Life Begins Again

Chapter One: Birmingham Bound

Dear Luce,

I hope this letter reaches you well.

Thanks for the sketch of that barge. I mean, I think it was a barge, I could not actually tell. But, as it is you, that's what I suppose it was.

In answer to your question, it's not so bad here. The lads keep singing songs when we get a moment, quiet songs so as not to attract too much attention. It keeps spirits raised when we need it the most. And God knows we need that. This wasn't exactly how I envisioned seeing the continent, but it's a start. Fighting to keep it safe.

Guess who I saw today? Kenneth Watts! I did not realise that he had joined up as well, but it makes sense. He said hello to you by the way (after chiding me for being there). I told him that you would send a kiss in return. You should have seen his blush!

I will see you shortly, Luce, don't you worry about that.

Tutto il mio amore, piccola rossa,

Sy

Luce forced her eyes closed, forced the tears back before they could fall. She no longer needed to see the letter to remember the words. Every curve of her best friend's writing was practically burnt onto her retinas, refusing to let go of her. The words kept coming back to her, unbidden, as the scenery sped passed the train window; green whipping by like nothing she had ever seen before.

What she wouldn't have given for Sy to be sat beside her for this little adventure instead of her bag. The bag was all she'd allowed herself to take from home. It was filled with two sets of clothes, a raggedy teddy bear that she'd been given when she was five, the money she'd managed to save up from money her mother had given her for odd jobs and two pictures. One was her and her family, the other was of Sylvain.

The idea had been to get away. To leave the city and not look back. She couldn't stand it there anymore. The streets were filled with ghosts, with the signs of people trying to rebuild everything that the War had taken from them. The ghosts in the house were the worst though. Where usually the hallway would be filled with laughter, with the sound of her brother, Wilf, goofing about, now they were silent. Still even. Until something upset him, and sent him shouting his head off, sent him raging at them all.

Sometimes, the crying was the worst of it though. The living nightmares that he couldn't stop.

Again, Luce forced the memory away, tried to think about where she was going.

Birmingham. It hadn't been intentional, just the first place name she'd seen on the board, but now she tried to focus on her excitement. She stoked the embers of the emotion as best she could, refusing to allow dark thoughts to smother it. The midlands was somewhere she'd never been before. Somewhere new. Somewhere to start again.

Her thoughts went back to the house though. To the scrunched up letters she'd left abandoned in her bin, unable to finish them. The words had felt hollow, had felt merely superfluous every time she tried to explain what she was doing. Why she couldn't stay.

In the end, she'd kept it short and sweet:

I love you. See you soon.

Luce x

It was all she'd been able to manage. She hoped they'd understand.

Hell, she even hoped that they might be relieved that they no longer had the burden of another child. Her parents could focus on Wilf, on healing themselves without having to keep an eye on their daughter too.

With a sigh, Luce shifted in her seat, rested her forehead against the cool glass of the window pane. She'd wanted to get a boat up the canal but it would have taken too long. Too easy to spot; too easy to stop. This was her best way of keeping anonymous. Well, as anonymous as a sixteen year old girl travelling alone was ever going to be.