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deathonyourtongue · 4 years

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Winter Passing | Chapter 7

Summary: After car accident leaves him at the base of a mountain with no sign of civilization for miles, a breakup is the least of Henry’s problems. Just as death’s icy fingers begin to coil around him, salvation presents itself in the form of an old cabin in a clearing. Despite years of being told fairy tales and ghost stories that warn against such things, he uses his last of his strength to reach the cottage. When he wakes, he finds not a demon, but an angel, long removed from the insanity of the modern world. Pairing: AU!Henry Cavill x OFC Word Count: 3K Warnings: A microscopic amount of smut. And an apparition that’s a little gory. A/N : Who wants to guess which actress plays Tabitha? Like what I do? Buy me a coffee (or a commission)!

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Over the next few days, Olivia and Henry fell into a pattern. She’d wake before him, usually to a report of the night’s happenings from Dyster, who’d taken to patrolling ever since Tiago had come and gone. By the time Henry woke, Olivia was making breakfast, and the two would share quiet conversation about everything and nothing. She learned he was an actor who’d had something of a big break, and--up until the accident--had been looking for the perfect follow-up script to keep his momentum going. Henry learned what Olivia was willing to share about her practice and her past, but overall, she remained something of a mystery to him. While that was usually a turn-off for him, with Olivia, it only added to the entrancing nature of her and the place she called home.

Once Henry’s injuries healed completely, he began pulling his weight around the property. He became the early bird, always up and outside when Olivia woke to Dyster’s pecking at her window. She’d never asked, but without fail she’d find him either chopping wood, or taking care of the animals. Though she often wondered what his motivations were for being so helpful, it didn’t take long for Olivia to realize that he simply enjoyed being busy and useful, a quality that made a bigger impression on her than his smile or charm ever could have.

“Good morning, love,” Henry panted as he came in, stomping the snow off his boots and wiping them as best he could before trying to toe out of them with a stack of wood in his arms.

“Here, let me take these,” Olivia smiled, not missing how rosy his cheeks got whenever he exerted himself outside in the nipping cold. If she were truthful with herself, Olivia would admit to having more than just a passing fancy for the man who’d been on death’s door not two weeks prior; she was truly starting to fall for the handsome Brit, and each day they spent in each other’s company, her heart opened just a little further.

Taking the wood from Henry, she moved to the living room, placing the cut logs on the top of the already-neat pile of dried wood. Olivia couldn’t stop her smile as she watched Henry make a beeline for the kitchen, ruffling the top of Gunnar’s head absently as he peeked at everything that was cooking on the stove.

“You outdo yourself every day, darling. I can’t wait!” Henry said with genuine awe and excitement, his blue eyes brighter than ever. His expression sent a rush through Olivia, her heart fluttering and her own cheeks ruddying as she moved to check on breakfast, gently nudging him out of her way and earning herself a chuckle in the process.

“Won’t have to wait much longer. Food’s ready,” she smiled, Olivia laughing sweetly as she watched Henry bolt into action, grabbing plates, cups, and cutlery. By the time she reached the table with the skillet, Henry had already poured their tea and had her plate in hand, ready to serve her first.

It was the little things--like always serving her first--that became endearing; things Olivia knew she’d miss once spring came and Henry was able to go back to his normal life. He was a thoughtful man without any need for validation, and while she figured that part of it was that she’d saved his life, Olivia liked to think that it was mostly just the product of being raised by someone just as thoughtful and caring.

“Thank you,” she murmured softly, Olivia’s eyes closing as she felt Henry’s large hand smooth over her hair, her expression one she rarely wore. So rarely in fact, that even Gunnar noticed, the husky cocking his head to one side in confusion. For the first time in a long time, Olivia seemed content.

“Of course. Thank you for cooking,” Henry replied without hesitation, his smile warm as he served himself.

They ate in amicable silence, bites occasionally interrupted by a glance up at one another, glances that quickly shifted back to their plates, their smiles ear-to-ear. Though neither could deny their attraction, neither was ready to make the first move, so they danced around it, taking what they could in secret smiles, little touches, and--in another quickly-formed routine--solo time spent thinking of the other while they worked out their desires in the most primal of ways.

Alone time had become just as much a part of their routine as anything else, and like clockwork, when breakfast was over, Olivia headed outside to forage, while Henry moved to bathe. Though it was an unspoken agreement, it wasn’t without its perils, and more than once Olivia had walked back inside either to the sounds of his moans, or to him, still wet, moving from the bath to his room to dress. It was frustrating, to say the least, but made for quick work on her part when Henry moved outside to finish whatever chore he’d started before breakfast.

When they’d both had their fill, life would return to normal. With no TV or electricity, they spent the daylight hours reading, writing, and occasionally playing a board game. It was a peaceful existence, one which, aside from the company of Henry, went largely unchanged for Olivia. It was a pleasant surprise to not have to veer so far from her routine as to turn her world upside down. Even her daily practice went unchanged, as Henry seemed to have a preternatural ability to tell when she was ready to use her altar or crack open her book, and without fail he would head to his room to nap or read in bed, always with a warm smile and a gentle touch as he made his way.

Nighttime was when the cottage came alive. It always began with dinner, Henry taking over cooking duties while Olivia handled the drinks. With her hand-crank record player providing a quiet soundtrack, the two danced, drank, and ate without a care. The more they drank, the more affectionate they became with one another, and more often than not, the two would end up on the couch, snuggling together as the snow fell outside. The combination of Henry’s charms and the alcohol flowing through her veins, brought Olivia’s walls down further and further. Each night, her carefully guarded history came out, chapter by chapter, a bedtime story for Henry, who always lay listening intently, as she played with his curls. Though more open, Olivia’s tales were always about her personal history, never about her life as it related to her craft, and Henry knew it would take more than a few drunken evenings for him to earn that part of her story.

“What’s something you believed when you were younger that you know to be false now?” Henry asked, his eyes closed in pure bliss as Olivia’s fingers traced lightly over his face, releasing muscles he didn’t even realize had been tense as he lay with his head in her lap.

“Love magic. Like any other little girl, I believed in all the syrupy-sweet hag tales of frogs turning into princes, true love’s kiss, finding ‘the one’. All a load of crap when you grow up and realize people are cruel to one another and that no one truly cares about your heart if it gets in their way. Even the ‘spells’ I cast back then were silly and sappy.”

“Like what?” Henry asked, his smile ear-to-ear as he opened his eyes to gaze up at Olivia. With his expression so tender and sweet, Olivia found herself saying the words on autopilot, one hand placed over Henry’s heart while the other continued to outline his features.

“By the loving heart of Hecate, by fire, air, earth, and sea, please draw my love to me. Someone to love with all my soul, once we’re together we’ll both be whole. I’ll give my love freely, I’ll love him completely, please Hecate, bring my love to me. As I do say, so mote it be!” Each phrase matched a line traced over Henry’s face, and it wasn’t until she’d closed the spell that Olivia realized what she’d done. Waiting for a tell that the spell had worked, she felt relief when she couldn’t feel a change on the wind. A blush colored her face as Henry looked up at her once more, a gentility in his expression that she couldn’t get enough of.

“Silly or not, that’s a lovely sentiment, darling. There’s nothing wrong in asking for the love you deserve.” Sitting up, Henry made Olivia feel light as a feather as he picked her up and set her in his lap with ease. His hand was warm as he cupped her face, his eyes searching hers. “It may not have worked when you were a child, but now that you’re a grown woman, I’d chance it to say things might go differently.”

Without another word, Henry leaned in and pressed his lips to Olivia’s. It felt as though the earth stood still, Olivia’s heart feeling too big for her chest as she returned the kiss with the utmost passion. Allowing the dam that held her feelings to crumble, she slung her arms around Henry’s neck, getting lost in the softness of his lips and the tickle of his beard.

Henry felt as though he were floating, the experience of kissing Olivia different from any other woman he’d been with. Her lips were nectar-sweet, and the scent of all the herbs she worked with enveloped him in a warmth unlike any other. He felt his heart skip a beat as she settled in his embrace, silently showing that she was just as much at peace with him, as he was with her. The words of the spell echoed in his mind, and Henry couldn’t help but smile into the kiss, knowing at least one passage had come to pass; it seemed as though, in the few weeks they’d known each other and traipsed around their affections for one another, their first kiss truly had made them whole.

“Yes, hello officer. I’d like to report a missing person. Yes, my boyfriend, Henry. He’s been missing for...almost three weeks now? When did I last see him? Oh, well, the day he moved out. You see, we had a little…Spat and he thought it meant we were over, but that was hardly the case. Yes, I’m very worried. Describe him? Well, he’s quite handsome, in the Prince Charming kind of way. Dark hair that curls something awful if he doesn’t keep it trimmed. Blue eyes. Tall, at least six feet. Muscular, but not a body builder by any means. He’s British. I last saw him pulling away in his Escalade--well, not his to be truthful. It was mine and I sold it to him for a dollar when his old car broke down...Oh, right, of course. He said he’d found an apartment on the north side of town. Why he’d want to make the commute to New York that much harder for himself, I’ll never understand. Oh? Yes, he’s an actor, if you can call it that. I called it a vain pursuit, but that’s just me. No, no family here, I’m afraid. I’m his family. Yes, of course! My number is…”

Tabitha Norwood’s voice was sickly-sweet, her smile beaming as she spoke to the detective she’d been transferred to. Standing in her kitchen, she pressed the phone to her ear with her shoulder, her perfectly-manicured red nails an accent to her delicate fingers, which busied themselves with tightly closing the lid of a small jar. When finished, she placed the jar by her open window, and washed her hands, her sphynx, Fluffy, jumping onto her shoulder just as the detective hung up.

“Don’t worry, boy. We’ll find him. He can’t have gone very far.” She smiled, tucking one side of her copper bob behind her ear, her smile never once faltering.

“Oh fuck, Henry! Yes, right there! Don’t stop!” Olivia’s back arched high off the mattress as Henry’s hips slammed hard into hers, their bodies fitting together like pieces of a puzzle. Her voice hoarse from the filthiest, most orgasmic foreplay she’d ever had, she was certain Henry would be her total undoing, tea leaves be damned. Every stroke of his length inside her was heavenly, and Olivia didn’t hesitate to plant Henry firmly at the top of her ‘Best I Ever Had’ list, mentally kicking Henry’s predecessor off the podium, unable to remember what her other lovers even looked like as her new love brought her to the mountaintop.

She came with his name on her lips, Henry following suit, his body trembling as visibly as hers was. They lay still connected for some time, indulging in afterglow kisses and feather-light touches, both Henry and Olivia thrilled by how the night had turned out.

Were it not for Dyster’s sudden pecking at the window and Gunnar’s alarm-growl, everything would have been perfect. Henry and Olivia both jumped, but for very different reasons, Henry startled by the noise and Olivia on full alert, understanding her animals’ calls better than anyone. Pulling out of her as gently as he could, Henry scrambled to put his pants on while Olivia wrapped her robe around her body, moving to the window once she was covered.

Though her first instinct was to open the window to speak with her raven, Dyster flew away just as her hand went for the sill and in doing so, allowed Olivia’s gaze to see what had caused all the ruckus.

Outside, by her altar, stood a woman in white. Despite a veil covering her face, Olivia recognized her immediately. A shiver ran through her and tears filled her eyes within seconds. Stuck in place, she watched as the woman held up a grotesque effigy of a child. Deformed in every possible way, the infant’s cries were terrifying and made it clear it was in pain.

In her practice, Olivia asked for very little, preferring instead to give from her heart, and receive only that which the goddess and the lesser gods she worshipped deemed suitable for her to receive. This was a clear message that someone was displeased.

Olivia jumped when Henry’s hand wrapped around her shoulder, and without needing to think, she pushed him away and out of sight. “Stay there. Whatever you hear next, stay where you are.”

There was no room for discourse as Olivia moved to action, yanking open her nightstand and pulling out a long test tube with a cork stopper. Stepping through her door, she opened the tube and let the contents spill into a neat line on the floor. Olivia hopped over it and did the same with the window sill both in her room and the attached bathroom. With one final line at the bathroom door, she changed out of her robe and into a dress, wiped her eyes, and headed downstairs.

Henry sat on the bed, eyes unblinking as he listened for every minute sound he could make out. At first, he heard only the child and the creaks of the house as Olivia moved around downstairs. Gunnar’s bark and Dyster’s cawing came next, both animals clearly agitated beyond reason. Finally, he heard Olivia’s voice, stronger and more firm than he’d ever heard it before.

“GO BACK FROM WHENCE YOU CAME, EVIL SPIRIT! YOUR MASK FOOLS NO ONE! LEAVE THIS PLACE IN PEACE!”

There was no stopping Henry from bolting to the window as an ear-piercing shriek cut through the clearing, and though he might have brushed things off as simply his overactive imagination before, there was no denying what he saw. As Olivia threw a bucket of salt in the direction of the woman, she began to dissolve, reminding Henry of cotton candy in water. Closing his eyes tightly, he pressed the heels of his palms over them, willing the image of the woman’s unhinged jaw and oozing mouth to leave his mind as quickly as it entered.

After a few minutes, Olivia came back inside, and it took only a moment for Henry to realize she was sobbing. Quickly, he moved downstairs, his heart breaking for Olivia as he found her crumpled on the floor by the hearth. Hearing his footsteps, she looked up with a hitched inhale, quickly wiping her eyes in embarrassment.

“Who was that, love?” Henry asked, stopping at the foot of the stairs, his face making it clear that his only concern was for her and her well-being.

“That…” Olivia’s lower lip quivered and more tears slid down her cheeks as she fought to speak. “That was an apparition with my mother’s face.”

#henry cavill #henry cavill x ofc #henry cavill fic #fic #deathonyourtongueoriginals #winter passing

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galadrieljones · 4 years

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The Lily Farm - Chapter 46

AO3 | Masterpost

Pairing: Arthur x Mary Beth

Rating: M (Mature) - sexual content, violence, and adult themes

Summary: After Sean’s death, Mary Beth asks Arthur to take her on a hunting trip, somewhere far away. What takes place at first is a simple love story: full of trials and journeys that they must endure together, as a team. But over time, things complicate. The gang is in trouble, and as Arthur and Mary Beth aim to set out on their own one day, they must find a way to help those they love while eventually, finding escape. Their ultimate goal is to go north with the Marstons, to find the bucolic stretches of Wisconsin where, rumor has it, there are lily farms. Will they make it? How will they survive when all hope seems lost? This is their story.

Chapter 46: The Widow of Willard’s Rest, Pt. 1

***BEGINNING OF PART IV: AMERICAN PASTORAL***

Most days at Deer Cottage, Arthur would wake up early. He would go outside to chop firewood, and then he’d kindle the fire and drink coffee and smoke cigarettes outside. Most mornings, he would fish, but as the days were getting colder and shorter, sometimes he would just set up a trap line on the Kamassa to leave out all day instead, and then hike back up the ridge to the wooded hinterlands and hunt whitetail. He always rode home with enough to cook, smoke, and cure. He would then come back down to the river, empty out the fish trap and with any luck find a sturgeon or a largemouth bass. His new filly Leah, who he named for another character that he remembered from the Old Testament, which he had learned to read from many years before, was a fast girl and even in her temperament. She did not always take well to strange animals, and she had a wary look in her eye upon most passers-through. But she was wise to predators and upon Arthur’s constant and gentle reassurance, mostly a brave and kind girl.

Mary Beth seemed to need a lot of sleep, meanwhile. But she would stay up late knitting sweaters for everybody she knew, as winter was coming now, and she was anxious, and she needed something to keep her hands busy. Most days she did not wake up until Arthur was already busy with his routine, elsewhere, having left her a note or sometimes a little drawing with a pot of coffee on the stove. She wanted to be useful. She was used to having chores, hence the sweaters, and they were scarce on laundry so she made sure to keep things clean. She tidied the cottage in its every corner. There wasn’t much for berries this time of year, but Arthur had found an apple tree and with the dwindling autumn crop, she would bake. She read everything she could find, over and over again, and she wrote prose here and there, but her mind was occupied with a lot of worry and restlessness those days. The baby, the gang. Arthur would take her out shooting, and this seemed to help. He taught her to use every kind of gun. She tended the horses in the barn, which Arthur had built with help from Hamish over a period of one week. It was ramshackle business, but it would do.

Arthur and Mary Beth had been lying low in Roanoke Ridge now for three months. Together they rode into Annesburg at the end of every week, on Sunday, to check the post for word from Dutch, and to buy supplies and the newspaper. Annesburg was a mining community, and its little camps of gutter homes all lined up in a row made Mary Beth sad. As a boomtown, however, Arthur had said it reminded him of Virginia City, Nevada, a place to which he had traveled many years before right after he’d been more or less adopted by Dutch and Hosea. “They took me there,” he told her one Sunday, as they rode into town, down from the hills, “and we set up shop for many weeks. I pulled my weight in the gang at the blackjack tables for a long time, and I knew how to wrangle, and looking back, weren’t nobody better at keeping his head down than me.” He then sighed and grew stoic with concern. “Virginia City is where Susan taught me a thing or two about dancing,” he said, too, chewing on a reed or a piece of bark, smoking a cigarette, wearing an old cowboy hat given to him as a gift from Hamish. He was trying to make her feel better. The gunsmith in Annesburg was chatty and liked their company, too, so they would often make conversation with him. He thought they were implants from the western plains, looking to start a new life, and they supposed it was not altogether untrue.

There was still no word from Dutch. But the papers were quiet, which was a good sign. There had been a story on the “riverboat massacre” some weeks back—that’s what they’d called it down at the St. Denis Times—but no civilians had been killed, and authorities did not seem to know who or what had caused the blow-up. It had been reported that Angelo Bronte, foreign national and local philanthropist, had gone missing for a time, but he was back now, and safe, having claimed to be on vacation up the river, and though this was suspicious, there was not much to make of the feeling. Meanwhile the Mayor was in trouble with the state government for something or other. It looked like he might even get ousted from office. But Arthur did not keep up with politics. He didn’t care what happened to Lemieux nor Bronte, for he and Mary Beth were long gone, and they were never going back to Lemoyne.

There had been one letter in all those months—from Ranger Call. He kept coy and symbolic in his language, but in the letter, he hinted at a complicating factor involving John and the federal penitentiary. This worried them both gravely. Apparently, there was a hold-up on moving the gang to a more permanent relocation, and they’d had to take temporary shelter in Lakay until the problem was solved. But this had been weeks before. The letter also said they were going west, maybe. Or continuing north. That was what Dutch had claimed, but there was uncertainty.

Some members of the gang had gone, claimed Woodrow. Namely, Micah. The asshole feller with the handlebar mustache, he wrote. He went by the wayside when the Man attenuated their plans to rob a city bank. Some wonder if he is even still alive, as a couple days before his disappearance, he had gotten in a tussle with Mr. Matthews, who threatened his life. He said there would be more news when the gang found camp once more. Do not come to Lakay, Mr. Morgan, said the letter. For the Man has sent scouts high and low, from the Grizzlies East to the Big Valley. There will be salvation soon. In the meantime, Mr. Matthews thinks it would be safest, per Mrs. Morgan’s condition, and for how recognizable you have become down here in Lemoyne, for the two of you to remain where you are. The letter also contained information about the Wintersons. They are okay, it said. They are in Chicago and will return in a matter of months. This was a relief. Of course, they tried not to fret too much over John, as all they could do from here was, ironically enough, have faith that it was under control, counting on both Dutch and Hosea as so often they had done in the past.

In the end, there was very little else that Arthur and Mary Beth could do now but survive, not until they got word on where to go next. Hamish had traveled up to visit them on a few occasions. He was doing okay, and he and Arthur would hunt big game during the day and then at twilight they would all go fishing. Other than the constant worrying over John and the rest of the gang, and the occasional fears for the coming winter, and the baby, the way they were living up there in the Roanoke Valley, it wasn’t so bad. There was so much solitude, privacy, time to just be together. It was a privilege they had not been able to entertain in a very long time. Sometimes at night, Mary Beth would cook up a fine dinner, and they would play music on the gramophone, dance as they had that first night they had admitted their love to one another so long ago. Of course they laughed while they did it. It was silly, and they were rare to approach these sorts of sentimental affairs without sarcasm those days. But that was the point. Arthur would fashion a flower from behind her ear, little magic tricks that he had picked from Josiah, and they would talk and play cards and sip whiskey tea. Arthur had a way of letting it all roll right off of him, like raindrops on a tin roof, and that reassured Mary Beth and got her to focus on the day-to-day. She knew how he held the big picture in his mind like a story, navigating the plot, keeping calm. He had not always been so calm, he thought. This was such a positive development for him that had taken some time, and a lot of work. She was starting to show a little bit now, under her dress. They both saw it. Whenever he himself wanted soothing, he would place his head in her lap in the evenings while they listened to music and looked at the fire. She would tell him stories she made up out of the ether. Stories about escaped princesses with swords and poison arrows, and the country knights who loved and defended them. In Mary Beth’s stories, the knights needed protection, too. They were not immortal, or demigods. Just men, she would say. Arthur liked her stories very much.

One day, when the weather was nice, Arthur and Mary Beth rode north up the river with a mind to do some fishing near Brandywine Drop. They kept riding as the sun was warming their backs from its place in the sky, and it felt good. There had been snow already up in these hills, but it was melting off the trees that day and muddy, and Arthur shot a cougar from a distance with his rifle and then together they observed a moose nosing its way through the pines. They decided to camp after clearing the area for Murfree Brood. There were none about that day. Before the sun went down that day, they were just riding up the river, looking for a place to camp when they came upon a woman up the hillside, under a ridge, crying. When they found her, she was sitting on her knees in front of a wooden cross stuck in the dirt, a grave. She was not dressed warm enough for the weather, and she was very dirty. She had dark hair falling apart all around her face in pieces. Both Arthur and Mary Beth were concerned. They approached on horseback. When she saw them, she staggered to her feet and looked terrified. She clutched herself. Arthur stayed back, but Mary Beth got off her horse. She went toward the woman carefully, with her hands in front of her. She said, “It’s okay. We ain’t gonna hurt you.”

The woman looked around, like she was hopeless. She seemed to trust Mary Beth, as most did. “Who are you?” she said.

“I’m Mary Beth, and this is my husband Arthur," she said. "We’ve been living in a cottage just down the river. We’ve been there a few months. How long have you been up here?”

The woman looked back to Arthur, who removed his hat in chivalry. He still did not dismount his horse. He knew what he must have looked like out here to a woman all on her own. He didn’t want to scare her.

“Um,” said the woman, as if gathering her faculties. “We came here—a month ago? Maybe more. I don’t know.”

“Who’s we, ma’am?” said Arthur. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“My husband and me,” she said. She seemed to brace herself, then looked back at the cross, the grave. She was crying, a little. “We came out here from back east, Philadelphia.”

Mary Beth got a little closer. She stood beside the woman. “What happened?”

The woman dried her eyes on her sleeve. She shook her head in a combination of sadness and shock. “A bear,” she said, staring at the grave. “It was horrifying. He survived, but only a couple of days."

“Oh my,” said Mary Beth, in near on disbelief. She placed her hand on the woman’s shoulder to comfort her. The woman did not protest.

“I buried him, maybe a week ago," she said.

Mary Beth glanced back to Arthur, who shook his head in sadness. This was worse than it seemed, they both thought together, and they were needed. He got off his horse and came over. When he did, the woman looked up at him. She was very small, smaller than Mary Beth even. But Arthur had a way of softening his demeanor when he wanted to. He took a deep breath. “We are very sorry for your loss, ma’am,” he said.

“Thank you.” She seemed confused, like she was getting lost in his eyes, or like somehow she had forgotten where she was.

“Is there a town, or a train station that we can take you to?" he said. "You shouldn’t be out here alone. I know you’re—I know you’re grieving, but it really ain’t safe.”

“What?” she said. She snapped out of it then, almost immediately. “No. No, I can’t leave.”

“All do respect, ma’am, but why not?”

"Because it was our dream.”

“Your dream?”

“Yes,” said the woman, almost defiant. “We came out here from the city in search of a different life. Something true. Something real. I hate to say that we found it, in the worst possible way, but we did. And I can’t leave now. I can’t leave him behind.” She looked back to the grave. She closed her eyes. "For you." She said his name then, which was Cal.

Mary Beth, still with her hand on the woman’s shoulder, was looking at Arthur like she didn’t quite know how to proceed. They couldn’t leave the woman alone up here. It was feral country, and winter was coming. Surely, she would die. Arthur shrugged. Mary Beth did, too.

“What’s your name?” she said, to the woman.

“Charlotte,” said the woman. “Charlotte Balfour.”

“Well, Charlotte,” said Mary Beth. “Maybe we can help you then, get back on your feet.”

Charlotte looked at them like they were crazy. “Help me?”

“Yeah,” said Mary Beth. “Me and Arthur—well, Arthur especially—we been living on the range a long time, and like I said, we’re so nearby.”

“You’ll starve out here,” said Arthur, watching the woman, closely. “That is, if something else don't get to you first. Bear, mountain lions, or worse. You know how to hunt?”

Charlotte laughed to herself then. It was a strange sound amidst all the sadness. “No,” she said. “Of course not. And of course, I’m nearly out of food.”

Arthur smiled at this. “Well, we’ll teach you.”

“You’ll teach me?”

“Of course,” said Arthur. “Mary Beth here, even she knows how to use a rifle.”

“Ain’t nothing to it,” said Mary Beth.

Charlotte watched them, like she didn't fully understand, but she was listening. Somewhere far away, there was a loon going off, ringing in the twilight. The air was getting colder as the sun was going down past the ridge line. “Okay,” she said, with hesitance.

“Good,” said Arthur, almost soft now. He was half-groomed that day. He’d let Mary Beth cut his hair, had trimmed down his beard. It was probably a good thing. When you could see his eyes, his whole face, he had a kind and a sturdy look that most people trusted. He really was a warm man. “You got a rifle?” he went on. “If not, that’s okay. We got guns.”

“I do,” she said. “I have a couple.”

“Where’s your house?”

“Up the ridge,” she said. “Come, I’ll show you.”

They followed her up a long path to a small homestead painted green. There was a barn and a chicken coup. The coup was bustling, but it looked to Mary Beth that the eggs had not been harvested in a while. “You got eggs here,” she said. “Do you mind if I bring some in for you?”

“Oh,” said Charlotte, like she had not noticed. She was so thin. It looked like she probably had not eaten or slept proper since her husband, maybe not since Philadelphia. “Of course not. Thank you.”

“Any time.”

Mary Beth gathered a dozen or so into her skirt. When she came over, Charlotte seemed to notice then that she might have been pregnant, but she didn’t say anything. They stood on the porch. Arthur was quiet and calm, chewing on a toothpick.

Before she let them in the house, Charlotte stopped with her hand on the door handle. She looked inquisitive and she said, “What—or, who exactly are you?” She seemed embarrassed by the question, like she’d meant to say something more formal. “I just mean—why have you come to the Roanoke Valley? What is it that you do here?”

Mary Beth smiled.

“We’ve had all manner of jobs,” said Arthur. “We been on the road for some time now, and the road gets weary. Like you, we’re looking for a new life.”

This seemed to reassure Charlotte. She smiled down at her muddy but elegant boots. “Oh," she said. "Well, I should say, you look like farmers, or ranchers, maybe? Salt of the earth, if you will.”

“You ain’t wrong,” said Arthur. But he said not more. They went inside then, where Charlotte showed them around her modest home. There was lovely wallpaper and heavy oak furniture. Charlotte was digging around in a big leather trunk by the window, and Arthur and Mary Beth were waiting patiently, but by the time she finally found the rifles and the bullets, it was getting dark, and too cold to go back outside.

“Oh, good heavens,” she said, looking out the window, then at her watch. “I’m so sorry.”

“It’s okay,” said Arthur.

“Would you stay the night?” she asked them, like she was desperate. She’d been picking at the skin around her fingernails, Mary Beth had noticed. She was so nervous, and worried, and scared and sad and alone. Mary Beth had not met another woman like her since they'd picked up Sadie up near Colter. “I have an extra bedroom," Charlotte went on, "with a bed big enough for the two of you. I just—now that you’ve come, I—”

“Sure,” said Mary Beth. She went to the kitchen table to sort the eggs into a basket, and Arthur was just sort of wandering around with his shotgun still slung over his shoulder. There were some pictures hanging on the wall of Charlotte and the man who must have been her husband, pictures which he was looking at. “We’ll stay. Right, baby?”

“Huh?” said Arthur, only half-listening as he looked at the pictures.

“I said, we’ll stay. We can go out and have a fresh start in the morning. Right?"

He surfaced then, looked at her, easy-going. “Sure,” he said. “Why not?”

Charlotte was relieved.

She showed them to their room. It was simple but beautiful with a high, brass bed and a white comforter stuffed with down feathers. There was not much for food that night, so Arthur stoked the hearth and went back out in the dark to hunt some rabbit, alone, while Mary Beth fried a couple of eggs and made her famous whiskey tea. Charlotte ate the eggs hungrily, though Mary Beth could still sense her trying to be demure about it. They sat on the small sofa together, sipping the tea then, looking at the fire. Mary Beth felt warm and comfortable and though she felt bad for Charlotte, and she could not herself imagine losing her husband and still finding a way to survive, she tried not to pity her, for she, too, had once been a woman all alone in the wild, and after all, she was glad to have a job now, something to do, somebody to help. For a while there, it seemed she and Arthur were always the ones who needed saving.

“Your husband,” said Charlotte after a little while. She was distant, sobered. “He seems very…sturdy, and wise. And you do, too. Do the two of you always know exactly what to do?”

The question was earnest. Mary Beth found it amusing. “Of course not,” she said. “We have found ourselves in our fair share of trouble over the years. But when it comes to surviving in the wild, it's true that we’ve got skills.”

“How long have you been married?” said Charlotte. The fire crackled. The room was warm.

“Not too long,” said Mary Beth. “Maybe four or five months? I am losing track of the weeks now. But we have known each other for a lot longer than that.”

“How did you meet?” said Charlotte.

Mary Beth took a long drink of her tea. She looked at Charlotte and could tell that she was just desperately lonely, that she needed preoccupation and companionship. Mary Beth didn’t want to lie to her. “We met in Kansas City,” she said, shoving the hair out of her face. Her curls were messy from the day. “I was only nineteen, living completely on my own. I was an orphan, and I didn’t have nothing to my name. I was in trouble back then, and alone. Like you. But I met Arthur and his…well, his family, I guess. They took me in.”

Charlotte was listening, rapt. She seemed surprised, maybe, that it was so bad. Like she did not know what to say. It seemed her instinct then to back off. She didn’t ask for anymore details, but she did not close herself off emotionally. She just had a certain polish about her, a certain sheen, even despite her current predicament. For this, and coupled with everything else from the wallpaper to the fine quality of her leather boots, Mary Beth could tell she came from money. “You're so brave," said Charlotte, shaking her head. "It's terrible you had to go through all of that."

"I am no worse for the wear," said Mary Beth. "I found Arthur from it. But thank you."

"My husband and I had all the safety in the world,” she said then, shaking her head like it was just so stupid, so small and silly in comparison. “And still, it wasn’t enough. What a pair of fools.” She closed her eyes. A little tear plopped out. “This was his dream, to escape our lives," she said. "Our lives of privilege, of predictability. And I followed him.”

“I understand that,” said Mary Beth.

“How is it that you’re not afraid?” she said then, opening her wide, pale eyes. “Living…on the range, as you said earlier. All alone? Everything you’ve been through. It sounds so hard, and terrifying. I’ve never known hardship before—before all this. I am a stupid woman, and I am starting to wonder now if I should have been smarter. Maybe I should have been more argumentative, said no. Maybe we never should have come here.” She looked away, at the hardwood floors, which looked new.

“Well, I do get afraid,” said Mary Beth, sincerely. She placed her hand on Charlotte’s hand where they sat in front of the fire. “I get afraid all the damn time."

"You do?"

"Yes. Mostly of losing Arthur," said Mary Beth, "as I have lost so much before him, and I know what that’s like. Losing. As I said, I understand. But listen, Charlotte. It don’t matter where you come from, or who you are. There’s always something better out there, waiting. That's what I'm learning. There’s always something to escape from, and there’s always somewhere better you’re trying to be. You should try not to regret what you did. You don’t know what might’ve happened if you’d stayed in the city. Life is so fragile, I think, and you got to do what you want. It’s easy to worry too much. We gotta...keep perspective. For as long as we can. That's what I'm doing right now. I'm keeping perspective. Arthur helps me with that. There's a lot going on in my life, that's scary, but you know, you don't really find the meaning in life on your own. It finds you. Like with me and Arthur. We was friends for…years, before love found us. Life can be real bad, I reckon, but you never know what’s gonna happen that’s good. Right? So you just gotta keep living, and that’s it, right?” She sat back and placed her hand on her little tummy, as if to reassure herself with the same words she was using to try and reassure Charlotte. "You just gotta try." She sipped her tea and smiled in such a way so that she would seem strong, and like she knew what she was talking about. It was true, she herself was struggling with such similar predicaments, but her husband was alive, and in that, she was the sturdier woman on the sofa that day, by far, so she acted like it.

Charlotte, meanwhile, was staring at Mary Beth, and then looking down into her tea and then back at the fire. They heard Arthur’s heavy boots then, out on the porch. They both glanced toward the sound with immense relief. Charlotte then suddenly looked back to Mary Beth, brightening up a little. She was not okay, but Mary Beth had hit on something it seemed—she was reassured. “Thank you,” she said. “So much. I hate to be a burden to strangers. But you are good people.”

Mary Beth waved her off as the atmosphere between them changed and grown more comfortable. “Don’t worry about it,” she said. “And I hope we won’t stay strangers for long.”

Charlotte smiled. “Me, too.”

Arthur came in the door then. He took off his hat and shook the cold off. He had two rabbits, skinned and cleaned and tied together, laying over his shoulder. “Lord in heaven, it’s cold out there,” he said. He looked at them fondly then, huddled on the sofa, blowing into his hands. “But you two ladies look nice and cozy.”

“Is those rabbits ready to cook?” said Mary Beth.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Thank you,” said Charlotte. She rose from the sofa. Went to him and took the rabbits off his hands. “Thank you, so much, Arthur.”

“Don’t mention it,” he said. He rubbed his hands together and looked at Mary Beth. “You got anymore of that tea, my lady?”

“Yes, sir,” said Mary Beth. She got up to pour him some. He took off his jacket and went to warm himself by the fire, and when she handed him the mug, he thanked her and kissed her on the head. Then he came and sat at the kitchen table. Mary Beth helped Charlotte to prepare a stew and they all three of them chatted for a while. Charlotte had some carrots, cabbage, and salt in her pantry, which they chopped up and used generously. As they were sitting down for dinner a little while later, they looked out the window. It was starting to snow.

“Sweet Christmas,” said Mary Beth. “Is that snow?”

“I guess we’re in it,” said Arthur, amused. He seemed so relaxed there, so deeply in his element. He tucked one of Charlotte’s fine cloth napkins into his collar. “Winter is upon us."

“I guess so,” said Charlotte, like she was unsure. They ate their stew.

As they did, the wind howled through the chimney, filling the room with its strange reminder of all the uncertainty beyond, all of which seemed so inconsequential while they were safe and sound there inside those walls. So much had started, finished, been found, and lost. And yet, there was still so much to do, it seemed, to weather the storm.

#red dead redemption 2 #rdr2 #arthur morgan #arthur x mary beth #mary beth gaskill #the lily farm #happy valentines day!!#i am sorry for the long wait on this one #february has been insane #but i'm very proud of this chapter!!#i am excited to finally get here #<3

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