Warming

“Aggy.”

The light is warm, coming in wide streams through the window, blunting the chilling air. There are birds outside, singing songs that fade into the back of your mind, distant and quiet. Your darling comes to your bedside, running her hands over your shoulder. Your hand is being taken and held so gingerly, it’s as though you’ve been touched by the wind. She takes your hand in hers, but doesn’t pull, waiting for you to look up to her.

“Aggy,” She smiles so warmly, “Will you come with me?”

She raises you up, steadying you when you waver on exhausted legs. When you look to face her, there are feathers in her hair from tending to the chickens. She doesn’t stop you by the tarnished mirror or take you into the bathing room, but straight to the sweet smelling kitchen of your small home.

She sits you down at the table and runs soft hands through your hair, separating the bed tangles and undoing your sleeping braid. There’s a large bowl of berries on the table, shiny and freshly washed. She hums so sweetly, laying your dark hair against your shoulder, making you painfully aware that you’re still in your nightgown, while she’s been dressed for hours, choring and cooking in her honey orange dress, copper hair braided and pinned up in a bun. You make to say something, to apologize, when she walks away. You hope your hair covers the flush in your cheeks.

You watch her rummage about, grabbing jars and plates to set on the table. She brings the honey and jam, plates and forks for you and her, and finally, a small woven basket lined with fabric. She lifts the lid of the basket and laughs as steam plumes in her face, waving it away. She lifts a plate from the basket, piled high with griddle cakes, making the whole room just a bit warmer.

“The eggs from the other day were about to go off,” She explains, as if she needed to explain, laying a short stack on each plate, “And those boys from the valley came up to see if we wanted any of their strawberries, so I thought I would make something sweet to go with them.”

You nod, understanding. You had heard her answer the door, it felt like hours ago while you laid in bed, though you couldn’t make out what they had said.

“Did-” you croaked, quickly closing your mouth. You swallow, trying to wet your throat so you could speak, “Did they want anything in return, Dorothy?”

“Oh, no,” She smiles, moving back into the kitchen to get your mugs and the water pitcher, “They were quite adamant that the berries were a gift, but I insisted they come to me next time they need clothes mended.”

You nod. She’s so kind.

“Oh, they asked about you, Aggy,” She pours you a drink, whisps of hair falling into her face, “They asked about your lovely garden and if they could take a few clippings.”

You smile, taking a sip of water. You remember tending the garden in the summer, how the boys from the valley would walk up to their hill to talk and trade honey and fruits. The taller one, Edmund, would ask for clipped leaves and flowers to preserve in his books.

He could talk for hours about the beautiful blooms and would sometimes bring up his notebook to show her sketches he had done of his own garden, comparing the two. His partner, William seemed more interested in the worms peeking their little heads out from the soil.

“I know you like to indulge him, so I said he could,” Dorothy’s voice shakes you from your thoughts, “I hope that was alright.”

You smile, nodding, and you both tuck in to eat.

***

“Agnes.”

You look up from the garden, the sounds of the world fading back into your mind. You realize you’ve been staring at a bee on a daisy, not yet beginning to wilt. Dorothy smiles at you, warming something inside you didn’t realize was cold. Her lips are stained pink from the strawberries and jam at breakfast.

“I’m to deliver some mending and letters to the general store,” She gestures to the basket in her hand, “Will you come with me, Aggy?”

You look down at your hands, the dark soil under your fingernails and between the wrinkles in your palms. You finished your work already, though you couldn’t say how long ago.

You stand, ignoring the way your face flushes and you waver, knees buckling after kneeling for so long. You dust your hands on your dress, frowning at the brown smudges now staining the fabric. Dorothy had made this dress, she liked to give you clothes as gifts. You worry your lip, suddenly scared she would say something, tell you to go change or to wash up before you go, that she would rescind the invitation and leave you alone.

She grabs your hand as though you haven’t stood there silently for a good minute, staring at your thighs. “Are you ready?"

You nod, and she leads you up out of the garden and past the small fence you had put up last spring to stop the chickens from running loose over the hill. She zig zags through the untamed grass, taking care, as she likes to do, to not step on any wildflowers. Your eyes wander down to your linked hands, how her fingers are stained with berry juice and ink. Further down, you watch the hem of her skirt move along with her steps, perpetually discoloured from kneeling in the chicken pen and rolling in the wildflowers and suddenly you feel so silly for worrying about your dirty hands.

“I’ve written to a woman in the other valley,” Dorothy speaks, “We met at the market not last week. She seemed interested in learning to tend to bees, so I thought I would help.”

You’re not sure what to say. You open your mouth but nothing comes of it, so you just nod, smiling.

“She was trading fig preserves, Aggy,” She looks at you, light in her eyes, “I don’t even think I’ve ever had a fig before.”

“Well, I-” You clear your throat, “Maybe you could get some? Next time you go down to market.”

“I think I will!” She thinks for a second, shifting your hands so your fingers interlock, “She told me some figs have wasps in them, did you know that?”

You shake your head and get ready to listen to her talk about figs all the way down the hill.

***

You come to the general store, a building you tend to avoid, and she pulls away from you gently, leaving you to stand by the door while she goes to the owner. You watch her, how she pulls the basket up to the counter, smiling up to Mister Clement, unpacking the freshly mended pants and undershirts. He takes them and gestures to the sweets, offering whatever she chooses as payment, and you know without looking that she’ll choose to take a bag of candied petals and a square of bitter chocolate (the same as she always does.)

Clement bags the sweets, placing them into the basket while he and Dorothy chat, something about his young son, Henry and the piles of falling leaves around the back of the store. He doesn’t pay you any mind except a polite wave when you walked in (and even then, it seemed mostly from politeness).

You wait by the door, already expecting that your darling will take some time to get her catching ups out of the way, but as time goes on and you stand alone by the door, you feel yourself wilt. The warmth in your chest from the walk down begins to fall, leaving a chill to breeze through you. You don’t say anything, even as you feel something in you fall like a stone into your stomach, uncomfortable and heavy.

Your eyes fall away from Dorothy, peering down at your dirt brushed skirt and hands. You feel dirty. You feel like you shouldn’t be there, that you should have stayed home. Maybe you made a mistake going out, maybe you shouldn’t have gotten out of bed at all.

Your mind swirls with doubt and dull pain, eating up your thoughts until it’s the only thing going around your head. You feel like you’re going to be ill. You want to leave, more than anything, but you can’t bring yourself to interrupt Dorothy’s conversation. You don’t want to be a bother.

“-ggy,” You hear her sweet voice fading into your attention, “Aggy?”

You look up to her, standing in front of you with such clear care in her face, and you feel horrible to have worried her. You become suddenly aware of the mist of tears forming in your eyes, telling and embarrassing. You try to wipe them away quickly, hissing when you get dirt in your eyes.

"Agnes.” She takes your hand from your eye, rubbing the gathering tears away with her thumb. “Are you alright?”

You nod, not trusting your voice. You don’t know how to explain to her that you’re fine, you were fine, that for some reason your mind just sunk and you don’t know why or how to fix it. You don’t understand why you’re like this.

She holds your face in her soft hands and smiles so warm and so sad, “Stay here for just a moment, and we can be going.”

You don’t argue, but you feel a dagger in your chest, knowing that she went through all the trouble of bringing you out with her and you ruined it.

She goes up to the counter, handing over the letters and asking Clement something you can’t hear. He nods and goes to the back for a moment, coming out with a large bag he puts into the basket. She thanks him and turns to leave, coming to link her hand with yours before you leave the store.

“Let’s be going, Aggy,” She smiles as you walk into the sunlight.

***

“Oh, Agatha,” You hear her voice from the doorway, so sweet and light. She comes to your bedside, carrying a candle to see you in the dark.

When you arrived home from the general store, you had drifted to the bed room, Dorothy trailing after you to help you remove your dress, corset and drawers. She laid you down in bed, hushed away your quiet apologies and wiped your tears. You don’t know what you would do without her.

“Aggy,” She rubs at your shoulder, warming you just slightly, “Will you come with me?"

She takes you up, allowing you to redress yourself before bringing you to the kitchen. The house is dark, shadows cast wide around every room, only pushed away by the light of the candle. The sun is nearly set.

Instead of sitting you at the table, she goes to carefully lift the basket on it, steam rising barely visible in the low light, and pulls you into the back yard. You walk with her past the chickens and the bees and the low vegetable garden, freshly replanted for the autumn, down to a patch of fog grass among the wildflowers, half down the hill, facing the sun. There’s a blanket laid in the grass, pinned down by your water pitcher and two bowls.

She places the basket down and goes to sit on the blanket, urging you to follow with a soft smile and a pat on the ground. You go to her, as if you had a choice, and take the candle from her hand, placing it down in as stable a place as you can find. Her eyes sparkle in the light, a pretty honey brown in the day darkened to near black. They suck you in, as they always have, and you can’t help smiling back.

"What is this, Dory?” You ask, eyes flicking to the basket and bowls.

“Well, I figured it’s been so nice out today, we should try to enjoy it before the chill really begins to set in,” She lifts the basket lid, pulling out a large dish, “I forgot how long it takes to make potato soup though, so it got a bit dark.”

She uncovers the dish, and the heat and smell of the soup hits you immediately, making you realize just how hungry you are. Your stomach growls and you almost hide your face in your hands.

“Well, I suppose we should start right away,” She laughs, spooning healthy portions into both of your bowls, handing you one.

You both dig in, Dorothy blowing on your bowl with a smile after you burn your tongue. The soup warms you from the inside, the soft touches she gives you warming your skin and something deep in your chest until you can’t tell you had ever felt cold.

Between bites, she talks about little nothings, how the chickens chased around a beetle instead of filing into their pen, how the wood for the fire had popped along with her humming for just a moment while cooking but oh, how it felt magical. You listened intently, taking in her words and voice, so sweet.

You’re done before you realize you’ve hit the bottom of the bowl and it’s being refilled before you can ask. Dorothy pulls away to reach for the basket, pulling out two rolls, warm from the fire and being set next to the soup. She breaks one open, passing half of it to you and dipping the other in her soup.

“What’s better than this?” She asks, taking a bite of her roll, “a warm meal, a beautiful view."

"A pretty girl,” you mumble, cheeks warming when she looks to you, red faced. “I- I mean-”

She pulls herself up and places a kiss to your lips, quick and soft, and you feel like you’re spinning. You smile despite yourself, leaning over to press your forehead against hers, both of you leaning against each other.

Dinner is finished slowly, peppered with laughing, one sided conversations and stolen kisses, and ends with Dorothy laying with her head in you lap, laughing up at you with tired, smiling eyes. She had taken the final bag from the basket, the candied petals and chocolate square. When she looks up at you, mouth open, you give her a petal and in return she breaks you off a piece of chocolate. It’s cool, hard and bitter, but it melts on your tongue all the same.

You feel, laying in the dying sun with your darling, that you’ve never felt so light.