Monsters Of Templeton by Lauren Groff

Author:Lauren Groff [Groff, Lauren]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2010-12-19T00:41:57.765000+00:00

A Friend

The eleventh of December

My dearest, kindest, most beautiful friend, Cinnamon,

Forgive the scribbled note. I am beside myself. Oh, Monsieur Le Quoi walked me all the way to Blackbird Bay from Church! Your advice works wonders, my dear. You are the most wonderful friend I could imagine. I must send this now with Joseph, who is going into town in a moment, and must go to my room and be by myself until my elation is gone.

Your loving (!) Charlotte

Averell Cottage 19th Dec. [rough draft in a wild hand]

Oh, Charlotte--I don't know what to do--I am all in a muddle--I must write to you immediately--something terrible has happened--I had a letter, a long one, twenty pages, I was to send it to you in the morning, all flirtation advice, but it is useless now--I threw it in the fire. Now I fling this missive at you--you must help me!

You will get this as soon as I finish--I will send one of the stableboys with it immediately--I hope he can make it over the snowdrifts. I have not slept, I am all a-tremble. Oh, Charlotte, you remember the blizzard last night. The terrible wild wind and snow and the cracking branches--Marie-Claude went home early to care for their cows--I was eating my little supper, when there was a terrible knocking at my door, a pounding. And before I could stand, it was flung open, and there, a bear stood in the door, covered in snow!

No--not a bear, it advanced into the room, and grunted and took off the odd hat, with the long muffler, and shook itself, and suddenly, under the snow, I saw the face of my sister, Ginger. Ginger! Do you remember--so huge and bossy, Ginger who made you cry by forbidding you to play baseball with her and the boys because you were a rich girl, Ginger, who ran away from my father when she was fourteen. Rawboned Ginger, grinning at me in the firelight, dressed in a man's clothes--she looked like a man, and if I hadn't known her face, I would have said she was one. She had not changed, just grew more massive. Ginger had come back to Templeton.

Before I could unfreeze from my place, to spring up, to close the door, to embrace my sister, she bellowed out, "Come in!" And suddenly there was a mess of people clomping in, all across the floor that Marie-Claude had just scrubbed that morning, there were only four, I counted later, but at that time, it seemed like a veritable army. All shook snow off, took off boots, jackets, all rushed in, a great babble of voices toward the fire. I had stopped breathing, and when I could start again, Ginger turned to me. "Cin!" she boomed, "I'm home!"

I gasped. "Welcome," I said, and one of the others with Ginger said, "Fine one, your sister, Papa Gin. Lady, in't she?" and it was a woman, I saw. And, I saw, they were all women--all in dresses so

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