Haven (Installment 1)

We were the Havinians. Your fathers were born here, as were my fathers, and our fathers' fathers. We knew nothing else. But Jane was not born here. She was from somewhere else.

The day was one of pale colors: of a warm fall turning to cool winter. Winter was my time, for I was the 12th of 12 sons named for the year and therefore called December. I could feel it on the horizon - a soft blanket of fog would come down from the mountain, the grasses would go from gold to gray and the flowers would hide in the earth. That day I went into the hills and looked to the horizon as if I could see it waiting there, and instead I saw something else.

It startled me, because seldom did anyone venture so far out, except for the wanderers who could not stand to be tethered. I could tell instantly this was not one of those. The dark form was not careless or aimless. Even from such a distance I could tell it was afflicted with some pain I had never encountered before; and just looking I felt the touch of something dangerous at the back of my brain. It was desolate and empty. It was fear, and it made the coming winter turn hostile. There would be winds that would wrack our homes, and darkness would come sooner each day until we were enveloped in continual night.

Now I could tell that the figure was moving towards me, and I at once had a strong desire for it to disappear and a magnetic fascination. It seemed to be moving much faster now, and it wasn't long till I could make out its features. She was a pale woman with blunt auburn hair to her shoulders and dark eyes. Her face was flat-ish and oval and a medium for expressions more than an object that could be beautiful or ugly in itself. Instantly I could see a heavy film of weariness over a base of habitual reason.

As soon as she was near enough to look in my eyes she stopped and put both hands up, palms out, in a peculiar gesture, and I thought she must have seen the fear in my face.