The Awakening (The Fempiror Chronicles Book 1)

by George Willson

  And David did not want to remain. His father had denied him the heart of the business for so long that there were times he no longer wanted to be a tailor. Unfortunately, clothing was all he knew anything about, but he still longed to see what lay outside of his little world of Hauginstown. As he slowly churned the shirt in its barrel, his mind wandered to the unknown places he had never been – the places he longed to see.

  Stories he had heard of the rest of the world came solely from the more learned and traveled men of the town when they returned from these other places with tales of music they compared to the singing of angels, of buildings that looked like monuments to the gods, and of books they had been privileged to read in great libraries. David had never been anywhere, not even to the mountains west of town, and he could only read a tape measure and drawings of patterns. In his position, nothing else was required.

  He sighed as he snapped from his far away thoughts and gazed around him. The alley was about the most ordinary place in the world. The walls of the stores were unfinished wooden brown, the ground was dirt and also brown, the barrel was brown, the stick was brown, the doors were brown, and the fence with the gate leading out of the alley to the town square was brown. Could one be in a browner world, he wondered. The only points of color were the water, which maintained its brilliant blue, the clothesline that possessed a rainbow of colors from the dyes that had seeped into it, and the washing kettle at the back of the alley, which was a deep black and not really a color.

  Even David provided no source of color as he wore brown breeches, off-white wool stockings, and an almost white shirt that was tinged with (of course) brown. His waistcoat and hat rested on a hook on the outside wall of the shop, placed there by David for days such as this, not wanting to risk ruining those items with the dye.

  He was sent to the alley after Mr. Franklin had decided the new shirt his father had finished for him only last week needed to be blue after he had returned from one of his travels with a supply of Prussian Blue dye for Jonathon Taylor. His father had tried to talk him into a new shirt since dying a finished shirt will not yield the same high-quality results as dying new fabric, but Mr. Franklin insisted, so they would do their part. David had been sewing, another job for a tailor’s table monkey, when his father had told him to head out and fire up the large kettle that they washed the fabric in prior to dying it.

  While the shirt was in the hot water, he had carefully mixed the Prussian Blue dye in the barrel they always used for dying in preparation for the shirt to receive its deep blue color. After the shirt was in the barrel, he continually and carefully stirred it around with the stick that had been whittled down to a very soft end so it would not damage the fabric to ensure that the dye would soak through the fabric evenly.

  He glanced at the shadows in the alley and guessed that it had been nearly enough time for the dye to soak in. Soon, he would remove it from the barrel and dry it on the rainbow-colored line before washing it in the kettle again, but this time in cold water.

  He closed his eyes again and tried to listen to the voices of the faces he was unable to see outside the alley where the world was a little greener. He wondered why they had a fence anyway. No one steals anything in Hauginstown. If he could see out, at least he would have a green view of the town square.

  “Good afternoon, Mr. Taylor,” a familiar voice sounded over the fence. He heard his father respond from inside the shop, and a moment later, Abraham Barber opened the gate and entered the alley.

  Abraham was only a few months younger than David, and being cousins (David’s mother was Abraham’s father’s sister), the two were inseparable friends. Abraham had a hard, chiseled face, far removed from David’s softer appearance, with dark blue eyes and reddish hair that often hung over his ears – an irony given that his father was the town’s barber.

  His clothes were the same style as almost everyone else in Hauginstown as the Taylor family made the majority of the town's clothing. He wore brown breeches, light stockings, a simple white wool shirt, a brown waistcoat, and a wide brimmed hat. Simple elegance, his father called it.

  As they knew each other so well, David knew exactly what Abraham had come to talk about. The town had no secrets, and the tavern keeper’s tale of the attack on Ben Thurman from the previous night was nearing legendary status already. What could throw a man around the town square, force an otherworldly scream from him, and then carry him off before anyone could respond? Still, David would have to play along for a while to appease his friend and to see if anything new had come out.

  “Good afternoon, Abraham,” David said, unable to help the boredom coming through his voice.

  “Did you hear about last night?” Abraham asked right away.

  He is not wasting any time, David thought to himself. “Which version?” he asked.

  “What have you heard?”

  David had been in the alley for a couple hours. It was all anyone talked about, and he had heard wafting stories of all kinds – everything from an unknown wanderer attacking Ben to God himself striking Ben down for his drunken ways. David was certain that if anyone would know what really happened by now, it would be Abraham. He also knew that Abraham would have sorted through the stories, so David would get about as close to the truth as he could.

  “I know he didn’t come home,” David answered. “Did they find him yet?”

  “They’re not going to,” Abraham replied, “I heard he was attacked.”

  “Says who?” David asked.

  “Says the keeper at the Whitt’s End Tavern,” said Abraham. “He says that old Ben had had too much to drink last night and was stumbling home when—”

  “I hear that happens every night,” David interrupted. He knew the interruption would rile Abraham into telling even more, and Abraham really disliked David’s interjections of blunt fact into his stories.

  “You know,” David continued, “one time we found him all the way out by the old Miller’s place east of town half dead of thirst after two days.” David was actually one of the people to find Ben on that occasion, though only Abraham would know why he had been there at the time.

  The Miller’s place was an old, long abandoned windmill that passers-by used primarily as a landmark near town as well as a temporary shelter in the wide-open European landscape.

  “Let me finish, David, this is different,” Abraham said. “Mr. Whitt said he was attacked by a creature with glowing red eyes and wings and—”

  “A what?” David laughed. He found this to be beyond ridiculous, but Abraham continued with the tale, ignoring David's interjection.

  “It chased him around the town square, picked him up and threw him like a rag doll before this thing leaned over him at the end. Mr. Whitt thinks it was drinking his blood.”

  “You can’t be serious,” David said chuckling.

  “The mayor’s declared no one should be out after dark just in case,” Abraham finished.

  David shook his head in total dismay at the foolishness of the whole situation. “I think all of you are drunk off the tavern keeper’s wares to believe in that nonsense,” he said.

  “But after last night?” Abraham asked.

  David laughed. “Last night, Ben probably upset someone, and they took out their rage on him,” he said.

  “What about this thing throwing him around the square,” Abraham challenged, unconvinced.

  “Who knows,” David said with a shrug, “Only Whitt saw it, and Lord knows what he’d been drinking.”

  “Mr. Whitt is not known for making up stories, you know,” Abraham reminded him.

  David nodded. Abraham was right. Barliman Whitt was not a man who was even capable of spinning a yarn, much less make up something this far-fetched. He was known to exaggerate, and there was no doubt that Ben was missing. David was convinced that Whitt had seen something last night, but a flying devil with wings and glowing eyes was out of the question.

  He looked back at Abraham and started to say something else, but
he noticed Abraham was staring at the barrel.

  “What are you doing?” Abraham asked.

  David raised the churning stick out of the dark water to show Abraham his very wet lump of fabric. Despite their lifelong friendship, Abraham never seemed to grasp what David did. David never had any problem with this, as he never grasped what Abraham and his family did either.

  “What is that?” Abraham asked him, looking at the dripping mass at the end of David’s stick.

  “It’s Mr. Franklin’s,” David explained, “All the menial work still falls to me, so I am out here dying the shirt. Washed it in the kettle before that. I’ll be drying it here in a moment.”

  David lowered the shirt back into the barrel and continued to churn it. Abraham watched it for a moment before the door on the side of the shop opened.

  Jonathan Taylor, a large, middle-aged man with a kind, nurturing face and trimmed mustache and beard, stepped into the alley and walked over to David carrying a white wool shirt.

  “How’s that shirt coming along?” Jonathan asked.

  David dutifully raised the shirt again, without a word. Although he disliked the work, he took pride in it. Careful not to touch it, Jonathan inspected the dyed shirt. He nodded.

  “Excellent,” he said, “give it some time to dry and then wash the excess dye out. In the meantime, you can start on this one.”

  David’s shoulders sank. “Another one?” he asked incredulously.

  “Also Mr. Franklin’s,” Jonathan explained handing David the shirt. David took it dutifully.

  “How long am I going to be out here today? I wanted to help inside,” David said.

  “David,” Jonathan began. David knew that tone of voice. Jonathan had used it many, many times, usually when David was complaining about something. “The life of a tailor is not always easy. Sometimes, the simplest jobs are the longest and the most important.”

  “But how long,” David insisted.

  “Dry this one and while it’s drying you can start washing the new one,” his father replied. “Hopefully, you’ll get them both done today.”

  David opened his mouth to say something more, but his father’s no-nonsense look kept him quiet. Mr. Franklin wanted them today. David nodded and looked back at the barrel in defeat. “Yes sir,” was all David could manage.

  Jonathan turned back to the door, but paused and looked at David. “Go ahead and take a break while that one dries and the water heats,” he said, “five minutes should be plenty.”

  David nodded. “Thank you, sir,” he said. David raised the shirt up over the line, carefully avoiding the drips. He had become rather good at transferring wet fabric from the barrel to the line, though he normally removed his shirt for this.

  Jonathan looked at it for a moment, and then back to David. “Don’t forget to turn it when you get back to dry the other side,” he said, “and get that fire going again so the water’s warmed as well.”

  David nodded again. “Yes sir,” he said and walked to the tinderbox sitting next to the kettle to work on restarting the fire he had put out just after he had placed the shirt in the dye barrel.

  Jonathan’s middle son, Mark, who was twenty-one and looked like a gangly version of Jonathan, but with his clothes in perpetual disarray, stuck his head out the door into the alley.

  “Father, Mr. Diddle gained weight since we measured him and now his pants don’t fit,” Mark whined.

  David looked up from his tinder and rolled his eyes. He knew exactly how to correct this particular problem, but somehow, Mark never seemed to grasp it so their father always helped him through it. David was sure that when their father could no longer work in the shop, James would continue to help Mark through his shortcomings. That’s what family does, his father would have said.

  “I’ll be right there,” Jonathan told Mark. He turned back to David. “Five minutes after you get that fire going,” he said, and then walked into the shop, closing the door behind him.

  David stared after him without a smile. He looked back to Abraham, who smirked and apparently enjoyed the entire exchange. David had told him many times about his frustrations, and Abraham’s rather cruel enjoyment of it never sat well with David. David rekindled the fire under the now cooling water in the kettle.

  He stood, pulled the churning stick from the barrel, and held it before him like a sword. “You know,” David said, “there are days when I’d just like to—”

  With that, he swung the stick like a sword in a narrow figure eight pattern in front of and behind him twisting himself around the alley and narrowly missing the clothesline, the hanging shirt, the walls of the shops, and the barrel. Abraham took a step back, his mouth opening in disbelief. David released his mock sword, and it plopped harmlessly into the barrel.

  Abraham stared at him. “You do that much?” he asked.

  “I spend a lot of time in this alley,” David replied retrieving his waistcoat and hat from the hook. “Let’s go.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Friends

  Abraham walked with David on the well-maintained dirt road that circled around the square plot of grass in the center of town that contained the statue of Gerald Haugins. The town was alive with people walking between the shops and their homes. Abraham loved it and could not see his life or his future any differently; he knew where he was and where he was going, unlike David, who seemed to be abysmally disappointed.

  In fact, Abraham noticed, David was still staring at the ground, lost in his own little world of never-ending disappointment. Abraham shook his head, wondering how someone with so much going for him could be so down on it all. He could take no more of it.

  “If you don’t stop brooding, cousin,” he said, “I’ll put you out of your misery.”

  “You know I hate this,” David sighed.

  “Is this still the tailor thing?” Abraham asked, knowing the answer already.

  “What do you think?” David asked.

  “Do you even know what you want anymore?” Abraham asked in return, “one day, you want nothing to do with it, and the next you’re wishing that your father would focus some energy on you instead of Mark and James.”

  “I just,” David began, but he stopped and shrugged. “I don’t know,” he said finally. “Do you ever feel like you’re just not made for something, no matter how hard you try?”

  Abraham shook his head resolutely. He knew what he was made for, and the life his father had laid out for him was everything that he wanted.

  “My profession,” Abraham said, and he definitely meant his profession, “is a combination of old alchemy and modern hair styling. ‘Cut their hair and keep them alive,’ my father says. Hardly boring.”

  And he meant that, although he much preferred the mixing of the chemical ingredients to make the various medicines that his father’s shop provided to the ailing over their more common task of cutting people’s hair, but one must take the good with the bad – the boring with the interesting. And it was the lot of a barber to handle those types of needs.

  “So you’re satisfied?” David asked.

  “I would say so,” Abraham said, nodding. “It’s not as if we’re going to see the world or anything.” He looked at David who shrugged.

  “We might,” David said.

  Abraham shook his head. Did David really think they would go somewhere else? Create some other life? The people who had founded Hauginstown were trying to get away from the wars and conflicts that continued unceasingly in the world. They had never experienced any of it because they were so far away from everything else. No one in modern Hauginstown even knew what country would even claim them, since boundaries continued to change so often, or so his father had told him of the world.

  They could acknowledge that they were in Europe, but as to a country, they did not care. The affairs of the world were of no concern to them, and they preferred to keep their distance from everyone else. The nearest town Abraham had heard of was Frinton, but he had never been there. Others had
moved there to start their own businesses away from their older siblings who had taken over the local family business. He feared this would be David’s destiny, and it scared him. The very thought of leaving this peaceful town to see a warlike world was a thought that Abraham could not even begin to fathom.

  “Sure,” Abraham said, acknowledging David’s supposed hopefulness, “if you’re not a tailor here, you’ll be a tailor somewhere else. You’ll settle down with your little wife, and stay in the same little town your whole little life. Just like I will. Just like our families have. Just like—”

  “Just like everyone else in this town,” David said quickly, “I know. I need to swallow my pride or something.”

  It sounded as if David was reciting the words, and sure, it was something they had talked about before – far too often for Abraham’s taste. He needed to change the subject.

  As they continued walking their circle around the town square, Abraham glanced around and noticed a girl behind them carrying a large ball of yarn. He smiled as he saw her walking very quickly toward them, passing several older women who regarded her with disapproval as she held her dress off the ground with one hand and sped across the town square.

  She was also seventeen with a bright energetic face, long brown hair, deep brown eyes, and a smile to die for. If anyone could change the subject effectively, she could. She was dressed in a simple blue and white dress with a white cap, both of which she had made herself under the tutelage of David’s mother.

  Every time she joined them, Abraham’s heart fluttered just a little. Abraham looked at David.

  “Well,” Abraham said, “at least you know who you’re going to end up with.”

  David looked up in surprise. “What?”

  “Good day, you two,” the girl said as she caught up to them.

  “Good afternoon, Beth,” Abraham greeted her.

  “Hey, Beth,” David said.