Tuesday Tales: From the Word HEAVY

Well, October’s here. So far, we’ve had cool nights and warm days, with a sprinkling of frost and fog in low-lying areas, but on the whole, the weather is good. This week, the authors at Tuesday Tales are writing to the word prompt HEAVY. The word reminds me of a Hollies’s song popular my first year of university when I met my husband, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s my Brother.” That must have been on my mind when I wrote this scene. I’m a few words over, so bear with me, but I wanted to finish the scene. Here is this week’s peek from The Bonds of Time.

While Meg had grown more and more protective of late, Sam missed her. The woman had been her anchor in a storm-tossed sea that had almost overwhelmed them both with grief. She’d leaned heavily on her, perhaps more so than she should have, especially after her release from the hospital. That made this rushing off into the sunset to save who knew whom from who knew what not only unlike her, but far from the most logical thing for her to do. She’d always been so level-headed, and yet given everything that had happened, who could claim logic even existed anymore?

She let her mind drift back to the events that had brought her to this place, alone for what had to be the first time in her life.

Five months earlier, newly granted diploma in hand, Sam had been looking forward to joining her parents’ team on their dig in Barnenez, Brittany, when she’d been struck with appendicitis. Surgery had delayed her trip, and just after her release from the hospital, her parents had been killed in a freak earthquake that had buried the newly discovered archeological site under tons of heavy rubble. Not even the strongest machines could make any headway, as the tunnels they dug collapsed before they could use them.

Sam had spoken to her mother only hours before the accident. Catherine O’Hare had been so excited. Keltoi Manor, the home she had left over thirty years ago to marry her Irish lover, a crime for which her father had never forgiven her, was hers again. What a wonderful surprise to discover that her Uncle William, her mother’s twin brother whom Catherine had met only twice, hadn’t disowned her as expected but had left her everything! She was Lady Catherine! All sins were forgiven, and she could finally go home, go back to the place where she was meant to be. Something about the mysterious uncle and the unexpected inheritance seemed to good to be true, and when Sam voiced her concerns, her mother had laughed.

“There you go, darling, seeing boggarts in the closets again. It’s a gift inherited from your dad’s grandmother. Now, get the rest the doctor ordered, and we will see you next month. These ruins have been here for more than 7,000 years; they are not going to vanish overnight. We can all go to Keltoi together when you get here. Dad sends his love.”

But they had vanished. Buried beneath tons of rock and earth, Kevin and Catherine had become victims of the catastrophe and would never see their daughter nor England again.

Don’t forget to check out the other Tuesday Tales.