Testaments of Heart

Chapter One

- Authors Note -

I have always loved writing and I have been blessed with many ideas for novels, but Testaments of Heart is one of my favorites. I'm glad I have the opportunity to share it with you, and I wish that you enjoy it as much as I do. I also hope for you, my readers, to push me to become a better writer and even person. Don't be scared to give productive criticism as well.

Please enjoy Testaments of Heart.

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A warm summer breeze fills the small village, surrounded by large mills and fields of plentiful soybeans, corn, wheat, and potatoes. Every house near a field, made from rotting wood and containing a small square footage, sits in perfect lines with little yards, but the nearer the middle square comes, the houses form from marble and stone. The square itself, surrounded by shops for those blessed with money and those cursed of being poor, contains stone footing, a glorious marble fountain, and the biggest building in the village, the city hall. Usually the fields, square, and roads, dirt or stone, would contain people going about their business, but today not one person is outside. Even though the sun rises high without obscuring clouds, not even the poor work in the fields. Today the village is a ghost town.

Today is the 383rd annual ceremony of the Utezi.

In a bland, aging house near the largest soybean field, a family of five sits in their small sitting room. Three children, two girls and the other a young boy, are placed on a crumbling couch, barely supporting the weight of them. A mother stands looking out the window showing the stretching dirt street, empty of any movement, and a father sits on a straight-back chair dragged from the dining room table. They all sit in silence either staring at the dirt filled floor, like the father, looking at the street, like the mother, or glaring into the space, like the eldest child.

Silence fills the room with waves of nerves and the eldest child makes the only movement that has occured in the last 15 minutes. She moves her body to the edge of the couch and runs her tanned, blistered hand through her bright, bleach-blonde hair. She closes her eyes and takes in a shaking breathe. Her eyes open and meet those of her father's across from her. Worry and regret swarm his bland, brown eyes.

Averting her gaze, the blonde child turns her gaze to the young girl next to her. She stares at the wooden, crumbling, floor with her twin eyes to their father. Her light, brown hair, the color of the glazed hazelnuts they eat at holiday dinners, lies atop her head in a piling bun. A short, and perhaps a few sizes too small for her slightly curving body, rose gold dress hangs in a scratchy fabric from thick sleeves hiding the thinness her collarbones tend to show, but the color stands bright against the tanned skin. She avoids the eye contact of all in the room.

Though unwilling, the blonde child brings her eyes upon the younger brother on her other side. Youthful and inexperienced, he sits with his shaggy hair, the same tone as the girl on the opposite side of the couch, covering his forehead. His shirt, an ashing grey, lays on his chest many sizes too big, but hidden behind the beauty in his eyes. Those eyes go to look at the one staring at him, his eldest sibling. A blue, unlike that seen in any other family, stare at her with such brightness and light that no paint or words could describe the beauty in them. The closer to the pupil, the darker the color gets, slightly and barley noticeable though. If the sky was this color, none would ever stop wondering how such beauty exists. If the ocean was this color, no one would leave its side. And these eyes, the same as those on the eldest, make them a target today. And that is why the eldest stands and finally makes noise in the overwhelming house.

"What is the point?" speaks the girl with icy rage, her voice hoarse from hours without speech. "Why do we have to stand there while they pick us like cattle going to slaughter? I rather be cattle than what we are. The cattle have their ending written out for them, but we sit here awaiting to see if our butcher is the next person we see!"