Member-only story
Peace
“Silence the voice of this stormy wind
And give me peace
Peace that more pleasantly calls
than a lover’s whisper on her lover’s ear.”
The words were her words, sung to a common tune and the first to hear it had been her loom as she wove shuttle in and out of the moving threads stretched taut on wooden frames. Her heart was heavy, threatening to shed its fruits to the ground to rot in despair because inside her was a child for a man she knew was never coming back. Her lover had gone to war and something had told her as they parted ways in tears that she was not going to see him again.
As the young woman spun, she struggled to muster courage by whispering a prayer. Out of her stormy thoughts had come the song she now sang sorrowfully to the threads that kept their own rhythm accompanied by the beat of the foot pedals. She took no notice of the bare-chested little boy leaning on the rails that cordoned off her stall at the mill.
Peace that more pleasantly calls
Than a lover’s whisper on her lover’s ear
The child had joined her in the song singing an off-key harmony to the chorus. She looked up in dismay, now aware of the child’s presence. It felt as if an intruder had come…
