Weekly Drabble #129: Crossing the Plains (Patreon)

This week's prompt came from EBB with 'cold, colder, coldest', and I threw a little Donner Party and some Oathbound as well. What goes better with winter than cannibalism, horrors and monsters? I can't think of anything!

Also, as a note - the drabble prompt thread will be up later on Sunday than usual, since I'll be out

~  

Crossing the Plains

Please.

I don’t… I can’t…!

Please.

All right. All right. I’ll do it. I promise.

Thank you…

~

Hermione Polsmen was cleaning her spectacles when Arnold Bayers approached. Hermione was a tall woman, approaching 40 with long wavy hair and often the subject of muttered comments (and some not so muttered) that she often pretended not to hear. The man nodded to the woman as he approached. “Mornin’, Miss Polsmen.” It had always been Miss. Her first fiancée had been a nineteen year old man, the betrothal arranged by her parents. He’d been quiet and kind, his father one of her town’s well-to-do shop owners. He’d died the day after their engagement had been announced, killed by a bear.

Five years later at twenty, she’d been engaged again, this time with some input into the choice. Samuel Haberlong, a well-read man of thirty-two and a professor at a university. With one month before the wedding, he’d been thrown from his horse. His body wasn’t found until two days after. Offers of marriage had dried up, becoming nonexistent after Willian Cerson publicly announced that he didn’t believe in curses and his intention to pursue the bookish Polsmen girl. He’d been gunned down that very night by a drunken lawman who’d mistaken him for a notorious bank robber.

After that, you couldn’t pay a man do more than look appreciatively at Hermione – and that was often immediately accompanied by nervous glances about his surroundings. Only a few men of this wagon train were from Hermione’s hometown and if the others said they couldn’t believe she was a spinster, the rumours and gossip from the former had kept the latter at a distance, with nothing more than those wistful – and sometimes inappropriate – comments.

She nodded back at Arnold. “Good morning.”

Bayers wasn’t one for superstition, though he’d never shown any romantic interest in Polsmen. Perhaps despite his protestations, he didn’t want to tempt fate either. He was a man long in the saddle and wore a tan like he’d been born with one. “We’ll be starting out within the hour,” he advised her. “Just so ‘n’ you know.”

“Thank you.” Hermione replied. The caravan was moving slowly. Too slowly, she heard some of the men saying. They’d been among the last to set out, and two of the wagon trains that had left after them had already passed them. There were concerns that they wouldn’t get through the mountains before the snow closed in, but that didn’t seem to bother the caravan’s leader. Even the specter of other ill-fated trains had done little to shake the Furmans’ belief that they had plenty of time. Hermione herself wasn’t worried, but she knew that some of the other women were, though they tried to hide their concerns.

“Your little ones,” Arnold asked. “How’re they faring?”

“Oh, they’re asleep right now,” Hermione assured him. “They won’t wake for a while.”

He nodded. There were many rumours about an unmarried and unlucky woman, particularly of her age, travelling with two babies. Many of the women in the caravan looked down on her for it, but Hermione said nothing when their accusatory and vicious tongues started to wag. She had two lovely children with her and if her ‘curse’ had kept her alone for too long, she wasn’t now. She didn’t have any reason to be afraid of the winter. 

“I just wanted to let you know,” Arnold repeated, tripping over his own tongue. “Make sure you and your children weren’t caught by surprise.” Hermione blinked. There’d been something in the man’s tone… he did fancy her, though the swirl of rumours around her (and the multiple unpleasant deaths of all her past suitors) kept him at arm’s length.

The woman smiled, reached out and touched his arm. “Thank you,” she told him. “I appreciate it.”

Flustered, Bayers muttered a polite goodbye and took his leave. Hermione returned to her wagon. She’d hired one of the caravan’s hands to drive it for her. He was young and believed every rumour he’d heard about her – even if they contradicted each other – but he kept his peace and didn’t cause trouble. That was as much as she could ask for.

A lifetime of living alone, of being a polite, pitied pariah amongst her township had seemed to be Hermione’s lot. After her parents had passed, even the few friends she thought she’d had came by less and less, now that they were no longer obligated to her family. She’d been lonely and dreamed of another life, of going west to find a home where she wasn’t ‘cursed’ or the focus of gossip. She thought she’d been too old to make such a journey, but she’d still dreamt of it. Then one day… she had a reason to make this journey. She’d sold everything that she hadn’t needed to take with her, purchased her stake in this caravan despite the side-eyes she’d gotten for being an unwed mother ‘of her age’ and set out for a new life.

She climbed into the back of her wagon, filled with the belongings she had left to her. There was a small pile of blankets between all the cargo, just big enough for her and her children. Right now, they were two small bundles under furs and quilts. One of them stirred, making a soft, high-pitched wail. Hermione uncovered Nessie. Her twin brother Nicholas was still deep asleep.

Nessie looked up at the woman, bright eyes gleaming. The infant reached up with tiny hands. She made another soft keen. “All right,” Hermione assured her. “Let’s get you fed.” She uncovered a breast, the soft flesh crossed with lines. She drew a small knife from her dress and ran the blade over her skin, inhaling sharply as she re-opened a cut. Blood welled up, trickling down the slope of her flesh.

Hermione lifted Nessie up and the little girl latched onto the cut, her tongue lapping up the rich, red wetness that bled from it. The woman ran a hand over the infant’s head. “It won’t be long,” she promised. “We’ll have to cross the plains, but we’re moving slow. I’m certain we’ll be caught by winter up in the mountains. Then you’ll be home, won’t you?” She kissed the top of the girl’s head. “I’ll get you and your brother home, just like I promised your mother.”

Nessie, enjoying her meal, didn’t answer, but Hermione could hardly expect an infant to. Instead, she held her close, and sang her a lullaby, a song she had heard when she was a child.

“Hair like snow
Eyes that gleam
Things aren’t always what they seem

“Teeth too long
Hands too thin
Always look beneath the skin

“And when she was well hid inside,
She cast off her human hide,
Her fangs showed long, her claws sprang free,
a hungry fierce snow beast was she”

As Nessie filled her stomach and Nicholas awoke, Hermione opened a fresh cut on her other breast and lifted the boy to it. “My greedy little snow beasts,” she said. “Don’t worry. Winter’s coming.”