Of Cowards, Cheats, and Tangles: rewritten prologue

                The cart rattled down the dirt path. Its wheels bounced over stones as the old mare pulled it forward. The child sat next to her father in the front. The wind’s playful fingers tugged her light brown hair free of her braid. Her father leaned towards her, his broad hat sheltering her from the sun like an umbrella shelters from the rain.

                “A year, Thren,” his voice was low and soft, “I’ll be back in a year. I promise. You don’t know how much I’ll miss you.”

                “A year.” Thren echoed, “Don’t worry. Then I’ll come back home. We’ll be safe. And happy.” She spoke with the calm assurance only a child can muster.

                “Just keep on being brave like that, my little dewdrop, and a year won’t seem like any time at all.” She didn’t answer him. Even at the age of four, she knew how fickle time could be: how hours could stretch to feel like days, weeks, years. She knew it would feel like a thousand lifetimes before she saw her father again. She willed for time to slow, so she could clutch this moment and hold it tightly enough to last her for the immense amount of time that was one year. But time does as it pleases, and too soon they’d reached the row of hedges that marked her new life. A squeaking gate was hidden in the overgrown shrubs with a sign baring the name of the house beyond: Ms. Quilf’s Home for Forgotten Children. The name struck Thren as strange. She feared the house and those forgotten within its walls. She dreaded becoming one of them.

                But after hugs and farewells and declarations of who loved whom, when the mare had been turned around and the gate reopened for its departure, only the man rode in the cart.