True Blue - Chapter 1 (Patreon)

“It is done.”

“Send her back.”

“We wait now.”

Mary awoke at 6AM with a sudden jolt. What a vivid dream! She could feel the freezing night air still blowing against her skin as she levitated downward, lying on her back, parallel to the earth. A column of warm blue light enveloped her, and she felt a platform supporting her slow and steady descent. She floated right through the roof as if she were insubstantial. It had placed her right back in her bed, on top of her blankets.

She looked up. The roof was still intact. She wiped the sweat off her forehead with the back of her hand. It was just a dream, it was just a dream, she chanted like a mantra.

After a few minutes just sitting there, she shook her head, clearing her mind. She had steady work lately, what with one of the regular teachers getting pregnant. She could muse about the dream later.

Kicking off her sheets, Mary made her way to the vanity and examined her face. Time had not been kind to her, and loneliness was its harsh handmaiden. Her short, wispy brunette hair was thinning, the roots starting to grey. The sun had beat down on her during her farmhand days, leaving her skin cracked, leathery and spotted. Stress and worry had left their mark around her eyes and lips, her skin wrinkled and sagging.

She still lived on this childhood farm by herself. Her mother and father had passed away at 70, leaving her the sole inheritor. No siblings, and no real relationships to speak of. Mary had tried, but she was already quite advanced in age when she started dating, and with the responsibilities of maintaining the property and the sorrow of losing her parents, she felt she had lost her window. She was 50 now, but as she examined herself, she thought she looked at least a decade older.

She applied makeup to hide the dark bags under her eyes and put some blush on her cheeks to give her blanched skin some color. With a sigh of despair, Mary lumbered her short and stocky frame out of the chair and began to get dressed. The dilapidated floorboards creaked under her feet. She made sure to avoid the rickety steps on her way downstairs.

Still, despite being emotionally drained, she felt alert and awake today. Maybe she would actually manage to dust inside the house and organize some things. The entire farm was in disrepair, but there was no way she could manage the dozen acre property by herself. One thing at a time… if she could ever get to the first thing.