A bit of a foray into fiction. My kids and I came up with the idea and characters for this story together, and this is the first installment.

“Orii! Orii! Where are you!” 

Oriika reluctantly pulled herself up from the mossy bed, ignoring the pins and needles in her limbs. She glanced back at the pebble-filled creek with fond regret.  

“I’ll be back,” she promised. “Come, Peb; let’s go before Mam starts getting angry.” 

Mam was often angry these days, it seemed. Oriika didn’t understand why it mattered so much whether she learned to weave, or how well she brushed her hair or how many times her skirts needed mending. Do everything right or do everything wrong, her life would end, as it had started, in a dim and dusty room right here in this sad little village. What was the point of anything? 

“Orii! Hurry! Mam says it’s time to get the water and she wants you to finish the bread before you start weaving today!” 

Oriika tousled Henri’s curly brown hair. It wasn’t his fault that Mam was so demanding; in her eyes, her baby brother could do no wrong.  

“I’m coming,” she assured him.  

“Oh hi Peb!” Henri bent down and stroked the gray fox twice, from his ears right down to the end of his pointed tail, just the way he liked it. Peb arched and mewled; a good petting always turned him back into the little fox cub Oriika had found alone in the woods that early spring morning four years earlier.  

“You shouldn’a brought it back,” Dad had grumbled, shaking his head as he showed her how to spoon gruel and sheep’s milk into the tiny foxlet’s mouth. He still shook his head every time Pebble wheedled his way into the family’s home, but Oriika had seen him when he thought no one was looking, and he stroked the fox just as gently as any of them.  

The trees thinned as the children neared the village, and Henri broke into a run. At 7 he wasn’t expected to do as many chores as his older siblings; instead he spent hours hanging out at the blacksmith, watching Gregory pound metal and shoe horses. 

Gregory was the oldest. He had moved out of the family home last year, into his own cottage with his own wife (Lissa, the innkeeper’s daughter). He was a good lad. Everyone in the village said so. But as far as Oriika was concerned, he was a perfect example of why being good was as pointless as everything else. So he had a home and a wife, and would soon have a child; he would work hard and grow old and die, as he had been born, in a dim and dusty room right here in this sad little village.  

Oriika grabbed the water pail from the doorstep and hurried toward the well. If she had at least one chore done before Mam caught sight of her, perhaps she would escape a scolding today.  

Lissa was at the well, just drawing up her own bucket. It was only half full, Oriika noted. Lissa had taken to making several trips each day rather than hauling a full pail of water on top of her expanding waistline.  

“Can I help with that?” Oriika asked politely. Lissa was several years older than her, and they had never spoken before the wedding. Even now, half a year later, Orii felt awkward around her sister-in-law. 

“Thank you, but this is my last trip for the morning – I think I will be all right,” Lissa smiled. She handed the rope to Oriika and shifted her half-full pail to her left hip. “How was the forest this morning?” 

Oriika colored a bit. Everyone in the village knew she ran off to the woods as often as she was allowed, and even oftener when she was not allowed. She knew that some considered her strange. She considered herself strange. But the trees and the rocks and Pebble made for far better company than the village folks. 

Lissa, however, did not seem to be mocking the younger girl. Oriika attempted a smile.  

“About the same as usual,” she replied, deftly tying her water pail to the rope and lowering it into the well. “The light is lovely this time of year.” 

“It is that. Take care, little sister!” 

Lissa trudged off, her body swaying unevenly as she adjusted to the sloshing of the water.  

That would be her in a few year, Oriika thought grimly. Her body invaded by a small, growing child. Her life a round of chores and discomfort. Eventually she would end up like Mam, worn out and cranky.  

She took the now-full water pail and balanced it on her hip. Everything took so much effort. Rocks had it good, she thought. Nothing to do but sit in the sun, and then the shade, and soak everything in. She should have been a rock.  

“Got the water, Mam!” she called as she entered the cramped cottage the seven of them called home. “Henri said you needed me to finish the bread?” 

“Please,” her mother grunted. She dusted off her hands and turned to the fireplace, leaving the dough on the rough table. Orii slipped an apron over her head and began kneading the pliant lump.  

“I’d like to dry the apples tomorrow,” Mam said, giving the large kettle one final stir before picking up a pile of soiled linens. “I will be outside washing; set the bread to rise and get back to work on your weaving. You have already wasted an hour of good light.” 

Oriika waiting until her mother was out of earshot before she let out her groan. Knead the bread. Slice the apples. Wash the clothes. Weave the cloth. Sleep, and do it all over again.  

“You’d be happier if you didn’t think so much,” her little sister piped up, entering the cottage with a bushel full of apples. Unlike Oriika, Piper seemed content to live her life in the tiny cycles of the village. She was actually good at weaving, and cooking, and she sang as she went about her daily chores. At 14 she was a year younger than Orii, but she often seemed older, and Mam for sure treated her that way.  

***** 

She’d be happier if she didn’t think so much, eh? Pipe’d be happier if she didn’t breathe so much, that’s what! She may as well stop doing one as the other. 

Three days later Orii was still fuming over her sister’s comment. Once again she had slipped out in the early morning and was crouched on a large rock, a bit further down the stream this time, gazing at pebbles. 

She flipped over onto her back and hung her head over the edge of the rock, her rough black curls just grazing the surface of the water. She twisted to look right, then left, feeling the uneven weight of the wet tips at the end of her hair. 

Orii suddenly snapped back to reality when the sun rose above the trees and hit her full in the eye. There was no way that much time had passed! Why hadn’t anyone come for her? Had she fallen asleep? Was she dreaming? 

She sat up slowly, spinning head cradled in her palms. Mam was going to kill her.  

Then sudden panic shot through Oriika’s chest, and she staggered up and forward, turning toward the village and breaking into a mad, blinded run. 

***** 

Curling smoke. Piles of ashes. The occasional crack of a shifting beam. 

Just hours earlier her whole world had been contained in this small, pointless village.  

Now the village – and her world – were gone.  

***** 

Oriika finished her walk from pile to pile just as the sun began its journey back to the horizon. She had found a few uncharred apples and several charred chickens, which she had tied in her shawl and thrown over her shoulder. Unfamiliar bootprints were the only clue she had to what had happened.  

Had the people been burned or taken? She was too afraid to find out to have spent much time looking; it was glaringly obvious that no living beings remained. 

Thank goodness Pebble had been with her! She felt guilty as soon as the thought appeared, but thoughts were like breathing and she was thankful she wouldn’t be entirely alone when night fell.  

One more collapsed structure remained at the edge of the forest. Oriika almost didn’t bother stopping – the village mage had never eaten at home and certainly never kept food about – but then it occurred to her that it might be quite nice to have a spell or two about her in case of emergency. Plus, she could see the mage’s face at the thought that someone might take his spells without paying handsomely.  

She sifted through the ashes, unable to find anything larger than her fingernail in the edges of the pile. She glanced up to see how far the sun had set. She must be far from here by nightfall. 

Caught in one of the branches of the big elm that had towered over the structure she could see a larger piece of paper. Orii hitched up her skirts and scaled the trunk. She tested the branch – it seemed unharmed by the flames. So she stretched her full length out until she could just touch the page. 

A little farther and she would have it. Her toes gripped the rough bark near the trunk as she nudged forward – just a bit more – there! 

As her fingers closed on either side of the scrap of paper – what if it wasn’t even a spell, after all this effort? – her toes slipped. In a rush of skirts and scrambling legs she slid off the branch, caught herself briefly with her unused arm, and fell to the ground. 

There was no heat left in the corner of ashes she landed in, and they did break her fall. She reminded herself of these mercies as she coughed and blinked in the gray cloud. How many spells was she breathing in? 

Spells! Oriika glanced down at the paper clutched between her first two fingers on the right hand. It was only a scrap after all; some of the lines or words might have been burnt off where the edges were scalloped by heat.  

She had taught herself to read one winter before Gregory went to apprentice with the blacksmith, hanging over his shoulder as he painstakingly went over and over any scrap of writing he could get hold of. Gregory had wanted to study law or join a monastery, but of course they had no gold to send him to university and her father would hear nothing of such foolishness as his eldest son going off to never be seen again.  

But Gregory had learned to read, and so had she, and so now Orii sounded out the words of the spell in her mind. She had never done magic, but she had seen a spell or two go wrong and she was not going to speak anything out loud until she knew what might be coming.  

“...carry sweetest perfumes wide 
cover what has died. 
never captured, never seen,  
never known... 
here you are, mysterious...” 

Oriika shivered, although the sun was still warm. She didn’t know what the spell did, or if she could use it, but she could feel an eerie power as she silently finished the passage. She stuffed the paper deep in her pocket, picked up her shawl full of food, and set off into the forest without a backward glance, Pebble trotting beside her.