Magic and Lace

2

When Lacey woke up feeling stiff and smelling hay and horses, she wasn't too sure if she had really woken up, but the sun was sure shining in her face making it feel hot and clammy. When she finely opened her eyes she saw a pair of eye's staring back at her. Lacey was startled at first but realized that it was only a child and there was nothing to be afraid of. The child spoke, but what she was saying wasn't registering yet.

"You sure don't look like a stable hand to me? Why are you wearing pants?"

Lacey sat up trying to shake the sleep from her body, when she did so her hair tucked in to her hat before flowed freely around her face. Lacey took a quick look around the room and saw that it was only the two of them, then she quickly put her hair into a braid and put it all back under the hat.

Lacey looked at the child, she was cute, she had big brown eyes and tawny hair. Lacey sat looking at the child in silence for a moment.

"What's your name?"

The little girl curtsied as she said her name.

"Margaret Irean Anderson, but everybody calls me Maggie? What's your name?"

Lacey smiled at the child she had nothing to hide from this child she knew she wasn't a man so she answered the question honestly.

"Lacey Marie Walker."

Maggie was going to ask more questions, but just then Lacey's stomach grumbled.

"Are you hungry?"

Lacey nodded and the child pulled her up off her cot.

"Well let's go to the house and get something to eat Bertha is waiting for us."

As they walked to the house Maggie was jabbering about everything. The child never stopped talking. Maggie had been holding her hand the whole way. Lacey didn't know what people would think if they saw a young man holding the hand of a little girl. She was thinking about that when Maggie asked her the same question as when they were in the stable.

"Lacey, you never told me why you were wearing pants?"

Lacey stopped walking and knelt to look at the child full in the face.

"Maggie I'll answer your question but may be you could answer one of mine first."

Maggie waited.

"I need to know the date?"

At first Maggie thought Lacey was kidding, but by the look of need on her face she knew that she was serious.

"Today is January 4, 1875, why?"

Lacey felt dizzy, she couldn't believe what she was hearing, but somehow, she knew yesterday that she was no longer in her time.

"Maggie, I need you to keep a secret. Do you think you can do that?"

Maggie's eyes grew wide with curiosity, and her head was bobbing up and down like a doll that has lost all of it stuffing.

"Maggie the reason that I'm dressed as a boy is because I need a job and the only work, I know how to do in this time is how to take care of horses, and to do book keeping, but in 1875 only men got those kind of jobs. You see why it's important to that we keep it a secret."

Maggie thought about this for a moment, causing Lacey to wonder if the child was going to blab her secret to the whole world when Maggie spoke up.

"I'll keep your secret if you'll be my best friend."

Lacey didn't know whether to laugh or cry. She squeezed Maggie's hand.

"I'll be your very best friend in the whole world."