Fates of the Fateless

Ch. 4 Suspicions in Sarsaparilla

When Grimshaw said she'd put you to work, she really meant ring you of every ounce of energy you have to offer. You were starting to think you and Tilly were the only ones actually doing anything with the amount of work that piled up. Sewing, cooking and prepping food, cleaning, ironing, grooming and feeding the horses, getting clean water from the stream half a mile away, you even had to babysit the Reverend at one point. Oh, and you better believe the second she found out you could read and write, even MORE work was put onto your plate.

We need more of this and that, but we don't have the funds for this so we need to compensate for that. You're doing this wrong and that wrong. No don't do that right now I need you doing this!

It. Was. Constant. She would get so frustrated with you at times you wondered if she would pop a blood vessel. If it wasn't for the company of the other girls pitching in on the workload, coming to your defense, and easing the tension you're pretty sure you would've pulled a knife on the old crone. Or maybe on yourself with all things considered.

"Can't you scrub any faster?"

"They'll be clean when they're clean, Miss Grimshaw."

"Well, we want them cleaned by today, missy!"

Today was no different. You found yourself all by your lonesome on laundry duty while the others took care of more in camp activities. Seated by the creek, given a washing board, a bar of soap, and a mountain of dirty laundry. Miss Grimshaw making her routine trip back to you every hour or so to collect the clean batches. Looking forward to every precious moment you got to yourself.

"Stupid!" *scrub* "Grimshaw!" *scrub* "Such a!" *scrub* "BITCH!" Throwing down the unfortunate garment you inflicted your wrath upon in the sudsy wooden bucket. Straightening your back out with audible creeks from your poor spine having hunched for so long. "Ahhh... fucking hell..." your sinuses began to burn and your throat tightened painfully, emotions you've been suppressing bubbling up and overflowing. The beginning of what's become a routine grieving.

"Fucking... Damn it!" a huff of restrained air, the constant dabbing away of tears. At least no one was around to see you cry your eyes out.

It wasn't as hot in the early mornings, still cool from the freezing nights. A soft dry breeze would occasionally weave its fingers through your hair with it the distant call of a quail could be heard serenading his territory. Your pretty sure you've been with the group for just a little over three weeks now, it's amazing to even think you've lasted this long. Even more amazing to think about how you somehow, by some miracle managed to travel into the past. Well... your pretty sure that's what this is. Maybe you're in a coma right now having a trippy dream sequence as you slowly decay in a hospital bed. Or maybe it's like those comic books with alternate universes.

Whatever it is, it's bullshit. What the hell are you supposed to do now?

Work, work so you don't have to think. You make a grab at the pile of soiled clothes, a green button-down shirt this time. Undoing any buttons and turning out pockets before making the sudsy plunge. Pausing to take in a stain. It was dark. A reddish brown, splattered on the left side and across the front. You almost wouldn't have seen it had the light not caught it at just the right angle. The way it was thrown against the fabric like the wearer was caught in a liquid explosion. Too dark to be a whiskey stain, lacked the smell of any type of food or drink. It almost looked like...

Blood

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Annabelle had been working on the same stubborn stitch work since the morning began. Course the little breaks to sneak a quick kiss and sweet whispers with Dutch certainly hasn't made the process any faster. But he'd been out of camp for a couple days and she'd missed his warmth every second he was gone.