Dancing In The Hawthorns

The hawthorn blooms of May fluttered lightly in the breeze, as a little girl ran cheerily up the grass hill surrounding the tree painted in pink.

She was not wealthy, yet little Aubrey Hawthorne still thought of herself as the luckiest girl in London.
Like all youths, Aubrey was carefree. Innocent? Perhaps not considering the hundreds of plague stricken dead bodies she had seen on the streets.


She sat at the foot of the tree as a big gust of wind swooped by. The hawthorns danced, caught in the wind, flying in dazzling patterns around her hair, but not one daring to land on her fair skin. Despite her grass stained frock, Aubrey felt like a princess of the blossoms. She stood up and twirled around, matching the pace of the floral jewels, but as they had been torn from the trees, so they left, carried away by the sky’s breath.

“Aubrey?”

It was Sarah, her best friend. She came from a wealthy family who did not approve of her poor friend.

“What would you like to do today?” Aubrey asked enthusiastically,

Sarah smiled, her bonnet falling uneven,“I’d like to play a game.”

As Sarah explained the rules to Aubrey she listened intently. She had heard of the game before.

“And when we’re done it should feel like I’m being lifted off to heaven,” Sarah finished, getting into position, lying with her arms crossed over her chest, eyes closed. Aubrey placed two fingers under her head and chanted softly.

“Light as a feather, stiff as a board.” It didn’t seem to work. Aubrey had an uneasy feeling on the inside. The blossoms stood motionless. The hawthorns could feel it too.
It wasn’t long before Sarah found out about Aubrey’s mother, and the red welts lining her skin. But although begged not to, she told her parents anyway.

Through a small crack in their boarded window Aubrey saw Sarah leave in her carriage, a rose pressed against her nose, protecting her from the fate that was to come to all of them; Death.

After tending to her mother’s sick body for days she woke to find that her room was empty and the window, formerly boarded, was streaming in sunlight. Although worried about her mother’s whereabouts her ill mind took no time pondering.

Instead she ran, fast albeit woozily through the meadow and up the hill, all the way to the tree in bloom. She paid no mind to the darkness lingering at the back of her mind, or the bile rising in her throat.

She laid herself down gently, crossing her welted arms on her chest. She knew it would work this time. It would have to.

“Light as a feather, stiff as a board,” She whispered. And it was working. She could feel her dying body leaving the ground, and flying high into the sky. She was where she belonged, caught in a gust with the pink hawthorns of May encircling her skin.

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