****
She stood at the dock, staring straight ahead. Her hair whipped up, falling into her mouth, and she could taste the salt from the sea on her tongue. The air was cool, causing her to shiver. The shrill caws of seagulls could be heard, blasting overhead. At her side, Emily hummed a song to herself, something sad that sounded almost like the beats of a war drum. Then again, the war was all that Alison thought about these days. It was as if she was with Ted, firing guns and smelling blood and sulfur and death. If Ted was still alive at all.
With a moan, she turned and faced the city. It was bustling with women. There were few men to be seen and those that could were stooped and old. Many of them had disfigurements. Many men had been taken for the war, her Ted among them. What the fighting had cost them brought a bitter taste to her mouth.
"Alison," Emily said, reaching down and grabbing her hand.
A sob threatened to fill Alison's throat, but she fought it down. No use crying now. Ted was gone. Shame on him and shame on her for not bowing down before him then and forcing him not to go. Even though she knew that he likely would have been forced to go anyway, the idea that it was her father's doing—and hers too—made her queasy with guilt.
She sighed and walked forward, clopping down the wooden dock. A few people greeted her, and she bowed her head and nodded. It was hard to force herself to smile. A big part of her wondered whether she had forgotten how. Then again, not many people smiled these days. It was as if a curse had swept over the town, but instead of fighting witches or demons like in the bible, they fought the cold mistress of grief and loss. She knew that she was not the only one wondering whether her future husband would come home, even though it felt that way.
When she made it back to the city square, she turned left and headed home. The saleswomen with their carts waved fat fishes at her, wafting the smell underneath her nose, and it made her stomach churn. She could practically feel the slimy consistency of the fish, and she began to speed up her pace as she headed to her mansion. It was relief when she got her first view of it.
Her mansion was large with a black fence surrounding it. The lawns were yellow and dying from the hands of the cold and large oak trees that had no leaves reached toward the sky barren and empty, just like her heart. The mansion itself was white with black shutters. She frowned as she climbed up the front steps to the main gate and walked down the front path that was surrounded by empty lumps of frozen brown dirt.
The ice reminded her of how cold it was and she shuddered, wrapping her arms around herself. She turned toward Emily. "Emily, when we get inside, make sure that the heaters are lit, will you?"
Emily said nothing and did not look at her. Instead Emily's eyes bulged out as she looked to the left and stared at the cobblestone road that led to her father's shed. Curious, Alison turned too and then stopped. There was a foreign bicycle parked on the road, a light blue one with shimmering black wheels. Both she and Emily exchanged glances. She had not expected visitors, and her father was not home. Her stomach tightened in panic. What if somebody had come to tell her that Ted had died? She felt like she couldn't breathe and grasped her chest.
"Are you okay?" Emily asked, grabbed her by the waist as Alison swiveled. "Should we call the doctor?"
Shaking her head, Alison pushed Emily aside and rushed forward, forcing through her own door with her dress tangling at her ankles. Once she got inside, she smelled the scent of coffee and felt heat soak through her skin, but that didn't matter. All that mattered was her pounding heart and the fact that she could see a soldier sitting in the room at the end of the hallway on a couch the color of red wine. She rushed forward, running so fast that her world grew blurry, and fell to her knees at the soldier's side, panting.
"Please…please…" she said, gasping her chest. "Ted…is…he…"
The butler that had allowed the soldier inside grabbed her shoulder to steady her, but she shook him off. Instead she stared into the dark green eyes of the soldier before her and seized his hand. It was sweaty and rough between her fingertips, and she could see how much her actions had startled him because his eyes bulged from his head.
"You are Alison?"
She nodded. Of course she was Alison. Who did he think she was, the president? She squeezed his hand harder, praying that Ted was still alive. She could still remember the way that he tasted, of sweet red wine, and the feeling of his rough hands running over her bare thighs. She loved him so much. More than she could ever say.
"I've come to tell you that Ted Smith's fleet arrives tomorrow," he said. "I've come to deliver his letter."
It was as if her heart had stopped. She felt the world spin as she shakily stood up and gasped. Alive. He was alive. How many cold months had she waited for him? He had sent her letters, heaps of them, but there was never a day when she did not question whether her other half would die. She silently gave a thank you to God, clasping her hands together. She was going to say a rosary for every day of the rest of her life. Ted, alive. She was going to be a wife, at long last.
The soldier withdrew a letter from his pocket. It was a crumbled mess, and when she held it, it was greasy and smelled of fish. When she unfolded it, something fell to the floor and "clinked" against the cherry wood below. She stared at the page before her. It was blank. A soiled blank page. When she looked down at the floor, she saw what had fallen. A ring. A wedding ring, to be exact.
She bent down and picked it up, holding it tight within her fingers. Tears of joy spilled down her cheeks. She closed her eyes and pressed the ring against her lips, and this time, when she tasted the metal, she knew that everything was going to be okay.
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About the author:
Stephanie Campbell is a novelist in Ogden, Utah, where she lives with her family and too many dogs. Her interests include history, traveling, classic movies, and biographies. She published her first book at seventeen and has continued to write with the goal of being a career novelist. She is the author of the novels Poachers, Dragon Night, Tasting Silver, Keeping Freedom, Late but not Never, Case Closed, Icy Tales of Draga, E is for Eternity, Specimen X, and P.S. I Killed My Mother, all of which are being published or have been published by traditional houses.
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