Welcome to Hades, something that has been in the back of my brain for many years. I have been writing this, on and off for the past year or so. Unsure of how this will work, but somehow it all has come together.
I hope everyone enjoys this foray into my mind, Much like any story of mine, expect twists, turns and swimming through trials and tribulations of various issues that life can bring us. This will touch on a few subjects that will be hard for people to read about, I will content warn as necessary.
Comments are always welcome and constructive criticism is always taken as gracefully as I can.
Cold, she was cold but she couldn't escape this dream she was in. It had been supposed to be a perfect evening, a perfect night, instead, Hades had broken through and swallowed her life whole.
This was a nightmare of cold, but wasn't the underworld hot? Was hell and the underworld the same place?
Mother didn't like her saying hell outside a biblical context? Hades, Hades would be her hell.
Darkness surrounded her buttoned eyes. If she opened them…it would be real and her life would change forever. This war had come and now her life, the best years of her life were taken from her.
No, this had to be a dream.
It had to be as she thinks about the days before this all came to earth. When Hades himself reared his ugly head.
She can hear her name being called, but she has no will to answer back.
Just let her die in the river of Styx or was it Acheron? Maybe Cocytus?
She hears her name again, and this time she squeezes her eyes shut once more and thinks, wishes that it was the beginning of summer, that everything was bright with hope and excitement as it has been on the last day of school.
"Now I wish everyone a happy summer and for you lot to not send your parents into a tizzy!" Miss Oliver called out to the class on the last day of school on a warm June day. "I want to congratulate all of you who took the entrance exam and passed, whether you go to Queens or not you accomplished something great. Whether you are returning next year, going to Queens, or just learning how to run a household by your mother, or the farm by your father. Remember your time here and use it. Continue reading, continue writing and using those math skills that you fought me on for all these years! Also, I don't want to hear about any shenanigans nor do I want any invitations to a wedding. Enjoy your youth, and it is three-thirty, class dismissed!"
Rilla looks at Betty Mead, Alice Clow and Majorie Drew on their way out in their gingham and checked school dresses. As soon as they crossed the doorway giggles erupted from the young girl's mouths.
"We're done!" Alice shrieks jumping in the air before grabbing hands to spin around with.
"Have your parents decided about Queens?" Betty asks Rilla.
"I overheard father say he doesn't think I'm strong enough for it, Honestly I do not even wish to go. I would be more than willing to stay at home and learn from Mother and Susan about household work. There is little point in sending me if I don't wish to go? Just because my sibling went doesn't mean I have to?"
"Then we shall have to find you some rich beau to support you one day," the girls giggle as they all link arms.
"Maybe now that you are out of the schoolroom your mum will let you wear longer dresses? If you get any taller you'll have the skinniest legs of all of us," Alice tells her. "Mom says if I don't grow and keep gaining she'll make me wear a tighter corset. She holding out that I'll slim out soon, but I look no different than her!"
"Mum is fairly tall while Dad is as well," Rilla says sighing. "You think she would understand but I am taller than the twins! I am almost as tall as Shirley who is the shortest of my brothers?"
"I am just glad to not have to worry about homework next year. We're going to have a glorious summer and soon enough we'll be sixteen and be old enough to go see movies and shopping by ourselves."
"We can go to dances that don't involve our parents. The pie auction and barn are not the social events of the summer."
"I hear that there's going to be a dance at the lighthouse this year again. Hopefully this year we'll all be able to go and not just watch our siblings get ready." Betty says with an air of dream in her voice.
To think they were young ladies, no longer school girls, ready to face the world and find a beau to one day marry when they were a little older.
"How are your brothers?" One of the girls nudges Rilla.
"Well, Jem is back from medical school and already has been up to see Faith Meredith, Walter has been between Lowbridge and home all year teaching and Shirley just finished his first year at Queens." Rilla recites.
"We shall miss seeing him in town at the hardware store," Alice says with a giggle.
"Why did he miss a year at Queens again?" Majorie asks as she was always forgetting things.
"He was ill during the entrance, so he had to wait an extra year before taking the exam." Rilla reminds her. She didn't like to think of her friends finding her brothers handsome.
"Girls, I thought you would be home by now?" Miss Oliver says coming up behind them.
"We are settling plans for the summer," Betty tells their old teacher.
"Of course, Rilla don't be too late I know how your mother gets when you don't help with dinner," Miss. Oliver reminds her.
"I'll be home in time," Rilla says with a nod. It was common knowledge that Miss Oliver boarded at Ingleside, but probably not as well known that Rilla gave up half of her bedroom for the privilege.
Miss Oliver nodded, giving a kind smile before she headed up towards the road that would bring her to Ingleside.
"Mother told me that once school is ended for me I can wear my hair in my fashionable ways. No more braids for me, especially at the fair," Alice says bringing up the subject of vanity and growing up."
"Braids aren't too bad," Majorie objects. "Mother won't let me wear my hair up until I am at least sixteen, even then it has to be for special occasions. Though Rilla has always lucked out with her hair for styling."
"I have haven't I?" Rilla preens, patting her curls. Her braids were always thick and plump looking, curls escaping their confines in some of the prettiest ways. Her hair rippled and curled naturally, but still, she spent an evening every week sleeping in pin curls to make sure they looked proper and in style. However, unlike her friends, hers held their curls and often created a lovely halo around her face.
"So we shall each other on Dominion Day?" Betty says as she comes up to her fork in the road.
"Of course, we'll see you there!" They tell her, and one by one the girls break apart. Rilla who lived the furtherest out. Smiles as she takes off towards her home as she sees her father in the distance on his horse.
"Dad!" She calls waving towards him as he comes riding up towards her.
He holds out his hand and pulls her up in front of him. "How was the last day of school?"
"It was wonderful, to think I am finished!" She laughs gaily settling her legs and her skirts as his arm rapped around her waist to keep a hold of her as he holds the reins.
"You don't need to sound so delighted by the fact," Father chuckles. "I may choose to make you go through Queens yet."
Rilla looks back at him sticking out her tongue at the thought of doing such a thing. "I really prefer to stay at home if that counts. Can I not go next year if I change my mind?"
"I suppose so," Father nods his head. "What are your plans for the summer? And do not just say laying about and spending your allowance either."
"Well, I plan on working over a dress or two with new notions, helping Mother and Susan in the garden of course," Rilla tells him dutifully. "Thought my friends and I plan on making pies for the auction and we plan on sea bathing and practicing our drawings? Oh, Betty says her older siblings are going to Charlottetown for a day and want to know if I can possibly go with her. We can have tea and ice cream and pick up new ribbons and things that we can't get here?"
"I do not like the idea of you going into the city without your mother or me Rilla," Father says humming.
"If I was going to Queens I would be there the majority of the time?" Rilla reminds him hopefully.
"That is entirely different," Father tells her, though amused by her attempts.
"Are the Fords coming to visit? Have you heard anything from Uncle Owen?" She asks next thinking how they usually go into the city with them for fun.
"They are not, but I believe Aunt Leslie told your mother that Kenneth was coming to stay with her family, but I am not sure when he will be around or if at all. He broke his ankle if you remember and according to Owen Ford he has yet to fully regain mobility of it." Father replies back as he leads the horse along home.
"Are you going to check on it?" Rilla asks him next, an air of teasing in her voice knowing her father's perchance for fixing people.
"I am sure the city doctors knew what they were doing," Father responds gruffly, but his one hand tickled her side.
"Daddy!" Rilla shrieks loud enough that the horse's ears react.
"All right, all right," Father chuckles. "You have managed to grow up without my looking Lily of the Field, wasn't it only yesterday you were throwing cakes into the river, or thinking that I was a murderer for having my photo in the newspaper?"
"Dad!" Rilla exclaims blushing at the foolish young notions she had as a child.
"What was it I called you Kitten-kins?" He says after a moment. "Not so much of one anymore?"
"I'll always be your kitten-kin," Rilla says quietly as they come up to the house. She dismounts, falling gracefully to the ground and placing her books on the veranda and walks around as Father shelters the horse. She watches for a moment before grabbing the bucket of feed, filling the trough in the stall, and adding a bit of hay to it.
"Will you brush him down?" Father asks handing her the brush and she nods her head. "Have you ridden lately?" He asks knowing she hasn't. She wasn't fond of riding, she knew how of course you need to in an emergency according to Father.
"I'll get some practice in this summer," Rilla tells him. "Though it is hard when you need the horse at any given notice and Olive is technically unrideable these days?" Rilla reminds him.
"Fair enough, I plan on acquiring a new horse just haven't found one yet that would be suitable for our family," Father tells her.
"You're not going to send her to the glue factory?" Rilla asks quietly as if the horses knew what she truly meant.
"No no, she doesn't seem to be in pain and eats happily and still walks about the pasture every day. We'll keep an eye on her of course, but though there is no point in ending a life if they can live comfortably and happily." Father explains going over to the other stall where Olive comes to him searching for her apple.
Rilla nods her head and gives a final brush down and hangs up the brush, turning and stopping to give Orion a pet on the nose.
The pie she plans on making( with Susan's help of course in the pastry, and filling!) for the Dominion Day auction is made with the first fresh cherries she can scavenge for with her siblings in the small field near Ingleside they knew about. Baskets and straw hats and old aprons as her brothers carried the ladders and the girls picked. The Merediths joined them, which meant Jem was more interested in Faith dragging her behind a tree to steal kisses, while Nan and Jerry had heated debates that left her throwing cherries at him in a huff.
Love was a strange thing?
She looks to Una who smiles shyly at her, before she goes back to gazing at Walter.
Love was truly strange, it really was.
The pie isn't horrible looking, but the small one she made from scraps for tasting proved itself worthy. So she wrapped it up and tied some old ribbons around the basket and proudly carried it to the table for the auction with Mother trailing behind with pies from Ingleside to help raise money for various repairs in the town.
She places hers with her friends in the junior girl's sections. Not the picnic pie auction, she wasn't old enough for that yet. Her mother then waves her off, allowing her to join her friends, all of them looking to spend their money on candy and trinkets from the craft areas.
So she breathes in the air that smells sweet like kettle corn, and later fairy floss which they all snack on between sharing two large snow cones covered in bright-coloured syrups. Later they all skip and traipse around the square in a Celtic dance that was known all over the island. Feet stomping and ankles showing as their ribbons and bows bounced in the air, laughter and giggles as they spun around with hands entwined until they were dizzy and ready to fall over.
Summer had truly begun and there was nothing that would tarnish it for them, for her.
Because what could tarnish something so bright?