((Mood music while writing: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqGoWfEFpls))
The man's steps were accompanied by a gentle groan from the old floorboards that lined the short hallway. In the velvety darkness, with only a faint, silvery sheen from the windows, he could see the outline of his wife standing in the doorway ahead. He admired the pear-shaped figure beneath her linen shift as he crept up behind her and laid his hands on her waist.
"Shhh," breathed the woman, holding a hand up over her shoulder to keep him quiet. Obediently, he settled his chin into the crook of her neck and looked past her into the small living room of their humble home.
At the family table, a slender woman was sat in a chair. A single candle flickered near her left hand, leaving the corners of the room in shadow. She was garbed in a plain, working dress that was too large for her. A belt was looped twice around the waist to keep the hem from slipping beneath her feet. Someone had taken the time to wrangle her uneven, copper-red locks back from her face, and secured them with a small wooden comb. Her left hand rested, palm flat down, on a piece of parchment. In her right was a slender length of sharpened charcoal. She sat forward, her torso bent over the paper. Her right hand moved slowly, making a sweeping clockwise arc, and then halted and went still again.
"What is she doin', Tabby?" whispered the man.
Tabby was observing their puzzling ward with a soft, sympathetic expression. Even in the weak light from the candle, her husband could see the way her creased eyes glittered, full of compassion and wonder. "She's drawing," the woman murmured back, turning her head towards him and keeping her voice low.
"What?" came the stunned answer, followed by a deep, restrained chuckle.
"Walt," Tabby whispered again, calling his attention with his name. She waited until he had stopped laughing, and his eyes found hers, before she went on. "She's been drawing for hours. All night. I've been standing here, keeping watch on her." The woman drew in an unsteady breath. "She saw one of the pictures Annie drew - you know, when she was little? - and she just stared and stared at it. I had the thought to put a bit of parchment in front of her, and...well, it's done something. It's opened something in that head of hers."
Walt blinked his eyes and frowned, glancing over at the young woman. "What's she drawin'?"
"Faces," whispered Tabby, moving her hand to rest atop his. "Lots and lots of faces."
Something about this reply sent a shiver along Walt's spine. He pulled Tabby a little closer and held her around her middle.
The woman at the table did not seem to notice their presence. Her head moved in a peculiar little ballet of motion, sweeping very slowly from side to side. Now and then, the pencil came to life, making sudden, graceful swoops and turns along the parchment. Then it would go still again, though the slender fingers kept it stiff and poised, ready to continue.
"Faces?" Walt echoed after a few minutes. "What do you think? People she knows?"
"Maybe," murmured Tabby, leaning back into his sturdy embrace. "Or people she knew. Or people she's just thinking up in her head. Hard to say."
The red-haired woman at the table gave a sudden little spasm. Her head rolled back on her neck, and her shoulders hunched up and then fell again, as if she were shaking off some toilsome ghost that weighed heavy on her. On the paper, two large, black ovals were created with repeated, smooth swirls.
"We ought to start askin' around," Walt breathed near his wife's cheek. "Someone's got to know who she is, where she came from. If she's got people waitin' on her, worried for her?"
"You told me that Griz said he knew for certain she had no family," Tabby countered, turning her head a little to find her husband's gaze.
Walt furrowed his bristly eyebrows together. "Aye, he did. But she came from somewhere, even if her own folk are gone. Someone knows who she is."
The twin, dark orbs were framed with long, flowing streaks. Again and again, the pencil was dragged downwards, flooding the paper with a river of ebony.
"Is that one of Annie's dresses she's got on?" Walt's voice held a note of amusement, a twinge of something perhaps paternal in his words.
A line was drawn horizontally. A gently flowing arc that dipped slightly in the center, and turned down at the edges. Her left hand trembled, and then moved to touch the line with a single fingertip.
"Aye," Tabby chuckled breathily, endeavoring to keep her voice down. "It's an old one, she won't even notice that it's gone from her trunk." She watched the young woman for a long moment, tipping her head to one side. "We'll get some meat back on her bones yet. I can't even tell you how old she might be. What do you think? Not a child, certainly, though she was thin enough when you found her. Skin and bones."
Walt smiled and pressed his thin lips to his wife's hairline. "You know a man wouldn't dare make guesses about a woman's age! Not even a young lass like that."
Tabby snorted softly through her nose, but took a long moment to give the young woman and her restless pencil another examination from where she stood. "Twenty five winters or so, I would guess. Maybe even older. Hard to say, though, until she's got her health back. Hard times, sickness, grief...they can all make a body look older than what it ought." The woman pulled in a deep sigh and patted Walt's hand. "Come on then. Back to bed with you."
The man's heavy steps retreated slowly, once again hitting that weak spot in the floorboards and making them squeak. His wife remained in the doorway, with her arms crossed, diligently guarding the silent house guest.
A dozen smudgy charcoal portraits littered the table now. But the one set before her had captured her attention for the past two hours. Slowly, an inch at a time, she laid the pencil down. Both hands were set flat on either side of the parchment. She leaned over it, her head bowed so low that the ends of her hair brushed the tabletop.
Tabby watched on, and a pitying ache swelled in her chest when the nameless woman bent her head down so that her brow touched that of the unknown figure in the drawing as if she wished to pass through the thin layer like a portal, and be somewhere else.
