I do?"
All her young girlish life, she has dreamed of a handsome young man come to call on her.
"Talk with him, child."
Just her.
"I do not wish to talk with him."
And now that she has it . . .
"Well, he walked all this way."
. . . she does not want it.
"And in the cold too."
But she is . . .
"Father says he is going to help me build my own cabin soon. For when I am ready to take a wife."
. . . polite.
"Hmmm."
Mary on the other hand . . .
"Alice, his hair! It is the color of fire!"
. . . seems quite taken.
"Do you think if I touch it, will burn me?"
Thanks to TithaJaime, BrynnaRaven, BlueSaffire, ConBird, DinahRay for the gracious reviews before!