Chapter I
Six young children, ages ranging from eight to two, sat in front of an old wooden chair. Their young faces lit with joy and excitement as the old women sat in the chair. This was a typical scene on a cold winter night at grandmother’s’ house. But tonight was different. For the old woman had a different story for the children. A story as real as it was fake, a story worn by the hands of time.
“Good evening, children,” the old woman began. “Now, listen. For I shall tell this story only once…”
*****
Long ago, in a town without a name, a young girl was just reaching her time of adulthood. This girl was named Marianna. But you see, Marianna was different from the other girls. She cared not for the coming of adulthood or the stresses that came with it.
Marianna was a tomboy at heart. She loved to play in the mud on rainy days and help in the pasture on sunny ones. She helped tend the horses and pick the vegetables during the harvest, but most of all, she loved to frighten the other girls.
It had become apparent for the girl that she was even more different than the others when a box arrived for her in the post. A box that held the answers to unknown questions, the key to her understanding that would unveil the frightening difference that scared the wits out of the other girls.
The box had come on a particularly rainy day, a source of excitement for her and her siblings on a day that they normally just sat cursing the horrid weather and hoping for at least a single ray of sunlight. The whole house had wired with excited tension as Marianna’s adopted siblings climbed over each other to try and read the name on the box. A collective groan of disappointment rang through the room as one child after another realized their name wasn’t scrawled across the top in an unfamiliar handwriting.
“Mari, it’s for you!” One of her little brothers exclaimed, pushing the other children out of the way as he waddled through, half carrying, half dragging the much larger box to her. She smiled at him.
“Thank you, James.” She said, ruffling the younger boy’s hair. After a moment of looking over the box, she gave into the urging of her sibling to open it. She tore away the layers of tape and a row of cardboard staples, before finally opening the box. She looked inside, knowing that her siblings watched, looking at her with curious eyes. She said nothing about what was in the large box. Just closed it up and carried it to her room, leaving her siblings to wonder as she left the room without a word.
*****
The old woman paused, a smirk lighting her wrinkled face. The children looked at her. waiting to hear more.
“That’s enough for tonight. It is already past your bed times,” she said to the chorus of whines and protests. “You will have to wait until morning.”
