𝐃𝐢𝐯𝐢𝐧𝐞- 𝐓𝐡𝐞𝐨𝐝𝐨𝐫𝐞 𝐋𝐚𝐮𝐫𝐞𝐧𝐜𝐞

NINETEEN

---

THE WORLD PASSED by Charlotte Kohler's train window in a blur of gray. Her eyes glazed over as they rolled by piles of melting snow and dense, dark forests that held an air of disquieting uneasiness, until they were nothing more but a swirling mass of lifeless and monotonous pigments. The dreary winter landscape outside matched the frosty feeling that had withered in her chest. It was a feeling she couldn't escape or chase away, no matter how much she begged and pleaded for it to do so. Instead, it took root in her heart and spread through her veins, numbing all her other senses until all she could feel was a despairing loneliness that had taken hold of her after she learned the news of her mother's passing. She leaned her head against the cool glass, letting her eyes close and her mind wander as the cold numbed her racing thoughts. Her mind had been reeling since New Year's— three days ago— and she hadn't allowed herself a moment of rest. Until now. Maybe now she could sleep and fall into some pleasant dream that would take her away from her new unbelievable reality. 

Marmee, who sat beside her, slipped her hand into Charlotte's silently, chasing away the sleep Charlotte so desperately wanted and bringing her back into the present. "Come on," her voice was tender and on the verge of cracking, but it still held a bright flame of maternal warmth as she tried to rouse Charlotte from her miserable thoughts. "This is our stop."

Charlotte remained silent as she pulled herself up from her seat and followed Marmee off the train. The world swirled around her in dizzying shapes as they left the train station and ventured out into the town. Eyes burned hot holes into her back as the townspeople seemed to turn and stare at her, whispering under their breath about the poor orphaned girl and barely concealing their gossip as she and Marmee passed through. Charlotte pulled her scarf higher, until it reached above her chin and she burrowed deeper into it, as if the knitted yarn garment could protect her from the horrors of the world.

To the common eye, Kittery looked frozen in time and exactly the same as Charlotte had left it, with the long pier stretching out over the rocky sand and calm waves, the bustling navy yard with towering ships that looked like a city of masts and sails on the water, and wooden houses popping up along the rolling hills like spring flowers. But to Charlotte, everything looked wrong. There was no happiness left in the charming shops that lined the street, no joy in the sight of seabirds flying in sweeping arcs above their heads, no warm and familiar smiles from the townsfolk they passed by that now offered only insincere sympathy. Kittery was as foreign to her as the ancient ruins of South America or the historical stone castles of Europe. There was nothing but sorrow and misery in Kittery now, and Charlotte felt it with every bone in her body.

Charlotte hadn't noticed they had trekked into the countryside until the brick buildings gave way to rolling fields of wheat and swaying grasses. Little houses were propped up in the middle of little farms and large forests, angled out towards the massive blue ocean, where dizzyingly tall ships bobbed up and down on their way into port. She knew this road well, having traveled it thousands of times on her way home from the little schoolhouse by the groves of apple trees and raspberry bushes. Her eyes spotted the shortcut to town that weaved in and out of the trees, now covered by a foot of snow. It forked off in the middle in a rough way— as if the trail was made by children, and perhaps it was, formed by the thousands of rushed and excitable footsteps as little children like Charlotte skipped through the woods with their allowance in their pockets and not a worry in their heart. One part of the fork led towards the line of shops and businesses and the other to a small church with a peaceful graveyard that was shaded by massive oak and elm trees. The fondness Charlotte felt in her chest was snatched away cruelly as she realized soon the little forked shortcut that she traveled down to buy a bag of sweets or admire the fine clothes in the shops, would be the same one she would have to use to visit her parents in the little graveyard beside the church.