Henry is back. I can’t sleep. I can’t even lay still. Before the twins went to sleep, they asked me if I was going to leave with him. How could I answer them? Even I don’t know.

I get up when the first bit of light wakes the birds. Thomas is waiting for me. The fire is already lit. I start breakfast for the family before he speaks, “Are you going out today?”

“Do you want me to stay home?”

“Polly,” Thomas takes a deep breath. “Paul says that the day Henry left Nell, before he left her, he hit Paul for saying that he was going to marry you. Polly, did Henry come back for you?”

“We made no such plans,” I say, carefully placing the small oven full of bread on the fire. “Not before he left and certainly not last night. I was as surprised as anyone to hear he was back.”

“You didn’t marry Paul because you were waiting for Henry.”

“I did not marry Paul because marrying one person when you’re in love, no matter how hopelessly, with another, hurts everyone.”

***

Thomas bangs on the front door before I even have the fire lighted.

“Polly’s run off,” are his first words. His tone shouts that it’s entirely my fault.

My middle brother comes down stairs and says that’s what Polly’s known for, but Thomas insists that she’s never left so early before; his wife had to finish making breakfast.

“Where is she?” Thomas demands.

“How should I know?” I ask, turning back to the fire.

“Before you left, you used to meet her.”

“I doubt she’d go there.” But my confidence just stirs him up.

“Where!”

“If you must know, the cottage in Weaver’s Wood.”

Thomas’s face turns white then red before he turns and runs out the door.

Beside me, my brother laughs. “It’s no wonder you didn’t want to marry Nell if you were meeting her sister at the lover’s cottage.”

The teasing gets no better after my mother and youngest brother are up. “Why didn’t you just tell us?” my sweet mother asks, her face full of concern and guilt.

“What could he say?” my youngest brother jeers. “Polly couldn’t have been much over twelve.”

I don’t hit him, but I want to.

“Henry,” my mother says, “You’d better go find her before her brother does.”

I set off down the lane past Polly’s cottage then I wander down the first trail I see. If I wander enough, will I find her? Where did she go all those days after I left? How well do I really know her?

Not as well as I’d like to. Not nearly.

I search until the sun is high in the sky. Has Thomas already found her? Did she go north instead of south? Should I go back?

I see her. She takes my breath.

When I was young, I thought that Polly would always be like a younger sister to me. My family wanted me to marry Nell anyway and Nell gave herself freely. Too freely. No matter how alike they look, Nell is not just an older Polly. And Polly is not just a younger Nell.

I left when I realized that I was more jealous that Polly might someday marry than I was that my wife shared herself with other men.

And then to hear Polly wanted me, too. Even in the innocent freedom and adventure way of wanting. I was lost.

She turns, but freezes when she sees me.

***

He is here. His fingers stoke along my jaw and rest on my lips.

“Don’t you have anything to say?” he asks, smiling.

“I wasn’t sure if you were a vision.” I look down as my face heats up. “I’ve had them so many times.”

“No need to be ashamed,” he says, lifting my chin. “You may see me during the day, but you fill my dreams.”

Before I can tuck my head again, he brings his lips down to mine. His kiss is better than I imagined. My knees buckle but his arms around me keep me upright.

“Come with me,” he says, tucking his face against my neck. “I’ve got money. I can take care of you. I’ll take you to Mount Huushun. I’ll show you Koswei in the spring and Nevian in the fall. And when we tire of travel, we’ll buy a little house and let the neighbors raise the chickens and the sheep." His voice goes quiet as my hand reaches his back and he hardly breaths until my fingers touch his neck. “That’s a yes then, Polly, my love?”

“Yes, that’s yes.”

———

Author’s note:

I wanted to know if I could write a woman POV without getting so attached that I couldn’t write about her. This had happened several times, so that I’d started writing male/male love stories just to get something on paper. Writing Polly was easy, disproving my theory that I was more attached to women. And since then I’ve become attached to a few male characters so that I end up throwing out hours of work because they don’t come across on paper the way I see them in my head. This story has the most convoluted time line, chapter one slipping in after the first section of chapter three.