Logs:Hiding Aunt Sarthe
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| RL Date: 28 February, 2003 |
| Who: Leova |
| Involves: High Reaches Weyr |
| Type: Vignette |
| What: Young Leova through teenaged Leova. Family and what we do to each other. |
| Where: Tillek |
| When: Starts before the Pass was supposed to end and spans about ten Turns. |
| Mentions: Julee/Mentions, Sarthe/Mentions, Vamot/Mentions |
| OOC Notes: I wrote almost all of this vignette years ago, but never finished. Perfect is the enemy of done. |
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| She wasn't old enough the first time. The door rattled from knocking. Leova knew she wasn't supposed to open up though, so she got back to drawing. But then sunlight was coming in and so was Aunt Sarthe, which Leova liked because then they would get milk with a little klah stirred in and maybe some jam for their bread, only instead of that Mother was telling her and her sisters to go pull weeds in the courtyard and to hurry, hurry. Leova hadn't even finished the map she was drawing on the table for Dolly Sue and it was important but Mother made her go anyway, and Leova heard her tell her older sisters to run quick and tell her if Uncle Vamot came. But he didn't, and Mother didn't let Leova back in. So she cried, only Mother still didn't let Leova back in so she cried louder. By the time she got done crying, her sisters had pulled more weeds than Leova had fingers and finally they played Thread with Leova and Leova didn't have to be the girl this time, she got to be Thread and that was more fun, two against one, or three against one if you counted Dolly Sue, which Leova did even though she had to move her legs herself. Uncle Vamot still didn't come, and by the time Aunt Sarthe left, she wasn't shaking anymore and her face was clean. She looked right at Leova like she was going to dare her to climb something or get into something. Only then Mother made Leova clean the charcoal off the table which wasn't fair because she didn't even get to finish and now Dolly Sue would never get to find the treasure, and then she had to set the table while her sisters got water from the well which was more fun, she always wanted to look down the well but they would never let her look down the way she wanted to. Even though Leova promised to be careful. Aunt Sarthe started coming over to their cothold every day almost. She and Mother would sit and talk while they sewed and sometimes they would laugh, but whenever Leova came over to listen it was always about boring things. Mother had to make clothes for Leova's biggest sister and fix clothes for the rest of them and the baby that was coming, but Aunt Sarthe didn't, she got to make beautiful things with threads of all different colors. Aunt Sarthe helped Leova make her first apron. It was a plain piece of cloth and she had to sew one long side over a string for a belt. She thought she was done, but Aunt Sarthe made her fold the other edges over and sew them down so they wouldn't come undone. It took forever and Leova had to undo parts and once she lost the needle. Mother yelled and said it was good smith make but Aunt Sarthe just helped her look. And after that she got to make an apron for Dolly Sue that matched, and after that Aunt Sarthe helped Leova make new hair for Dolly Sue who was almost as bald as Father by then. She let Leova use some of her pretty threads even, the short pieces left over from when she did a line of stitches, but she told Leova not to cut Dolly Sue's hair this time. She said girls were supposed to have long hair and dollies too, even when Leova told her she knew that already. And then Aunt Sarthe told Leova not to yank Dolly Sue's hair out, and not to break it off, and definitely not to bite it off with her teeth. Leova was all right with promising that except then Aunt Sarthe looked at her again and said not to ask one of her sisters to do it or even ask a friend to do it. Leova didn't want to promise then but she did anyway. Aunt Sarthe gave her a smile and said good girl. Leova liked Aunt Sarthe's smiles. Thread was ending. Everybody knew that. Best of all, that meant Sattle Hold was going to have a Gather, and it was going to be the biggest one ever, and Leova was going to get to go. Father hadn't wanted to go, but Mother did. Her parents didn't argue often, not where it showed. Father told Mother what to do and Mother mostly did it, although not always the way he meant. Sometimes he would shout at her, things that hurt like skinning a knee, even though Leova was only listening behind the door and not running at all. Sometimes Mother yelled back. Once Father told Mother not to go to the market anymore and she didn't, and then later he asked her why there wasn't any breakfast and she told him, and he said to go to the market like that's what he wanted all along. Then Mother boxed Leova's ears for giggling. She had to come carry bags, too. It wasn't fair. This time, Mother was going to get to go to the Gather and so were Leova's sisters except the baby, who wasn't nursing any longer and who was going to get to stay with Aunt Sarthe, which wouldn't be fair either except Leova was getting to go to a Gather at Sattle Hold and the baby wasn't. Finally the day came, and since Father said someone had to keep an eye on things at home and it might as well be him, they all piled into Julee's family's wagon from two cotholds over, with Salie the goat tied on behind for trading. It was so early it was practically still dark, and it wasn't hot yet. Leova thought she would remember the ride forever, only she didn't, because what she remembered most (after the way the air smelled different when they got close, and after having to give Julee the biggest of the sticky buns with the nuts chopped in, and after the old man who called her sweet when she stopped to pick at her blisters) was the other thing she saw at the Gather stalls. Mother was talking to a man who was selling embroidered things, only when Leova got close, she saw that Mother was doing the selling. And then she saw what she was selling, and she started to say, Mother, those are Aunt Sarthe's! but Mother looked at her and said that she knew. Leova didn't think her mother would steal. She was pretty sure. But she wasn't sure all the way. The next time Aunt Sarthe came over, Leova pretended to leave but really she peeked through the crack of the door, and she saw Mother giving Aunt Sarthe some marks. Only Aunt Sarthe didn't take them, she put them in a jar, and Mother put them on the windowsill right where anyone could see if they knew how to look... except nobody did. Leova thought that meant it was okay, but she wasn't sure about that either. They were actual marks. When nobody was looking, Leova made sure. Leova's sisters were still off smiling at the new Harper when Aunt Sarthe came, and she was shaking again, and swollen from her cheek up to the bones around her eye. She didn't look at Leova this time. "Why do you taunt him," Leova's mother said lowly, as though she already knew the answer. Leova was sent to get cool water from the well, and one of the softest cloths from her mother's dowry chest, embroidered with her initial. By the time Leova got back, they were arguing again, kept arguing even when her mother pressed the damp cloth to her aunt's cheek. So tenderly. One day Aunt Sarthe came and she was crying as though she would never stop, the linens she'd been working on for months all ripped and cut to shreds in her hands. If there was anything to heal that, Leova wasn't sure what it could be. When Leova slammed back into the cothold that morning, the last morning she would ever spend there, Aunt Sarthe's jar was the first thing she saw. She didn't have to take it all. |
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