Cut Off
Tyton
I’d been on edge ever since Devina’d moved away. She had warned me this would happen, but the pain of being cut off was still gnawing at me every time I thought about it, which was all the fucking time.
I missed her letters with our daily discussions about the story line in the book and the cultural differences between Northlanders and Motlanders. It was entertaining to me how little she understood about us Nmen, and all our correspondence had made me reflect on things that I always took for granted.
She had assumed that I’d be angry with her for moving away and she was right. She had left me powerless on this side of the wall with no way to reach her. Even though all her arguments about why we could never be together were valid, I wasn’t ready to accept it.
Devina was the most spectacular woman I’d ever met and living the rest of my life without any contact with her was not an option for me. That’s why, after reading her goodbye, I’d roared out my despair, crumpled up her letter, and known one thing for sure: on December 30thwhen she would be back one last time to close up her house, I’d be waiting on her doorstep!
Without her daily letters it felt like a part of me had been amputated. Several times a day, I stopped what I was doing and looked in the direction of the wall. It was always the same strong pull to see if by some miracle a letter was waiting for me. Ten days had gone by with my checking at least three times a day. Nothing!
By now, it felt torturous to get my hopes up only to have them crushed over and over again.
With my head bowed and my chest tight from missing Devina, I was walking back from another unsuccessful visit to the border when shouting voices and the sound of glass splintering made me stop for a split second before I set off into a full sprint.
Inside the house, I saw Frederick smashing another glass against the wall while screaming.
My dad looked just as agitated as Frederick and my mom sat on the couch bent over with her hands in her hair while Starr was rubbing her back.
“What’s going on?”
Fredericks’s nostrils were flaring when he turned to me. Holding up a hand he gestured that he was too amped-up to speak.
“What the fuck is going on?” I repeated, and this time Starr answered me with tears dripping down her cheeks. “It’s King Jeremiah.” Her eyes fell to a ripped-up letter on the floor.
I picked it up and put it together to read it.
Starr’s voice broke, “It came today. I already talked to Marni, Claire, and Wilma. They all got the same letter.”
“But what does it mean?”
Frederick sneered out loud, “It means the sick fucker has decided he wants a wife and every husband of a beautiful young woman is in danger.”
My eyebrows drew close together as I read the letter again. “He’s saying that he claims the right to marry a woman should she become a widow.”
My mom’s crying intensified.
“But that’s not how it works,” I exclaimed and looked to my dad. “A widow has the right to choose her own husband.”
“Since when did King Jeremiah let laws stop him from getting his way?”
My mom lifted her head. “No woman in her right mind would ever choose him. He’s mentally unstable and his breath alone is enough to make people keep a distance.”
Frederick paced the floor. “Did you see how he ogled Starr at the tournament? If he decides he wants her, I’m a dead man.”
My dad stood with his feet spread and his arms crossed. “It was the same with Claire and Wilma. He wants a young wife so he can have an heir.”
“Then he should have fucking competed in a tournament when he was younger,” Frederick stopped and growled while I fisted my hands.
“No woman deserves to be forced into marriage. I would rather die than marry him.” Starr kept rubbing my mom’s back.
I wasn’t married myself, but this affected my whole family. Holding out the pieces of the letter, I looked to my brother. “Did you talk to anyone about it?”
Frederick gave a short nod. “The others are on their way.”
Within the next hour the house filled up, with my three sisters and their husbands adding their voices to the speculations that within a year King Jeremiah would arrange for a beautiful young woman to become a widow.
