Childhood Memory (Finn Shelby)

Part 1

Elsie got on top of her horse, a beautiful skewbald named Paint. She and her father were going on a ride that particular morning, Elsie was confused when he told her at breakfast but brushed it off, she never really got to spend time with him unless they were training horses together.

She grabbed her reins and waited for her father to arrive outside the sables on his own horse, Holly. Soon enough the man came trotting over with a smile. "Come on Elsie," he said, trotting in front of her.

They galloped across their fields, jumping fences and hedges, laughing and joking. The mood drastically changed when her father started coughing violently, so violent that he would have fallen off of Holly if it wasn't for Elsie holding him steady. "Father, what's wrong? Are you ill?" She questioned worriedly, still clutching her father's arm.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about, Elsie." He said, his voice still sounding hoarse.

"What is it?" She asked, now feeling frightened.

"I'm dying," he said simply, but full of sadness.

"No- You, you can't be" Elsie cried, not wanting to hear it. Her mother had died not long after they moved to the countryside and now her father too?

"I am, the doctors think I got tuberculosis so, after today, I cannot let you go near me, just in case it is tuberculosis. I don't want you dying too" He said gravely.

"But father-" she sniffled.

"No, Elsie listen. I cannot have you die. You've got so much life in you, I can't let you cut your life short." He said gently before putting on a smile, "besides, who would look after the horses if we're both gone?"

Elsie couldn't bear the thought of losing the horses or being away from them but she didn't want her father to die either. "I don't want you to die" she cried.

"I know sweetie, I know" He cooed.

"Do you know how long you've got left?" She asked with tears in her eyes.

"Enough to get my affairs in order," he told her, "I'm leaving you everything, the horses, the house, the staff as well. But Elsie, if there's something you don't want to keep, for example, the house, you don't have to keep it"

"Okay," she said defeatedly, her father really was going to die.

They rode back in silence and when they reached the stables, Elsie put both of the horses away, not wanting her father to exert himself by working too much.

When she went back into their massive house, she found her father looking through a few photographs Elsie hadn't seen before. "Is that me?" She questioned over her father's shoulder, pointing to a picture of who she assumed was herself and a young boy.

"Yes, it was taken a few months before we moved here," He told her, passing her the photo, Elsie gently took the photo, analysing it.

"Who's the boy?" She questioned, not recognising him, pointing at the boy in the photo.

"I can't remember his name," her father said with a frown.

"I can't remember anything that happened before we moved here," Elsie said, trying to remember where that picture was taken and who the young boy was.

"That was your Mother's fault," her father said.

"What do you mean it was Mother's fault that I don't remember anything?"

"She didn't want you to remember what happened before we left" He frowned, he knew this day would come when he told his only child what had happened. "She gave you this drug, it meant to help you forget, it wasn't legal or ethical. I told her not to do it"

"Mother drugged me?" She said, dumbfounded, "why would she do that?"

"Something happened the day before we left, you and that boy were almost killed by a grenade, his brother threw the grenade away just before it exploded. I wanted to thank him for saving you, but I never got the chance to. And now I can't even remember his name."

"I don't remember that" Elsie became frustrated, her emotions running too high, "do you remember where it happened? Maybe we can go find them?"

"Small Heath, Birmingham," he said, "but Elsie, that place is dangerous. As much as I want to find that man, I can't go and I certainly can't let you go, I don't want you to go"

"How's it dangerous?" She asked but got cut off by her father coughing violently again, this time blood covered his hand.

"Leave, Elsie, go," he said, ringing the bell to get a maid to phone the doctors. "I love you"

Elsie looked with sadness in her eyes as she was also escorted out of the room by the maid and instructed to have a bath to clean away the dirt from their morning ride.

The next morning, her father was pronounced dead.

A/N I swear my chapters will get longer xx