Something Like a Fairytale

Arriving at Alder's Landing

The sky was a soft blue, clouds painted in fluffy white overhead. The sun was just starting to set, casting a warm amber light over the fields dotted with lily of the valleys and the gentle brook nearby burbled a soothing melody. It was in this picturesque field that two souls would encounter each other for the first time. But I'm getting ahead of myself.

The story starts with Jason Alder meeting his family for the first time. The many aunts and uncles who fussed over him, how tall he was, and how small he was the last time they saw him (from the few who held him as a baby). Their children, his cousins, running around him at various ages and obtusely remarking on how oddly he dressed, that rich city folk ought to be fashionable like the people they saw on the old cathode-ray tube television in the parlor. They were all well and good, nutty eyes and that distinct Alder nose that was passed down no matter the generation. There was just a lot of them. 

Jason didn't know any of their names and which ones actually lived on Alder's Landing, the old creaking home built centuries back by their great ancestor George Alder, or lived in the little town an hour away. He felt as if he had stepped back in time, an oddly comforting feeling, as he looked around at the woodfire oven and paisley curtains and faded photographs in varying tones of sepia. 

"Jason, Jason, Jason!" One of his little cousins, Stewart, pulled on the sleeve of the jacket Jason was wearing, which was already stretched and fraying at the edges and two sizes too large so that it slipped off his shoulder. Stewart was easily six years younger than him, maybe nine or ten years old. "Want to come to play with me? Please? Pretty please?"

He was about to say yes, excited by the idea of escaping the large and bustling house and running into the boundless fields outside, but was quickly silenced by the patriarch of the family storming into the room with a cane used more for whacking than walking. Gregory Alder Jr., whose forehead was creased with years of frustration and age and whose angry disposition was exceeded only by his surprising strength. Upon entering he whacked the leg of the table three times for attention with no apparent care for the young children scurrying about and coughed raggedly. 

"Ahem, c'mere boy," he said in a voice that sounded like he had eaten nothing but lemons and iron nails for the past three years. He pointed a large-knuckled finger toward Jason and beckoned with an authority to be reckoned with. 

Jason walked slowly towards him and before he could say another word, jumped at the sound of the cane pounding onto the wooden floor. 

"Where are your manners, boy? 'Good afternoon, Grandfather!' 'How do you do, Grandfather?' I told Jesse the city life spoils young boys and I seem to be right. Hmph."

"G-good afternoon, Grandfather. How do you do, G-grandfather?" Jason mumbled clumsily. His relatives' boisterous chatter was replaced with hurried goodbyes and anxious murmurs. All but two couples and five kids were left standing apprehensively in the kitchen, whispering amongst each other. A toddler, unknowing of the tense environment, babbled happily as she was busied with a doll.

"I tell you what, boy. I'm going to work the spoiled right out of you, alright? You're to be staying here until the school year and by the time the first fall leaf falls you'll be a true Alder through and through! I bet that on my last penny!"

Jason gulped and nodded as sincerely as he could manage. This was going to be a long summer. 

Meanwhile, across the fields and over the stream, another girl woke up in an entirely different predicament.