Fairchild's 7 Daughters-The 12: Book One

29. God's Will

"Don't let anger make you unholy. "Don't let their insults leave you lowly. I'll stand by you, I'm the rain, I'll quince your burning pain." Heloise spun in the shallow snow. "You sing next, Hannah."

Hannah slumped as she walked and groaned. "I don't wanna sing," she whined. "When are we going to be out of these woods?"

"Would you rather be back on the train again?" Alifair asked her. "This here is Virginia and we still have a long way to go before we get home so get used to the woods."

"I'm just happy it's stopped snowing," Heloise said looking up at the sky.

"Will you tell a story, Heloise?" Hannah asked. "It will make time go by faster."

Alifair laughed. "Shall you tell her favorite story, Heloise? You know the one."

"Don't you say it!" Hannah pouted. "Don't you dare say it!"

Alifair and Heloise looked at each other. "Mommy, I want to hear Booty and the Beast." They said in unison then howled with laughter.

"I'll get you!" Hannah shouted and charged her sisters. The older girls turned and ran through the woods giggling.

"Give up, Hannah, you're too slow!" Heloise shouted over her shoulder as she bounded through the snow. "I'm the fastest Fairchild," she shouted through the pines.

"Heloise, wait up!" Alifair shouted between giggles.

"AHHHH," Heloise screamed and vanished from sight before her sisters.

Alifair staggered to a halt before she too fell into the sudden hole in the ground. Hannah ran up beside her and looked into the deep hole.

"Do you see her?" Alifair asked. "Heloise, are you all right?"

Deep in the hole, Heloise righted herself and brushed the snow from her hair. Nothing felt broken so she heaved herself up of the moist ground and looked up into her sisters' worried faces. "I'm all right." She looked around the dirt walled space. There were remnants of old wood that had become permanent parts of the earth. It was certainly man made. "I think it used to be a well or a mineshaft. See if you can find something to get me out."

"Just sit, Heloise," Alifair said. "We'll find something to get you out. Come on, Hannah."

Heloise watched her sisters disappear from the mouth of the hole then she did as Alifair had instructed, she sat. The forest around was quiet. She could hear the sound of snow falling from branches onto the already blanketed ground. She tried clawing her way up the dirt but this only further soiled her clothes so she once again sat and waited.

/

Alifair and Hannah hurried through the snow laden forest in search of something to help Heloise. All of the branches that could be found on the ground were either too thin or too rotted. They passed between two wide pine trees where cardinals were perched in red defiance of the snow begotten world around them.

"Let's try this way next," Alifair said and started to direct Hannah to the left when the voice called out behind them.

"What do you girls think you are doing?"

The girls spun around in alarm and saw a bundled up man standing before him. He seemed to tower as tall as some of the trees and with a shot gun under his arm he looked something to be feared.

"This here wood is private property. Didn't you see the sign?"

Alifair shook her head. "No sir, we didn't see any signs."

"Well you ought to have because they are posted all around here. You're lucky Mr. Sale didn't find you on his property. He would have shot you for sure. The two of you look like little deer prancing around here in the wood."