MY VOICE cut off abruptly with a loud sneeze, and I waved away the cloud of dust hanging in front of my face. "Sorry about that," I said to the old pig watching me from where she lay in the straw. "Shall I try the song again?"
"Please spare us the torture!"
I jumped, then saw my sister's eyes peering between the wooden slats of the stall. " Josette!"
She oinked like a pig. "Save us from her caterwauling! She sounds worse than an angry tomcat."
"I do not!"
"Do!" She shrieked with laughter and bolted out of the barn.
"I don't," I said to the pig, but she only emitted a world-weary sigh and began chewing absently on a cob of corn. Her brood squirmed around her stomach, each of them fighting for a choice spot. There was one pig in particular who bullied the rest, knocking his siblings around, and sending the runt toppling until I was sure he didn't know up from down.
Setting aside my pitchfork, I picked up the big piglet, ignoring his squeals of protest. Turning him round so we were face to face, I fixed him with a dark look. "No one likes a bully."
He shrieked in indignation, jerking his little form from side to side in an attempt to escape back to his gluttony. I focused intently on his pink face. "Sshhh."
The pig went silent, dark eyes locked on mine with an almost eerie focus. It gave me the shivers, so I hugged him to my chest and watched as his tiny sib-ling found a spot and started suckling. My father would say it was wasted effort, but being on the runty side myself, I was sympathetic to the little pig's plight. I hummed softly to the animals, not quite ready to invite my sister's mockery with another song.
My ears caught the faint jingle of a harness and the stomp of hooves against dirt, the sounds making my stomach clench with excitement. She was here! With the piglet still in my arms, I ran to the barn door, eyes watering from the brightness as I peered down the lane.
"Cecile, put that pig back in its pen and get to work. Those stalls aren't going to muck themselves."
I stiffened, only just catching sight of my father before he led the plow horse around the corner to the fields. The uncharacteristic frown on his face rendered him almost unrecognizable, and he'd been short with everyone since the moment he came down for break-fast. Even though I didn't entirely understand why, I wasn't fool enough not to realize what had put a bee in his bonnet. Or, rather, who.
Returning the piglet to his mother, I retrieved my pitchfork and started work on another stall. I was barely halfway through when my fingers began to twitch, finding their way to my pocket to check for the crinkle of paper after each load I dumped into the wheelbarrow. When I couldn't stand it any more, I leaned out to make sure my father wasn't lurking around the corner, then pulled out the piece of parchment. The creases where it was folded were starting to become worn and fuzzy, and it was a bit stained from my grimy fingers.
Tucking my skirts around my legs, I sat on the floor of the barn and tilted the paper into a dust-filled beam of light, my eyes taking in the few lines. I traced over my mother's familiar script with one finger, pausing on each of the words I recognized, including my name. I'd made my father read it over and over again until I'd memorized it, and then I'd pocketed the precious article before he could toss it in the fire. It was the only proof I had that my mother was coming to visit us. The fact that it was written on paper made her arrival a certainty rather than a childish hope.
Squeezing my eyes shut, I imagined her reading the words aloud, the sound of her melodic voice in my ear. Dimly, very dimly, I could remember her singing softly to me so that I would fall asleep, the soft touch of her dainty fingers against my hair, and the flowery scent of her perfume drifting across my bed. That had been when we lived in the city, when I was only a little child, and before my father had taken my brother, sister, and me back to Goshawk's Hollow.
I hardly saw her after that, only an occasional visit here and there, which, rather than sating me, only made me hungry for more. Two years ago, my father had taken me to Trianon to see her perform. I couldn't remember the name of the opera, or even what it had been about, but I could picture my mother standing on the stage, her crimson ringlets spilling over her elaborately costumed shoulders clear as day. The opera house had been full to the brim, or at least it had seemed so to me, and yet the audience had been utterly silent and still, captivated by the sound of her voice. I'd never seen anything like it before or since. When the performance had ended, every single person stood, clapping, cheering, and tossing roses onto the stage, and I had never wanted anything as badly as to be her. Every night since I had dreamed of singing on that stage and curtseying at the end to the roaring accolades of the crowd.
The letter tore away from my fingertips, and my eyes snapped open in time to see my sister run out of the barn door, the paper clutched in her fist.
"Josette!" I shrieked and tore after her.
We sprinted through the yard, boots splattering mud up against our skirts. I was older, but Joss was taller, and not even the anger flooding my veins was enough fuel to catch her. "Give it back!"
She only laughed, the sound filling me with a twisted combination of fury and fear. I needed that let-ter. I had to get it back. Illogical or not, I felt that if I lost the paper where her promise was so carefully inked, that the promise would cease to exist at all.
The dogs ran after us, their barks adding to the cacophony. My father shouted from the distance, but whatever he said was drowned out by all the noise. Josette's fist was crumpling my letter into a tighter ball with each step she took. At best, she'd hide it from me, at worst... My eyes burned with a frustration I could scarcely explain, my anxiety building like steam in a kettle until it exploded out of my throat. "Joss, stop!" The wind rose, catching the two words and rushing them through the yard. Everything went still.