Years ago when I was only a girl, I stood on my tiptoes, my innocent round eyes following the course of my father's pen as it passed over the page. Hunched over the document resting upon his bakery shop counter the way he was, I could not make out the words. It didn't matter. I knew them all the same or, rather, what they would be. I hadn't had much warning of this agreement, my father himself telling me only moments before this familiar woman and her two children had entered our family shop. Again, it did not matter. I could have been given a decade and it would not have made a bit of a difference in my circumstance nor would it have gifted me with the opportunity to make the choice myself.

My elder sister, the only sibling I had, reached out from her place inches behind me and grasped my hand in hers. It was the only show of comfort my family had given me in all of this. I stared down at it for a moment, dumbfounded. Evelyn had never been one for affection, not where the bonds of sisterhood were concerned at least. The action of taking my hand did less to alleviate my anxiety and more to heighten it. I knew the gravity of the decision that my father had made, of the contract being signed before me, but, as it always did to a young girl, the future seemed so very far away and this arrangement seemed, to me, to be a cause of concern only for a future Avery. Not for me. It was this strange phenomenon which allowed me to put some distance between myself and the boy standing only a few feet away.

He was located at his mother's hip, wide eyes staring as well, but not at the paper upon the counter. His eyes were staring at me. I met his gaze with a scrutiny of my own. I had seen him around, of course. There weren't many children in the village of Raleigh and, those of us who there were at least knew of each other though we hadn't the time to spend with one another. Most of us peasants or children of merchant's, we were kept quite busy day and night and found little time for entertainment with children outside of our own families. I knew him because he was the poorest child in the village. Oliver Ainsworth and his sister Lucy were always looking for work, plying the village merchants to toss them a coin for a day of labor. My father had often acquired their help. I had always thought it was out of pity, kind hearted as my father was, but now I wondered if it had always been more.

Oliver and I were the same age, almost exactly. He was a lanky, knobbly kneed, freckled boy with blonde hair that was never cut straight. I was an underdeveloped, skinny, pale, wild haired girl. Neither of us were particularly appealing to the other but we were children. We had the usual youthful perception of the opposite sex. To him, I was obnoxious and to me, he was unnecessary. Yet here we were, watching as my father and his mother entered into the agreement that we were one day to be wed. Upon my sixteenth birthday, I being the youngest.

His mother picked up the pen which my father had handed her and scratched her name across the bottom of the parchment. In a matter of seconds, it was done, my future sealed away upon a sheet of paper which my father unceremoniously folded and tucked into his breast pocket. They shook hands then, each of them smiling warmly at the other, already intending to remain in the good graces of the future in laws. My gaze was pulled back to Oliver. He chewed on the inside of his lip for a moment as if he wanted to say something but, when his mother turned to leave the shop and called out sweetly after him, he turned to follow her and never did.

When they had gone, my father said not a word about the business which had just been conducted. Instead, he only ordered Evelyn and I back to work in kneading the dough that needed baking by the morning. We filed dutifully past the counter at which he stood and into the kitchen behind the shop. Taking up the positions we had occupied the whole of our short lives, my sister and I settled in for another evening of hard work. Kneading dough was not an easy task. It required the rolling up of sleeves and an arm strength which one could only come by, ironically, from kneading dough. For me and my naturally small frame, it was hard work and I was rarely able to concentrate on anything other than my labor as I rolled back the mixture and pressed it firmly into the counter below.

Throughout the first hour of my work, I felt my sister's eyes upon me constantly. I neglected mention of it until such a time as I found it unbearable. Turning to her, wiping sweat from my brow with my floured forearm, I sighed.

"What?" I eventually inquired.

"Are you alright?" she asked, flatly attempting to hide the concern in her tone. I turned back to my work, pulling and pushing harder now until it shook the counter beneath me. "You're strangling it. Not kneading. Here."

She took the small lump from me and began rolling it out methodically, undoing the work I had done. She began to knead in earnest then, her larger hands better able to grasp and press. I sighed again, wiping my brow once more, leaving streaks in the flour covering my arms.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

I stared at her but she did not look up from her work.

"I don't see what good that would do," I answered and she nodded, more understanding than she had ever been before.

"Likely none," she said then, handing me the kneaded dough so that I could place it in the oven. "But if it would, I'm here."

When her eyes met mine, I saw a bond there which we had never experienced before and felt overcome by emotions which I, in my young life, had never before experienced and would not come to understand for many years later.

I took the dough and, shaping it into a loaf, placed it in a pan and set it onto the fire. I stood, panting from the exhaustion of an hour's hard labor, and watched it rise, the yeast doing it's duty, as dependable as ever.

Then, I did not grasp what my life would become, how very vividly I would remember the events of that evening, even the smallest insignificant details that, to any other observer, would seem nothing more than moving parts in the daily life of a baker's daughter. But now, I recall it all. The sound of the pens scratching against the page, sealing a fate not even my father could foresee. The awareness of my sister and her recognition of my situation. The way that trivial loaf of bread rose in that blistering oven.

The evening continued for me as it always did, the same as it ever was. My sister and I worked until we were called to dinner and then we ate. It was a meal like any other. Bread of our own making, jellies and jams we had stored away, and whatever salted fish my mother had managed to lay hands on at the market that day. Herring, I believe. Then we washed ourselves off, rinsing the flour from our limbs and off of our faces. We changed into fresh cotton dresses and said our goodnights to our mother and father. As I left the room I remember very clearly seeing my father remove that fateful piece of parchment from his breast pocket and place it, unspeaking, onto the table before my mother.

Sometime later, I laid in bed and listened to them, my mother and father, arguing in hushed voices in the living room. I knew that Evelyn heard them as well. I knew that she was as awake as I was, only feet away from me upon a cot of her own. Her breathing hadn't evened out and calmed the way it did when she slept as I knew from a lifetime of sleeping at her side. Both of us laid in the dark, staring up at the ceiling and listening to the quarrel taking place through our thin walls. Neither of us spoke. Evelyn never said a word. But I knew she had heard.

"How could you?" my mother growled. "Our daughter, Henry. Why? How could you sell her like that?"

"I'm not selling her, Margaret. You need to understand that. I'm in wonder that you don't already. You know, as well as I do, what this is, why this had to be done. We have two daughters, Margaret. Daughters who cannot inherit our shop, this apartment, or anything we own. I am doing my best to provide them with a future and, unfortunately, that depends entirely upon the men in their lives and I'll be damned if I allow myself to be the only man who is."

There was a pause, a sigh. My father had snapped. He sought to regain his reason, his composure.

"Margaret," he began, more delicately. "Business has not been as good as it once was. You know that. I'm not so prideful that I cannot allow myself to prepare for a possibility in which we can no longer provide for them."

"And he will? The boy? Oliver Ainsworth? The boy who begs us for work, Henry, the boy whose mother sells herself to the men of the village and still cannot afford to feed her children. How is he to help, Henry? What can he do for her besides trap her into a life only worse than ours?"

"He's a man. And like it or not, that means something in this world. He may be poor, destitute even. He may have grown up rough and had a mother who did what she had to in order to survive but he is a man all the same. Or he will be. One day. And when that day comes, he can own property. He can be granted inheritance. And he can find work. You cannot say the same for our girls and you know it."

"We were supposed to move up, Henry. Forwards, not backwards. We could have found a suitable young man for Avery whose family owns a shop of their own or who may even have some level of education. She's a pretty girl. She could have had other options. But you didn't ask me, did you? You waited until I had gone to the market and you called over that woman and signed away our child's future and for that, Henry Hastings, I cannot forgive you."

"Margaret."

I heard the sounds of my mother's retreating footsteps and the abrupt slamming of a bedroom door as tears fell from the corners of my eyes, falling down into my unkempt hair pooled upon the pillow beneath my head. I remember that I spent a majority of that night crying silent tears in the dark. I was not sure why I was crying then. Only that I was a frightened child with parents who had been driven to bickering because of me.

The next few weeks I find difficult to remember. The days progressed as usual. I woke from my slumber, readied myself for the day, and went to work in my family's bakery. I greeted the typical customers and helped my mother and my sister in the kitchens until such time that my father would call me out, usually in the afternoons, to sweep the shop floor. Then I, because I was the youngest and the smallest and therefore did the least of the most difficult manual labor throughout the day, was charged with closing up for the night and was left alone in the bakery while my family went upstairs to prepare dinner and rest their weary bones. I swept the floors, wiped the counters, straightened that which had become disorganized throughout the regular course of business, and then extinguished the candles and trudged upstairs for another evening of dinner, wash, rinse, and repeat.

News had spread of my arrangement with Oliver Ainsworth, of course, and the children who I saw on my infrequent and brief trips out to the garbage heap ridiculed me mercilessly until my cheeks turned red from embarrassment and I stomped back inside, refusing to tell anyone what had upset me so. Though, the way that Evelyn watched the cruel children jog away from the shop, I imagined she knew. As far as town gossip went, the news of our betrothal was weak at best. Adults in town did not care for whatever arrangement the poor peasants had made to ensure their own survival and so it passed rather quickly and I found myself back in the typical daily grind of the bakery business as though nothing monumental had ever occurred and, in my naive mind, it was easy to pretend that it hadn't.
A few weeks later, Evelyn and I were busy arranging newly baked loaves of bread upon the shelves behind my father's counter when he instructed me to prop open the shop door so that the smell of freshly baked bread might waft down the street and encourage new customers. After a brief jaunt to the front door, I pushed it open, using my foot to keep it secure while I searched for the wedge kicked casually to the side. It was then that I heard them. Hoofbeats. I stood, stepping away from the door into the street just as a column of men in pressed military uniforms made their way, on horseback, into the town. I was not the only one who had noticed the peculiar procession. Other merchants and peasants alike were poking their heads from their shops or stepping out onto the street from their homes to get a look at what was passing them by.

Six soldiers as I counted them and another man as well. Not a soldier, judging by the absence of the military regalia adorning his person. He wore finery far above that of the common soldiers, double breasted peacoat with a fur collar trim and rings on nearly every finger boasting a different gemstone upon each. He held his head high as if he needed any further indication of his importance and rode in the center of the column, leading us to surmise that these men were for his protection. They passed on down the street, heading for the city center, and I was aware of my sister's presence at my side. I turned to see her mouth slightly agape at the scene we had just witnessed, finding it clearly as surprising as I had. Men, women, and children were pouring from their homes, following after the procession in pure curiosity. Evelyn and I turned to our father.

"Can we go, papa?" Evelyn begged, using the full force of her big green eyes to her advantage. My father clenched his jaw and looked out of his window at the crowd beyond, moving in tandem with the column as they followed it to whatever end. His eyes scanned the street before turning back upon us.

"Return immediately after," he cautioned. "No lingering."

"Of course not!" Evelyn assured him and then, taking my arm, she pulled me into the street alongside her as she raced at an unattainable pace toward the congregation. I struggled to keep up and called after her to slow down on more than one occasion but my sister's insatiable curiosity seemed to emit a calling far greater than my own. She did not abate even as she reached the backs of those last in the line. Rather, she gripped my arm tightly and pulled us through the crowd, using our inconsequential size to slide between legs and around hips. I found myself apologizing profusely to everyone we came into contact with while my sister seemed entirely unperturbed by her evident incivility.

I was feeling quite cross with her by the time that we emerged at the front of the horde. I watched her gaze, wide eyed, at the soldiers on the small platform in front of us which had been erected only months ago for the town crier and local businessmen to make their addresses. She seemed unaware of the considerable glare I was casting in her direction and her disregard for my chagrin only served to further my annoyance. I tugged at her sleeve and hissed in her ear. "Did you have to be at the very front? It was quite rude to-"

"Good morning good people of Raleigh!" the man upon the stage interrupted me and my attention was drawn away from my sister to him. It was the same man whom I had seen riding so defended before, the man with the double breasted peacoat. As his wrinkled jowls shook with his educated speech and his transparent white hair faded into his scalp, I thought that I found the double breasted peacoat far more impressive than it's inhabitant. I leaned over to say as much to Evelyn when he interrupted me again by yet another proclamation. "My name is Johnathan Bentham, advisor to your beloved Duke Warren Lancaster who reigns benevolently over Raleigh and the entire Gloucester region. I am sent to inform you that King William, in his infinite wisdom, has issued a formal declaration of war against the Kingdom of France and alongside the countries of-"

His speech was overtaken by the sudden burst of mutterings from the crowd so that I, even a few feet away from him as I was, could not hear the words which he was speaking.

"Your King beseeches you to join his army and beat back the forces of the French. I am to remind you that it is your duty to your country to fight, in honor, for the King's cause. Therefore, I am here to recruit any man of fighting age and adequate health to commit to the cause of the war. I also have the pleasure of informing you of a new venture. The King has ordered a military academy for boys of the lower classes to be built. Any boy who holds an interest in a military career may apply through the soldiers you see here today. They will be remaining in the square for the rest of the afternoon to speak with any boy interested. You will, of course, need to pass a series of challenges to be admitted into such an illustrious academy but I am sure that will not be a problem for the robust boys of Raleigh."

A cheer went out from the crowd as he pandered to the peasant's pride. I watched the man curiously, eyes narrowed in examination, as I wondered if any boy in my village could possibly meet the undoubtedly stringent requirements for the King's military academy. A military career was nothing to scoff at. It had made the lives of many a man but none from this town, none from Raleigh. Raleigh was home to shopowners and peasants, families only one step up from vagrancy. I doubted any boy here could pass such rigorous tests designed for the very purpose of the exclusion of their kind.

"Mr. Bentham!" someone was shouting then and the fervor of the crowd began to dwindle to a murmur as those around us began looking about themselves in an effort to locate the small, quiet voice calling out above the fray. I found myself craning my neck to see who had spoken but found that I was unable to see through the much larger bodies in my path. Evelyn, it seemed, had no such restriction and gasped when she saw who had spoken, hands flying to cover her mouth as she did. I tugged on her sleeve to ask what she had seen but she either did not hear me or was too engrossed in what was occurring to turn away.

I could not see the person who had spoken but I could see Mr. Bentham. His eyes searched the crowd for the source of the cry and, when they found it, his face paled noticeably and his lips parted in a strange hint of surprise. I felt my own brows furrow in confusion as I watched the unfamiliar man's reaction to one of our own.

"Y-yes, boy?" he called out in answer, stuttering in contrast to the poised gentlemanly appearance he presented.

"Will the families of the boys who are accepted to the King's academy be cared for in their absence?" the boy asked and the crowd parted slightly then so that I could finally see who was speaking. When I did, my lips parted just as my sister's had done. Little Oliver Ainsworth was standing straight backed and chin up all alone as he waited for the man to answer his query.

"Yes, of course," the man answered, having regained his composure after his strange lapse in fortitude. "The King would never expect a family to suffer due to the absence of a student at home. Dear boy, what is your name?"

"Oliver," he answered. "Oliver Ainsworth."

"Oliver," the man repeated thoughtfully. "Is it my understanding that you have an interest in the program as I've described it to you?"

"Yes, sir."

"In that case, I shall follow you to your home where I can speak to your parents of your opportunity. Any boy brave enough to speak out in a gathered crowd to someone of as high a rank as myself displays the very characteristic of courage that we seek in our applicants. I will come with you to see if you possess any of the other qualities."

With that, the crowd dispersed, women and young girls returning to their work or leisure and men and boys approaching the soldiers to pledge their lives to the war or to apply for the academy. I watched as Mr. Bentham made his way off of the platform and approached Oliver, bending slightly so the boy could hear him above the din. I saw Oliver nod once and then lead the advisor away, toward his dilapidated home on the other side of town.

"Come, Avery, father said not to linger," Evelyn was saying then, pulling my arm along as she stalked from the town square back toward our shop. I went with her hesitantly, risking a glance back from time to time but my betrothed was nowhere in sight, having already disappeared with the strange advisor. So I forced my attention ahead and trotted on to catch up to my sister.

Evelyn told our parents all about the bizarre visitors and the intriguing news of the war the moment we reached the bakery. They listened intently, faces stern and expressionless until the mention of the war during which they glanced briefly at one another before interrupting Evelyn's story to tell us to get back to work. So we did. I joined my mother and my sister in the kitchen where we worked diligently as my mother hummed a familiar English melody over the crackling of the fire. I could not help but notice that, even as we mixed and prepared loaf after loaf, not a single customer entered the shop the entire afternoon.

By the time evening came, Evelyn looked just as exhausted as I felt as she and my mother hung their aprons at the door and turned to the stairs to retreat to the apartment above. Resolving myself to complete my chores as quickly as I could so that I too could retire, I started in the kitchen and worked my way into the shop, taking care to dust as much of the flour as I could from my clothes before beginning the business of sweeping. As I was finishing up the last corner of the dusty old floorboards, I heard a tapping at the window. I looked up in the dark to see a lantern illuminated beyond. I approached and peered outside, waiting for my eyes to adjust to the light and see beyond it to the holder. It was none other than Oliver Ainsworth himself. Somewhat stunned by his appearance, I reached out to unlatch the door and allowed it to swing open to admit him. But he did not enter immediately. He remained in the threshold, lantern in hand casting eerie shadows over his freckled face, and looked at me through lowered lashes.

"I- Good evening, Miss Hastings."

Miss Hastings? Since when had we donned such formalities. I said nothing in return, only stepped out of the way, letting the door swing open wider, so that he could enter. He did this time, stepping into the shop and glancing around as if he hadn't already been inside dozens of times before. I waited, watching him as he looked about, knowing somehow that he was stalling for time. But why? Why come here at all if he did not wish to speak to me? Suddenly I thought of a reason.

"Do you wish to speak to my father?" I asked and he turned, finally, to me.

"What?" he replied, caught off guard by my inquiry. "Oh. No. I- Well, I had come to speak with you."

"Me?"

"Yes. You."

But he didn't. Not immediately. Another awkward silence settled around us as I waited, shifting my feet uncomfortably, for him to continue. I was beginning to think that I would have to be the one to initiate the conversation when he finally plunged ahead.

"Did you see me this morning? Leaving with Mr. Bentham?"

"I did."

"Do you know why?"

"Because of your interest in the academy."

"Yes. Well, my mother made me aware of what it might have sounded like to you. To your family. I mean, we just made this arrangement. Between us and-" His cheeks had turned a bright red and I found myself feeling bad for him.

"And now you are conspiring to leave Raleigh," I finished for him. He nodded in relief.

"She wanted me to speak to you."

"Your mother."

"Yes. She didn't think it was fair of me to speak so openly this morning so that you heard and then not address the issue. Though I don't imagine there will be any issue to address."

"No? Your encounter with Mr. Bentham did not go well?"

"It- I'm not sure. He asked the strangest questions," he said then and set his lantern down on the counter, leaning against it in thought. I observed him in the soft, flickering glow. His hair was unkempt, as always, and a bit longer than it had been the last time I saw him so that it curled a bit at the ends. He was a boy who had not yet reached puberty but the hard muscle of a manual laborer was already beginning to show. I could see it from his rolled up sleeves and gaping collar. His long legs stretched out before him, his pants revealing ankle as they were too far outgrown. He bit his lip when he thought, I noticed, and furrowed his brows so much I thought he might wrinkle by age twenty five.

"What sort of questions?" I queried eventually. He looked up at me, concentration broken.

"Well, I thought he would ask me about my education. Of which, I have none, of course. But my mother did teach me to read. Lucy and I both. And I like to think of myself as a quick learner, seeing as I've a new job every day. And I thought he would ask me about other things too. How strong I was, how fast I could run, if I'd ever used a weapon. But he didn't ask me any of those things. Not a one."

I leaned against the counter then too so that the lantern sat between us, casting transient light over the tables and chairs, creating shadows on the walls. I crossed my arms and considered his account.

"Well," I began after a moment. "What did he ask you?"

"About my father, mostly."

I looked to him to find him looking away from me, eyes staring firmly into the floor.

"Your father? But you never knew him."

"I told him as much. It didn't stop the questions. When he found I knew nothing of the man, he asked my mother."

An image of him in that moment is burned into my mind so completely that I could even, to this day, close my eyes and trace the pattern of his shadow cast upon the wall behind him. It wasn't the way he stood. He hadn't moved from the leaning position he had occupied since the conversation began. It wasn't his facial expression either though that was the epitome of the most curiously indifferent countenance I had ever seen. It was in his eyes, that is what haunts me, the appearance of his eyes. A cool, steely blue that I had never noticed until that very moment. It was as if they had become the ocean itself. An illustration of a sea in a storm that I had once seen in a book is the best way that I can describe it. They seemed to roll in their emotions, wave after wave of doubt, anger, and disappointment crashing upon the shore of his pupils, the very essence of who he was.

I did not contemplate what I was doing until I had done it. I reached down and, crossing the expanse of counter space between us, I took his hand in mine. It was a child's grasp, a cupping of one hand in another, nothing intimate, nothing suggestive. I was just a poor girl trying to offer what little comfort I could to a boy with no father. He stared down at our hands for a moment but he did not let go. And when he looked up at me again, the storm had settled.

"She tossed him out," he said then. "Mr. Bentham. The moment he turned his inquiry on her, the moment he asked about my father, she tossed him out."

I said nothing. There was nothing to say. After a moment, he pushed off from the counter and walked toward the door, grabbing his lantern and taking it with him. I watched but remained where I was. When he reached the door, he paused, and turned to look at me, holding his lantern in one dangling hand so that the light barely illuminated his face.

"If I go," he began. "I won't forget you."

With that, he exited the shop, leaving me staring after the strange boy and his lantern bobbing down the street until it disappeared.

I finished my work in the shop and went upstairs to join my family for dinner. I spoke hardly at all that evening, mind preoccupied, and, when Evelyn and I finally laid ourselves down for sleep that evening, I remained awake for hours, staring at the ceiling and wondering about the promise that Oliver Ainsworth had made.

***

A few days later was another day in my family's shop. It was a Wednesday. Quite sunny outside, hot even. No one was interested in freshly baked hot bread on a balmy summer day. My father had even taken to advertising his wares on the street, taking a box of loaves down to the town square to reach people where they worked. It left my mother, my sister, and I to fend for ourselves in the shop. I had been assigned to the counter while my mother and sister baked the bread in the back. Perhaps if I hadn't been, I would not have seen the commotion that day.

Again, I heard the hoofbeats first. Then, rounding the corner into the street were a group of men I thought I recognized. Six men in pressed military uniform and one man between them all in a fur-collared peacoat. I blinked after them, stunned at their reappearance. I was not the only one. Again, people were filing onto the street. This time, they were not following, but I was. I felt my slippers slosh in the mud beneath my feet as I walked, tossing my apron onto a table near the door and pushing my way out of the shop before I could think to ask permission. To this day, I don't know why I did it, why I followed after the procession. Just that something within me knew that I had to. It was pulling me like a calling that you can't quite hear.

I did not follow them far. The town itself was not large. They came to rest outside of a house which I knew well. My breath caught in my throat when they went inside but was expelled entirely from my body when they led him out. Oliver Ainsworth walked from his home, a soldier on either side of him, and was hoisted onto the back of a horse that one of the other soldiers occupied. I could see the terror in his eyes, the fear of the unknown, but the look on his face was utter calm. Even as the buzzing of the muttering villagers began around him. I thought that I should feel happy for him. It appeared he was accepted into the academy after all. But my confidence was shaken when the soldiers reentered the home and emerged with Mrs. Ainsworth and Lucy as well. The little girl was crying, uncertain. Protectively, I took a step forward. But I felt a hand on my shoulder and I looked up to see my father at my side, mouth set in a grim line.

I could do nothing but watch as the strange scene unfolded before me. Mrs. Ainsworth was helped onto the back of a horse as well and made to hold onto the soldier in front of her. Lucy was made to do the same, the soldier assigned to her taking no notice of her tears as he lifted her as though she were weightless and set her in front of his comrade. My father pulled me back, off of the street, as the procession made to turn around and return to from whence it came. That was when he saw me, standing at my father's side, held back by his firm hand upon my small shoulders, eyes wide in wonder as I gazed up at him, bewildered.

When his eyes met mine they did not depart them. Even as the soldiers spurred their horses onward and trotted out of the village. His head turned until it could turn no more and he was forced, as they fled the town, to turn his eyes away from his past and toward his future. I heard it then, the certain words of an uncertain boy echoing in my mind as a tear slipped, curiously, down my cheek.

I won't forget you.