The wind blew cold down her shoulders as she stood on the lonely cliffs above the stormy sea. The red woolen cloak she knitted him had fallen to her elbows, but she did not care. Her long hair threatened to obstruct her view, as the wind passionately pushed strands across her face. It did not matter anyway, his ship’s sails were too far in the distance for her to see.
The fluttering of his family’s emblem seemed to wave goodbye. Besides, it was not her’s to acquire, this was clear, yet she secretively pleaded. He had known her like no other. She was not the same, and never would be again. Would he turn back? Would he help her understand the rawness of these deep-reaching emotions now inside her? Did he love her, or had he merely expected she would fall? She sipped from the cup of his heart. She had loved him for all that he was and was not.Would she ever feel the same? Her hand instinctively reached for the red stone heart now wrapped about her neck. A pledge, perhaps?
She’d fashioned the chain from mismatched silver her mother had left as her dowery. She had not wanted to accept this gift, but it now adorned her neck. A silver sparrow precariously dangled from the base of the red stone heart and gently brushed the top of where her heart pounded. The heart and sparrow, his family’s emblem, exhaling raggedly. The sparrow, a sign of protection of the most profound kind, self-worth, and hard work. Her given to him the red woolen cloak, he also left for her as protection.
The heart a sign that soothes and quiets troubled thoughts. Combine the two for empowerment, renewal, and silence of the mind… She gently touched the gift its giving was to symbolize joy. The sparrow under the heart, a union, offered to grant inner strength. A symbol to help her, what? Perhaps he intended her to go about life with purpose? Oddly appropriate, she thought. She then reached down to touch her tender belly.
“How confusing this all is,” she whispered to no one. “How excitingly puzzling…” Smiling, she pulled the red woolen cloak up and turned never to look back
