2

19 2 0
                                    

The creek is one of my favourite places. The forest around it is really beautiful and calm. Animals like it too, so it's also an easy place to get food from.

I listen to the birds chirping in the other ways empty forest as I take off my clothes and walk into the quite deep creek. I can feel the dirt coming off my face and the rest of my body. I dive underwater and my hair flows all around my head.

I get my head up to the surface of the water and I hear something that sounds like two people talking. I listen to it for a while, and I realise that the sound is coming towards me. I quickly get up from the water and throw my clothes on. I grab my bow and arrows and I climb up an oak three.

I don't have too much time to get a comfortable position when two people already step out of the forest. They're two women: a high-status one and I'm assuming her maid. The women are around my age, and the high-status lady looks oddly similar. She has red hair and a green dress that really makes her emerald eyes really pop. She has a lot of freckles all over her pale face. Her entire face looks actually really familiar. 

            The maid, wearing a dark brown dress and a white apron, asks the high-status lady; "Is this a good spot, ma'am?"

She answers in the most beautiful voice I've ever heard: "It's perfect. And please, call me Kendra"

I almost fall off the tree I'm in when I hear this beautiful woman right in front of my eyes is the same girl I spent my childhood with. I want to go down and hug her and tell her how much I've missed her and to just... Talk. I want to tell her all about what has happened in the past I think 10 years.

But I won't. Or more like I can't. Even tough we were close as children a lot has happened, and I can't be sure if I can trust her to not tell the serif about me and Edith and our camp in the woods.

So, instead of doing what my heart want's me to do, I do what my brain tells me to do. I obviously can't get off the three I'm in. Because of this all I can do is get as close to the thick three trunk as possible.

Themaid starts taking stuff out of the picknick basket I hadn't realised she wascarrying. I was more interested in Kendra than what this other woman dressed the exact same as the one that got me into this bloody forest in the first place.

The smell of fresh-baked bread and warm tea reach my nose and I close my eyes. It makes me realise that I haven't had fresh-baked bread since I left the mansion. Obviously, I've had bread, but it usually has been something at least a week old stolen from the baker's trash. I breath in the lovely smell and listen to the two women talk. "So, m- Kendra, what do you think about the news?" The maid asks.

"Wich news, Eden? I've gotten a lot of them recently" Kendra answers, not looking at the maid, who is apperiaintly named Eden.

"The ones abut Prince Jhon on his way from London"

"Oh,those. Honestly, I'm flattered but it feels a bit... Wrong, you know. I've nevermet him, and I was barely even born when he was my age. And I just, don't haveany that kind of feelings for him, at all. It's weird, I've seen paintings ofhim, and he is pretty attractive, but just not in a 'I want to marry him and havehis children and live the rest of my life with him' way. I'm sorry, it's  difficult to explain." Kendra answers this, voice quiet and eyes looking somewhere far away.

Eden is quiet, I guess progressing what she just heard. Or at least that's what I'm doing.

You see, back when we were kids there was a painting on my mansion wall. That painting had the entire royal family on it, including nowadays King, then Prince Richard and his little brother, prince Jhon.

I remember begin maybe five years old and sitting together on the floor with Kendra, looking at the painting. Oh, the amount of times we talked about how we'll marry him when we're older and how big and fancy wedding we'll have and how we'd live in a huge castle in London with our children and stuff like that. Now, ten years later, it feels weird but hey, that's what kids are, weird.

I never thought that those 'I'll marry him once I'm an adults would change that much. At least not for her, she was super obsessed with him ever since we figured out who he is.

AndI never really thought about it, but I agree with Kendra. I wouldn't want to marrya man I didn't love eighter.

Eden finally breaks the silence that has dragged out to a bit too long; "I understand, I wouldn't want to marry a man I didn't love eighter"

Is she reading my mind? Okay I know she's not, but if I was almost anybody else, I would've probably screamed and accused her of witchcraft, giving her a death penalty and me a bit money. Crazy times I'm living in.

Kendra smiles and slightly changes the topic with clear gratitude in her voice; "I knew you would understand. But my father or the people of Nottingham, even the entire noble class of England? Absolutely not. I'm a woman, old enough to have babies, old enough to get married. People will soon start asking questions about why I am not engaged and that'll just make my father particularly sell me off to get married to the first noble man he finds, and I don't want that eighter". She looks genuinely worried by the end.

Eden looks at Kendra and takes her hands to her own. When Kendra looks at her, clearly about to burst into tears, Eden smiles at her lightly and whispers so quiet I have to lean forward to hear her; "I know, I know" She takes a deep breath before continuing: "Maybe someday we'll be allowed to marry whoever we want to without everyone judging.

I really like Eden. I think we'd make great friends. And I agree with her. Maybe someday nobody will care who we love and marry, freely without judgement from our peers. But not yet. Legally I'm still my father's property until I marry a man, and then I'm his property until the day I die. There is a long way to go.

The moment is broken by a huge fox that probably smelt the bread and got curious. It walks towards Eden and Kendra and sniffs the air. The fox looks at the two ladies and starts walking towards them, showing its teeth, looking threatening.

Edith and Kendra quickly get up and the fox speeds up towards them and their food.

That's when I make the biggest mistake of my life: I take out my bow and an arrow. I point my arrow at the fox's body, and I shoot.

Secrets of the sherwood forestWhere stories live. Discover now