A Journey for Alice by Kate Penny & Kate Penny

Author:Kate, Penny & Kate, Penny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-10-17T00:00:00+00:00

Each night after everyone was well once more, she said little and went straight to bed. Patrick did also. Peggy was so grateful to Alice for helping her get better so Alice could not hate her. It went on like that for two entire months.

Alice would find Peggy was following Patrick like a lost puppy. Patrick would then look between the two as if he didn’t know what to make of it all. Alice would then avoid them like the plague and stick to her wagon and mules, alone.

Proud of herself for managing it all, the four mules looked amazing under her care, Alice focused on her work instead. She was meticulous about their feet, where they slept, and even brought them to the freshest grass she could find to keep her hay supply in good order.

She’d bartered with some cough medicine she’d made and gotten a small sickle for cutting grass. It was her pride and joy, her first real farming equipment for the new life.

Her mules thrived, she’d named them Fred, Adam, Donald, and Lot.

Patrick had mentioned the two biblical ones, but that was the last time they’d spoken other than being cordial. When she mentioned being proud about how great they looked, he’d only frowned. “The mules look good, lass, but be proud when you’ve arrived. The worst is yet to come.”

She couldn’t imagine worse but his words kept her up that night. And because she couldn’t sleep it seemed he couldn’t either.

It was almost exactly at the three-month mark that they both found each other outside looking at the stars one night. “Wow,” Alice said, “They’re clear tonight almost as if you can touch them.”

Patrick was looking in another direction. “Do ye see that? Clouds,” he said quietly, as if in secret. “Big ones.”

Alice and Patrick watched the large spot move slowly until it blotted out all of the stars. The wind too had picked up and soon it began to howl.

They returned to the wagon, but neither could sleep. By morning, the wind was howling through the valley as if someone had a debt to pay.

It was eerily forceful, rising without end. It blew so harshly some of the wagons tipped over, and people lost their things. Even some of the cattle spooked and ran off as well as horses.

People were having to bunk in wagons with others. Since Alice was alone in her wagon, she offered for a family of Dutch people to join. She didn’t speak their language, but survival was universal.

“Bring your belongings,” she shouted over the wind, and they grabbed as much as they could before it all blew away.

When the wind finally died, then the rain came. At first, it was just a drizzle and with Alice driving, she heard the mother at the back of the wagon crying, sobbing, and arguing with her husband. No doubt this had not been her idea to travel.

The young girl moved to sit alongside Alice. Very carefully, she said, “Is sad. Miss…home.”

Alice didn’t miss home, she missed the people who made her home, home.

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