All Or Nothing
There's nowhere left to fall when you reach the bottom; it's now or never. Is it all, or are we just friends? Is this how it ends, you leave me here with nothing at all? I've waited forever, and I'll wait until eternity, but I want you now, in this life. Don't you understand?
Not anything to do with O-Town, I swear, or even the song. But I was listening to it, and it seemed to be a nice summary, or at least the first half of a summary. "All Or Nothing'" was written for O-Town by Steve Mac and Wayne Hector, and is performed by Ashley Parker Angel, Erik-Michael Estrada, Daniel Miller, Jacob Underwood, and Trevor Penick. I don't own anything Newsies, save for the heart of everyone of them....*Grin* Newsies is owned by Disney.
Enjoy!
Glimmer Conlon O'Leary
Eight year-old Cole Conlon smiled at the small, petite girl just his age who frolicked by him. Little did he know that his broad, white-toothed smile would someday become a hard, smoldering smirk.
Katherine Redding flashed Cole a smile as she scurried past him like an antelope romping through the green grass. Her long, flowing blonde hair streamed behind her like a banner as she ran.
Katherine had the most beautiful hair anyone who had ever laid eyes upon the child had ever seen. Highlighted with lighter, white-blonde streaks, courtesy of hours in the country sun, the golden blonde mane was not thin and scraggly as was usual of country bumpkins, but thick and strong. It shone in the sunlight as if a million fireflies had decided to nest in her hair and come alive in the daylight.
The rest of her appearance did not fit in well with her hair. A plain-faced, pale little girl, her green eyes were so light they seemed to have no color, no hue, no shade. Her eyebrows were nearly transparent, and matched her nearly-clear eyelashes. Her face didn't have enough color, no blush, no flush. Only her nose carried a shocking splash of light, soft pink, as if someone had shoved only that part of her face into the snow and left it there to gather the blood of cold.
She was a simple-faced child alright, not much to look at, but her hair...
"Cole! Cole look!" Her small voice rang out, souding off with the self-sartisfied chirp of a baby bird calling for its sibling to watch it fly.
Cole looked out from under the maple tree where he lounged, inspecting the shaded ground beneath him. When the phrase met his ears a second time, he grumbled good-naturedly as he picked himself off the ground.
"What Katie?" He called as he neared the sound of her voice.
"Look Cole! Isn't it wondrous?" she asked, pointing. Cole looked.
He didn't see anything particulary wondrous, only the green, lush grass that grew everywhere.
"What's wondrous here?" He asked, frowning at the ground, his voice leaning into the word 'wondrous' as if he didn't believe it existed.
Katie sighed and threw herself toward the ground, latching onto Cole's hand, pulling him along with her.
Once they were both crouched on the hot grass, the sun beating down on them, Katie reached one of her small hands toward the ground and picked something up in them.
"Look Cole!" She exclaimed, thrusting her cupped hands toward him.
Cole stared. As he looked down on the object in Katie's hands, his light brown hair fell onto his forehead. Shaking it away impatiently, he looked into her eyes, slightly confused, and altogether not feeling 'wondrous'.
As he stared her in the face, his blue-green eyes sparkling, Katie smiled a slow grin.
"It's a caterpillar, Katherine," He said stiffly, as if informing her that the Earth was indeed round.
"I know Cole! Isn't it beautiful?" She beamed as she looked down on the small furry worm-like creature in her hands.
Copper colored and black striped, the caterpillar didn't seem all-too thrilled to be held in a little girl's hot sweaty hands.
"Not...Really..." Cole said, turning his head sideways, struggling to find the enthrallment that Katie seemed to be feeling.
But Katie didn't seem fazed. She released the now flailing caterpillar and walked back over to Cole's tree, pulling her companion with her.
"I had another dream last night Cole," she said smilingly.
At this, Cole's glittering eyes lit up. Katie had the best dreams, dreams of her and a face-less male friend doing the most entertaining things. Cole himself and Katie had developed many humorous games based on those innocent, carefree dreams that seemed to have full control over their lives.
"Did he have a face?" Cole asked her the question he always asked before she launched into her latest dream.
"Not yet," Katie began, "but one day, he will." She always said that.
"How old were you?" Another routine question popped out of his mouth.
"Eight Cole. We were both eight. Like you and me are now," She rolled her nearly achromatic green eyes at him.
"And th--"
"Cole!"
"Okay go."
"Okay. Well, we were in a cold place. I don't know where. But there was a stone grey castle behind us, and we were playing in the leaves that were falling from the maples. You should have seen my dress Cole! It was white like snow, and the skirt puffed!" Puffed rolled off her tongue and through her lips like velvet, as if nothing more beautiful could be fathomed.
"And it was so cold with the wind blowing, but he dug into the pile of leaves we had made, looking for something. I asked him what he was doing, but he didn't say anything. He just threw the leaves away and away, and they caught me in the face and fell on my dress. I looked back at the castle, and a beautiful woman came out, wearing the most prettiest maid's outfit I've ever seen in any of my dreams Cole! It was frilly, and...and...
"And she stood nearby, not saying anything. But the boy, he dug and dug and dug. And finally, after I'd been waiting for him for what seemed like forever, he straightened. The pile of leaves was gone, but the leaves that had been in it were everywhere! And he had dirt and mud and leaves all down his front too!
"But he turned toward me, and I tried to look into his eyes, but they weren't there. None of his face was. It was the same as it always is, it feels like this time, I'll know who he is, but when I look at him, his face just blurs until I can only see the colors. I know that his eyes are the same colors as yours, Cole, but....I can't look into them."
She paused here, just breathing. Cole didn't dare make a sound. When she told him her dreams, she told him alone, no one else, not even Beth and Jacob. But if he made so much as a peep, she would jerk out of her reverie and clam up.
"But in his hands was a caterpillar, copper and black. And fuzzy, oh-so fuzzy. He had dug to the ground and pulled out that delightful creature for me. Just for me."
Katie had a love of small creatures that most people turned their noses up to, or didn't give a second glance. Cole knew that a boy digging into a pile of cold, wet leaves for her would be the best thing that boy could ever possibly do.
"And the woman came out further into the garden, and she called to us to come in. 'Katherine!' She called to me, but as she called to him, his name was lost on the wind that picked up, howling. And so we went into the castle. Oh, how I wish I could just know his name, see his face. Even just his eyes."
At this, she looked away from the leaves of the maple and back at him, which Cole knew was his cue to take her hand and lead her home.
Home was a simple, tidy farmhouse in the middle of the lovely expanse they lived in. Beth came through the doorway as they approached, her top-heavy body tied into an apron.
"Children! Supper is ready!" She called, hands on her wide hips. She smiled as the children picked up their pace at the thought of her food.
"Jacob!" She called, louder still, to a man bent over a fence, mending it. He straightened, looking at her. "Supper!" she said one more time before turning back into the house.
As she gazed at the children, Cole, a handsome young boy with his tanned skin, dewy complexion, full lips, light brown hair and sparkling blue-green eyes; overshadowed small Katie. For as much as she may have been beautiful to the people who loved her, she looked like nothing more than a mouse with amazing hair next to Cole.
As Beth pulled out dishes and utensils, she remembered the nights when she had found the children.
Katherine had been discovered as a baby, left on the doorstep of the old, caring couple one warm summer night. A note bearing the name "Katherine Redding" had been tucked into the blanket in which she had been so carefully wrapped, along with the words, mispelled and sloppily written, as though the writer has just learned to write, "Tayk kare of her. Plees."
Cole had been found by Katherine when she was around 3. The little girl had been running clumsily around the farm, under the watchful eyes of Beth, when she had run into the barn.
"Beth! Beth! Look!" The small toddler's voice had carried to the doorway of the barn, where Beth had followed Katie.
"What is it, dear?" The old woman had asked, coming closer. Katie had jumped up and down, pointing to the bale of hay.
Curiosity overtaking her senses, Beth had crept forward. There, lying in the bale of hay, was a boy.
The boy seemed to be about Katie's age, and Beth couldn't tell if he was dead or just sleeping. Her heart pounding in her ears, Beth had stepped hesitantly toward the little boy. As his little chest rose and fell with his breaths, Beth let out her own held breath.
She still remembered how, after waking him up, she had looked into the tiny boy's remarkably beautiful eyes and asked him if he knew his name. He drew himself up out of the hay and said proudly, "Cole Conlon."
And so from then on, the two children had been inseperable. They played with one another, giggled, laughed, and yes, occasionally fought.
There was just something about the way they looked at one another. Cole seemed to be too handsome, too attractive for Katie, yet he protected her with everything he had in him.
When they went to town on Market Day, all the little boys would run off and play, and Cole would run with them. But if anyone, anywhere, ever threatened his precious Katie, he would come scampering back as if Katie had somehow told him--nevermind how far apart they may have been--that she needed him.
Beth heard them talking late into the night, upstairs in the attic in the full bed they shared. Odd, she thought, how Katie would talk and talk and talk to Cole, but whenever anyone else was around, even herself or Jacob, she would shut her mouth and barely say a word.
At ten, Katie and Cole's relationship was flourishing more than previosuly believed. They still talked, still played, and still slept in the same bed. Katherine was an innocent child, and Cole, however learned he was from hanging around the older boys in town, would never take advantage of his sweet Katie.
At thirteen, Cole was more handsome than Beth could have ever imagined he could have become. His hair shagged into his eyes, his skin, still tan, carried no imperfections, and his dark blue-green eyes glimmered with an intensity that seemed to grow each time Beth looked at him. He was a beautiful young man.
Katie's hair, even longer now, swirled about her arms as she worked that day in town. It was market day again. Katie was there with Cole and Jacob only, as Beth had stayed home that day with promises of an amazing supper that night.
Katie looked about the town, at the girls she knew to be her own age. They were filling out, their hips getting wider as their waists shrunk. Their chests expanded, filling out their dresses in a way that made even Cole, HER Cole, stare.
But Katie had nothing. Her hips were not distinguishable from her waist, her thighs had no dimension, and her chest was as flat as a board. That along with her pale, almost creepy green eyes, and her even paler face, she was nothing to look at, and those simple facts didn't make Katie a popular choice for young men.
Not that she wanted them anyway. All she wanted was Cole to take care of her for the rest of her life.
'But Katherine, one day he'll go off and get married, leaving you alone and lonely.' She reminded herself somewhat bitterly. But as she looked at him, at the young women her age who flocked around him, taller than him, her heart filled with distaste.
"He is MINE," She muttered under her breath, and as she did, her green eyes deepened slightly before returning to their normal color, if you could call it a color exactly.
At thirteen, their lives changed forever. It all started when Jacob got hurt.
One day he was rethatching the roof, when the heavens opened up and the rain fell. Not a light, summer rain, but an April thunderstorm, complete with winds and rain like bullets. The rain drenched the world in mere seconds, and as Jacob moved to climb onto his rickety wooded ladder, he slipped on the many leaves on the rooftop. Eyes wide, arms flailing, he slid off the tall farmhouse and landed with a sickening crunch on the ground below.
Lying on his back, unable to move, Jacob saw, in blurs, the hair of an angel. Long, blonde hair encirlcled him. He looked up, his vision clearing, and saw the mousy face of Katie.
"Tell Beth I love her," He managed to murmur.
Katie, regardless of how scared she was, found it hard to believe that someone could die of that fall. Suddenly it hit her how old Jacob was. At least in his seventies, he was near ancient, most people didn't even live as long as this.
Looking down upon his form, it also smacked her in the face how frail he was. How...skinny.
Beth came flying out of the house like a bat out of hell, Cole hot on her heels,and rushed over to where Jacob lay. In an unusual unaffectionate manner, she pushed Katie out of the way and kneeled next to her husband.
"Jacob? Jacob?" She questioned frantically, her eyes tearing, or mayhap it was merely the pounding rain.
"I love you," He said, before the pain overtook his heart and it stopped. Dead. If only a doctor had been present, maybe the old man would have lived. But probably not. A heart attack struck him as he lay, which was really the cause of his death. Old age, injury, and a heart attack killed off one of the sweetest, most hardworking men ever to grace the planet.
And that was only the beginning of the troubles that plagued the two teens.
After Jacob's funeral service, Beth stopped eating, stopped cooking, stopped -living-. Katie was never a master chef, but Cole couldn't cook anything edible. Things unedible he could cook just fine, such as shoes.
Once, when the children were eleven, Cole, angered at Katie's constant badgering for him to finish his chores so she could tell him her latest dream; dodged inside the house, grabbed Katie's only spare pair of shoes, and threw them into the fire that blazed on the hearth.
Katie's mouth dropped open as she came inside to see Cole standing, arms folded, a young, fresh, not-yet-polished smirk on his face.
But to his surprise, she didn't yell, did not hit, didn't even scowl. She stared at him, her mouth open.
"Katie?" He asked, mysitfied, and slightly dissapointed, at her reaction.
"That's what...He did. In my dream," she sputtered, pointing to the shoes now melting in the fire, stinking up the kitchen.
"He? The...Faceless kid?" Not understaning, Cole merely followed as Katie walked out of the house, and back to that same maple.
"We were eleven, Cole, so don't ask," she began, as soon as they were settled in the shade.
Cole shrugged, smirking his new-found expression. "Wasn't gonna," he saids simply, though he would have had she not began before him.
"We were in the castle. He was helping his mother in the kitchen as she was cooking for my family's big party. I had taken my shoes off as I sat down on the stool to watch. I thought I could help, but I think I did more damage distracting him than I did to help. But I liked to listen to the servants tell their stories, especially his mother.
"But that day, there was too much work to be done for stories. So I made up my own. Dreadful things, they were, no point, or rhyme or reason to them." Katie laughed at the memory of a dream, which always seemed like more than a dream; they seemed to be a part of her, but she couldn't place why.
"He kept telling me to shut my mouth. When I didn't he picked up one of my shoes from the floor and told me if I didn't shut up on the spot he'd throw it in the fire.
"I laughed at him, and he threw it behind him, where it headed straight for the flames. As it arched through the air, he turned, and as it landed with a hiss, he turned back to me. I stared in shock, I hadn't thought he would actually make it into the fire.
"Then he laughed. He laughed so hard he doubled up onto the floor. At his display of humor, I began to giggle, then finally I laughed too. All the servants lost their worried looks of 'what will the little mistress do?' and joined in on our little jest."
Here she finished. Cole stared.
"When didja have the dream Katie?" He asked.
"When I finished my chores, I fell asleep out here, under the tree, only for a little while. Then I wanted to tell you my dream, but you weren't done, so I started to pester you, then you...Did what he did."
Cole shook his head. 'Coincidence'.' he thought, getting up, pulling Katie with him.
But now, at thirteen, this was no dream. Jacob was gone. Beth was grieving, and poor Katie was stuck in the kitchen cooking blindly.
"Cole?" She called from the kitchen.
Cole walked slowly into the room to find her sitting on the table. Her eyes were dowcast, her hair cascading over her arms and spilling onto her lap.
"Yeah?" He asked, moving in front of her.
"Beth won't take food, and she won't last much longer if she doesn't eat. It's been two weeks, Cole, and I doubt she taken more than a nibble since the funeral."
"So whaddya wanna do Katie, you think we can just up and leave Beth now?" Cole asked, his eyes flashing.
"No!" She exclaimed loudly, ripping her eys off the floor and staring him in the face, her pale eyes chilling him. "No," she said, softly this time, "But...Cole...As much as you have honor and pride and all that, you're still not strong enough to keep up this farm. Without the crops and all that, we don't have any money, Cole."
Katie could see his jaw tighten and his eyes flashed once again as he glared at her.
"And I can't cook food well enough to keep us alive. We need..." She trailed off, looking in the direction of Beth's room, where the old woman lay, wasting away. "Either Beth needs to get up on her feet, or we need to get out of here. Because we can't live like this."
Her words dripped in passionate emotion, Katie continued to tell Cole exactly what would happen if they stayed and Beth did not get well.
"And how d'ya know Katherine, huh? How d'ya know? How d'ya know we won't be able ta do this by oursleves, huh?" Cole asked, wondering why Katie sounded much more educated than he when she spoke.
"How, Cole? How?!" Her voice got increasingly louder and more and more livid as she continued. "I know because I can see whats right in front of me! I can see that one, you're not strong enough, or old enough, or experienced enough to run this farm on your own, and two, that I can't cook worth a lick. And three Cole, I can see that Beth WON'T get better, that she WON'T take care of us anymore than she'll take care of herself!
"So here's what I'll do Cole. I'll make this fair for you Conlon," Cole cringed inwardly as she called him that. No good came from times when she called him Conlon, "I'll make this fair and I'll tell Beth that we need her help to live. And if she doesn't get out of bed in three days, three Cole, three...Then I'm gone, and you can either come or stay."
Cole watched her carefully. She sat, still perched on the table, her legs swinging hard and dangerously close to some of his more important areas.
"Women can't survive without men," he said impishly, telling her that only if he went with her would she be able to survive. "And where would you go anyway?"
"First of all, to the city, there's oppertunity there, and second of all, that's fine because I'm only a girl, and you Conlon, are only a little, selfish boy afraid of change."
And with that, she swung herself off the table, narrowly missing him; and strode down the short hallway and into Beth's room.
And so, three days later, the two thirteen year-old children left. They hugged Beth good-bye, Katie begging her to get out of bed and eat something, cook something, just so they could stay. But Beth refused, saying that she had led a good life, a long life, and that the two people in front of her were proof of her success.
"All I want now is to be with my husband," she said, closing her eyes against the light streaming in and the two bodies in front of her. "You'll do well, I know it, and I wouldn' let you go if I didn't feel it in my heart of hearts."
That was something Beth said often, that she felt something in her 'heart of hearts'. Neither of the two really grasped the intensity of that phrase, not yet anyway.
So they took the only horse they had, saddled up, and began the two day trek to the city of dreams, with streets paved in gold.
There's nowhere left to fall when you reach the bottom; it's now or never. Is it all, or are we just friends? Is this how it ends, you leave me here with nothing at all? I've waited forever, and I'll wait until eternity, but I want you now, in this life. Don't you understand?
Not anything to do with O-Town, I swear, or even the song. But I was listening to it, and it seemed to be a nice summary, or at least the first half of a summary. "All Or Nothing'" was written for O-Town by Steve Mac and Wayne Hector, and is performed by Ashley Parker Angel, Erik-Michael Estrada, Daniel Miller, Jacob Underwood, and Trevor Penick. I don't own anything Newsies, save for the heart of everyone of them....*Grin* Newsies is owned by Disney.
Enjoy!
Glimmer Conlon O'Leary
Eight year-old Cole Conlon smiled at the small, petite girl just his age who frolicked by him. Little did he know that his broad, white-toothed smile would someday become a hard, smoldering smirk.
Katherine Redding flashed Cole a smile as she scurried past him like an antelope romping through the green grass. Her long, flowing blonde hair streamed behind her like a banner as she ran.
Katherine had the most beautiful hair anyone who had ever laid eyes upon the child had ever seen. Highlighted with lighter, white-blonde streaks, courtesy of hours in the country sun, the golden blonde mane was not thin and scraggly as was usual of country bumpkins, but thick and strong. It shone in the sunlight as if a million fireflies had decided to nest in her hair and come alive in the daylight.
The rest of her appearance did not fit in well with her hair. A plain-faced, pale little girl, her green eyes were so light they seemed to have no color, no hue, no shade. Her eyebrows were nearly transparent, and matched her nearly-clear eyelashes. Her face didn't have enough color, no blush, no flush. Only her nose carried a shocking splash of light, soft pink, as if someone had shoved only that part of her face into the snow and left it there to gather the blood of cold.
She was a simple-faced child alright, not much to look at, but her hair...
"Cole! Cole look!" Her small voice rang out, souding off with the self-sartisfied chirp of a baby bird calling for its sibling to watch it fly.
Cole looked out from under the maple tree where he lounged, inspecting the shaded ground beneath him. When the phrase met his ears a second time, he grumbled good-naturedly as he picked himself off the ground.
"What Katie?" He called as he neared the sound of her voice.
"Look Cole! Isn't it wondrous?" she asked, pointing. Cole looked.
He didn't see anything particulary wondrous, only the green, lush grass that grew everywhere.
"What's wondrous here?" He asked, frowning at the ground, his voice leaning into the word 'wondrous' as if he didn't believe it existed.
Katie sighed and threw herself toward the ground, latching onto Cole's hand, pulling him along with her.
Once they were both crouched on the hot grass, the sun beating down on them, Katie reached one of her small hands toward the ground and picked something up in them.
"Look Cole!" She exclaimed, thrusting her cupped hands toward him.
Cole stared. As he looked down on the object in Katie's hands, his light brown hair fell onto his forehead. Shaking it away impatiently, he looked into her eyes, slightly confused, and altogether not feeling 'wondrous'.
As he stared her in the face, his blue-green eyes sparkling, Katie smiled a slow grin.
"It's a caterpillar, Katherine," He said stiffly, as if informing her that the Earth was indeed round.
"I know Cole! Isn't it beautiful?" She beamed as she looked down on the small furry worm-like creature in her hands.
Copper colored and black striped, the caterpillar didn't seem all-too thrilled to be held in a little girl's hot sweaty hands.
"Not...Really..." Cole said, turning his head sideways, struggling to find the enthrallment that Katie seemed to be feeling.
But Katie didn't seem fazed. She released the now flailing caterpillar and walked back over to Cole's tree, pulling her companion with her.
"I had another dream last night Cole," she said smilingly.
At this, Cole's glittering eyes lit up. Katie had the best dreams, dreams of her and a face-less male friend doing the most entertaining things. Cole himself and Katie had developed many humorous games based on those innocent, carefree dreams that seemed to have full control over their lives.
"Did he have a face?" Cole asked her the question he always asked before she launched into her latest dream.
"Not yet," Katie began, "but one day, he will." She always said that.
"How old were you?" Another routine question popped out of his mouth.
"Eight Cole. We were both eight. Like you and me are now," She rolled her nearly achromatic green eyes at him.
"And th--"
"Cole!"
"Okay go."
"Okay. Well, we were in a cold place. I don't know where. But there was a stone grey castle behind us, and we were playing in the leaves that were falling from the maples. You should have seen my dress Cole! It was white like snow, and the skirt puffed!" Puffed rolled off her tongue and through her lips like velvet, as if nothing more beautiful could be fathomed.
"And it was so cold with the wind blowing, but he dug into the pile of leaves we had made, looking for something. I asked him what he was doing, but he didn't say anything. He just threw the leaves away and away, and they caught me in the face and fell on my dress. I looked back at the castle, and a beautiful woman came out, wearing the most prettiest maid's outfit I've ever seen in any of my dreams Cole! It was frilly, and...and...
"And she stood nearby, not saying anything. But the boy, he dug and dug and dug. And finally, after I'd been waiting for him for what seemed like forever, he straightened. The pile of leaves was gone, but the leaves that had been in it were everywhere! And he had dirt and mud and leaves all down his front too!
"But he turned toward me, and I tried to look into his eyes, but they weren't there. None of his face was. It was the same as it always is, it feels like this time, I'll know who he is, but when I look at him, his face just blurs until I can only see the colors. I know that his eyes are the same colors as yours, Cole, but....I can't look into them."
She paused here, just breathing. Cole didn't dare make a sound. When she told him her dreams, she told him alone, no one else, not even Beth and Jacob. But if he made so much as a peep, she would jerk out of her reverie and clam up.
"But in his hands was a caterpillar, copper and black. And fuzzy, oh-so fuzzy. He had dug to the ground and pulled out that delightful creature for me. Just for me."
Katie had a love of small creatures that most people turned their noses up to, or didn't give a second glance. Cole knew that a boy digging into a pile of cold, wet leaves for her would be the best thing that boy could ever possibly do.
"And the woman came out further into the garden, and she called to us to come in. 'Katherine!' She called to me, but as she called to him, his name was lost on the wind that picked up, howling. And so we went into the castle. Oh, how I wish I could just know his name, see his face. Even just his eyes."
At this, she looked away from the leaves of the maple and back at him, which Cole knew was his cue to take her hand and lead her home.
Home was a simple, tidy farmhouse in the middle of the lovely expanse they lived in. Beth came through the doorway as they approached, her top-heavy body tied into an apron.
"Children! Supper is ready!" She called, hands on her wide hips. She smiled as the children picked up their pace at the thought of her food.
"Jacob!" She called, louder still, to a man bent over a fence, mending it. He straightened, looking at her. "Supper!" she said one more time before turning back into the house.
As she gazed at the children, Cole, a handsome young boy with his tanned skin, dewy complexion, full lips, light brown hair and sparkling blue-green eyes; overshadowed small Katie. For as much as she may have been beautiful to the people who loved her, she looked like nothing more than a mouse with amazing hair next to Cole.
As Beth pulled out dishes and utensils, she remembered the nights when she had found the children.
Katherine had been discovered as a baby, left on the doorstep of the old, caring couple one warm summer night. A note bearing the name "Katherine Redding" had been tucked into the blanket in which she had been so carefully wrapped, along with the words, mispelled and sloppily written, as though the writer has just learned to write, "Tayk kare of her. Plees."
Cole had been found by Katherine when she was around 3. The little girl had been running clumsily around the farm, under the watchful eyes of Beth, when she had run into the barn.
"Beth! Beth! Look!" The small toddler's voice had carried to the doorway of the barn, where Beth had followed Katie.
"What is it, dear?" The old woman had asked, coming closer. Katie had jumped up and down, pointing to the bale of hay.
Curiosity overtaking her senses, Beth had crept forward. There, lying in the bale of hay, was a boy.
The boy seemed to be about Katie's age, and Beth couldn't tell if he was dead or just sleeping. Her heart pounding in her ears, Beth had stepped hesitantly toward the little boy. As his little chest rose and fell with his breaths, Beth let out her own held breath.
She still remembered how, after waking him up, she had looked into the tiny boy's remarkably beautiful eyes and asked him if he knew his name. He drew himself up out of the hay and said proudly, "Cole Conlon."
And so from then on, the two children had been inseperable. They played with one another, giggled, laughed, and yes, occasionally fought.
There was just something about the way they looked at one another. Cole seemed to be too handsome, too attractive for Katie, yet he protected her with everything he had in him.
When they went to town on Market Day, all the little boys would run off and play, and Cole would run with them. But if anyone, anywhere, ever threatened his precious Katie, he would come scampering back as if Katie had somehow told him--nevermind how far apart they may have been--that she needed him.
Beth heard them talking late into the night, upstairs in the attic in the full bed they shared. Odd, she thought, how Katie would talk and talk and talk to Cole, but whenever anyone else was around, even herself or Jacob, she would shut her mouth and barely say a word.
At ten, Katie and Cole's relationship was flourishing more than previosuly believed. They still talked, still played, and still slept in the same bed. Katherine was an innocent child, and Cole, however learned he was from hanging around the older boys in town, would never take advantage of his sweet Katie.
At thirteen, Cole was more handsome than Beth could have ever imagined he could have become. His hair shagged into his eyes, his skin, still tan, carried no imperfections, and his dark blue-green eyes glimmered with an intensity that seemed to grow each time Beth looked at him. He was a beautiful young man.
Katie's hair, even longer now, swirled about her arms as she worked that day in town. It was market day again. Katie was there with Cole and Jacob only, as Beth had stayed home that day with promises of an amazing supper that night.
Katie looked about the town, at the girls she knew to be her own age. They were filling out, their hips getting wider as their waists shrunk. Their chests expanded, filling out their dresses in a way that made even Cole, HER Cole, stare.
But Katie had nothing. Her hips were not distinguishable from her waist, her thighs had no dimension, and her chest was as flat as a board. That along with her pale, almost creepy green eyes, and her even paler face, she was nothing to look at, and those simple facts didn't make Katie a popular choice for young men.
Not that she wanted them anyway. All she wanted was Cole to take care of her for the rest of her life.
'But Katherine, one day he'll go off and get married, leaving you alone and lonely.' She reminded herself somewhat bitterly. But as she looked at him, at the young women her age who flocked around him, taller than him, her heart filled with distaste.
"He is MINE," She muttered under her breath, and as she did, her green eyes deepened slightly before returning to their normal color, if you could call it a color exactly.
At thirteen, their lives changed forever. It all started when Jacob got hurt.
One day he was rethatching the roof, when the heavens opened up and the rain fell. Not a light, summer rain, but an April thunderstorm, complete with winds and rain like bullets. The rain drenched the world in mere seconds, and as Jacob moved to climb onto his rickety wooded ladder, he slipped on the many leaves on the rooftop. Eyes wide, arms flailing, he slid off the tall farmhouse and landed with a sickening crunch on the ground below.
Lying on his back, unable to move, Jacob saw, in blurs, the hair of an angel. Long, blonde hair encirlcled him. He looked up, his vision clearing, and saw the mousy face of Katie.
"Tell Beth I love her," He managed to murmur.
Katie, regardless of how scared she was, found it hard to believe that someone could die of that fall. Suddenly it hit her how old Jacob was. At least in his seventies, he was near ancient, most people didn't even live as long as this.
Looking down upon his form, it also smacked her in the face how frail he was. How...skinny.
Beth came flying out of the house like a bat out of hell, Cole hot on her heels,and rushed over to where Jacob lay. In an unusual unaffectionate manner, she pushed Katie out of the way and kneeled next to her husband.
"Jacob? Jacob?" She questioned frantically, her eyes tearing, or mayhap it was merely the pounding rain.
"I love you," He said, before the pain overtook his heart and it stopped. Dead. If only a doctor had been present, maybe the old man would have lived. But probably not. A heart attack struck him as he lay, which was really the cause of his death. Old age, injury, and a heart attack killed off one of the sweetest, most hardworking men ever to grace the planet.
And that was only the beginning of the troubles that plagued the two teens.
After Jacob's funeral service, Beth stopped eating, stopped cooking, stopped -living-. Katie was never a master chef, but Cole couldn't cook anything edible. Things unedible he could cook just fine, such as shoes.
Once, when the children were eleven, Cole, angered at Katie's constant badgering for him to finish his chores so she could tell him her latest dream; dodged inside the house, grabbed Katie's only spare pair of shoes, and threw them into the fire that blazed on the hearth.
Katie's mouth dropped open as she came inside to see Cole standing, arms folded, a young, fresh, not-yet-polished smirk on his face.
But to his surprise, she didn't yell, did not hit, didn't even scowl. She stared at him, her mouth open.
"Katie?" He asked, mysitfied, and slightly dissapointed, at her reaction.
"That's what...He did. In my dream," she sputtered, pointing to the shoes now melting in the fire, stinking up the kitchen.
"He? The...Faceless kid?" Not understaning, Cole merely followed as Katie walked out of the house, and back to that same maple.
"We were eleven, Cole, so don't ask," she began, as soon as they were settled in the shade.
Cole shrugged, smirking his new-found expression. "Wasn't gonna," he saids simply, though he would have had she not began before him.
"We were in the castle. He was helping his mother in the kitchen as she was cooking for my family's big party. I had taken my shoes off as I sat down on the stool to watch. I thought I could help, but I think I did more damage distracting him than I did to help. But I liked to listen to the servants tell their stories, especially his mother.
"But that day, there was too much work to be done for stories. So I made up my own. Dreadful things, they were, no point, or rhyme or reason to them." Katie laughed at the memory of a dream, which always seemed like more than a dream; they seemed to be a part of her, but she couldn't place why.
"He kept telling me to shut my mouth. When I didn't he picked up one of my shoes from the floor and told me if I didn't shut up on the spot he'd throw it in the fire.
"I laughed at him, and he threw it behind him, where it headed straight for the flames. As it arched through the air, he turned, and as it landed with a hiss, he turned back to me. I stared in shock, I hadn't thought he would actually make it into the fire.
"Then he laughed. He laughed so hard he doubled up onto the floor. At his display of humor, I began to giggle, then finally I laughed too. All the servants lost their worried looks of 'what will the little mistress do?' and joined in on our little jest."
Here she finished. Cole stared.
"When didja have the dream Katie?" He asked.
"When I finished my chores, I fell asleep out here, under the tree, only for a little while. Then I wanted to tell you my dream, but you weren't done, so I started to pester you, then you...Did what he did."
Cole shook his head. 'Coincidence'.' he thought, getting up, pulling Katie with him.
But now, at thirteen, this was no dream. Jacob was gone. Beth was grieving, and poor Katie was stuck in the kitchen cooking blindly.
"Cole?" She called from the kitchen.
Cole walked slowly into the room to find her sitting on the table. Her eyes were dowcast, her hair cascading over her arms and spilling onto her lap.
"Yeah?" He asked, moving in front of her.
"Beth won't take food, and she won't last much longer if she doesn't eat. It's been two weeks, Cole, and I doubt she taken more than a nibble since the funeral."
"So whaddya wanna do Katie, you think we can just up and leave Beth now?" Cole asked, his eyes flashing.
"No!" She exclaimed loudly, ripping her eys off the floor and staring him in the face, her pale eyes chilling him. "No," she said, softly this time, "But...Cole...As much as you have honor and pride and all that, you're still not strong enough to keep up this farm. Without the crops and all that, we don't have any money, Cole."
Katie could see his jaw tighten and his eyes flashed once again as he glared at her.
"And I can't cook food well enough to keep us alive. We need..." She trailed off, looking in the direction of Beth's room, where the old woman lay, wasting away. "Either Beth needs to get up on her feet, or we need to get out of here. Because we can't live like this."
Her words dripped in passionate emotion, Katie continued to tell Cole exactly what would happen if they stayed and Beth did not get well.
"And how d'ya know Katherine, huh? How d'ya know? How d'ya know we won't be able ta do this by oursleves, huh?" Cole asked, wondering why Katie sounded much more educated than he when she spoke.
"How, Cole? How?!" Her voice got increasingly louder and more and more livid as she continued. "I know because I can see whats right in front of me! I can see that one, you're not strong enough, or old enough, or experienced enough to run this farm on your own, and two, that I can't cook worth a lick. And three Cole, I can see that Beth WON'T get better, that she WON'T take care of us anymore than she'll take care of herself!
"So here's what I'll do Cole. I'll make this fair for you Conlon," Cole cringed inwardly as she called him that. No good came from times when she called him Conlon, "I'll make this fair and I'll tell Beth that we need her help to live. And if she doesn't get out of bed in three days, three Cole, three...Then I'm gone, and you can either come or stay."
Cole watched her carefully. She sat, still perched on the table, her legs swinging hard and dangerously close to some of his more important areas.
"Women can't survive without men," he said impishly, telling her that only if he went with her would she be able to survive. "And where would you go anyway?"
"First of all, to the city, there's oppertunity there, and second of all, that's fine because I'm only a girl, and you Conlon, are only a little, selfish boy afraid of change."
And with that, she swung herself off the table, narrowly missing him; and strode down the short hallway and into Beth's room.
And so, three days later, the two thirteen year-old children left. They hugged Beth good-bye, Katie begging her to get out of bed and eat something, cook something, just so they could stay. But Beth refused, saying that she had led a good life, a long life, and that the two people in front of her were proof of her success.
"All I want now is to be with my husband," she said, closing her eyes against the light streaming in and the two bodies in front of her. "You'll do well, I know it, and I wouldn' let you go if I didn't feel it in my heart of hearts."
That was something Beth said often, that she felt something in her 'heart of hearts'. Neither of the two really grasped the intensity of that phrase, not yet anyway.
So they took the only horse they had, saddled up, and began the two day trek to the city of dreams, with streets paved in gold.