Chapter 1
For months I’d watch you write, enchanted with the way you formed words with a quill pen that left two fingers darkened by the ink. The breaches you wore were snug and fit you well and your soft spun shirt in white with its billowed sleeves left me forever wondering what lay beneath.
I cleaned your rooms and was but a maid dressed in coarse gray wool the shade of winter, with autumn colored hair that refused to stay tucked away. You’d even laugh at the stray curls that always fell from the cap upon my head.
Some days I’d bring you tea and scones, with clotted cream and fresh berries from your garden. On other days, you’d read to me from those words; words that I could not read for myself. All the same, they made me smile. I’d find the woman within me blushing while I wished I was the one who’d swooned among the flowers while kisses touched her lips. And you, you were kind enough to ignore those moments when I forgot my place for just awhile.
Sometimes as shadows played along the walls or a candle wavered with no sun to light the way, I’d somehow see another you. I’d cock my head and stare, eyeing black breaches that almost touched your toes and a yellow shirt; open with dark hair upon your chest. The locks that touched your shoulders were tousled while the smile and the slight downward turn of your nose remained the same.
And then one night a bit of magic happened as the man who stood amid the shadows nodded and reached out. I took his hand seeing a ring upon his finger; a ring that sparked a memory not of yesterday but of a tomorrow yet to be. The man I’d come to know turned and smiled as I too faded into nothing but a shade against the wall.
Time sung through my ears as his hand warmed my heart while my clothes changed to a long beige skirt and blouse of pale orange. And suddenly I realized the man I’d always loved stood amid the garden, the garden I had always dreamed about.
And I realized also that life was like that garden; sown with seeds from all the yesterdays while forever bringing forth echoes of tomorrows yet to be. I understood that each of us had sung the rhythms of this thing called life before and would sing them once again when that special seed was ripe and ready to be newborn.
