About this story
You play Sybylla Melvyn, who sets a hidden page of writing aside whenever her mother comes into the kitchen. Your father rides to town for flour and comes back without it. Then a post rider brings a letter from Caddagat — your aunt offers months of green country, lessons and company, and the wagon has already started. One condition is underlined: bring everything you have written.
Who you’ll meet
Lucy Melvyn, the mother who reads the offer that sends her daughter away, flanked by the husband who came home empty and the younger sister who is guiltily glad it is not her.
How it opens
Gertie MelvynThe heat is pressing the iron roof down upon us again.
Lucy MelvynThe water cask is lower than yesterday, and the cows still need it.
You set aside a hidden page of writing before your mother entered the kitchen.
Outside, the paddocks had faded from brown to a color almost without a name.
Choose
I will take the buckets to the lower dam.
The children should stay out of this heat.
Father promised to repair the tank today.