scanned her face. She opened the door and gestured him through into her small kitchen.
G sighed with relief. So many years of sitting in her garden, never invited in, never allowed to bask in her presence in her home, her most intimate setting. So much time wasted, dreams broken, banished to the moon. He closed his eyes as she moved in to place the kettle on for tea and relished the smells of her domestic habitat. "What shall I do with my boots? I fear tracking the dales across your floors." They both glanced down at his dirt encrusted boots and laughed.
"There's a boot scrape to your right, Gwynn said merrily, and my kitchen can suffer your dirt. After all, it suffers mine." As she turned back to moving ginger biscuits onto a lovely flowered plate, G scraped his boots turning his head to watch her every move, drinking in the gracefully efficient moves of her hands as she prepared the tea tray. He stepped across the grey slate floors to a small table framed by the kitchen window and looked out across the meadows and dales that stretched into the town of Bodmin.
"Are they at it again this year?" he asked idly.
"Oh yes," she replied as she carried the laden tray to the table and setting it down wiped her hands on her apron and stared down to Bodmin with a grimace. "The planning is already in place. Three Wishes brings out all of the most eccentrics. But a small few still bring gifts in the old way. Amazing that collective memory has survived in this age of instant information."
As she sat and poured the tea, adding only a wedge of lemon as he preferred and a single ginger biscuit, his attention focused on her alone, searching, scanning, seeking to read her heart since her mind was veiled to him. "Oh, my darling, my own dear heart," he thought, "How do I speak the words again, when this is my last time to come? If you reject me now, I will spend all my life alone." Something moved in her face, as though she had allowed herself to read his thoughts. She said nothing since she knew the question must be asked at some point.
Gwynn heard G's thoughts as she sipped her tea. Something in the abject starkness of his despair touched a part of her that through the long, long years she thought had died or grown numb. "All these years," she thought. "All these long and lonely years I have showered my gardens with love. And the beauty they gave back was lovely, but so very frail and so quickly fading." She looked up to see G's gaze intent on her; startled, she suddenly knew he could hear her. How had they arrived here? How far
G sighed with relief. So many years of sitting in her garden, never invited in, never allowed to bask in her presence in her home, her most intimate setting. So much time wasted, dreams broken, banished to the moon. He closed his eyes as she moved in to place the kettle on for tea and relished the smells of her domestic habitat. "What shall I do with my boots? I fear tracking the dales across your floors." They both glanced down at his dirt encrusted boots and laughed.
"There's a boot scrape to your right, Gwynn said merrily, and my kitchen can suffer your dirt. After all, it suffers mine." As she turned back to moving ginger biscuits onto a lovely flowered plate, G scraped his boots turning his head to watch her every move, drinking in the gracefully efficient moves of her hands as she prepared the tea tray. He stepped across the grey slate floors to a small table framed by the kitchen window and looked out across the meadows and dales that stretched into the town of Bodmin.
"Are they at it again this year?" he asked idly.
"Oh yes," she replied as she carried the laden tray to the table and setting it down wiped her hands on her apron and stared down to Bodmin with a grimace. "The planning is already in place. Three Wishes brings out all of the most eccentrics. But a small few still bring gifts in the old way. Amazing that collective memory has survived in this age of instant information."
As she sat and poured the tea, adding only a wedge of lemon as he preferred and a single ginger biscuit, his attention focused on her alone, searching, scanning, seeking to read her heart since her mind was veiled to him. "Oh, my darling, my own dear heart," he thought, "How do I speak the words again, when this is my last time to come? If you reject me now, I will spend all my life alone." Something moved in her face, as though she had allowed herself to read his thoughts. She said nothing since she knew the question must be asked at some point.
Gwynn heard G's thoughts as she sipped her tea. Something in the abject starkness of his despair touched a part of her that through the long, long years she thought had died or grown numb. "All these years," she thought. "All these long and lonely years I have showered my gardens with love. And the beauty they gave back was lovely, but so very frail and so quickly fading." She looked up to see G's gaze intent on her; startled, she suddenly knew he could hear her. How had they arrived here? How far
