I looked down at the boots I had stolen. When I'd picked them up they'd been shiny black rubber. Now they were caked with a rich brown mud. The soles were disappearing in the muck with each step I took. I reveled in the squishing, squelching sound as I removed my foot and tromped again. I had always had such heightened auditory senses. I appreciated the seasons for their unique sounds: birds chirping in the summer, the infinitesimal sizzling of the sun on asphalt; the crunch and crackle of leaves and fire in the fall. I adored the audible silence of snow on snow, small animals breathing, the chomping noise of walking through a field of white in winter. In spring it was the mud. The mud and the movement of the trees as they pushed forth new and beautiful blossoms. I was very fond of the newness.
My arms were swinging in my sleeves, brushing against the top of my pants. The coat didn't belong to me, either. It was a dark wool exterior with a crimson satin liner. I loved the smooth swish of my arms against the fabric as I moved. For a change, I twirled my arms like windmill blades and listened to the zipping noise it produced. I wished I were as powerful as a windmill. I looked down at my small hands: punctuation marks on a short, slight frame. There was mud on the hem of the jacket, and lining the fingernails on my left hand. I didn't remember falling, but anything could have happened in the night. It had been such an incomprehensible blur. I swallowed the clouded memory and kept squishing along.
I didn't know where I was going. I had inadvertently run into the marsh in my desperation to escape the bad men. My brother had told me horses didn't do so good in the mud. He was always making things up, but this morsel of advice I chose to believe. If he was right, I figured I'd be home free. If he was wrong, well, I'd just end up in the orphanage right alongside him. That couldn't be the worst fate, could it? I shook this thought away and soldiered on.
Somewhere to my right I heard the rhythmic croak of a bullfrog. I squinted through the swamp trees and growth for the noisy amphibian, but had no luck. I wished I could camouflage myself with such ease. There was no telling who would spot me struggling through the mud, sticking out in my stolen wool coat like a black sheep in a flock of white. I hunched my narrow shoulders and kept my head down. Maybe my cap of dark brown curls would deceive any onlookers. Maybe they'd think I was just another weed.
After some distance, I heard the crackling and popping of a fire. I wondered first how anyone would start a fire burning in these wet conditions. I lifted my head and sniffed the air. It was a cooking fire. I detected the scent of melted butter curling around an air fowl as it floated on the breeze to meet me. I took a deep breath and redirected my footsteps so I would eventually come up on the food. I walked with my head back and my eyes closed, following the sounds of the spit and the scent of the vittles. I was so distracted by the enticing odor, I failed to notice the scent of dust and wood that suggested I was about to walk face-first into a cabin.
I did just that. There was a tremendous thud, and an uncomfortable throbbing in my nose that caused me to stumble backwards. The heel of the over-sized boot caught on a nearby root or rock, and I fell through the air like an axed tree. Timber! I thought as I landed heavily on my bottom in a sodding pool of mud. The goop splashed noisily before rocking back into place, hugging my body like porridge to the spoon. The very thought of food made my stomach tighten and ache once more. I felt my eyes smart with the pain and the humiliation of my situation. I wrapped my small fingers in a fist and was just about to punch the mud in defeat, when a voice distracted me.
"Eh, there's no use doing that. Gimme your hand before you muck it up," she said. I looked up into her soil-black eyes and gaped. She was the most beautiful creature I'd ever seen, and she had one arm stretched out to me. The other was holding up the hem of a long, blue skirt, so as to not let it drag in the marsh mud. I looked quickly down at my own clothes, and again felt miserably embarrassed. Without a word, I reached up and watched as she wrapped her capable hand around mine and lifted me effortlessly out of the mud.
