Where the Path Leads-Chapter 5

In the previous chapter, Emily has difficulty adjusting to the primitive new place where she finds herself even learning how to milk a cow. Just surviving requires a lot of work.
She knows she should find her way home, but Sophia, the old woman she’s staying with, is kind and home hasn’t been so great lately. Then Sophia reveals that there is a whole world beyond this clearing in the woods.         

Chapter 5: Magic Shoes

She knew she should try to find her way back, but for some reason she stayed. Maybe to help this solitary woman?  But if she was honest, it was more to avoid things at home.

Yes, the chores here were boring and time consuming, but they didn’t require thought. Much of the time she just listened to the clanking of the loom, regular and steady as a pendulum, lulling her so much that she found herself sweeping in time with it, churning butter along with it, even pulling weeds in the garden with the back and forth rhythm of the beater bar. Often, her gaze strayed to the interplay of threads as Sophia threw the shuttle from one side of the loom to the other, over and over, seemingly without end. And before her eyes a glistening emerald-colored fabric magically appeared, catching the sunlight coming through the chinks of the cottage, bathing everything inside with a green hue, as if the forest had come indoors. The cloth seemed to have an almost living quality, like captured leaves and rays of sunlight. 

Sophia gave the weaving most of her time and attention, her slender work-worn fingers moving continuously, deftly throwing the shuttle from one side to the other, pulling the beater bar forward with gentle pressure, every now and then making sure the selvage edges were even.  All the while, her feet pedaled up and down and her eyes were half closed in trance-like concentration. Sometimes Emily also became entranced and paused near the loom watching the fabric emerge, longing to touch the fabric.      

 “Are you done, Emilia?” Sophia asked once, without stopping her weaving. “Did you sprinkle water?” 

 “Yeah. I mean, yes,” she corrected herself, recalling that Sophia found her slang confusing. “I just wondered . . .. That is so . . ..  How did you learn to do that?” Sophia’s hands were reddened by constant work.

 “By giving my life to it,” she said.

 “It really takes that long? Could you teach me?”

At that, Sophia stopped and studied her. “Well, yes, if you wish to learn. But just so you understand, it takes continuous work. I thought you weren’t staying for long?”

 “Yeah, well . . ..” Her voice trailed off.  She wanted to make something that lovely out of nothing, like Sophia, and then be able to wear it.

Later that day when Sophia started her weaving lessons, all Emily was allowed to do was sit and listen to technical details: how to warp the loom; the importance of correct tension; how to raise and lower the heddles–the strings holding the individual threads—and the importance of maintaining consistent pressure with the beater bar. When would she get to start weaving? She wanted to start right away making something beautiful, like the shimmering green fabric that wound its way through Sophia’s loom and around onto the back roller. Knowing that would take time, she asked if she could have some of what Sophia was weaving right now when it was done.

Sophia looked amused. “I’m afraid not, Emilia. This fine fabric is for the Baroness, or her daughter. Not for those like us.”

Emily felt her back stiffen. What did she mean, “those like us?” Hadn’t Sophia thought she was of “gentle birth?” Now she wasn’t even good enough to have some cloth, although there seemed plenty of it. And she had done so many chores. Why shouldn’t she have some as well as anyone else? Frustrated and indignant, she stood up, sighing audibly. 

 “Perhaps this is too complicated for me. Besides, what’s the use of making something beautiful if you can’t have any of it? Maybe I should just find my way home.” Was it a wish or a threat? 

Sophia stood up too and stretched. “We’ve just begun. But you know best what you need to do, Emilia. How will you get back?”

She shook her head.  “I’m not sure exactly. All I know is that when I came here, I was near a spring.”

Sophia’s eyes widened. “The spring of Miraseus! How did you find it?”

 “I didn’t find it. I just stumbled onto it. Why?”

Sophia sank back onto the bench of her loom, a faraway look in her eyes.

 “Many have tried to find it,” she breathed.

 “What for? Because of the water or something?”    

 “Or something.” Sophia echoed the unfamiliar expression. “The water is said to have healing powers and drinking it may help you know the future.”

Emily snorted. “All it did was get my feet wet.”

 “It’s unfortunate you’re leaving so soon,” Sophia said, recovering herself. “I thought tomorrow we could go into the village.” 

Now it was Emily’s turn to look surprised. “There’s a village near here?”

Sophia smiled. “Did you think there was just me?”

She felt embarrassed by her naïveté, but this place seemed so perfectly secluded and Sophia had never mentioned a village. Did the people here all live like Sophia? Or could someone help her get back? The rest of the day her thoughts were agitated.

After breakfast and chores the next morning, Sophia gave her a simple grey woolen shift to wear that reminded her of the image in the car mirror. They set off for the village, and only when they were on their way did Emily wonder about Sophia’s purpose for the trip.

The older woman led the way through the forest wearing a straw hat and carrying a basket of freshly picked spinach leaves, peas and spring onions from her garden. She walked purposefully, although there was no trail that Emily could see.

Lagging behind, Emily fought with the sticker bushes that kept snagging her new shift. “How long does it take to get there?”

Sophia stopped to wait for her.

 “We will be there when the bell rings for sol alto.”

 “For what?”

 “Midday devotions.”

Had she lost track of days? Was it Sunday?

 “We’re not going to church, are we?” she asked, realizing afterward how the question sounded.

Sophia gave her a peculiar look. “No. We’re going for you.”

 “You mean, to take me home?”  Should she have brought the costume?

 “I can’t do that, Emilia when I don’t know where your home is.”

 “Is there no way to call someone to come get me.”

Sophia gave her another perplexed look and just resumed walking.

 “I just want people to meet you,” she said.

 “I wish I looked better,” she moaned. She hadn’t combed her hair the last several days with anything other than her fingers, and she was barefoot. Her shoes had gotten wet and muddy that morning carrying water from the stream. “I don’t even have any–OUCH–shoes on.” Going barefoot like Sophia had been a bad idea. Wasn’t the forest floor supposed to be covered with leaves and moss?  Instead, she was finding all the rocks and tree roots. “How do you do it?”

 “Do what?”

 “Go barefoot all the time?”

Without slowing down, she looked askance at Emily. “I have no shoes.” It wasn’t a complaint, just a statement. “Are you accustomed to always wearing slippers?”

Another odd word. And the question sounded slightly accusatory.

 “Well, it’s not a good idea go barefoot on cement or asphalt, especially in the summer,” Emily said, ducking under the branch of an oak tree and starting up a gentle incline behind Sophia who scaled it easily, stopping again to wait for her. If she couldn’t keep up with an older woman who sat all day at a loom, then she must really be out of shape. Come to think of it, most of her hours were spent in class, on a computer or phone, or reading.

 “Are those rocks—cement and asphalt? Do they get hot in the sun? You live among rocks?”

 “Yeah, I guess so.” Suddenly weary, Emily didn’t feel like explaining and was grateful when they emerged from the woods into bright sunlight. But there was no village, only two parallel dirt ruts with grass growing in the center. She turned right to follow Sophia who walked in one of the ruts, while Emily walked in the center. 

They made their way down the road in companionable silence, seeing no one, until the sun was close to being overhead. Finally two people appeared in the distance in a field next to the road. As Emily and Sophia approached, she saw a man holding the handles of a plough pulled by an ox easily twice Blossom’s size. And she had thought the cow was huge! Walking alongside the ox was a little girl hitting it with a long stick.

 “What’s she doing?” Emily asked, feeling sorry for the animal.

 “Oxen are slow, lumbering creatures that would rather stand under a shady tree all day than work. She does that to keep it moving. The ox feels nothing.”  Sophia waved to them.

 “Do you know them?”

 “Everyone knows everyone else here, Emilia. The man behind the plow is my nephew Isaac, and the little girl is Cyril’s daughter, Thea.”

How different from her own neighborhood where people who happened to be out in their yards at the same time pretended not to see one another. 

Isaac and the little girl stopped, he wiping sweat from his face, and both of them gaped at her. Suddenly self-conscious, Emily smoothed her hair.

 “Don’t worry.  You look fine,” Sophia said. “Soon it will become clear why you are here.”

Was there a reason she was here? She hoped someone would tell her. The gypsy’s words came back to her, sometimes you must get lost before you find yourself. She thought she’d just been talking mumbo jumbo. Must they gawk like that?

The road continued with fields on either side and more laborers who waved and stared. Finally a cluster of thatched dwellings, much like Sophia’s, appeared, huddled around a sparse green area. Each had a small dirt patch near it where vegetables struggled to grow. Chickens roamed freely pecking the ground, and young children ran about shouting in play. Two women with buckets stood talking by a well. All of them, even the children, stopped to stare at her. 

Feeling conspicuous, she suddenly longed to blend into a crowd of kids her own age. Where were they all?

One building stood out from the others. Made of wood, it had massive double doors, two small stained-glass windows, and a bell mounted on top. The cottages clustered about it like children around a parent. 

Sophia led her toward a cottage only two doors away from this church. Over the doorway hung a small sign with the picture of a shoe, and they ducked inside the open door.

After the outdoors the cottage was dark and cramped, and a pungent smell assaulted her nostrils, an acrid tang, like ammonia, that immediately made her nose and throat burn. She began coughing. There was another smell too, more earthy–like animals. As her eyes adjusted to the dimness, she saw a wooden table that dwarfed the room, its surface crisscrossed by grooves from a sharp knife, like a disorganized spider web. Spread out on the table were pieces of leather, partially cut, and several upside-down wooden feet in various stages of having leather sewn onto them.  Tools hung from the wall and lay about the table: sharp, pointy tools, rounded knives, shears, balls of cord, and large needles.

Her coughing brought a burly, stocky man out from behind a curtain. Wearing a leather apron, he was bearded and had a broad face framed by curly brown hair just beginning to grey at the edges. 

 “Why, what have we here?” 

His hearty voice seemed tinged with a note of caution.

 “Greetings, Jacob. This is my niece, Emilia, who is visiting. I’m interested in getting a pair of shoes for her.”

Emily looked at Sophia, surprised. This was news to her.

 “Are you, now?” he said. 

Although uncomfortable under this man’s appraising stare, she had been taught to look people in the eye and so met his gaze. Now he registered surprise.

 “A bold one, I see,” he said to Sophia, still without acknowledging Emily.

 “I have some vegetables to trade.” Sophia set the basket before him. 

 “I don’t know, Sophia.” He shook his brown curls. “Work for the castle is keepin’ me more’n busy.” Ignoring the basket, he turned and picked up a long sharp needle that looked like it was made of bone and threaded it with twine, then began stitching the sole onto a shoe that was fitted onto one of the wooden feet.

 “Then perhaps you have a pair already made that would fit her? Come, Jacob, check her size.” To her mortification Sophia pulled up a corner of the grey dress to reveal a bare foot, one that was dirty from walking.

The shoemaker leaned across the table and looked amused.

 “Tender and white, aren’t they? Unaccustomed to walking. I have no shoes her size. Mine are all spoken for.”

 “I don’t really need any shoes anyway,” Emily said, finally speaking up, though for all the good it did she might as well have been talking to herself. Why was Sophia so concerned?  Was it because she had complained about walking barefoot? She had her athletic shoes which would soon dry out.

 “There must be something you can do,” said Sophia, undeterred.

The shoemaker frowned, then sighed. “What does she need them for, Sophia?  Are you sending her to the city to deliver your cloth?”

 “Not right away. Later, perhaps.”

Still more news. What city, Emily wondered.

Grunting, he reached under the table and brought out a lightweight strip of wood and some chalk. “Put your foot here, lass,” he growled.

Just as she placed her right foot onto the wood and Jacob crouched to trace its outline, she was startled by the church bell ringing. Children of all ages spilled out of the church onto the green, running about, talking, laughing. 

The shoemaker stood up.

 “Skittish one, in’t she?” he said, again talking only to Sophia.

 “Don’t forget my other foot?” she reminded him.

 “What are you talking about, girl?”  He frowned, looking at her queerly.

Just then a boy who also had brown curls and a sturdy build and looked to be her own age ran inside.

 “Papa, on this very day Tado Lawrence agreed to school me in . . . ,” his voice trailed off when he saw her, and he also stared.

Quickly she pulled back her dirty foot. What kind of place was this where people so seldom saw anyone new?

Trying to recover herself, she stammered, “Ah, my left foot, is a . . . is a half size larger than my right.” She always had trouble with shoes at the mall. Some people she knew tried on a whole bunch of shoes then put two different sizes in a box and tried to get away with buying them as a pair, but she wouldn’t do that.

The shoemaker cocked his head. They were all looking at her strangely. Finally, Jacob said, “Sophia, where does this girl come from that they make shoes so differently? How is it she doesn’t know what every man, woman, and child in Ephemera knows? That both shoes are made the same.” Before Sophia could answer, the shoemaker finally addressed her, asking bluntly, “Do you think for barter, lass, I’m going to measure both feet and make two different shoes? Who do you think you are, daughter to the Baroness?” 

 “She meant no harm, papa,” said the boy.

She smiled at him, grateful he wasn’t as difficult as his father.

 “William, I’m glad you’re here,” Sophia said. “This is Emilia. I was hoping she might meet some of the village young folk.”

The smile he returned was so warm that Emily felt her cheeks color and looked down shyly, noticing that his feet were also bare. How strange. The son of a shoemaker with no shoes.

 “What did Tado Lawrence agree to teach you?” Sophia said.

His face brightened and he looked eagerly at her, then at his father. “He’s going to school me in high Anglais, papa.”

Stitching the sole again, the shoemaker responded without looking up. “Humph. Hardly think you’ll need that when you learn the shoemaker’s trade.”

 “I imagine you’re Tado Lawrence’s best pupil,” said Sophia.

Will smiled, then said to his father, “I want to learn to read, papa. More than common script.”

He grunted again. “Take these vegetables to your mother.” To Sophia he said, “I’ll send word when the shoes are finished, but don’t look for them any time soon . . ..”

 “Papa,” Will interrupted, “if the shoes are for her,” he beamed at Emily, “we have that pair you made for the waiting woman, don’t you remember? She said the stitching was irregular and . . ..”

 “My stitching is always even,” he retorted, but Will was already pulling a bundle wrapped in yellowed muslin from a lower shelf. “They’re not the kind for her,” he snapped. 

His comment reminded her of Sophia’s about the fabric.

But Will had already unwrapped the shoes which were plain, with just simple gold buckles and smooth soles, more like moccasins. Will handed them to Sophia who ran her fingertips appreciatively across the supple leather. “They appear as though they’ve never been worn,” she said. “They’re soft as butter.”

 “Most likely won’t suit the girl,” grumbled the shoemaker.

Sophia ignored him.  “Try them on, Emilia.”

Self-consciously, she bent down and slipped them on. When she stood up, she had a dizzy, darkening sensation, like she sometimes got if she stood up too quickly when she was out in the sun. Only this time when the darkness cleared, she felt different, calm and self-assured. Suddenly, whatever happened, she felt as if she could face it. She stood taller, aware that they were all looking at her.

Finally, Sophia spoke.  “Will they suit, Emilia?”

 “Oh, yes. They suit me fine.” In fact, she never wanted to take them off. 

On the way home, Sophia kept glancing at her, as if she were a different girl.