Author’s Note: Here’s a short preview of the new story I’m beginning. This will be a story of a girl who travels time and space to arrive in Japan during the Edo period. She doesn’t know how she got there or why. It will be her journey through honor, hatred, pain, and love. Hope y’all will like it!

Preview of “Hope for a Samurai”

Her footsteps were soft falls upon the dirt path that lead up to the training grounds. Up ahead, she could see the wood and paper building through the trees. It appeared that it was abandoned: no was walking around and no sound was wafting through the leaves to her ears. Where could have everyone gone to?

At the end of the path, Hope looked around, her auburn hair tossing. From the looks of it, it did seem that everyone was gone. A few moments hesitation crept by slowly. A deep breath escaped her lungs flowing into the air. Up in the air, a bird took flight.

Then, she took a step toward the wooden stairs. Just a couple more to finally be at the building. There, she was on the first step.

Hope continued her creeping slowly, not sure of why she was so silent and why she was heading to this particular area of the territory. Under the soles of her feet, the wooden boards creaked groaned, but did not give out.

There’s the door. Her freckled hand reached out and stroked the handle carved in the end of the sliding door. Then her fingers slid into the hole and pulled. Slowly, it opened.

Rays of sunlight fell into the dark room behind Hope’s back illuminating the floor in front of her. When Hope raised her eyes to peer inside the training room, she saw a dark shape sitting at the far end. At the bottom, two long bumps pointed out from the sides. The middle was frumpy and fat and the top was an oval with spikes pointed out in all directions.

Just as Hope was adjusting to the dark room, the thing had noticed it had an intruder. The spiked oval tipped upward a little. The middle twisted.

Immediately, Hope realized that thing was a man: the top was head, his hair was the spikes, the middle was his chest and arms, and the two bumps on the bottom part were his knees sticking out.

“Oh, excuse me, I didn’t know anyone was in here,” Hope said, looking away. The man shifted, bent forward, and stood up. His dark, loose garments loosened and fell about his frame, showing off some of his thin stature and tall frame. He picked up a thin, long object that lay on the ground, which Hope assumed was a sword, and walked toward her.

As he came closer, she could see that it wasn’t just any man, but it was the man who had stared at her the entire time she had eaten dinner. Throughout the meal, his gaze burned into her face, making her blush. “Kyo” was what Higuru had said.

The man was finally in the sunlight, and he was beautiful from what little she saw. He had dark hair that glimmered in the light. It was cut in a way that was short enough to spike out all around his skull. Full bangs fell to the right of forehead. A pair of dark, brown eyes, surrounded by thick eyelashes, sat above a black, cloth mask that covered his nose and mouth. And a tiny scar peeked out next to his left eye. It was the curve of a horseshoe.

Oh…my lordy… Hope swallowed a lump in her throat just as Kyo walked past her not even batting an eyelash at her. Instead of hard staring, his eyes did not once stray to her. As soon as he was past her, he stopped staring into the forest and beyond that the main house.

“You are an intruder,” he said in his husky voice behind his mask loud enough for her to hear. “Don’t believe that you can stay very long here. You may appear very special with that red hair of yours, but you nothing more than an intruder who deserves to be kicked out.”

Then he slipped away, the floor boards groaning under his weight, leaving a confused Hope behind to continue to stare into the dark training room. After a few minutes, her thundering heart slowed down and she could breathe again.

What was that about? Hope turned around to watch Kyo’s dark back disappear into the green and brown. If I could go back home, I would. But I don’t even know how I came here or how I can get back to my own time.