My 8 E-books written over the years by Alina Udrea - HTML preview

CHAPTER 1

It was a cold winter day. It had been snowing all night and the small

village was now covered in the most beautiful white snow. Everything seemed so clean, so white, so sparkly, so still, just perfect. There were but few people out in the cold, minding their business, hurrying towards where they were going, trying to ignore the chilling weather. Although they were dressed appropriately, they were shivering, stuffing their hands in their pockets and wearing gloves, too. But it was freezing outside and the gloves didn’t seem to be enough. Their breaths left warm steams rising from their noses up, above their heads until they mingled with the cold air and finally dissipated somewhere up… The little inn at the outskirts of the village was teeming with life though. “SERVING WINES, NOT SWINES” was hanging above the door, covered in snow. The iron chains that kept the label were rattling in the wind making a weird sound which seemed from another world. All the windows of the inn were closed to keep the cold out and the warmth inside. And the smells, unfortunately.

The innkeeper was a man in his early fifties. He was single, had

never been married, always busy with his business. He had started from scratch from an early age as he had inherited the inn from his parents. But when he started his own business after his parents' deaths, the inn was close to dereliction. He had worked hard to repair it and keep it going. And to finally be able to hire a few maids to help him around. By the time the inn started to look respectable enough, he realized he was

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already 30 years old and he had no family. As the years went by he started to care less and less about that until he didn’t care at all. Now he was in his early fifties and had become greedy for money. If he didn’t have a family, at least he thought to have money. Money had become the sole purpose of his life. He had become malicious and rude to his employees and nobody loved him, on the contrary. Old Jim, as he was called, was a sturdy man, used to labor. He worked just as much as his three employees, two young women and a young man.

Isabella, one of the two maids, was almost 24 years old and had a six

year old daughter, Samantha and no husband. She had been working for Jim since she was 17 and rumor has it she got pregnant while working for Jim there with one of the guests. Jim didn’t have the heart to throw her out and even allowed her to keep her baby as long as she worked for him for less pay than his two other employees. She had to make up for the food and shelter Old Jim had to give to her daughter, Samantha, so she agreed of course as there was no better opportunity for her. Isabella was grateful that she still had a roof above her head. And that she could keep her baby as no one else would have hired her in her condition, with an infant to take care of. On the other hand, she never wanted to reveal her lover's identity and after a while nobody even cared anymore. She was just glad she still had a job so she could support herself and Sam, her daughter.

The other woman was a slender red-headed, somewhat beautiful,

a bit older than Isabella, called Maria. And the young man working for Jim was a bit daft, he was not in his right mind, he had some mental issues. But at least Tom wasn't dangerous, on the contrary, he was warm-hearted and caring. And Jim loved the boy, especially as he paid him even less than he paid Isabella or Maria. He was hard working and he didn’t understand much of anything that was going on in the inn which suited Jim perfectly. He had never asked for a raise or anything, he was happy with what he got. Which made Old Jim happy too. It was a busy day at the inn, lots of customers and a lot of work to be done. Tom was cutting wood in the yard to keep the fire going in the

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stove and the fireplace. Otherwise the inn would get cold which would drive the customers away and drive Old Jim nuts. And Tom didn’t want that. As for the women, they were busy cooking and serving at the tables while Jim was also serving and making money.

As for Samantha, or Sam as she was most often called, she was

under a customer's table playing with a small rag doll, drawing as little attention to her as possible. She was a good child, content with the little attention she could get from her mother before they cuddled in bed together every night. At least then she didn’t have to share her mom's attention with anyone else. During the days, her mom had to work to earn their living, their right to stay and eat there. But before going to bed, Isabella poured all her love on her. She'd make up stories for her daughter and cover her little body in loving kisses. Then she'd be the first to fall asleep as she was always tired from the day's work. And Sam would stay awake a bit more in the dark room, listening to her mom's heartbeat. That was always so comforting for the little child. Then she would hug her mom and fall asleep beside her under the cover, trying to keep warm. Their room didn’t have a fireplace in it and it was pretty cold during the winter days. Sometimes, when it was really cold, her mother would warm some water and pour it in plastic bottles which she'd put under the covers for them to hug to get warm as their bodies' warmth wasn’t enough….

As Sam was growing up, she started dreaming of the big world

outside the inn, beyond their little village, wishing more and more to see the world and escape her life there. She loved her mother beyond words, but sometimes that was just not enough. Their life at the inn was not exactly a happy one. When Old Jim would mistreat her mother which happened pretty often, she wished she could do something about it, but she couldn’t. They needed him for food and shelter, at least that’s what her mother always said. But she couldn’t understand why her mom couldn’t get a job somewhere else. She promised herself that when she'd grow up, she'll be braver than her mother.

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One day, when Sam was fourteen years old, her mother had

sent her to gather some firewood from the nearby forest. Old Jim had made Sam also do some chores as she was 14 now, so she was old enough to work for her own food. She had to choose between spending the day in the kitchen and peeling the potatoes or gathering some firewood. As much as she loved eating the potatoes, she hated to peel them. So Isabella offered to peel all the potatoes and sent Sam for the firewood as she knew that her daughter would rather spend the beautiful spring day outside than peeling the potatoes with her and Maria.

Sam took a small basket for the wood, kissed her mother's

forehead, and went for the forest. She knew the road by heart, she had gone to the forest many times for firewood, but this morning everything seemed so quiet, so peaceful, so serene. A red squirrel jumped from one tree to another, looking for food or maybe just trying to find a better place to hide. Sam watched as the squirrel disappeared behind some leaves, daydreaming, thinking of the freedom the little creature enjoyed. She wished she was just as free… but she couldn’t leave her mom, her mom needed her too, just as she needed her mom. They had a special bond, they had gone through so much suffering together in that place, she could never leave her mom alone. And her mom was too afraid of the big world to leave Old Jim and his inn so they were kind of trapped there, working just for food and shelter and nothing more. When she was younger, she was content with the rag doll, her only toy, to keep her company while her mom was working. But now, as she grew older, she wanted, she wished, she needed more from life… She saw the people coming and going from the inn, the smiles on their faces while they were eating and drinking and having fun and she compared their careless lives with her life and her mother's life. The more she thought about it, the more she wished to see her mother smiling carelessly like them, as if they had no worries or troubles in this world. But her mother's smiles got fainter and fewer and only when they were finally resting, before falling asleep. Her once

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beautiful lips had gotten thinner and her hair had many white streaks now… There was no light in her tired eyes, Sam could see her eyes from under the tables where she was playing with her rag doll, hidden from view. She wished…. But as she was daydreaming, Sam stumbled upon a rock and fell. She didn’t get hurt, but she decided to lay on the grass a few moments before gathering more firewood. She lay on the grass, smelling its sweet fresh aroma and enjoying the few fluffy clouds on the otherwise clear blue sky. Without even realizing it, she fell asleep. She was tired from the chores she had to do the other day and the beautiful weather outside took her worries and thoughts away and sent her to the land of dreams. She was always happy when she was dreaming. In her dreams, she was always free and had a place of her own. But she never dreamt her mother there with her, as strange as that was when she remembered her dreams after waking up. If she thought about it, as much as she loved her mother, she rarely dreamt about her mom. But she couldn’t dream what she wanted, right?

She dreamt about her dream house again. She was standing on the

porch, enjoying a sunny day. But somehow, she felt a storm was coming and she woke up, her eyes suddenly wide open. It took her a few minutes before she remembered where she was and what she was doing there. She didn’t know how long she had slept but by the way the sun was up on the sky she must have slept at least a couple of hours if not more. It felt weird as it only seemed as though she had slept a few minutes. But the sun didn’t lie. She grabbed her almost empty basket and hurried to gather some more firewood. She couldn’t wander off much longer or her mom would be worried for her. So she started gathering whatever she could find to finish sooner. One hour later she was on her way back towards the inn.

As she drew near, she could distinguish the roof of the inn and she

could see smoke. She thought it was weird for them to make the fire as it was a warm sunny day. But the closer she got, the more she realized that the smoke was not just coming from the chimney. It was too much and too dark. Her heart raced inside her chest as a bad feeling

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enveloped her soul and mind. She didn’t know when her tiny feet had ceased walking and had started running. She dropped her basket as she ran towards the smoldering inn. She could see it all now and it was a terrible sight. It was all burnt, blackened from what must have been a huge fire. There were lots of people she didn’t know, people from the village, no doubt, still throwing buckets of water to put out whatever spark might have escaped them.

Sam watched in despair for any signs of survivors, for her mom. She

pushed her way through past the men who were still fighting to put out the remaining of the fire but someone grabbed her and pushed her back. She couldn’t see his face as her eyes were drowned in tears but she tried to fight back and get closer to what had been her home her entire life, to where her mom was… and again someone grabbed her and pulled her away. She wanted to scream but the words wouldn’t come out so she punched him in his chest with her tiny fists until she could not lift them any longer.

“Hush, little one, there's nothing there anymore….” Was the last thing she heard before she fainted and lost consciousness. But the voice was reassuring and sweet, calm in spite of all the chaos around. When she finally woke up, she was all alone in a nice room. It had nice furniture and there were some flowers in a vase on the small table next to the bed she was in. She couldn’t remember how she got there. It was all a blur in her mind and she had a headache. Then it all came back to her in jumbled images. She remembered her stroll in the forest and then the inn…. Her mom, Maria, everyone… by the way the inn looked when she got there she knew no one could have survived. So did this mean she was all alone now!?

Large tears rolled down her cheeks as she started crying softly. Then

she thought she heard a noise behind the door to the room she was in but as no one entered, she just went on crying until she fell into a deep slumber. When she woke up on the following morning, the pillow was soaking wet with her tears. She must have cried a lot in her sleep. But her tears must have run dry as she couldn’t shed another tear now. She

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got up from the bed and she felt the smell of freshly baked bread and eggs. She looked around and saw the source. There was indeed some bread and two scrambled eggs on a nice plate on the table next to her bed. And a glass of water next to the food. The flowers were gone, though, maybe because the table wasn’t large enough to hold everything. She was starving and now she realized it as the smell of food hit her senses. She decided to eat as whoever had put the food there had surely meant it for her. She would thank that person after she'd be full. She gulped down everything in large bites and then emptied the glass of water, too.

The light coming through the curtains from the outside meant that it

was late in the morning already. After she finished eating and drinking, she went towards the door and listened. She heard two women discussing what had happened at the inn. One was saying that Tom had set it on fire on a fit and that it was too bad as the owner, his two maids and Tom himself had died in the fire along with a few old drunkards. As she was about to open the door, she saw the handle turn and the door was open. She stood still waiting to see who was behind the door. A knock was heard on the open door and before she had the time to answer, a tall young boy was standing in the doorway. He seemed just a few years older than her. He had a strong constitution, a broad chest and strong arms. The T-shirt he was wearing seemed too small for him, but that didn’t seem to bother him. Her first impression was that he must be a servant working hard for the master and mistress of the house.

“Who are you and where am I?” she asked with her cheeks red and a thumping heart.

“Hello, miss. This is Rosefield….. .” He said with a slight bow of his head. His voice…. She knew that voice…. It was him! Finally she managed to go on.

“You…. You took me away from the inn, from my mom!” and she started to punch him in his chest while large tears found their way again down her cheeks as if flowing from the bottom of her shattered

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heart. She hit him until her palms hurt and until she couldn’t even lift her hands anymore. Then she wiped her tears and looked up at the poor boy standing there unmoved while she had poured all her anger and sorrow on him. He hadn’t even flinched. He was looking back at her with the most caring, forgiving and kind eyes, although by the way she had acted, that was not what she deserved and she knew it. “I’m sorry”, Sam finally uttered in a hardly audible voice. “No worries, miss. I only answered one question as you didn’t give me the chance to answer both. I'm Kevin. I'm the master of the house. My father died a year ago so now it's only me and my mom. And our servant, Carla.”

“You’re the master of the house?” Sam asked puzzled as Kevin couldn’t be more than a few years older than her and the thought that he had his own house was overwhelming, especially as she had nothing more than the clothes she was wearing.

“Yes, miss” he said bowing again as if she was some princess and not a poor homeless wretch. This only made her feel even more uncomfortable.

“Is my mom… “ but she couldn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t have to. She knew the answer but it was as if only when someone else told her, it became real. She searched his tanned face but that only reassured her that she was indeed all alone in the world now and that what she had overheard the two women earlier was indeed true. Her mom was really gone.

“I’m sorry… miss… “

“Sam, my name's Sam.”