Together Again

Chapter One: A Change in Pace

17 years later

She woke up feeling and groggy and like she didn’t sleep at all. The clouds hid the sun, making the day seem gray and dead. Maybe if she was lucky, it would rain. But the rain would be the only good part to her day because today she had to go to work in the fields. Even if the rain made working more difficult, she would still love it anyways because it was one of the best things in the world to her. Like an imperfection in the Earth, rain fell, but the rain never fell enough. Rain was near rare and it has been this way for years and years now.

How Alison wanted to escape to the woods and write in her journal, but she knew she could not. She would have no time to write or anything for herself on work days. Sighing, she got up and began getting ready. She dressed in her trashy clothing that she used when she worked in the fields and got on some sandals. She brushed her hair then observed herself in the mirror she had resting against a corner of the wall in her room. “I can’t wait to work!” she thought to herself in a sarcastic tone as she stood up and left her room.

The kitchen was empty. It seemed emptier with the chipping, neutral colored paint and the old furniture. It wasn’t that she was all that poor; she and her family were just low on money and her father didn’t have any time to fix up their home. She couldn’t find her parents anywhere. Alison searched around and eventually found a note on the wooden counter top. The note read:

Alison,

Your father and I had to go to the fields early this morning and we have been called out of the village for reasons unknown. I don’t know when we will be back. Please remember to go to the fields this weekend and to do well in the Learning Center. Behave or… you know what will become of the both of us. There is plenty of food in the cabin so you should be fine.

~Mother

“They always leave me.” She said, sadly. She looked in the wooden cabinets to get something to eat, but found nothing. “Of course, there is ‘plenty’ of food.” She would stop by the market to get some food on the way back from the fields. She could go a while without food. She was used to it. Alison suddenly realized that she was running late. She ran down the hall to her room and took some of her own money, which wasn’t much at all, and left the cabin.

Alison approached to the opening of the fields. A man stood in front of the opening so he could tell the workers where in the fields they were to go to. Once she saw who the man was, she wanted to turn back. The ‘man’ made her want to gag. Trace was his name and he wasn’thing good to her. Trace was neither thin nor muscular; he wasn’t a pretty sight. He was something you never wanted to see. His hair was black and greasy, his skin was pale but covered in dirt, and his eyes were a muddy brown color. He and two other boys, who were not there at the time, were probably the people that got under her skin the most, and she didn’t want to deal with him at any moment.

“Hello Alison.” Trace said with a smirk.

“Hello.” She replied softly. When Trace saw how Alison responded to him, it made him more gleeful then he already was. He knew she wasn’t fond of him, he knew that she was possibly scared of him; he wanted it that way. It made him more determined than ever to irritate her.

“Anyways…” he said, “you are not going to be working in the fields today. You have been reassigned to work in the orchard.”

The last thing Alison wanted was to work in the orchard. Not only did you work longer in the orchard than in the fields, but it was for taller people and tall she wasn’t. She wasn’t short exactly, but she was no where near tall. This would make her job harder for her and she knew it because she had been in the orchard before.