Spindle(4)

Both their families hailed from County Wicklow in Ireland. Wheeler’s mam liked to tell the story of how Briar’s great-grandmother almost married Wheeler’s great-grandfather, except he proposed to someone in the dark, thinking it was his girl when it wasn’t. The proposed-to girl was so happy, he hadn’t the heart to break it off. Everyone said it was inevitable for Briar and Wheeler to meet in the new land and get it right this time.

His new sweetheart didn’t have a connection with him like that.

Everything had been settled. They’d had everyone’s blessing. And then Wheeler changed his mind for no real reason other than he needed time to think things over. Briar didn’t know how to stop him from getting lost in the dark like his great-grandfather did. Or if she should even try.

“If we walk any slower we’ll start going backward,” Henry said, pulling Briar back to the present. He stepped into the woods and came back with a tall walking stick. “Not that I mind this extra time with you, but I do have chores at home.”

Briar set her lips and didn’t answer. She never asked Henry to walk her to the cottage. But that was the way with a Prince, as everyone said. They acted out of habit, and once a habit was established, it stayed that way. His new habit appeared to be trying to keep her mind off of Wheeler.

“They’re ridiculous,” he said scornfully as the couple in front of them touched hands for a few moments before separating again.

Briar’s heart cracked a little more. She remained silent, but fingered the fancy comb holding up her hair. The comb that Wheeler had given her for Christmas. And now they’re going to our pond. Is there no other place he can take her?

“You can hold my hand if it would make you feel better,” Henry said. He held out his calloused, grease-laden fingers for her to grab. His hand had grown since the last time he’d offered it to her.

She sighed. Henry. He was there when her family moved into the valley and would likely still be there when they moved out. She was told there’d never been a time when Sunrise Valley didn’t have a Henry Prince in it. From son back to father to grandfather and beyond, and none of them had ever gone anywhere. They were known as a reclusive family, hardly leaving their farm. Except for Henry. He was different.

Briar’s family had only been in the valley since Pansy was born. They were supposed to be traveling through, but then Da got a job at the new factory and they stayed. Mam worked, too, but developed the coughing sickness from all the cotton in her lungs. She died when the twin boys were born, and then when Da died of consumption, the Jenny children were stuck there, like weeds that nobody wanted.

Briar didn’t intend for them to stay any longer in Sunrise Valley than they had to. She would find a way out for her sister and brothers. Back to the Old Country like Mam wanted for them. Back to where they would fit in. And Henry Prince was not that way.

He wiggled his eyebrows at her.

Unguarded, she laughed. This particular Henry Prince was also known for being an audacious flirt.

“That’s better. You’re irresistible when you laugh.”

But when Briar looked ahead and saw the couple again, she immediately stopped smiling. The pace they had set was torturously slow. If only she hadn’t gone into town, she would have been far ahead of them now and she wouldn’t have had to witness this budding romance. It was worse that Henry had waited to walk home with her. She didn’t need an audience for her pain.

“I can’t wait to leave Sunrise,” she said.

Henry spun around and walked backward, facing her and blocking her view of the couple. “The way you say Sunrise makes it sound like you don’t like the place. This valley has a lot to offer. Our town is booming, if you like that sort of thing. Thanks to the mills, we’re getting electric lights installed, so we’re as industrialized as anywhere you’d want to go.” He cocked his head, holding up a hand to his ear. “Don’t you hear the powerful roar of Otter Creek? Smell the fresh mountain air? And look: Solomon’s Seal is already blooming in the forest. I can see the white bells from here. What’s not to like?”

Briar refused to look. “All I hear is the echo of the spinning machines. All I smell is the cotton dust that’s stuck in my nose. And all I see is a place filled with, with…nothing for me.”

Henry didn’t answer; he simply gazed at the scenery as if it were paradise and no other place on earth could be more lovely.

Despite herself, she followed Henry’s gaze to the forest where she couldn’t see anything at all blooming. The creek roared beyond the trees as usual, but there was no breeze coming down from the mountaintop.

As if to prove her wrong, the leaves on the nearest tree rustled like a gust of wind had blown through, twirling the leaves so they flashed silver and green on one branch only. The other trees and their leaves remained still. Briar stopped. A memory stirred.

“What is it?” Henry asked.

“Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“A cavalcade of fairies,” Briar mused, remembering what her mother had taught her. “Whenever a wind seems to come from nowhere and affects only one tree or a strip of prairie grass, Mam would tell me it was fairies passing by, and she would pause to give them a moment to all get through.”

“I didn’t see a fairy go by. Is that an Irish thing?” he asked.