Anna's Book ( Prologue to A Dangerous Destiny)

A Rainy Day

Anna

They lived alone in a cramped one-room flat that attached to the neighboring apartment buildings. A small short structure almost lost among the standard drab towers of rooms stacked precariously atop of one another, designed to cram in as many people as possible.

Anna and her grandmother made do with what meager income they gathered taking in laundry from Asha residents, on top of the mending and the occasional seamstressing commission obtained from their affluent customers in the district of Cavenborough.

Anna helped as best she could. The girl had picked up her first needle at the tender age of five and now, at eight, was able to do her share of sewing, mending, and folding, and knew how to boil water for the wash. Every morning Anna would rise well before dawn and walk through the market, to cross the border of the lower districts, making rounds to pick up what work they could from the mansions that lay just over the wall.

It had taken Grandmother months to obtain the verification papers necessary to do business outside of Asha. But the old woman was loved by everyone, and so was so very resourceful, that the task had been less impossible than it might have been for others.

Grandmother had lived in the countryside as a child, and had brought her knowledge of various herbal remedies and healing arts when she moved to the Capital. There were not many doctors who would come to Asha, especially since the regulations for coming and going from the lower districts had become more strict over the years. Most in Asha couldn't afford them anyway. Instead, lots of people came to Anna's grandmother for help.

Grandmother kept a garden of potted plants, and had provided relief and remedy for most of the people who lived in the district, from the highest to the lowest. From the baker's wife whose childbirth she had eased, to the blacksmith for whom she had made a poultice to heal his horse's leg; there were few who were not in some way indebted to Mariana Cassis.

Even one of the gate guardians had been aided by her skill when he got a nasty cut on the barbed wire that surrounded the wall and no doctor could not be found to clean and bind the wound properly. All Grandmother had to do was beg a few favors, and the hard sought pass was won.

Anna loved venturing through the bustling marketplace as it set up in the early morning, filled with people pedaling their goods before the sun was fully hung in the sky. She loved the wonderful smells of fresh baked bread, and smoked meats in the air as they mixed in to mask the pungent, sweet sour sent of rotting garbage that littered the street. She felt at home in the chaos of shouting voices, hooves and wagon wheels along the cobblestones, and the friendly smiles of the Asha residents she passed each day. Even in the coldest of months, when the trek left her lungs sore from the harsh taste of bitter winds, and kept her fingers and toes numb all day, Anna was still eager to make the journey to the Middle district.

Hints of spring had been creeping over the city for weeks, but when Anna rubbed the sleep from her eyes that morning, she was shivering. Looking out the small window of their flat, she could see the weather was of the dreary sort, damp with the threat of rain. It seemed that overnight the winter had returned, grabbing onto the city in one last desperate attempt before the spring could pry loose its icy grasp for good. As Anna set out, the sky was still was dark, with no hint of sunrise on the horizon, filled only with a swirling array of gray clouds.

The streets were quiet in the early hours of the day, especially with the weather was bad as it was. Anyone who could afford to stay indoors would find it hard to leave the warmth of their beds. Even the market was barer than usual. Not that many customers would come if the rain started up anyway. Still, the guards at the checkpoint were there. They were always there.