Colonel Tavington's notebook seemed to beckon from within the pocket of Annabelle's housecoat. As the night wore on, she must have revisited its pages seven or eight times. During these visits, she would trace his drawings with her fingertips. Trying in vain each time to understand how the same hands that created in painstaking detail the tiny veins within each leaf or the delicate petals of each tiny flower- could be stained with so much innocent blood.
She longed to learn about his past, his family, and the ambitions he had apart from warfare. Above all, she longed to understand this duality- nay, polarity that seemed to reside in him. But how? The notebook bore little answers. So, Annabelle did a rather childlike thing:
She glanced down to the place where she first saw him. When she was certain that there was nobody around, she removed herself from the limb of the apple tree and walked to the place. Once there, she turned and assumed the exact stance, position, and perspective as he did. He was significantly taller than she, so she had to stand on her tip toes on the rocky terrain to gain the exact view that he must have had.
Pretending to watch herself sitting in the apple tree proved to be an awkward task. So, she quickly turned on her tiptoes to the place that she remembered his horse to be and from there, began to move about in an outrageously silly skip that was supposed to resemble the horse's canter. Tavington had left her with only an idea of the path that he had taken through the forest, so when she was five minutes or so into her "ride", Annabelle surrendered herself to complete improvisation.
Anyone else would have seen a silly nineteen-year-old girl in a housecoat parading up and down the forest's various deer trails; but in her mind, she truly was Colonel Tavington in that moment. She pulled her shoulders back, mimicking his pristine posture to a tee. She even mimicked his many facial expressions. Her fun didn't stop until a rock caught her pinky toe. But after letting out a brief, "Must have thrown a shoe! Carry on!" in the most over-the-top English accent that she could muster, Annabelle proceeded to "ride" into the night.
Of course, she got lost. She knew that she would going in and as a matter of fact, when the game grew old, she still wasn't the least bit deterred by this discovery. Annabelle didn't care if she ever returned to her town and the town itself, in all actuality, would scarcely notice that she was gone.
Her feet finally grew weary of the trek just before daybreak and, as if by fate, Annabelle managed to stumble upon the perfect place to rest up and watch the sunrise. Since the war began, a number of rural homes had been abandoned. Many of their owners lived alone and did not survive in combat. She didn't know this at the time, but the hermit who used to live there was a young man who ran away from home when he was very young. A crossing with a bear was ultimately the end of him, but his fate had gone unnoticed by the rest of the world.
The structure that Annabelle found could scarcely constitute for a house or even a cabin, for that matter. It was more of a large shed that had been fashioned into a home at one point. But, oh! The location made its quaintness worthwhile! It was situated between two jagged hilltops and alongside a sparkling stream. A small vegetable garden that hadn't been tended to for the better part of the year flanked the tiny house.
"I shall make it my own. If only for a little while. And return only when I decide to." Annabelle thought to herself as she stepped inside. There was a cot, a desk with the means to write with and a pile of abandoned clothes. None of the articles of clothing were intended for a young lady, but they were roughly her size and would provide her with warmth when the colder months approached.
As the golden light of morning crept through the door, her only means for a window, Annabelle sat down at the desk. After just one night in the forest, she felt again the familiar urge to write. She removed the notebook from her pocket and penned its very first poem alongside Tavington's drawing of the seven fireflies in their crystal palace:
A hummingbird perched all alone in a tree
Tired and weary of buzzing around.
When all of a sudden, she happened to see
A watchful red fox on the ground.
She spoke not a word, knowing foxes to be
Full of tricks and deception and lies.
So, she continued humming her soft melody
As he looked on with hungry green eyes.
"How lovely you hum," said the fox with a grin
"It's been quite some time since I've heard…
Oh! And long have I wished to hear once again
The sweet song of a hummingbird."
"You flatter me fox," said she between beats,
"But flattery won't get you far,
For I know that while many poisons smell sweet,
Once discovered for what they are…
Those poisoned shall regret with their final breath
And I've heard it said that regret
Is a greater tragedy, tenfold! Than death…
Annabelle looked up from her work, momentarily stumped. She recalled the freedom that she'd felt that night in the forest when she'd forgotten about everything for a while. Even those green eyes that had watched her on her perch.
"… but you haven't poisoned me yet!" She concluded with a feverish scribble to the page. Then, she looked over her poem, shrugged slightly and began to gather the clothes on the floor and a bar of soap to wash them in the stream with.
She was more productive in one day's time than she had ever been at home. True, she did not know when the owner would return or if he ever would- but the idea of being impulsive and in an environment where impulsiveness was acceptable was truly intoxicating.
After a week, Annabelle had groomed the vegetable garden to perfection. There was even a space beside the cot where the previous owner had stored ammunition. She intended on learning to shoot eventually but didn't want to cause a stir. Plus, she believed herself to be a lucky shot since bringing that poor, unsuspecting apple down with her musket in the schoolyard.
Eventually, she began to lose track of the days. She tended her garden and it repaid her graciously with a variety of squash, beans, and tomatoes. Even the stream itself offered Annabelle several species of fish that were just large enough to fry up in the garden-side fire pit.
When the days started to grow shorter and colder, Annabelle found the garden and stream to be less generous with their offerings. She blanketed the garden to the best of her ability and took to learning how to set traps and fire ammunition at larger game. One day, as she had feared she might be, fate pushed Annabelle to have her first encounter with another person in months:
She'd been on the hunt for the better part of the day, tracking a feral pig into the furthest reach of the forest. He knew that he was being watched and managed to throw Annabelle off of her usual hunting path, but he was the perfect size- just big enough to keep her fed for a week and just small enough for her lanky arms to carry back to her humble little home. She followed in complete silence for ten minutes or so and when the little brown pig began to show complacency, she crouched and fired, bringing down in one hit.
"You're an excellent marksman." A friendly voice chimed from the trail behind Annabelle.
When she turned, she saw a young, golden haired man standing with his arms crossed. She backed away slightly and went back to her business as though she'd never acknowledged his presence in the first place. To her annoyance, the young man followed her as she went to collect the pig.
"I'm sorry to intrude on you, sir," he continued, "but if I might have a moment of your time… you… you don't speak, do you?"
She threw her kill over her shoulder, contemplating what to say to the persistent stranger. She wasn't exactly offended. While bundled up in men's clothing, with her long braid tucked high in beneath her patchy tri-cornered hat and her face smudged with mud, she probably did look very much like a boy. Not to mention, gunning down feral pigs amid winter's first frost was not exactly a ladylike thing to do.
"That's alright," his kind brown eyes shifted from the pig over her shoulder to Annabelle's face, "you don't have to speak. My name is Gabriel Martin, I am recruiting for a militia, and I think that you would be the perfect addition to our cause."