Bloodlines: Book One

Chapter Two

The town of Rochester was humbling, it being the type of town where family histories went back to the founding of the town itself. The Drims family, the second most prosperous family, just behind the Greenly’s, held a quilting bee every year in March. Abby and her mother were to attend the social gathering as they did annually. The young girl stood barefoot on her dewed lawn. She searched the placid pastures below her, fog clung to blue grass where the ground dipped lower. A few cows and horses, ants to Abby, could be seen, but she paid those no heed. Her eyes yearned to see something more.

“Miss Abby,” Mamie called from the front door, “get inside, child. Come let me finish your hair.” Abby turned slowly, her eyes still watching the lands below her. She gathered arm fulls of her skirts and ran for the door, where Mamie opened it for her. They ascended the stairs, to Abby’s room, where Mamie had her sit still in front of the vanity and began pinning up the girls hair.

“Are you excited?” Mamie asked, noticing Abby’s silence. Abby twirled a blue ribbon in between her fingers absentmindedly, the Greenly’s could afford such luxuries.

“Of course,” Abby lied. She never enjoyed going anywhere alone with her mother. Mrs. Greenly was always trying to make a gentlewoman out of her and Abby would just end up embarrassing the both of them. She just never got along with most of the women in the town; always talking about other people like it was their business, outting those who were not likeminded. Abby found nothing endearing about such pursuits, mostly because she kept finding herself as the butt to their jokes.

Mamie glanced at Abby, delicately placing a lock of the girls hair, with doubt and said with a bobby pin between her teeth, “You’ve told better lies.” Abby stopped playing with the ribbon and looked at Mamie in the vanity mirror.

“I’ll never be like them, Mamie,” she said somberly. “And is that so wrong?” Mamie pinned one last lock of hair, then stepped back, checking her work.

“You act as if you’ve committed a sin,” the woman chirped. “You know who else was different?” Abby looked up tentatively.

“Who?”

“Jesus,” Mamie said matter-of-factly.

“Yes, and he was crucified,” the girl retorted. Mamie gave her a firm look, then moved the the dresser and pulled out Abby’s nice stockings. They itched terribly.

“Put these on,” Mamie ordered, and Abby grabbed the stockings and resentfully began pulling them on. Mrs. Greenly appeared in the doorway, dressed in a gown that was so blue it looked as if it was sown from the same fabric as her eyes.

“Ready?”  she asked her daughter, who was putting her shoes on.

“Yes,” Abby said, standing, “I’m ready.”

They were to walk to the quilting bee at the Drims residence. Mrs. Greenly would have much preferred the use of their carriage, but Mr. Greenly would always tell her, “God gave man two legs for a reason.” Abigail never minded the walk or the small pieces of gravel that would collect in her shoes. The annual pilgrimage to the Drims always gave her time to think clearly. Abigail followed her mother down the stairs. Mr. Greenly was sitting in a cloud of pipe smoke, handing Ben papers recording profits and various other things regarding the property for him to calculate. Ben was excellent with numbers. He looked up at his sister while she descended the stairs and snorted. Mr. Greenly swatted him with some papers.

“Are you leaving for the bee at the Drims now?” Mr. Greenly asked his wife. She nodded and told him that they wouldn’t be back until after sundown.

The walk was not far to the quilting bee. The house had been lit up from cellar to ceiling for the event. Many bodies could be seen busing in and out  of the house in a collective frenzy. Mrs. Drims also had something of a green thumb and had somehow managed to keep her pansies alive until March. As they approached the front door, they were greeted by all, even if some did not mean it. Abby spotted Hetty Drims, the oldest of the Drims siblings, and her childhood friend, sitting and knitting by the large, unlit fireplace. She was showing her younger sister, Abby had forgotten all the little ones names, how to properly stitch, but she pricked her finger on the needle. Abby had been so focused on the red orb clinging to Hetty’s small finger that she hadn’t noticed someone was talking to her.