Henry

Prolugue:

“Let me hold your hand a few minutes longer. Let me feel your breath on my neck. Let me understand the inner workings of your mind, and most of all let me see you as you truly are,” He whispered to her in the dark, misty hours of the morning.

The young maiden made no reply, but stepped a way. She knew when dawn came, the young man in front of her would leave forever and her heart would be broken beyond repair.

He would no longer be the man she loved when he returned home from war. Henry would be changed; no one stayed the same when their eyes have seen bloodshed and death. He turned to step away, but never meant to leave her seating in the cold.

Eli did not know whether to kiss him goodbye or run away. It as so many other things was unfair. Her throat hurt so bad she could not speak and when she finally was able to she knew it was only to say “don’t leave me.”

“I will never leave you; it is just a long goodbye. Here take this,” Henry’s soft voice calmed her fears for a few moments and his hands gently found their way around her neck leaving a string with a cross on it.

He held her as long as he could, before the skyline became bright and brought the two back to their rooms in separate houses. Unsure of where they would go from here or whether they would meet again. Eli sat on the edge of her bed for a long time, worries filled her mind and when Issa came to wake her Eli quickly wiped the tears from her eyes and went down to breakfast.

Chapter One:

Time passed, first days then months and still nothing from Henry. No news from the front, sometimes little pieces of the battles would be heard from soldiers making their way through town. Sometimes at the table Eli would over hear bits from her father's reading or from what the other men in town talked about, but she was mostly left in the dark.

Then one cold afternoon in November news came, in the form of a letter from Henry. It did not say much, just that he was doing well and that fighting was terrible at the front.