A Promise Kept (FIRST FIVE CHAPTERS)

Prologue

Years ago when I was only a girl, I stood on my tiptoes, my innocent round eyes following the course of my father's pen as it passed over the page. Hunched over the document resting upon his bakery shop counter the way he was, I could not make out the words. It didn't matter. I knew them all the same or, rather, what they would be. I hadn't had much warning of this agreement, my father himself telling me only moments before this familiar woman and her two children had entered our family shop. Again, it did not matter. I could have been given a decade and it would not have made a bit of a difference in my circumstance nor would it have gifted me with the opportunity to make the choice myself.

My elder sister, the only sibling I had, reached out from her place inches behind me and grasped my hand in hers. It was the only show of comfort my family had given me in all of this. I stared down at it for a moment, dumbfounded. Evelyn had never been one for affection, not where the bonds of sisterhood were concerned at least. The action of taking my hand did less to alleviate my anxiety and more to heighten it. I knew the gravity of the decision that my father had made, of the contract being signed before me, but, as it always did to a young girl, the future seemed so very far away and this arrangement seemed, to me, to be a cause of concern only for a future Avery. Not for me. It was this strange phenomenon which allowed me to put some distance between myself and the boy standing only a few feet away.

He was located at his mother's hip, wide eyes staring as well, but not at the paper upon the counter. His eyes were staring at me. I met his gaze with a scrutiny of my own. I had seen him around, of course. There weren't many children in the village of Raleigh and, those of us who there were at least knew of each other though we hadn't the time to spend with one another. Most of us peasants or children of merchant's, we were kept quite busy day and night and found little time for entertainment with children outside of our own families. I knew him because he was the poorest child in the village. Oliver Ainsworth and his sister Lucy were always looking for work, plying the village merchants to toss them a coin for a day of labor. My father had often acquired their help. I had always thought it was out of pity, kind hearted as my father was, but now I wondered if it had always been more.

Oliver and I were the same age, almost exactly. He was a lanky, knobbly kneed, freckled boy with blonde hair that was never cut straight. I was an underdeveloped, skinny, pale, wild haired girl. Neither of us were particularly appealing to the other but we were children. We had the usual youthful perception of the opposite sex. To him, I was obnoxious and to me, he was unnecessary. Yet here we were, watching as my father and his mother entered into the agreement that we were one day to be wed. Upon my sixteenth birthday, I being the youngest.

His mother picked up the pen which my father had handed her and scratched her name across the bottom of the parchment. In a matter of seconds, it was done, my future sealed away upon a sheet of paper which my father unceremoniously folded and tucked into his breast pocket. They shook hands then, each of them smiling warmly at the other, already intending to remain in the good graces of the future in laws. My gaze was pulled back to Oliver. He chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment as if he wanted to say something but, when his mother turned to leave the shop and called out sweetly after him, he turned to follow her and never did.

When they had gone, my father said not a word about the business which had just been conducted. Instead, he only ordered Evelyn and I back to work in kneading the dough that needed baking by the morning. We filed dutifully past the counter at which he stood and into the kitchen behind the shop. Taking up the positions we had occupied the whole of our short lives, my sister and I settled in for another evening of hard work. Kneading dough was not an easy task. It required the rolling up of sleeves and an arm strength which one could only come by, ironically, from kneading dough. For me and my naturally small frame, it was hard work and I was rarely able to concentrate on anything other than my labor as I rolled back the mixture and pressed it firmly into the counter below.