Solomon Casey was a quiet man. Like Annabelle, he found solace in poetry and prose and was rarely seen without some sort of reading material in the crook of his arm. Once lost in a maze of words, it was almost impossible to pull him back into reality; but there was a strange and primitive force generated by the gaze of his only living daughter that compelled him to look up. He adjusted his glasses and squinted, unsure of what he had seen. Even if Annabelle wanted to leave, and part of her did, she couldn't possibly now that the connection was made.
"My child?" His voice was unsteady, quivering, even.
She dismounted, leaving Rascal to munch on the tender grasses that grew at the edge of the water.
"It can't be you." As he drew nearer, Annabelle could see an undeniable pain behind his eyes. "I thought you were dead." He looked at her attire- her three-pointed hat, the pistol on her back. Within a moment's time, he knew what this disguise meant. "You didn't."
"I did what I had to. For Scarlett and Delilah." She gestured for an embrace. Solomon was hesitant at first, but accepted it.
"It put me through hell, you know. To return home and find-" his thoughts were cut short by an inevitable sob. "I'm sorry."
"How long have you known?" Annabelle asked, holding him even closer than before.
"Reverend Chelsea wrote to me the week that you disappeared. He told me about how you tried to save the girls and our friends. And how you started to come unglued after the incident. As anyone would. We assumed that the guilt drove you away. When you didn't return, everyone began to fear for the worst… but none of us suspected vengeance… you must return home, Annabelle. We are here for another night, let me take you."
She glanced at the soldiers who were seated comfortably around the fire pit. She used to be like them. Sitting scared and alone, anticipating whatever combat and gore tomorrow might bring. Knowing that this moment may very well be the last that this exact group of men would assemble and sit, as themselves, for a while. What was more, Annabelle knew that this place used to be her own. While she was willing to hand it over to these men and not to mention, overjoyed to learn that her father was one of them, it hurt to know that it had taken on a new purpose.
"Remember when I told you," Solomon continued, "to not lose sight of yourself? Our town needs you. They need your joy, you humor, your light. Especially in a time like this. Many of the children have lost their fathers and brothers. Returning to them with your songs and poetry would be the greatest education that they could receive right now. You do still write poetry, don't you?" When she nodded, his face lit up. "Give me just one moment to inform my officers."
When he was given approval to leave, he and Annabelle rode into the forest. Although this reunion caused a great strain on their hearts, it didn't take long for the levity that they'd always gained in one another's company to be born again. Annabelle loved her father dearly. In all of her life, she'd never encountered another person who seemed to "speak her language", if that makes sense; and as Annabelle grew, Solomon had found great relief in the fact that he had someone to talk to about his interests as well. Throughout the years, the two of them tried to engage Scarlett and Delilah in recitations over the dinner table on almost a nightly basis. Often times, it ended up being the two of them providing entertainment for the two younger girls.
"Cold tonight." Solomon muttered as he rode a few paces ahead of Annabelle. "We're still awaiting Autumn's first frost. Wouldn't that be a lovely topic for a poem?"
Annabelle smiled. She knew that he was going to do this. "Father, haven't you ever considered other topics for poetry? You know, that aren't seasons or moonbeams?"
"Don't tell me you've been writing poetry about war? I mean, I wouldn't be surprised if you have been. Writing is, after all, an autobiographical artform."
She quickened Rascal's pace and turned him to ride alongside her father. "No. But I do have a project in the making. A sonnet."
He arched his eyebrow. "A sonnet, you say?" After taking a moment to think, and re-examine Annabelle's attire, he found himself forcing back a grin. "He's Militia, I assume?"
She stifled her smile and looked ahead, trying her best to remain discreet. "Cavalry."
"Annabelle Beatrice Casey!" He exclaimed, joyfully. "Name and rank? I probably know him." Annabelle remained silent, so he pried further. "And you had to leave before your true identity was compromised?"
She shrugged. The idea of lying to him plagued her conscious; but he, like her, created fabrications of the truth all the time in order to avoid pain. "Something along those lines, Father…"
"I will pray for his safety. And for your heart. I never thought I'd see my Annabelle composing sonnets for anyone!" Once again, his words were met with uncomfortable silence. "Could you at least tell me about him?"
"There really isn't much to tell, Father." The smile she'd been working to conceal reappeared as she thought of Tavington. "His name is William. He is very ambitious. But also very kind. And since I know you're curious, yes, he has referenced Shakespeare. And Aristophanes, too…"
"Splendid! The two of us will have something to talk about!"
Annabelle allowed this thought to consume her. She knew that this meeting would never come to pass, but she reveled in it all the same.
"So," Solomon continued, just as enamored by the notion of this meeting as she, "he is an equestrian. Just like Harold." He stopped, realizing what he'd just said, "I'm sorry. Losing him must have been unbearable and then your sisters. You are still very young and it kills me to think that you had to manage those losses on your own…"
Silence prevailed- a stark comparison to the joyful note that their conversation started on. Annabelle felt just as guilty knowing that her father had to endure not only the loss of Scarlett and Delilah- but her loss, as well.
"Will you recite it for me?" He asked, carefully breaking the silence between them. "The sonnet you've composed for William? I've missed my daughter's poetry."
"Well, I'm still not completely satisfied with it."
"And you never will be!" Solomon urged. "You know me, I've always given you the best notes! With me as your editor, you will have a perfect sonnet to gift him with by the time the war ends."
His optimism, as always, was infectious. The sonnet was in the notebook and she wanted to keep it hidden away for the time being, so she recited it as best she could from memory:
A man immortal! Never did she know
That love could be a tyrant of the heart.
Tentative as the last of Springtime's snow,
Her boundaries shattered and fell apart.
Temptation! What should it be like to fall
From mighty cliffs to jagged rocks below?
The joy is in the falling, after all
The beauty lives in merely letting go.
So, as she fell, her eyes remained steadfast
Upon the loft above her where he stood,
And trusted he would break her fall at last
Permitting her to join him there for good.
Solomon stared with concern at his daughter. "It sounds as though, and correct me if I'm wrong," he began, "but it sounds as though you are suggesting that love is comparable to suicide."
"Is it not? We shed our skin all the time. Before proceeding with any great change, a part of us must die."
"And also, you write about this man as though he is this immortal, celestial being. He should be the one jumping off of the cliff for you, my dear."
Annabelle chuckled, his reaction was almost exactly what she had expected. "Yes, Father."
"Those minor adjustments aside, you will have the makings for a fine sonnet!"
They rode into town together, past the small graveyard and up to the church's large, red door. Old Reverend Chelsea was Solomon's dearest friend in all the world. Annabelle was not surprised with his decision to leave her with him for the time being.
"Now, this will only be temporary," Solomon explained to his daughter before knocking, "this will also allow you to ease back into your role as a teacher since the town's children are currently being educated by the church."
As expected, she was welcomed by Reverend Chelsea with open arms. After bidding a difficult farewell to her father, Annabelle found a quiet pew in the empty church and prayed for his safety.
In the morning that followed, Annabelle was permitted by the reverend to go for a small walk to clear her mind before the children were due to arrive. She walked to the schoolhouse with Tavington's notebook stashed safely in her pocket and ascended the apple tree. The summertime fireflies that usually graced the vicinity had vanished, as Solomon had observed, in the wake of Autumn's first frost. She flipped through the pages, found her sonnet and began to brainstorm the adjustments.
Before she could take pencil to paper, however, an icy breeze caused the pages to flip at a rapid pace. As the breeze died down they landed, as if by chance, on the passage that Tavington had written for Annabelle. She read it over once, twice. Her heart felt as though it had been struck by a bolt of lightning. A tear formed in the corner of her eye and rolled down her cheek. It was a line from one of Shakespeare's plays that she'd always found rather humorous; but now, it took on an entirely new meaning for Annabelle:
I do love nothing in the world so well as you. Is not that strange?