Raggedy Andy, Raggedy Anne
1. The Beginning/Millie Might
Ezra Aim
I. The Joys of Fashion (or, How to Get In and Out of a Hoop Skirt)
Ezra frowned. He still wasn’t convinced that he had to show his face. It was perfectly feasible for him to just hide out on the farm; he didn’t have to show his face nowhere.
And, then, this whole charade would just be a singular nightmare and not reality.
He though it was bad enough having to wear that stuffy dress and bonnet that he stole from some lady’s wash line to escape notice on his way home. But, he didn’t expect to have to dress up after he returned. Although, truth be told, Ezra hadn’t really thought that far in advance when he was planning his own desertion, in the first place. All he had really worried about was the escape. It was the first time he had wished for his sister’s foresight.
Mille had left a corset on the bed for him, next to dress, though Ezra had no clue as to where she had pulled it out from—he couldn’t remember in all their life together her ever wearing such a thing.
It was another mark of how their distance from each other had changed them.
He glared at the offending garments, hoping, maybe, the heat from his star would make them burst into flame.
No such luck. Not even a spark.
Ezra sat there, trying not to focus on the fact that somehow he was supposed to get himself dressed.
Millie said she would be back sometime after lunch to help, and he hoped that somehow between then and now, Millie, himself, or even Pa, would come up with a better plan.
As much as Ezra hated the idea of playing a girl, he was terrified at what would happen to him if the Home Guard found him out.
The booming explosions of artillery and the shrieking whistle of shells pierced the din, and the ground shook under Ezra’s feet. He could just make out the sharper, deadlier roll of musket fire. He carried on pale faced and hands trembling, rifle cradled in his arms. Human voices were imperceptible from the roar of the battle around him, screams and shrieks melded into such suffering, like an animal caught in a hunter’s trap; Ezra couldn’t even hear his own heart beat.
He pushed forward, his legs straining to get through the mud. He shook his head, and tried to separate the noise and confusion around him into something other than the crest of a rumbling storm. Men and horses slipped and swerved around him, blood and muck smeared across faces and limbs.
Still, Ezra’s hands shook. He took in a breath in attempt to calm himself, and acrid blood and bile assaulted his senses.
Suddenly, something seized Ezra’s shoulder and he jerked away, only to slip and fall; the impact with the earth forcing breath from his lungs.
A hand reached out to him, and Ezra looked up, and forced his lips to smile.
“Ezra?”
Millie’s voice shocked him back to reality, and for a moment Ezra had placed her on the battlefield peering down at him.
Ezra felt the tension in his body ease. “Yeah.”
Millie reached for the corset. “Think of it as one of your stories. Instead of armor, it’s a dress.”
Ezra frowned. Why did Millie have to make so much sense?
ii. Whalebone and String
“Picked a name, yet?”
Ezra sucked in his breath sharply when Millie tugged on the bindings. She had her left knee pressing hand into his lower back, and both hands curled around the laces of the corset—like holding bridle reins.
Ezra grunted; it hurt. The corset pushed on every part of his chest, making it almost impossible to breathe normally. It cut into his chest, a dull pain, that was now more than a irritation.
“No.” When he spoke, he voice came out more like a straggled hiss.
“Well, we can’t go around calling you Ezra, when you are all dressed up.”
Ezra grimaced. A small part of him hoped that if he didn’t choose a name, the whole affair would just end.
Ezra gasped as he was squeezed again. His whole torso smarted from the pressured pain of the corset being tightened around him. No wonder Millie never wore these things, they were torture devices.
“How ‘bout Elizabeth? That’s close enough.”
Ezra was confused; he was trying to ignore how uncomfortable it was, his mind focused on that rather that what his sister was saying.
“Close enough to what?”
Mille smirked. “For your name, silly.”
Ezra winced as he drew too large a breath.
“Oh.”
Elizabeth, Ezra recited it silently. It was better than some.
“One last time, Ez, you ready.”
Ezra didn’t trust his voice, and nodded. He braced himself for more pain, just before Millie’s knee dug into his back and the laces finally synched him up.
Millie didn’t say anything; Ezra took the silence as that she was silently concentrating on tying the laces up right.
When she was finished, Ezra felt her hands on his bare shoulders. Only then, did he twist around to face her. He groaned as the whalebone fought against the movement.
Millie was grinning at him.
"You find this humorous, don't you?” Ezra now eyed the dress that was still on the bed.
He crossed his arms indignantly when Millie didn’t answer.
“You do, don’t you?” He whinged.
Millie went to pick up the dress. “I could lie and say, I didn’t.”
Ezra hung his head and whimpered.
He sat silently in the chair as Millie first pulled a slip on over his head, and then secured him into the blue and white dress. They did not talk, and Ezra found comfort in that. He closed his eyes and listened to the small sounds—the whisper of a tie being girded or the click of a button being fastened. He felt her fingers in his hair—longer than it had ever been, pinning this and that.
“I’m finished, now.”
Ezra opened his eyes at Millie’s remark, and he looked into the mirror.
Instead of a skinny, underfed boy looking back at him, was this stranger in a blue dress. The eyes were the same—bluish gray—now opened wide, and his hair, still brown, was pinned up. Ezra stared at the reflection for a long time, a sliver of though insinuating that this was all just a figure of his imagination; he couldn’t be the same as this girl in the mirror.
Finally, he did try to speak: “It… I…”
Millie took pity on him. “See, now you look like a girl.”
Ezra ignored the fact that pressured into a corset, forced into the dress he had more curves than Millie did.
*More to come.*
(Sorry, sleep deprivation just now kicked in. Otherwise my conclusion wouldn't be so simplistic) Oh, and points for the Ezra battle flashback! I also plan on critiquing the part(s) before this as soon as I can.
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