Elpis meets Horatia

Young Elpis meets her great grandmother, something unheard of in her time.

Elpis tripped her way back to the cottage through tangles of roots and bushes. The forest had called her out this morning with sly promises of sun and berries. Now it stood over her, three times higher than her little home, and laughed as her tiny bare feet chilled with the oncoming frost. She quickened her pace, hoping her mother had the fire and a thick, hot stew ready.

She didn’t have to travel long to find her wishes confirmed. The sturdy stone chimney sent smoke and a hearty scent reaching toward the trees above, choking them. Elpis snickered at the sight and stuck her nose up at her clever wooden friends. They darkened with the sky and she quickly opened the thick door of the house to escape their frowns.

“Elpis!” her mother cried from the stewpot over the fire. “Where have you been?”

“Looking for berries, mama,” she answered quietly, dropping her head and immediately reaching into the cupboard to pull out bowls and spoons. Her younger brother, Aric, sat under the table with a linen horse doll and her father at a chair next to him. He eyed Elpis sternly.

She waited for the lecture. Despite her mere seven years of age, she’d gotten many long, harsh talks and a few swift thrashes to her backside. Her parents were never ones to mince words. But tonight was different.

“You should not have stayed out so late,” her mother said tersely. “You’re great grandmother is here.”

Elpis swiveled her head around the cottage’s interior until she noticed a woman sitting on her small bed. No one had ever visited them at their summer cottage because it was several days walk from the nearest village. Elpis and her brother only made it because her father went ahead to prepare a trail and bring supplies to the cottage before returning for them. This woman, appearing no more than twenty five winters, looked in no condition to make the trip alone. She was quite thin and strangely pale, yet her eyes were deep and held Elpis’ in a trance. For a long while, Elpis couldn’t speak. She simply looked at this new face, trying to decipher if she were a fairy or something darker. Either way she couldn’t be what her mother thought she was.

“You’re wrong, mama,” Elpis finally squeaked. “She can’t be. No one lives that long.”

“Elpis!” her father scolded.

The woman stood in one smooth motion and glided across the single room to Elpis.

“I do live that long,” she whispered with a deep, yet feminine voice. She patted a small leather pouch attached at her side. “And you will, too.”

Elpis wanted both to run and to ask the woman a hundred questions. She had an air about her. It was heavy, yes, but heavy in the way a thick animal fur might be on a cold winter night. The woman smiled when Elpis met her glance.

“We’ll talk after dinner,” Elpis’ father said gruffly. “Aric, out from under the table.”

The boy scurried out and pulled himself onto a chair. He didn’t seem to find the woman as strange as Elpis did. He was more concerned that his horse doll wasn’t allowed to sit next to his plate.

“Elpis, sit,” her mother commanded when her feet had failed to move.

Elpis willed them forward and hoisted her heavy arms up to pull out a chair. She sat, but the appetite she’d been so eager to quench earlier had disappeared without notice.  She could hardly manage to swirl her spoon in the broth to make it seem she was interested in something other than the newcomer.

“You may call me Horatia, by the way,” the woman said to Elpis.