Spoiler! :
Chapter 3
When the family awoke the next day, everyone was downcast and silent. The usually merry breakfast table was still, the only sounds those of porridge being chewed and milk gulped down. It was as if someone had just pressed a mute button on the small, sky-blue house. Even the suggestion of fencing practice didn’t cheer up Alex, although she kept this to herself as best she could and agreed to run a few bouts, most of which she let Gracie win, hoping it would do something to lift the melancholy droop of her twin sister’s head. Unfortunately, it did nothing of the sort, only alerting Gracie to the fact that even the most joyous of the lot, Alex, couldn’t find something to be happy about today.
The reason for the silence was split, although half the family did not know this. Gracie and the twins’ mother were simply worried for George and the war, and they thought that Alex was feeling this way as well. However, although they were half correct, as Alex was indeed very worried for both her father and the war raging around them, she was mostly brooding over, thinking, and rethinking her choice to find Father, and whether she would have to, and whether she would anyways. She had told George that she would come only if he really did make the decision to come home, but now she was pondering if she might just find her way to the battlefield anyways, and try to restore hope to other soldiers whether her father lost hope or not. This troubled her very much, as she did not want to leave home and her mother and sister if she did not have to, but then again, she thought, did she have to?
Did she really have a choice after all?
Either way, worried, thinking or otherwise, the whole family did not stray from their unusual quietude throughout the rest of the day, not even for weeks afterward. They went through all of Thanksgiving unhappy and sullen. Not even the plump turkey and buttered yams that Gracie usually loved could cheer anyone up.
The delicious food didn’t even keep Alex from her constant pondering and anxiousness, which was really quite rare indeed. The thanks they gave that night were feeble attempts at gratefulness that degraded into more of prayers for Father’s safety. Nobody said a word if it wasn’t required, and everything everybody did was slow and melancholy. Well, that is, until Alex came to a decision.
The reckless teenager knew she had to help the Union soldiers, no matter what. How she would accomplish this, she had no idea, but somehow she thought that if this war was to be won, someone had to tell the soldiers that they needed to win it. Even if she couldn’t stray Father, she would certainly make a difference, and it was certainly true that nothing could stray her from this decision.
A few weeks after Alex had come to this conclusion, during the freezing month of January, the family began to get restless. George had not responded to his letter yet, though he usually got back to them within the month. Everyone was secretly terrified that something had happened to George, though nobody ever said this aloud.
Gracie and Annie both fretted and said that maybe their letter had gotten lost in the mail or he was simply taking time to decide what to write back to them, although they didn’t really believe this could be true. Their father had never, ever been late in responding to a letter, no matter how long it was or how many questions they had asked him. However, in a way, they were actually correct.
Alex told everyone that their father’s troops had probably just moved, and there was nothing to worry about, they were just trying to figure out where to send the letter is all. But inside, she was almost sure that he was trying to decide what to write back to her letter, or whether to write back at all, and the reason Mama’s letter hadn’t been responded to was because he had simply forgotten there was another letter in the first place. And she was correct.
“Alex?” Gracie whispered one especially frigid night while they were both cuddled up under warm, wool blankets, “ Alex?”
“What?”
“Do-do you ever wonder what’s really happening to Father? I mean, you know…what’s going on? Whether he’s-he’s…”
“Yes, Gracie,” Alex responded gently, “But he’s not. Don’t think about that. He’s going to be okay.”
“Are you sure?”
The elder twin paused. “I can feel it, Grace. It’s going to be alright.”
“I love you.” Her voice was barely audible.
Alex smiled. “ It’s late. Go to sleep.”
But they both knew that what Alex really meant was, “ I love you too. Be strong for Father.”
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However, Alex did not go to sleep as she had told her sister to do.
Once she heard the even breathing and dainty snores coming from the modest bed beside her own, she silently slipped out of the thick comforter and tested the floor in front of her before slowly lowering herself down onto it. She knew she would have one chance to prepare and one chance to leave, and it was vital she not be seen, or she would never depart. Therefore, she carefully lowered herself out of the room and down the steps, painstakingly checking for squeaky floorboards every time she put her foot down until she reached the safety of the tiled kitchen floor.
She reached into the cupboard and obtained a meager loaf of bread and a good-size chunk of cheese. It was, after all, the end of January, and she was not about to find berries on bushes or anything. She wrapped these in a napkin, then carefully set them in her special leather satchel George had given her for her shared tenth birthday. Afterwards, she filled a bottle with water and placed this in as well.
That was when she realized what exactly she was attempting to do. She was packing a few supplies to walk out in the middle of a winter night, a thirteen-year-old girl as she was, into who knows what snow and night prowlers lay waiting for her in the darkness.
That didn’t even count the fact that she was leaving her family unknowing and half present at her wonderful, blue-painted house, for she had no idea how long. She was just asking for despair and then a nasty death. It all hit her there and then like a bullet.
Soundlessly, Alex dropped to the floor, tears rolling down her face. She had to do this, right? She had to!
As quickly as she had gone down, she popped back up again, a dangerous look in her bright eyes. She was not a baby. This was for Father, right? So let it be for Father then! And soldiers most certainly do not drop to the ground in the middle of a battle and start bawling.
Stiff but reenergized, Alex walked back to the base of the stirs, holding her satchel, and began to mount them again, one by one, gradually getting closer to where her twin sister lay sleeping, happily unaware that tomorrow, her sister would not be there to eat porridge and eggs with her.
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