Aven, rough draft, part I

Every morning, young Aven’s women dressed her in gowns made of smooth silk and lace that ballooned to her feet. They curled and pinned up her glowing gold hair. They shined her shoes and ironed her stockings. Every evening, Aven would return from running around the estate grounds and romping through the nearby woods with her silk dress torn and streaked with thick, black mud, her hair falling down around her face, and her shoes scuffed (or sometimes missing). Her women would toss her in the tub and scrub her from head to toe. She’d sometimes be denied dinner and sent straight to bed. Bright and early with the sunrise, Aven’s routine would begin again.

Aven liked to smile. She liked to look you in the eye, and hold your gaze as though your eyes were her very own to manipulate. Looking someone in the eye affected them; whether it made them think you wanted them or you disapproved of them, it affected them nonetheless. She thought that showing the whiteness of her teeth was like showing the centers of her eyes. She liked to do that as well. Even at such a young age, Aven knew her power over others. She knew that all she needed to do was lift her crystal eyes at another being to make them nervously grin, grit their teeth, or leave the room as though a gust of hurricane wind blew them from sight. Just like that.

Aven had no mother. The mother she was supposed to have died while giving birth to Aven. Her father raised her in an estate surrounded by woods on all sides. A small dirt road, nearly unable to be traveled, led to the estate, and due to its excessive bumpiness, few people visited. The only people surrounding Aven attempted to influence her development by holding a stick over her head, leading to short, even steps when they were watching and running and knocking things down when they looked away.

Now, Aven is 16. Aven sits with her right ankle perched on her left knee, her lacy underskirts visible and frothing around her legs and feet. Her palms face the ceiling in her silky gray lap. Lacework extends midway down the tops of her hands that are pressed into her lap and partially up her arms before the gray silk begins again, hugging her arms and smoothed up across her chest. Pearls adorn the collar of her dress just below her collarbones. Sun-kissed skin unfolds from beneath the dress and up into her face - high cheekbones, rosebud lips, small pointed nose, and gray-blue eyes in stark contrast to her tanned skin. Where one expects to see neatly combed and tucked hair, maybe in braids wound around her head, one finds a shock of short golden red hair tussled on top of her head. Aven sits at the far end of the ornate room full of hunter green and royal blue and shimmering gold. The rest of the people in the room sit at an oblong mahogany table in the center of the room. They discuss Aven, and they decide that a holiday to her great aunt’s house is an excellent solution.

Yes, there have been boys whenever there is one around. He may be a stable hand with the smell of manure all over him or a cook with chicken guts on his hands – it did not matter to Aven. It isn’t as though Aven is a nymphet; more accurately, boredom inhabits her very veins, a boredom she and everyone else hoped would pass with emerging from adolescence; but, as Aven sees it, nothing in or about her life changed as she moved beyond adolescence. Her responsibilities – or lack thereof – remained the same; her interactions with other families and friends stayed just as minimal as before. In fact, emerging from adolescence caused Aven to behave in what her elders would label “rebellious.” The random boys bored Aven more than ever so she took to more public and visually shocking behavior – witty interruptions at the dinner table, not caring for her expensive gowns and in fact sometimes recreating her gowns by cutting off parts or layers, and finally to her most recent feat, chopping off her long and flowing hair. Aven thought that to get anything to change around here, she needed to draw immediate attention and response, and her choices proved successful as now, she is able to go away for a short holiday. Of course, her superiors do not find Aven’s going away to be an award; rather, they see it as a punishment: being sent to a small house with far less luxury and accessibility. No stable hands there. Great Aunt Ida does everything herself and will most likely force Aven to do the same. The girl needs to learn some responsibility, they mutter.

As Aven waits for the carriage to draw around to the front of the house, she sits on the wide steps that form matching right angles with the stone walls that hold up the roof over the doorway. That’s where Aven sits – in the doorway and out of the rain. She watches the fat raindrops plop on the steps just before her toes. It’ll be nice to be away from all this rain. Depending on which direction the rain has moved this fall, Great Aunt Ida’s house is either far enough south that the rain has almost certainly passed over the south already or is still far enough north that it will not arrive at Great Aunt Ida’s cottage until the end of Aven’s stay. Aven wears a plain wool dress today with sturdy dark shoes instead of slippers. She feels much more comfortable in this dress than the silk ones, but she’d still rather wear boy’s pants tucked into boots than a heavy old dress that limits her movement so. Childish, they say. She’s so childish. Really, Aven just likes to do things herself. She likes to use her hands, and she hates being waited on.

She hears the wagon sloshing through the puddles on the side of the house – a huge stone mansion with small square windows dotting the front and sides. Aven stands and smooths the front of her dress before her tall, slim figure darts down through the rain to enter the carriage; the carriage driver doesn’t even have time to walk to her with an umbrella.