random backstory
"Matthew!"
He straightens in the field, his hair soaked dark with sweat, the lead for the team in one hand. Greta is calling from the house.
She comes out to him, her soft skirts blowing as she runs through the dark earth he's already turned over. Her long braid is swinging, as it always does when she runs--she's a constant movement, getting in her mother's and her grandmother's way, fleeting like a deer. "Matthew--" and then she stops to get her breath. "Matthew, Mama wants you."
"All right," he says, wiping the sweat away. "Tell her I'll come in a few minutes." The German still sounds strange on his tongue, as many years as he's been speaking it, but he tells himself it gets a little better all the time, he gets a little more used to it.
Greta lingers, looking at him with a soft expression. "Matthew, listen."
"Aye?"
"You've been with us ten years now."
"I have."
"And worked our fields, and minded the cattle, and fixed the house."
"I have."
"You help us with calving and slaughtering and reaping, you walk us to church now that Papa's dead, you keep the gun in case we're robbed."
"I do," he says, looking into her fine face and dreading whatever she'll say next.
"Why don't you marry me or Anne or Katherine? We all love you. Why don't you marry one of us and start sleeping in the house?"
Gaheris bites the inside of his lip, hard, in case he starts to give in. It's been five-hundred years now. Long enough he should know better. The ten years he's worked for Greta's mother, long enough to watch Greta go from a gangly child to a gangly woman, friendly and blunt, they don't count. She's not one of Them, he reminds himself. She's not Folk. She's not the sea. She doesn't even know him. She knows Matthew, and Matthew is the man he'd like to be and isn't, the honest farmhand who Sunday mornings goes to church and Sunday afternoons to the woods, where he sketches seals in the dirt and does his best to remember he isn't allowed to work. He can't expect to stay here, and he can't have what she's offering--a bed, a family, children who get old and die before he does. He wants it--God, he wants it--but he can't take it with her or anyone, Anne or Katherine or anyone.
"I have to go home," he says, which is the lie he's been telling them. "I swore I'd go back."
"Haven't they forgotten by now?"
"No. They won't forget. They're waiting for me."
As much a lie as it is, it makes his stomach lurch anyway, and he turns away from her quickly, taking up the team again, clucking to them to get the plough started. God help him, he can't have this.
He straightens in the field, his hair soaked dark with sweat, the lead for the team in one hand. Greta is calling from the house.
She comes out to him, her soft skirts blowing as she runs through the dark earth he's already turned over. Her long braid is swinging, as it always does when she runs--she's a constant movement, getting in her mother's and her grandmother's way, fleeting like a deer. "Matthew--" and then she stops to get her breath. "Matthew, Mama wants you."
"All right," he says, wiping the sweat away. "Tell her I'll come in a few minutes." The German still sounds strange on his tongue, as many years as he's been speaking it, but he tells himself it gets a little better all the time, he gets a little more used to it.
Greta lingers, looking at him with a soft expression. "Matthew, listen."
"Aye?"
"You've been with us ten years now."
"I have."
"And worked our fields, and minded the cattle, and fixed the house."
"I have."
"You help us with calving and slaughtering and reaping, you walk us to church now that Papa's dead, you keep the gun in case we're robbed."
"I do," he says, looking into her fine face and dreading whatever she'll say next.
"Why don't you marry me or Anne or Katherine? We all love you. Why don't you marry one of us and start sleeping in the house?"
Gaheris bites the inside of his lip, hard, in case he starts to give in. It's been five-hundred years now. Long enough he should know better. The ten years he's worked for Greta's mother, long enough to watch Greta go from a gangly child to a gangly woman, friendly and blunt, they don't count. She's not one of Them, he reminds himself. She's not Folk. She's not the sea. She doesn't even know him. She knows Matthew, and Matthew is the man he'd like to be and isn't, the honest farmhand who Sunday mornings goes to church and Sunday afternoons to the woods, where he sketches seals in the dirt and does his best to remember he isn't allowed to work. He can't expect to stay here, and he can't have what she's offering--a bed, a family, children who get old and die before he does. He wants it--God, he wants it--but he can't take it with her or anyone, Anne or Katherine or anyone.
"I have to go home," he says, which is the lie he's been telling them. "I swore I'd go back."
"Haven't they forgotten by now?"
"No. They won't forget. They're waiting for me."
As much a lie as it is, it makes his stomach lurch anyway, and he turns away from her quickly, taking up the team again, clucking to them to get the plough started. God help him, he can't have this.