Traditions are important to the Hewlett's, and so are friends. This is why November 1st is one of their favorite days of the year; November 1st is All Saints Day, and their best family-friend's annual Orchard Party. Every year on November 1st, Roxanne Richmond makes all her best treats, and Tessa is in charge of making the property look magical and cozy in such a way no one else can. Friends, family, and neighbors all gather in the Richmond's orchard to enjoy the bonfire, the company, and the food, as they welcome in the approaching Holiday Season, celebrating the beauty and comfort of being a part of a body of believers that traces back thousands of years.
At the end of The Adventures of the Brothers Brave and Noble, we find the Hewletts at the Richmond's Annual Orchard Party, but this year's proves to be a very special one, for reasons I cannot disclose in this blogpost so as not to ruin a wonderful ending if I do say so myself. So in honor of a very important November 1st in the lives of our friends (capital F and otherwise), I've decided to bring to you a little treat of my own. The following are 728 words, unpublished until now, on my understanding of how the Fort in the woods came to be. This was part of the original rough draft manuscript, which was basically colossal and full of all kinds of stuff the readers didn't particularly care about or need to know. But I needed to know these things. Because I needed to get to know Peter and Tessa, and their woods. So here's that little backstory, in honor of belonging to a Greater backstory myself.
From under the kitchen table,
clh
The Fort
He’d
been working on it secretly for a while and the day he finished he came into
the house giddy with the glimmer of youth in his eyes. He breathlessly accosted
Contessa, who was lounging in her chair with the newspaper,
“Hey,
come with me to the woods.” At the time, she was incredibly pregnant; Brave was
due any day. She just chuckled, honestly thinking Peter was joking. When she
noticed he remained standing in front of her with his hand held out, nearly
leaping out of his skin with excitement, she peered over the paper at him,
“What’s
going on?”
“C’mon,
I have to show you something.” She took his hand, setting down the paper, and
he helped her up. As she walked over to the door and slid into her sandals she
asked Peter,
“Should
we bring hot water and blankets incase I deliver on the way back?”
“Ha…Ha,”
Peter answered sarcastically.
“You’ll
be fine. I’m not sure if flip flops are the best choice though.”
“Oh
please, don’t make me bend over to put on real shoes.” She was leaning against
the open doorway with her hands resting on her big belly. Click. Peter snapped
a mental photograph. It was one of those moments he wanted to capture in his
mind forever. She looked adorable in his old cable knit sweater (one of the
only things still fitting her these days) and the rest of her body seemed
completely overtaken by her swollen middle. Yet there she stood, willing to
humor her husband by hiking through the woods in her flip flops. After gazing
long enough to let the imaginary film develop into his permanent subconscious,
he took Tessa’s hand and closed the door behind him, grinning like a little boy
on his way to the ice cream shop.
Tessa
couldn’t even waddle at a normal pace and so it was slow-going towards Peter’s
surprise in the woods. The Fort wasn’t but just four or five minutes from their
backyard, but being pregnant, a five minute walk through a forest was a major
undertaking for her. Peter noticed that her waddle was slowing . and promised,
“We’re
almost there.”
“Where
are we going again?”
“It’s
a surprise, I can’t tell you, then it’d be ruined. Besides, you can nearly see
it now anyway.” Peter peered through the woods and Contessa tried to aim her
eyes in the same direction. At first she noticed nothing out of the ordinary,
but then the twinkling candles in old jelly jars caught her attention. The
candles marked the path up to the Fort and were also lined up against the front
wall of the structure. If they hadn’t been there the Fort would have blended
right in with its surroundings since Peter used mostly the branches and
materials from felled trees to construct the front of the large lean to style
fort. Noticing the candles and following their trail up to the new structure in
their woods, Contessa froze still.
“OH!”
She lifted one hand to her open mouth and let the other steady herself against
Peter’s chest. Tears came into her eyes as she smiled and whispered,
“Peter...NO
WAY!”
He
laughed at her reaction. As her hands went up to her forehead in amazement and
surprise she quietly said,
“It’s
perfect. It’s beautiful.” She had newly discovered energy and was walking
briskly now, but since she had to watch where she was putting her flimsy flip
flops, and at the same time hated to miss the breathtaking view before her, her
gaze darted back and forth between the twinkling Fort and the ground. Peter
laughed at her excitement.
“Careful!”
Tessa began giggling too, she had worked herself up to enough of a trot that
she had to hold up under her belly bracing it against her bouncing up the path.
The couple looked like little kids as the trotted towards the Fort. They stayed
inside their secret hiding place a long time. The sun had just started setting
when they’d begun their journey and now it had gone down completely. Except for
the candles decorating the inside and outside of the Fort, Peter and Tessa were
surrounded by dark. They laughed as Peter recounted how ridiculous Tessa looked
romping toward the Fort and watched her big belly bounce and move with the
rolls and kicks of Brave inside her.
“He’ll
love this,” she said, patting her stomach, “I mean, it’ll be hard sharing,
but...”
“Oh
we’ll have a good three or four years before he has to know about it.” Peter
teased back, "For now it's ours."
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