Mirror Walker

Chapter 5

THE road was covered in frost. It had been minus again the night before, hence why Charlie was puffing warm air into her mittens. A lovely, snug, blue cloak with a fluffy hood was firmly wrapped around her shoulders as the village loomed into view, the small market in its centre bright and bubbling with life despite the cold.

The little stone houses with their rickety rooves that needed desperate replacement, stood around it, people bustling in and out of them. The farmland had long ended, and the pothole filled dirt road gradually transformed into frosted cobles, one of which she nearly slipped on.

"Blimey it's cold," she complained, clapping her hands together but the material on them resulting in only a muffled thud.

Mary trudged next to her, her cloak an ebony black with her curls neatly tucked into it. She pushed up her red bonnet which contrasted Charlie's cobalt one, "The weather manages to surprise every year."

"I hate this country... I want to move somewhere hot."

"Good luck with that."

Charlie shot her a look to which she just shrugged, "When I'm a millionaire I will, you'll see."

"I mean... I suppose you could travel along with Lord Millard if you marry him."

"Which I will not," she blustered, hugging herself under her cloak and shivering. She would not like him. She would absolutely not like him.

"How do you know that if you've never met him?"

They entered the town, passing the first few houses idly, their small square windows sunken into the dull grey walls, supposed to be for insulation though Charlie reckoned it seemed more like isolation. Grimacing at the prison like atmosphere, she told the young maid, "Call it a gut feeling."

"So you're a fortune teller now?"

"I don't need a fortune teller to know that if my mother likes something, then I won't."

"That's a little harsh-"

"It's painfully true," she grumbled, stepping over a puddle that wasn't quite frozen but certainly on its way there. "He's a decade older than me Mary... how will that work?"

"Many women marry a man that's older... it's custom for it to at least be a difference of five years," she sympathetically watched her, shuffling the empty basket on her arm that she had been tasked to fill with supplies. "It could be a lot worse than ten... isn't he thirty-one?"

"I don't know," carelessly watching the bright blue painted wood outlining the glass window of one of the shops, she decided that she didn't want to know. Inside it looked warm... dark because there was no sun to shimmer through the glass, but she was sure it was warmer in there than out on the street.

"He's only eight years older than you... not ten," Mary cynically corrected her. "You're always so dramatic."

"It's my middle name. What do you have to pick up again?" she quivered constantly, unable to get a shred of heat to remain on her skin while she looked over the redhead's shoulder at the shopping list she was pulling out.

"Bacon... cheese, eggs, salt-"

"Mrs Cuthbert will have some of those right?" she gestured to the store that looked so alluring, its squared glass revealing the small counter that sat inside with the elder lady cheerily tending to a current customer.

"Yea-"

"Let's go," she hurried to the door, clasping her hand round the golden handle.

"If you're just going to rush me then why did you come?"