If The Moon Fell Down Tonight

After nodding to Jake, you rushed down the hall, your heart thumping. You could not get the look of the Lady’s face from your mind: the way that her eyes lit up and how she had smiled. Although she hadn’t said a word of thanks, you knew that in her own, stuck up kind of way that she had thanked you silently. But she apparently had something much worse than just a simple cold. Maybe the people around here got the flu much harder than people back home. Back home. Where you wanted to be. Where the people you loved were. All the feelings returned and you found yourself slouching against a wall, bawling your eyes out. You cried for your parents, you cried for your friends, and you cried for yourself. The one person that you actually felt close to that was here had disappeared. Luke had vanished off the face of the Earth. You hadn’t seen him, heard from him, or been given any information to where he went. It was all so confusing. All you wanted to do was go home.

~~Jake’s POV~~

After Jacelen left the room, Mother motioned me to come over. She had already finished the soup and was working on the potato.

“Now listen here, Jake; I want you to find a suitable wife and I think that I have found the perfect one. Now I don’t want you to think that just because she is a house servant that she is too lowly for you, but I think you should consider Jacelen. She seems like a very nice girl. Plus, she can cook! And who does not want a wife that can cook!” Mother said happily, shoveling the potato into her mouth. I could see her strength returning by the mouthful.

“But Mother I am only sixteen! Why do we have to make these plans now?” I fake-whined, knowing very well that it would only make Mother press the matter harder, which was exactly what I wanted.

“Well nobody said that we had to wait till you were eighteen.”

When she said that I froze. All time froze. All my life it had always been, “you will wait until you are eighteen”, blah blah blah. Now Mother had just fast-forwarded my life by two years.

“What do you mean,” I said slowly, analyzing every word.

“I mean that you don’t have to get married when you are eighteen…you could get married when you are seventeen. That’s when I married your father,” she stated simply, stuffing carrots in her mouth.

I stared open mouthed at her, but she didn’t seem to notice. She just motioned for the servant to come and refill her water glass. After taking a long sip, she continued.

“I was thinking that you could marry Jacelen, in oh, say a year, and she could bare a child for you by the time she was 20. That’s three years, Jake. You’re lucky we didn’t marry you off when you were 14 like other families. It is very unusual to let the son pick the wife, usually it is the parents. But we want you to be happy, so we are letting you have a say in all of this.”

A say? A say?! Yeah, Mom, I really want to get married now.

I shut my open mouth and stood silent. After a moment she looked at me, slightly confused, and waved her hand, motioning that I was dismissed. I quickly walked out of the room, trying to get away from her before she changed her mind and set the marriage date to tomorrow. This new ‘you don’t have to wait until you are eighteen’ thing was completely ruining my plans for Jacelen. I wanted to take it nice and slow, make sure that she liked me and would be happy with me. But apparently I would have to take action now and not in a few months as I had originally planed.

You see, I had figured giving Jacelen a couple months to adjust to this new lifestyle. Then, after a while, I would have her start doing personal things for me, such as cleaning my room and doing my laundry. I would gradually ask my parents for permission to have her as my personal servant, so I could be around her all the time. Then when I thought she had developed feelings for me, I would talk to her about a future marriage. Though all of this would take over a years time; not 6 months. I would have to start planning, and soon.