The Treeline.

“Time travels so fast it’s frightening.” My grandmother always used to say, her gloved hand gesturing as she spoke. This would be how she started to scold us; my sister and I.
It would start with how quickly we had grown, how we should by now be ‘formidable young ladies’ but instead we were ‘little better than savages’. Girls who would rather spend time with a horse, playing in the dirt or exploring the forest than practising etiquette.

Than searching for a husband.

We would always accept her accusations, her complaints. Hands clasped behind our backs, pinching each other whenever she was not looking in our direction. Even at the age of thirteen we were still identical, often posing as each other simply to annoy her when Father was out of town.

Not that it ever took much to infuriate her, she shook when she was angry. In a most comedic way that caused the feathers on her hat to dance, resulting only in us finding it harder to hold back our laughs and therefore making her angrier.

Afterwards we would dash out of the room, back up to our bedroom and laugh at how red her face had become, how the vein had stood out so much in her forehead.

It is only now I can comprehend why she got so angry, why she was so desperate we stay away from the woods at the edge of Father’s land.

It took my sister’s death to make me understand.

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Inspired by the banner and Alice in Wonderland.

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