The Awakening (The Fempiror Chronicles Book 1) Read online

  “David. Abraham. What are you two doing?” she asked.

  Here it was. The opportunity Abraham wanted. If anyone would get David back to reality, it would be Elizabeth Carpenter.

  “Oh, you know,” Abraham said, “just brooding over a dull future.” Of course, Abraham did not believe his future was dull, but it evoked the response from Beth that he wanted.

  The three of them had been friends their entire lives: a known trio in Hauginstown where one was rarely seen without the other two. Like Abraham, Beth held her future as exceptionally hopeful, and she looked forward to the very life that David was brooding over.

  “Dull?” she said incredulously, “come on, life is out there. What could possibly be dull about it?”

  “Well, this isn’t so much me as your intended here,” Abraham informed her.

  Beth’s eyes grew wide. “Abraham, hush,” she said in a whisper.

  David gave him a dirty look that also requested silence on this particular topic. Abraham was well aware of their desire to keep their courtship secret, but he also felt that David needed at least to acknowledge how lucky he was to have Beth at his side. He knew that if he were in David’s position, he would never be unhappy again.

  “David’s got you,” Abraham said to Beth, “and I have Mary Dillinger, the singular biggest eye-sore in this god-forsaken town. If I ever had one reason to get out of here…”

  Not that he intended to go anywhere, and Mary Dillinger was fairly attractive in her own right. Her family moved into Hauginstown within the last fifteen years, so most people considered them “outsiders,” but his father had befriended hers, and she was only a few years younger than he was. By the time he would be self-sufficient in his father’s trade, she would be of age, and they would be encouraged to marry.

  “Abraham, you know better than to—” Beth began, pulling Abraham out of his thoughts.

  “I know you’re trying to avoid public scrutiny,” Abraham said interrupting her, “but don’t you think people will figure it out?”

  “Not as long as certain people keep their mouths closed about it,” David finally said out of his silence. “This gossip-laden town does not need to know about us yet.”

  “They’ll figure it out,” Abraham insisted.

  “How?” David asked. “We’ve been friends forever, and you’d be as big a suspect as I would. Besides, we’re well known as a threesome right now.”

  “And that’s the way it will stay until we’re ready as well,” Beth added.

  Wait a minute, Abraham thought. Did she really just say that? Surely, Beth did not believe that their lives would change as a group. After all, if Mary Dillinger came into his life, he would never think of leaving his friends of so many years.

  “I know life will go on,” Abraham said, “but we’re not going to break up the threesome, are we?”

  Beth smiled at him, looking a bit sad – or was it condescending? Abraham was unable to decipher her, but a nervous flutter rattled his stomach telling him that he was bound to dislike whatever she was going to say.

  “Be realistic, Abraham,” she said, “We’re friends forever, but life will make a twosome someday.”

  Abraham stopped in his tracks. No, he did not like what she had said, but there it was. It was hard enough that David was going to have Beth, but knowing that once they ended up together, they would leave him behind made it all the worse. What is “friends forever” if they leave him? Is that what his friendship means to them?

  Abraham shook his head away from these thoughts. He was just over thinking it all because he was afraid of David and Beth leaving him alone someday – going to Frinton, perhaps. He ran to catch back up to them. David and Beth were staring at each other talking quietly. They stopped as Abraham reached them, and David turned to him.

  “Well, I do need to be getting back,” David said.

  Abraham looked back to his father’s barbershop to find his father standing in front of it looking at him. “Me too by the looks of it,” Abraham said.

  “Very well. See you later, Abraham,” David said as he and Beth walked together back towards the alley.

  Abraham nodded, knowing they had left him alone. “Right,” he said watching them go. “I’ll see you later.”

  Beth turned to him with a smile and a wave. “Bye,” she said, and then turned back forward, walking with David until they disappeared into the alley. David closed the gate behind them.

  Abraham sighed. He had no feelings for this Mary Dillinger that lay in his future because there was a lot of truth in what David had said. Abraham could be suspected as much as David in having Beth’s heart. In truth, his heart had been with her since before she and David had privately declared their love for each other.

  He tried not to give it too much thought, however, since it would only lead him back to wondering how David is better than he is. What was it about David that led Beth to him instead of Abraham? He shook his head and tried to clear these negative thoughts before returning to the barbershop.

  He turned back to his waiting father, his mind still reeling from how quickly they had gone from three kids who were always found together to a couple with an extra person. David and Beth had been extraordinarily discrete, however, and when they met, Abraham was usually there as well. It was their desire for everyone to see the three of them together before David and Beth left him and went somewhere else alone. They left it to Abraham to cover for them when they went, whether he wanted to or not. It was only a matter of time before they disappeared entirely, and left him alone with nothing to keep him company but his father’s shop and an endless supply of needy people.

  Every time they disappeared, Abraham felt as if they took his heart with them.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Beth finally had David alone. They were locked in a tight embrace behind the fence blocking the alley beside the Taylors’ store from the rest of the world, and she never wanted the moment to end. If they had announced their intentions for each other to the town, moments like this would never come. The entire town would scrutinize their every movement to ensure that young love didn’t run away with itself.

  But if love didn’t run, why bother with it? When the embrace broke, she looked into the eyes of the friend she had come to love over the years. How long had it been since she had first given her heart over to him? Long before she ever admitted it on her fifteenth birthday in this very place. She remembered the nervousness of that moment, as she had timidly told him that she was very fond of him, and how he had shared those feelings.

  However, these past two years had been some of the most difficult for them as they had struggled to keep their love a secret after having seen how parents reacted to other couples in town once they made their intentions for each other known. They had told Abraham, and he seemed happy enough for them, though it took a few moments for the shock to wear off. He had also been good to both of them as he continually covered for their movements when the three of them had been spending time together before her and David suddenly and inexplicably disappeared.

  It saddened her to consider that she and David might be using Abraham, and she wondered how long their friendship could possibly continue once she and David were actually married. What would become of the trio when two of them had become one? Naturally, they would all be lifelong friends, but everything would be different. She and David would want to spend time alone together, and they would not have the time they did now to include him.

  “I’ve been waiting all day for that,” David said, interrupting her personal reverie.

  She smiled at him, taking in his face again. “Me too,” she said.

  David looked down to her ball of uncolored, wool yarn. “What’s this for?” he asked.

  She laughed. That ball of yarn had taken her the better part of a week to spin on a spinning wheel that belonged to David’s mother, Mary Taylor, who also served as the mantua-maker for the women of the town – a task that Mrs. Taylor was only too happy to teach to
her. Beth also felt that someday she would join David’s mother as the next Mrs. Taylor to be the next mantua maker since she was learning the art quickly and had even made her own dress and cap. She had been over at his house while he was at his father’s shop almost every day working on her yarn from the wool she had gathered from the sheep at the Shepherd family’s farm north of town.

  “I’ve been working on a blanket for two for whenever we get married,” she said. “When that day finally comes, it should be done.”

  “Sounds good,” David said with a broad smile. He was always so encouraging of her notions of married life. It only further served to fuel her excitement of an engagement, hopefully sooner than later.

  “I can’t wait until we’re able to tell the world about us,” she said, almost dancing in his arms. “Just to be able to show them how we feel about each other.”

  “We will,” David said, “but now is not the time.”

  She pouted. While she wanted the engagement, she was also unwilling to lose these little rendezvous with him. Between the public announcement and wedding, everyone would hardly allow them to talk privately without someone close by watching them.

  “Can you come out tonight?” she asked him.

  “There’s a ban on going out after dark,” he reminded her. “Besides,” he added with a smile, “it isn’t entirely proper.”

  Of course, she knew this. She also knew he did not believe a word of the demon talk going on around town, and probably believed Ben was where they had stumbled on him last time he came up missing. They were lucky in that no one had asked too many questions as to why David had suggested the old windmill as a possible location for Ben.

  She knew the truth, and it was nothing too complicated. As the windmill almost never had visitors, they tended to go there to be alone, and on that particular occasion, they were not alone. They quickly returned to town where she and David both went home immediately, and the next day when everyone was discussing where to search for Ben, David had suggested the windmill as a place he might have ended up. She smiled as she remembered the cavalier way in which it had just “come to him.”

  “It’s never stopped us before,” she tossed back to him. David laughed and nodded. She leaned in close to him again. “I’ll see you tonight then?”

  They kissed again. She pulled him close to her and took in every part of him she could. It would be too long before they could be close again. The kiss broke and she looked into his eyes again.

  “Me and you, right?” he asked as he often did.

  “For all eternity,” she replied.

  “No matter what,” he finished.

  It was their own parting greeting, and they had used it ever since it had come out at the end of a long day, and they were just barely out of earshot of their parents and were unable to touch or use the normal “I love you” parting words without someone noticing them. To Beth, the words were sacred and meant everything to her to hear him start it.

  She slowly backed away from him to the gate of the alley. With a final smile, she exited the alley back into the street. A quick look around showed that no one had so much as noticed them disappear or were the least bit interested in a girl going into an alley alone with a boy. After all, they were David and Beth: the oldest of friends.

  A personal satisfaction at her secret still intact, she walked to her house where she looked forward to another day and evening of knitting and preparing for the day that her parents thought was far off, and she knew was closer than anyone imagined.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Secret Rendezvous

  David swept another round of dirt out of the shop and onto the ground outside the alley door. As with the shirt dying (a task he had finished only moments before Mr. Franklin returned), sweeping the store at the end of the workday was David’s responsibility. He wiped the sweat from his brow and looked back into the shop.

  The Taylors’ shop was divided into two sections: the front half contained mirrors and chairs for his father and brothers to measure their customers and make marks on the fabric they were going to cut, sew and alter to the whims of these patrons. The back of the shop, separated from the front by a line of mirrors, contained tables and chairs for the actual work as well as a few bolts of cloth made by David’s mother and some of the other women of the town. He mused for a moment that Beth would probably join those ranks someday as well.

  Jonathan entered the back of the store and walked over to David. David figured he was probably going to receive a lecture over standing instead of sweeping.

  “Mr. Franklin was really pleased with your work today, son,” Jonathan said. David was surprised, but then, his father never held back on compliments and praise when they were due.

  “Thank you, father,” David said with a smile.

  “However,” Jonathan began. Here it comes, thought David. “I found the dye to be rather uneven on the second shirt,” Jonathan continued. “You rushed through the process too quickly. You should have known he would leave them here to dry fully. You need to pay attention to what you’re doing and take your time when time is needed.”

  “I’ll be more careful,” David assured him.

  “Good,” Jonathan said, “People’s clothes are their first impressions. It’s important they be done right.”

  David felt like he could recite these little sayings of his father even before his father could spout them out … again. Mark emerged from the front of the store, a look of worry on his face. This was where his father’s words were to go hypocritical.

  “Where did I go wrong on that waistline, father?” Mark asked.

  “It was two inches. Anyone can make a mistake,” Jonathan assured him.

  And that was it? David was shocked. He was criticized over uneven dye, but Mark can ruin someone’s clothes and get nothing more than a “don’t worry?”

  “Isn’t this the third alteration he’s done wrong?” David asked, as more of a reminder he thought.

  “David, this is not your concern,” Jonathan shot back angrily.

  “Yes sir,” David said in defeat. Of course, it isn’t, he thought. It never is. It never will be.

  “Now, finish sweeping the floor,” Jonathan finished before leaving the back of the store.

  David sighed and continued sweeping. He wondered if perhaps his father would even miss him if he just disappeared.

  * * * * * * * * * *

  Several hours later, after closing the store and having dinner, Jonathan Taylor sat in a comfortable chair in the living room of his house with a few sheets of parchment and a charcoal pencil in his lap. He sketched clothing ideas each evening as recreation after dinner while his wife, Mary, cleaned up and his sons wound down from the long day’s work.

  His latest sketch was of a man in a pair of breeches and a shirt. This was often where he began before trying to make something more of the common theme of men’s clothing. Naturally, he never made any of the alterations he had created over the years. People did not embrace change easily and changing something as significant as someone’s clothing was not something that he felt was his place to do. Changing it up as he sat in the privacy of his own home, however, furthered his appreciation of the simplicity of the original design although he occasionally did find an easier way to make the old standard.

  His sons were being productive as well – two of them anyway. His eldest, James, sewed a series of buttons on a dress Mary had nearly finished for one of the women in town. She had laid it aside to cook dinner, and James had offered to do some of the finishing work on it for her, which made his father proud. His middle child, Mark, was busy carving a wooden needle – something Mark had recognized that they were in short supply of earlier. Mark did try hard, but Jonathan wondered if he would ever fully understand their business since frustration with Mark’s work had begun wearing on the customers as well as he and James.

  And then there was David. His youngest son sat idly on a chair and looked out the window. Jonathan worried about him. He
seemed to be in a constant state of distraction never focusing on his duties to the point of mastering them, but only barely getting by. Jonathan worried that perhaps he was not challenging the boy enough, but at seventeen, he should have enough focus to dye a simple shirt. Without complete mastery of the basics, how could he allow David to move on? Besides, with two other sons working the family business in a small town that needed more repairs than new garments, there was not enough work for three of them. This left David with the tasks that they did not have time to complete, and then anything Jonathan could give him to keep him busy. He would not have one of his sons look idle.

  He sighed and looked back to his sketch. He was pondering a way to make the same shirt and breeches combination they always had, but perhaps a way to use fewer stitches or less fabric or even make their old shirts cooler in the summer time. He shook his head.

  “James, come here,” he called out. James quietly put his needle down and walked over to Jonathan’s chair.

  “Yes sir,” James said.

  “This design needs something, and I can’t place it,” Jonathan said. “Do you have any thoughts on maybe making it cooler?”

  James looked at the drawing Jonathan had done. James had an eye for design that Jonathan lacked, and James often impressed him with new variations that he had never considered.

  “What if you cut the sleeves off here,” James said pointing at a point between the shoulder and elbow on the drawing on the right arm, “and here,” he finished pointing at the left side.

  Jonathan looked at the page and then drew a line to make the shirt short-sleeved. Simple enough, he thought, but merely cutting the sleeves off had never occurred to him.

  “Short sleeves?” he asked his son. He looked at the page again. “Huh,” he said, amused, “That’s it! You’re really starting to surpass me.”

  He laughed, proud of his oldest son, and set to making this idea a reality on the page. Imagine what people would think about the Taylor family showing up with their lower arms cooled off in the summer. Everybody would want one.