It was the hottest summer that any of their families could recall to mind. The air throbbed with the heaviness of the sun's rays, while cattle and horses huddled beneath the shady trees that dotted the dells and creeksides. The children of Trestlebridge were no different, seeking refuge along the banks of the wide, slow river that flowed under the famous, wooden span. Beneath the overhanging willows, they sank their toes in the cool mud and splashed in the shallows, and the muggy air was filled with their high, excitable voices from dawn to dusk.
The rock was her spot. Everyone knew it. The red-haired girl who lived on a nearby farm wasn't entirely accepted by the children of the town's proper residents, but she was funny now and then, good for climbing trees and wasn't afraid to chase off the occasional snake, so she was permitted to enjoy the riverside with the other children. She often climbed down the bank with a long stick that had a string attached to it, clambered onto a low, flat boulder that jutted out into the water, and spent the afternoon fancying herself the most adventurous fisherman who ever was. Or she would find a long, flexible length of oak or willow, tie a string between the ends, and fashion herself a little bow. Sometimes the other children would ask her to join their games, but for the most part, she was left to herself and seemed quite content.
Today, the mud of the bank was warm and soft, perfect for sinking her fingers in to search for worms to use as bait. She leaned over the side of the rock and plunged her hand in to the squishy soil, clear up to the wrist. The mud made a sucking, squelching sound as she dug about, and she grinned. A warm breeze rustled the willow fronds, the water lapped and kissed softly at the base of the boulder. A perfect summer afternoon, she thought.
"You do it!" hissed a voice nearby.
Narys didn't pay much need to the sound of someone talking. The other children were probably playing a game of their own.
"I'm not gonna do it. YOU do it!" came a whispered reply.
Curiosity won, and she glanced up to see two boys standing in the grass, watching her. She knew their names well enough; Evan and Will. Brown haired and eyed, they were brothers, sons of the town farrier. Their expressions went wild as they were caught looking at her, and they snorted and slapped each other on the shoulder and turned as if to run away, but they didn't. They just stumbled a little and acted as though they hadn't been doing anything strange at all. But the way they both chuckled to each other made her blood cold. It was that sort of laughter that children used when they were being unkind.
"Do what?" Narys called after them, pulling her hand from the mud with a loud slurping sound.
"Huh?" said Evan, looking around as if he'd no clue what she was talking about. Will glanced at his brother and them imitated him, quickly searching the shady trees with his eyes and shrugging.
"Do what?" she repeated, scooting off the rock to stand in the muddy soil with her bare feet. The way they were looking at her and at each other made her chest tight and her fingers numb. Her eyes darted between them, and a strange feeling began to thrum deep in her bones.
"Nothing! Nothing!" Evan shrugged again, trying to bite back more laughter.
Suddenly, a girl appeared behind the two boys, racing up to prance around them in a circle. Bess was her name, and she was pretty, with blue eyes and hair the color of autumn wheat. The sort of girl everyone petted and praised, simply for having features she'd been born with. "They were having a dare!" she sang knowingly. The two boys' faces went red with embarrassment.
Narys' eyes narrowed in suspicion. "What sort of dare?" she pressed.
"Nothing! Nothing at all!" Will crowed, hiding behind his older brother, both of them still fighting to suppress their snickering.
But Bess wasn't having any of their subtlety. She proudly stepped in front of the two boys and put a hand on her hip. "I dared them," she announced, and her sweet little voice was barbed, sharp. "I dared one of them to kiss you."
Narys couldn't seem to take her eyes off the silky ribbon that was tied at the neck of Bess' yellow dress. The sun was shining on it, making it shimmer. "What?" she blurted out, blinking and looking blankly at the trio of red-faced, sweaty-haired children.
Bess saw no need to repeat herself. Her smile was smug as she stood there, watching the realization and embarrassment sink into Narys' mind. Behind her, Evan and Will guffawed and punched each other in the arm. "You do it!" they both shouted. "I'm not doing it, YOU do it!"
Narys' cheeks burned hot. They felt as if someone had placed fresh coals on them. She knew her face was glowing. That they could see they were humiliating and confusing her.
Bess swaggered forward, pointing a finger at Narys' chest. "See, they both wanted a chance to kiss ME. But I couldn't decide who it should be! So, I told them to come down here and practice...on you!" She giggled happily. "And whoever had the guts to kiss YOU first would be the winner!"
The boys were falling over each other, braying laughter like two mules. Narys could feel herself blinking too quickly. Her lips were tight against her teeth, her mouth pursed. She felt for the first time, the loud contrast between Bess' shining, golden hair and fluttering dress, and her own knotted, red locks, mud-smeared cheeks, and threadbare trousers. Bess was soft and round and rosy, and she was thin and freckly.
With their prank fulfilled, the three children began to back away, cackling and casting knowing, repulsed glances at the girl beside the boulder. She felt something welling up inside her, making her breath come too rapidly and her heart thud so loud she thought it might explode through her chest.
"Well, I wouldn't kiss either one of you ugly, knobby-kneed rats!" she bellowed after them.
For a moment, the air seemed to go eerily silent. Narys couldn't hear the whispering river anymore. The two boys stumbled to a halt and Bess nearly ran into them. All three turned back to gape at her. Bess' mouth hung open, and all were frozen briefly, until the eldest boy, Evan, pushed past the dumbfounded girl and began striding back towards Narys, his smile nowhere to be seen now.
With no place to retreat unless she felt like taking a swim, Narys could think of no way to defend herself except with her mouth. As the boy bore down on her, she puffed her chest out and continued defiantly. "If you want to kiss HER, then kiss her! What are you, a coward?"
Will and Bess were hurrying back now, excited to see the drama unfolding. But they were soon blocked out by the form of Evan as he strode up to Narys and boldly bashed his chest against hers, knocking her back so that she sat down hard on the rock with a thud. "Who are you calling ugly?" he spat. "Have you seen a looking-glass lately? Huh?"
Narys recoiled before him, and felt rage at her body's betrayal, the way her arms and legs shrank up onto the rock. But her eyes stayed locked on his, and she felt her lips peeling back from her teeth in a mocking sneer. "I don't need one!" she hissed. "I'm not going around looking for people to kiss like some pansy!"
A hand shot out and grabbed the front of her shirt, so quickly that she gasped and flinched. Cursing herself for giving him the satisfaction of startling her, she immediately grabbed at his wrist and tried to wrench it away, without success. He tugged her closer and leaned in until she could smell the eggs he'd had for breakfast on his breath.
"You'd better watch who you call names," he growled, shoving her roughly back and releasing her from his grip.
Her elbow struck the rock with a painful crack and she let out a little yelp. Huffing and panting like a rabid animal, she swung her bent arm up to inspect it, and saw the terrible sight of blood, bright and fresh, sparkling gruesomely in the sunlight. She heard herself growling as she turned back to her persecutors, only to see the three of them sauntering away, chuckling, patting each other on the back as if to congratulate themselves.
She felt as if her body were filled with some wild power; she needed to defend herself, to attack in kind. There was no thought, only impulse. Looking about wildly for rocks or sticks or anything she could use to throw, to stab, to smash, she slid down to comb through the mossy grass with her hands.
“At least we aren’t a dirty, freckle-faced hedge-born!”
The shouted words carried through the air. Which boy said it, she couldn’t determine, but it mattered little. She did not give a roar of anger or a threatening curse. She simply launched herself into a sprint, quiet and swift, her gaze pinned on the backs of their heads. It wasn’t until the sound of bare feet hurrying across soft grass was close enough to hear, that Bess turned and shrieked, and the two brothers spun about, just as the red-haired devil leapt at them.
Bess crumpled to the ground, squealing like a mouse. Narys climbed over her, her foot sinking into the girl’s soft body, soiling her dress, and pounced at the closest target, which happened to be Will. “Oi!!” he cried, as he flailed clumsily and fell backwards with his attacker on top of him.
Narys expected to immediately feel the older brother’s hands grabbing at her to pull her away from Will, but she was determined to take advantage of whatever time she had. Straddling Will, she leaned down and pummeled him with her fists, one after the other, giving no reprieve. His arms struggled to lift and cover his head, receiving their own share of blows in the process. Somewhere, on the edge of her awareness, she could hear Bess running away up the hill towards town, screaming like a cat having its tail stepped on.
“Get off me!” Will was trying to yell, his voice punctuated with the impact of hands against his skull, shoulders, and chest. This seemed to unfreeze his brother, and she felt herself being grabbed from behind and hauled sideways.
“Get off me!” she roared, inadvertently echoing the boy laying on the ground. But Evan was bigger, and stronger, and she could only reach backwards, trying to grab onto him, swinging her heels back, hoping to land a good kick on his shin.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa!” A new voice was heard in the distance. It seemed familiar, though it was difficult to focus on anything in the heat of battle, beyond scuffling with the boy who currently had her in a hold she couldn’t break. All her thought was on twisting around and smashing in his face, stomping it into the mud, watching him suffocate…
“Turn her loose this instant!” the new voice thundered, deep and commanding. Both boys and their red-haired nemesis froze all at once. All eyes turned towards the voice, and Narys felt her heart soar at the sight of her father charging down the embankment. Evan’s hands vanished, and she flopped to the ground with a grunt.
“You’re in for it now!” she gasped, her face twisting into a victorious, wicked smile. “Both of you! Just you wait!” She heard herself cackling breathlessly as she tried to get to her feet, but her arms and legs didn’t seem to want to stop shaking and cooperate. She waited to hear the thud of big, masculine fists against those smug boy’s faces. Instead, a large hand grabbed her by the back of her shirt and hauled her up to her feet with a powerful jerk that made her yelp. She was spun around and shoved forward, stumbling through the grass, while the bulk of her father pressed in behind, blocking out the sight of the other children completely.
“Pa!” she gasped, trying to turn around to see his face. Two hands grasped the backs of her shoulders and forcefully turned her forward again.
“Home,” he said.
The victorious elation crumbled. Humiliation and rage now began to melt into a feeling there was no word for. Her father was angry. Disappointed. Embarrassed by her. Irrational tears leapt into her eyes, blurring the view of the path leading through town and out the gate. She sniffled and whimpered, but he said nothing more as they marched on through the idyllic, summer sunshine. Presently, they took a small path away from the road, dipping down and around a little hill, and opening onto a wide, green farmyard.
Her bare feet sounded small and pitiful on the steps leading to the front door. His boots were loud, solid, intimidating in their wake. She couldn’t lift her eyes as they moved into the cool darkness of the house.
“What happened?” The expected exclamation from her mother broke the silence. A large hand remained on Narys’ right shoulder, and she kept her head bowed and her mouth shut.
“She got into a fight,” replied her father, and the hand slipped away, and she could finally move and raise her head.
Her mother stood beside their table, one hand fisted against her aproned hip, staring at her daughter with large, worried eyes. Seeing the shame on her child’s face, she quickly softened, and her voice was gentler. “Did you get hurt?” she asked.
Narys shrugged and shook her head, completely forgetting the faint sting at her elbow, and the blood now drying in crusty rivulets along her arm.
Her mother moved forward, clucking her tongue in soft disapproval, opening her arms to draw her daughter into a tight embrace. Narys pressed her face into the plush refuge of her mother’s breast and hid there.
“Seemed more like she was putting the hurt on them,” her father remarked, and his voice was a peculiar mixture of disapproval and amusement.
“I should’ve known it,” her mother chuckled dryly. “When I saw you coming up the walk looking as riled as a little, wet hen.” A hand ran over the sweaty, copper-colored tresses of the child in her arms. “You can’t be going around fighting the other children, though, Narys. You know better than that. Hmm?”
“It’s the heat, mother,” her father objected, and Narys could hear the strain in his voice as he tried not to smile. “Makes all the farm animals and kids a little uppity.” His voice drew closer and became softer. “What’d they do, child? Did they hit first?”
“They called me dirty and freckle-faced!” she blurted, her voice muffled by her mother’s cotton dress.
A little silence followed, and she could sense the gazes of her parents meeting over her head. “But did they hit first?” her father repeated.
Narys felt herself breathing heavily, her chest puffing like a bellows. She was not in the wrong! They needed to understand! “They were daring each other to see who would kiss me! And neither of them would do it, because…because I’m ugly! And they just laughed at me!”
Her mother’s arms tightened quietly. A moment later, she felt the weight of her father’s hand against her shoulder, patting softly. She waited, quivering, to see if they would take her side or not. Was she going to be punished?
A sigh was heard. Fingers wrapped around her arm and gently pulled her out of her mother’s protecting hold. She was turned around, and a thick finger propped beneath her chin to force her eyes upwards to look at her father. “You can’t be fighting people like that, my girl. It’s not right, and it’ll only bring trouble, ‘specially when you’re older.” His warm, brown eyes searched her blue-green hues. “You understand me?”
Her mouth tightened, and her chin jutted forward. Everything in her wanted to obey the father she loved more than anything in the world. But her voice had always had a mind of its own, and it could not be tamed, not even for him. “But they laughed at me. Couple of smelly wandoughts, they are!”
Her mother gasped and immediately clapped a hand over her lips to keep from showing the grin beneath.
The eyes of her father twinkled, but he kept his composure. His finger tapped against her chin. “Do you like either of those boys?”
Narys shook her head vehemently.
Her father leaned in closer, until his nose nearly touched hers. “Then who gives a tinker’s damn what they think?” he whispered, bushy eyebrows popping upwards.
Like a bubble bursting, the angry indignation ebbed away, and a wide and lopsided smile blossomed over his daughter’s face.
