The Dark Days

Chapter Twelve

 "And that was how I figured out which hen was laying the two eggs." Nana said over breakfast, "I still think we should let the one we're keeping have a chicken. We could start supplying the community with eggs too and not just fish. Think of the new level of wealth this could open up for us."

Mama let Nana talk about all the things she wanted to do while we ate our oatmeal in silence. The wedding was tomorrow. Everyone had tried their clothes on and it fit as perfectly as Mary had guessed they would, Mama was even lending me a pair of her boots to match my dress. Druig would be there.

He'd see me at my most beautiful. I don't know why it mattered to me but it did. I wanted him to see me and realise that he wanted to marry me as badly as I wanted to marry him. I once said I needed to marry a man that would be okay with his wife speaking her truth to the world, and he would be just that man.

And yet, what made me nervous was the reception he would likely get from Lord Barrow and the pastor who whispered in Lord Barrow's ear. Druig was a stranger attending a village wedding. But it was too late to go back on my word now.

"I agree, Nana." I nodded, finishing up my breakfast before I ruffled Isaac's hair, "Go wash up and get dressed. I'll be waiting by the borehole."

I stood to rinse my bowl in the dishwater when Nana said, "It's cold out this morning, Jane. You should wait inside."

"I would but I'll be heading outside to take Isaac to school and then to the river. I may as well get accustomed to the cold now."

Nana sneered, "Then I'll say it now. I don't know how I feel about you being alone with that boy every day." Nana spoke down the tip of her nose. She was trying to take the high road on this one and I suppose, as the oldest female in the house, as the oldest anything, she was our matriarch. I should have needed her approval but she lived in our house, courtesy of Mama. If Nana didn't like my choices, but Mama approved, then Nana's opinion was irrelevant.

"Nana, he is a man, and you'll be meeting him tomorrow." I kissed her cheek then Mama's as I headed out the door, along the wooden front porch, down the step and towards the borehole. The wooden fencing was waist high around the cottage and the area to the side. This small patch of land, half the size of the house, held our livestock and weeds. I say 'livestock' but I mean two chickens.

Only Mama really knew what I really did at my 'work table' and she, truthfully, vehemently objected to my continued practice with herbs. But I couldn't stop, not when I knew it would help everyone. Not when it hadn't failed me yet.

So I lifted the shaggy cloth on the table and pulled the dilapidated basket to the front, placing it on the table. I couldn't repair it without Nana discovering its existence then asking about it. For that same reason, I couldn't make a new one.

Inside the basket lay my mortar and pestle, and various little jars with flowers in them. I pulled up a bucket of water from the borehole and had it run through the filter I maintained then filled my water skeins. In the second one, of which I always knew, I added the crushed leaves to make the water a healing one. I checked my salves for healing, for burns, for cuts, for numbing and nodded that they were all still filled. I hardly ever got hurt anymore but it never hurt anyone to be prepared. Daniel was an example of why it was best to always be prepared.

I would need to get the tin back from Druig to refill the salve for freezing limbs. He had to be running low on it by now.

Once stocked, I placed my skeins and my usual tins in my satchel. I poured the rest of the filtered water back into the borehole, packed my things back into my basket and slid it under the table again. With everything set, I put the fish cage on the table and put my satchel on the cage. The ten banana leaves were still in the cage.