Bewilderment (A Harry Styles Fanfiction)

Chapter One

I stand in the garden picking the ripe vegetables for tonight’s dinner. The sun beats down on me, beads of sweat forming in my hairline. A basket in hand I slightly lift up my dress and walk up to the house.

As I walk there’s a sharp pain in my feet. My small shoes are getting too tight and I wonder when Mamma will make me new ones.

“Mamma, I have a basket of vegetables from the garden.” I set the basket down on the table and sit in a small wooden chair. It creeks as I move back in forth.

“Thank you dear.”

As Mamma looks down at today's paper her brow furrows and her mouth forms a grim line. The paper always upsets her. Britain is taking away our rights piece by piece. It was only a few months ago taxes were put on our sugar products.

Mamma slams the paper down on the table and walks out of the room, hollering for my father. I pick up the article and skim my eyes over it. I slowly re-read it again to make sure I read it right. The print is clear as day but my mind is a little blurry.

“No,” I say to myself in barley a whisper. They can’t do this to us. If they take away the right for us to move to the mountains how will my father sell his land?

I read further and shake my head in disbelief before chasing after Mamma. This cannot happen, my father has come too far to have this stop him now. Father has worked so hard for this and now all of that hard work is being snatched away from him.

Mamma is sitting in the other room with Father, her head in her hands while Father paces back and forth.

“Phoebe please go find your brother, he works with the other men in the lumber fields. We need him home before the soldiers show up.” He suddenly looks exhausted, and a little bit scared. After all, my family will now not have enough money to provide for us and now we are going to be responsible to provide for two or more soldiers.

“Yes father,” I hurry out of the house to go find Liam. He just started his work and I feel awful pulling him away from his exciting day but he won’t be the only one on his way home. Everyone’s family in the colony will be required to house at least two soldiers, and we won’t be the only ones disappointed.

I slam the door behind me in a hurry to bring my brother home. I look up and stop dead in my tracks, my eyes widening with fear. A wagon has just begun to pull up, three red coats sitting in the back. A man steps out from inside the wagon.

“Mamma! Papa!” I holler but my eyes stay on the men who are now making their way up to the house. My father steps out of the house and Mama watches from the window. I take a few steps back so that father is a small ways ahead of me.

“Hello Mr. Adams, it is to my understanding that you have heard of the new law called the Quartering Act.” The man speaking has white hair and stands in a red coat also in front of my father, hands behind his back. He stares at my father with an intense gaze.

“Yes, I read the papers.” my father says in a harsh tone.

“Good. You are then aware that these three men are required by the law of Britain to be housed by you,” he gestures towards the three young men who could have made better of their lives but instead chose the military.

“I expect that even you, a land owner of the mountains, will follow the rules of the soldiers and not pass them. I have more soldiers to assign today, good day sir.” His hands grasps the shoulders of the man with chestnut hair and whispers something in his ear before making his way back to the wagon.

The three men standing there step forward to introduce themselves. I move forward and stand next to my father. Mamma has now left the house and stands on the wooden steps, not daring to get close to the soldiers.