Read Wilhelmina A Novella for Free Online Page A

about what I’ve said.’
    I watched her walk away, and felt alone again. The memory of Mr. Abberdean left me after a while, and I sat there, disoriented in time and meaning. I questioned if it was worth this torture to keep my hair?
    Mr. Abberdean might have loved my hair wild and free, but where was he? He was gone, in another country, leaving me to deal with Elizabeth Bathory and the War of the Secession.
    He abandoned me, and left me here on my own without any form of notice but a last minute goodbye.
    Minus was at the door by sunset with the offer on his tongue, just like Evonne told me he would be. I wanted to say yes, that I would cut my hair willingly, that this war was not worth a man who had left me with no sense of regret. My lips were ready, my tongue lapping up whatever saliva my mouth could muster to end this hellish imprisonment. But I couldn’t bring myself to give in. My heart could not forsake the only source of happiness in my life for the last four years. I was almost fourteen, and had never fought for anything in my life. Why would I? I had never believed in anything enough to put up a fight.
    But I believed in love. Charles Abberdean was my love, my one and only, whether it was a friend or more, or maybe even nothing at all. He was the only tangible love I had to hold onto, and that in itself was reason enough to keep fighting, whether he was here with me, or thousands of miles across the ocean.
    Again, I said no.
    The next morning, Evonne went to meet the postal boy as usual and just happened to drop a sausage link through one of the wide openings in the boards. I was grateful for her ‘clumsiness’. That evening, she decided to help the kitchen slaves by taking some of the leftovers to the pig pin to mix with their slops, but she said she was not a destitute woman, and that she shouldn’t have to walk them all the way, so she left the plate in front of the shed door, just close enough for me to reach it. I was grateful for her ‘laziness’.
    But after four days in the shed, Evonne stopped coming by. In the mornings, I saw Minus walk out to greet the postal boy instead of my tutor. He would cast a sorrowful glance in my direction, but he wouldn’t bother to stop or say anything.
    Those few visits were the last I would ever see of Evonne.
    Six days in and I had finally beaten Bernice’s fort hold against the hag that dared to call herself a governess. But my victory was hollow, for I had no friend or comrade to enjoy it with. My stomach had numbed from starvation, so I didn’t feel the hunger pains anymore, but I was beyond parched.
    I needed water. My lips were cracked and dry, and my eyes were itchy from the dryness. And as the long and hot Louisiana days dragged on, the shade of shed and tree wasn’t shielding me from the sun’s heat anymore. I was trapped in a hot and thick shed with no water and no food. My skin was hot, I could feel it, but I could no longer sweat.
    Minus came by that evening, and told me of the governess’ generous offer. Again, I refused.
    After seven days I cried tearlessly to God to save me. But no answer came. The insects that burrowed into the ground could sustain me if there were enough, but even as I caught wandering grasshoppers in my hands, I just couldn’t bring myself to kill them, to snuff out their lives and eat them. In my eyes, that would make me no better than the governess. And so I let them go and continued to hold my stomach in a ball on the ground.
    Minus came by at sunset once again with the offer, and even added a few of his own words, begging me to accept. But still I would not grant the witch the satisfaction of breaking me.
    On the eighth day, I had nothing. I had no strength. No sense of time or day, up or down. I had no hope. I had no will. I had no sense of consciousness beyond staring straight ahead as I laid in dirt, waiting for God to take me home to my mama and my papa. To take me to the crystal kingdom where I would forever be a