The woman stood behind the cottage, knee deep in snow, tears dripping down her face. She gripped her child against her chest, hoping to God her brother could pull off this stunt.
Jane had always been tough as nails. She had survived slavery, escape, starvation, sickness, and even a rabid dog, but never had she stood behind a shed with a child in her arms, crying into her chest, moments from death.
She bit her lip and fixed her posture before pulling a travel quill from her pocket; she brought a long burlap necklace with a tiny midnight-black corked jar attached to it off of her neck. Placing the writing materials into the snow, she laid the toddler next to them, only a thin washrag between his fragile glazed molasses skin and the ruthless cold of the ice.
Frantically searching her pockets, Jane's kinky and coarse black bun atop her head seemed to collect more and more snow as the sky released its tiny bullets of cold; her son made happy reaches thrusting his pudgy hands into the air in attempts to capture one.
Finally, she managed to pull a coffee stained, vaguely square piece of parchment from one of her skirt's many pockets. They were all packed with various trinkets, crystals, and other witchy utensils.
With slow, shaky fingers, Jane went to work scrawling a message onto the paper for her brother. She had known all along that the couple would take too long in the house. Finlay had always been quite the character. Stealing her best friends attention when they were children, infecting everyone with his contagious sense of pessimism: it drove Jane crazy. She had wanted nothing more than to see Lilith at least one more time; she had wanted nothing more than to see Joseph, the child that Lilith had promised would be her godson when they were merely seven.
She huffed slightly as she thought, her anger seemingly seeping into her writing as the letters grew more and more jagged. Her strokes grew so aggressive the ink pooled off into the snow, spreading like a tiny a black lake into the ice.
~Annie,
I told you this wouldn't be fast enough, I can't risk stayin' out here. They're gonna find me.
I gave Abe my necklace, the ink one; I want him to be educated somehow, that is all I'm asking for.
The necklace will never run out of ink so long as he's the one wearing it
I will begin bringing orphans as soon as possible, so make sure the yard is ready.
I already know of a dump about three miles from here crawling with orphaned earth goblins. I will do my best to bring the children personally but i cannot risk leading the elves to the dome.
I suspect Abe will have impressive healing abilities and likely end up being an empath so please make sure to tell Athol she must encourage him in this; his magic potential cannot go to waste.
Please tell Lilith I miss her, my heart yearns for my childhood friend. I did everything I could to see her without putting others in danger but it was in vain. Tell her there is no one I would rather have my son grow up on the same property as and one day we will see eachother again.
Love,
Jane Wilson~
Jane set the pen into the snow softly after writing, coiling the necklace gently into her son's hand before cupping his small head in her palm.
He looked up at her, with a puzzled expression. His cinnamon brown eyes gleaming back at her.
She opened her mouth to speak, but a thick wall of saliva and heartache barricaded her words.
"Mama?"
"S-sh-s-shhh." her voice was muffled by the wind, but Abe could hear the pain in her words clearly. His mother pushed him back into a sitting position by his shoulders and wrapped the rag over his torso like a shawl. Grasping his small hand in both of her palms, she looked at him with the most intensity the young boy had yet experienced in his single year of life. Her pale gray eyes pierced his as she broke her spit and sorrow barrier.
"You keep it safe, ya hear me? There ain't many things we're capable of protecting."
Abe looked back at her, his eyes wide as saucers and his stained cotton shirt now damp with his mother's tears.
Jane's lips quivered as she contemplated whether to let her feelings out on her son. On one hand this would likely be the last time she would get to be with him, and the last chance she would have to mold her legacy. On the other hand, she didn't want to overwhelm him, but she decided he was too young to experience moral pressures at this age, anyhow.
Suddenly, she gripped his jaw in her hand harshly. He let out a small whimper before she shushed him.
"You don't cry son, ya hear me? You prove them wrong; outrun the white man, at least the ones who won't run next to you. " She bit back a wail so harshly she could feel the rusty taste of blood in her mouth.
"Choose your allies carefully, Abrem."
With this, Jane stood up with a new sense of completion. Abe sat with a new sense of confusion.
Towering over her son, she let out a small moan before turning her back to the child.
Abe just then began to understand a surface level of what was going on.
"Mama?" his muffled inquiry echoed through the forest as his mother disappeared behind a pine tree making her way back into hiding.
The child began to hyperventilate.
"Ma? M-mama-a?"
But there was nothing, nothing but the muffled sound of teacups clanking against ladles and strangers talking amongst themselves in hushed voices on the other side of the wooden wall behind him.