Roy decided to not chase me this time so I managed to get back to my house without many problems.
The house was a little wooden box that could barely hold out the cold in the winter. It had not one of the luxuries I had taken for granted back on Earth.
With no water supply, we would need to constantly come and go from the lake with a wooden bucket, hoping another hole didn't appear out of thin air in the cursed object making us lose all the water collected.
The floor of the house was compacted dirt and we had a single "bed" (some hide and old straw on the floor) everyone in the family shared. I have no idea how Mother and Father manage to get a place to spawn so many children.
And I also do not want to think about it.
We had a small dirt chimney used only when the snow started falling, with the ceiling of the house expanding further than the wall to have a little shelter for dry wood to be stored.
Dry wood was also another problem during the winter because Father was the only man in the house and he had to manage time to fish and gather wood to keep us all fed and warm.
The house had a single door and no windows to avoid the cold from coming in during the harsh season. Entering the small place the door had a small wall separating the opening of the house and the interior, to keep the heat inside.
There was no sun, so it was extremely hard to keep something warm in this nightmarish land.
"Ah Rose" Mother said, looking up from her knitting. We had few commodities and wool was one of them. Sometimes traveling merchants would come through the village and we would exchange fish, hide, tools, clothing, and even wood for wool, salt, or anything we didn't have.
Mother was one of the few women in the village allowed to knit because, with so little, there was no room for mistakes in the process. And now that she had such a big belly with my next sibling it is hard for her to walk around, so she keep inside, to knit in a warm place all day long.
The other women, like me, were kind of useless and I would often hear from the other men how we were wastes of food.
I always felt they knew I could hear them talking.
"Why you called Mother?" I asked, Mother patter the bed, asking me to sit down next to her. I did so.
She got the only brush we had in the house and started brushing my coal-black mess of hair. At this point, it looked more like a bird's nest than a human hair.
"Rose I always loved your black hair," She said, pushing and pulling on the never-ending knots in my head.
For some reason, everyone in this village is born with reddish hair and I was the exception. Born with an oily black mess in my head.
When I was a child I believed that was the motive why I would be rescued by a knight in shiny armor, he would come and see my beautiful hair and believe I was the One.
Suffice it to say that never happened.
And my hair only served as a tool for others to discriminate against me. One more motive for them to call me the ugliest girl in the village.
Mother wisely decided to give up trying to fix the nest in my head with the brush. We have already lost three brushes to this monstrosity. And opted to use her hands to try and lessen the mess.
I simply kept quiet, letting Mother act the way she preferred. It was always better to not get on her bad side when she was pregnant.
"Rose, you are reaching your 17th birthday soon" Mother finally said, still combing my hair with her thingers. "And no one has proposed to you"
Mother sighed and stopped with her care.
"I married your father when I was fifteen. And only managed to get so old because I had him. Rose, your Father won't provide for you forever and he is getting sick of no one offering to take your hand"
"I know Mother" I simply said.
It was better to agree with everything she said than to argue.
I glanced at a nasty scar on my arm.
"I think you should marry that Roy boy, I heard from his parents he has been saving money to ask for someone's hand and I think he wants to ask for your hand. At this point, your Father would accept 1 copper coin for you Rose"
Basically, I'm getting old and worthless.
How I *love* this world.
Fucking hell.
"If you want to live a long life like me you will need to marry someone Rose. We already can't afford to have another girl" Mother said touching her belly, worry flashing her eyes.
I averted my gaze. I knew all too well what would happen this time if it was a girl. I still haven't forgiven Father for what he did to Imogen. She did not deserve that.
"Please, Rose. You need to either marry, or you will be kicked out. You won't survive through the winter out there" Mother said.
I nodded. Mother smiled.
I got up and left.
I ran.
Ran until my legs couldn't carry me any longer.
And only when My body finally collapsed on the floor in the exhaustion of a ten-minute jog did I let myself silently sob into the quiet dark woods.
Fuck.
Why is this happening to me?!