Chapter TWO

Looking up into the same night sky, Charyti smiled. It was so beautiful. It was the only thing of beauty that she had known of and seen her whole life. The night sky was so tranquil and elegant, and it always seemed to clear her mind if she just looked at it whenever she was troubled.

“Charyti! Shut that window at once!” Her aunt Dessa said from the second floor of their three storey house. “And then, bring me up some wood for the fire.”

Charyti sighed and shut the window. As she drew the curtains shut, she replied to her aunt with a sigh, “Yes, Aunt Dessa.”

While she looked around her room for her old, tattered cloak, her aunt called for more wood. Charyti sighed again as she picked up her cloak from underneath her bed and made her way down the stairs, shutting her door behind her. As she past her aunt’s room she could see her aunt sitting in her bed, doing some needlework. Her aunt, not looking up from her work said. “I’m not as young as you, Charyti; I can not stand the cold, so hurry up and fetch that wood like a good niece.”

“Yes, Aunty.” Charyti called from the staircase. As she pulled open the back door, a putrid smell entered the kitchen and Charyti immediately felt her dinner rising.

“Argh!” She said, covering her nose with the edge of her cloak, trying to block out the horrid smell. “What is it?”

Her question was answered as she walked towards the wood pile. A pile of dead fish lay in a bucket, right next to the wood. She grimaced and kicked the bucket away then hurriedly grabbed some logs of wood. As she was gathering some wood she heard a man’s annoyed sigh came from the left of the house. Charyti peered around the corner and saw her cousin covered in the rotten fish. She bit her lip, holding back a laugh.

“Who kicked the bucket?” Charyti’s cousin, Evran, asked picking the fish off his shirt.

“I did,” Charyti said with a grin. Evran looked at her murderously. Her grin widened, “What? Got a problem with it?”

“I was going to wear this shirt to the dance tomorrow. Now what will I wear?” He said, walking over to her. He took some of the logs off her, lightening her bundle.