~~~
So far she had traveled, so far! Here she was half a world away from her old
home in a bent, medieval city.
Everything there was dark, everything constrained, careful, pinched and
hard.
There was pain and hardship here, too, but there was
openness in the sky, the pastures, the round shouldered, low blue mountains. It made her heart expand with grief and joy,
much like her first experience of the Atlantic, where the ship had risen and
fallen in the troughs of great waves, bobbing like a cork upon an endless,
glittering monster of water.
Sinking to her knees, Sophie bowed her head against the
cool, white sill. After a time, she
opened her eyes and fixed them once more upon the enormous night sky. She had come safely to this fabled new land
of plenty, but the kind, formal gentleman who was to have been her husband was
dead. Left with nothing, she was loosed
alone into a strange, new world.
The race, the wheel and the little river sang a song
together. Sophie began to hear voices,
but she couldn't understand them, for they seemed to speak in the tongue of
this new place. At first she felt fear,
then another emotion sprang into her heart.
Freiheit! Freedom!
Yes, this was freedom!
Opportunity, certainly, but opportunity menaced by many
dangers, some known, some yet to be learned.
With freedom came the possibility of sinking as well as rising.
"But I shall rise." Sophie promised the
night. "I will help my sisters, save
my poor mother."
For a moment she felt invincible, proud and strong. Then reality came down like a curtain. How could a woman alone do all that?
I will work hard, she thought, as everyone says. I will do my best and hold onto my goal. I'll find a way to help my family, to bring
them here!
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/hand-me-down-bride/id1023551148?mt=11
***
~~Juliet Waldron
Find out what happens to Sophie, now a stranger in a strange land.
Find out what happens to Sophie, now a stranger in a strange land.
~~~~
And for more Sunday Snippets, hop along to these talented Books We Love Writers:
http://mizging.blogspot.com (Ginger Simpson)
http://authorjamiehill.blogspot.com/ (Jamie Hill)
http://romancingscifi.blogspot.com/ (Vijaya Schartz)
