Your work

Fallowfields Widow
by
Sophie, age 15.

It was early November and the windows of Fallowfields manor were rattling against the chilling winter winds. The sky was a mottled grey and there was a slight damp in the air. This was a typical November in the village of Hauxwell, Yorkshire.

Fallowfields was once a lavish manor with many staff and beautifully well tended gardens, but now it was derelict. The stone walls were crumbling and the paint on the window panes was slowly flaking away. What was once a grand house was now a broken down ruin. However, Fallowfields was not empty.

It was once the home of the Milton family, and they had lived there for generation after generation. They were a very well respected family and they owned much of the land that Hauxwell was built on. The last Milton to live in the house was Everett Milton. Everett was a very handsome young man and also a very talented rider and huntsman. He had deep chocolate eyes like a stallion and glossy brown hair that fell just below his chiseled cheekbones. Everett was the most desired man in Hauxwell and had many of the villages most beautiful girls lusting after him. However, he knew who his bride was going to be, and was never troubled by these other girls. He knew he were to marry Tabitha. Tabitha had flame red curls that fell thickly down her back and porcelain white skin. Though she was not the classic beauty, Everett knew she was the one.

After a year of courting Tabitha, the two fell in love to the delights of their families and were wed. Everett and Tabitha lived happily in the Fallowfields manor for 25 years in what seemed like the faultless, happy marriage. They seemed to be as in love as they were on there wedding day, it was idyllic.

However, on the 26th year of their marriage, what seemed like the perfect couple was no more. Everett had passed away in the night aged just 43. The mysterious thing was, Everett had shown no visible signs of illness before this day. Tabitha told her friends that he passed away of pneumonia and she was utterly distraught. From that night on, Tabitha was left in the huge manor alone, childless and with no family.

Ten years on Tabitha was sitting in the study listening to the rain drumming on the window panes on this dreary November afternoon. She was crying silently, alone. It was ten years to the day that Everett had died, and how she wanted him back. Tabitha had always wanted children. Children to care for, children to love, but now she knew this was never to happen. Why she hadn’t thought about this before, she didn’t know. But, sometimes you just have to face the consequences of your actions.

To the people in the village, Tabitha Milton was still a beauty. She wore her still flame red hair, though now slightly greying, in a bun. It was scraped back. Neatly, simply, just like her. Her skin was still porcelain white and her rosebud lips lay intact.  She walked through Hauxwell as if she were gliding, but always with a smile on her face. She had a manner about her that made people comfortable and at ease. People thought they knew her, but they didn’t.

Now, on this tenth anniversary of her husband’s death, Tabitha walked into the kitchen to see make herself a nightcap. Out of the corner of her eye, the kitchen knife was glistening in the moonlight. The reflected light shattered around the room, it was a soothing light. Tabitha lit a candle, she didn’t like the dark and the idea of a knife lighting the room. She poured her drink, carefully and slowly. She poured a little too much into the glass, she didn’t mind. She deserved it; after all, it might help numb the pain. As she drank her drink, the tears welled up in the corners of her eyes and slowly came trickling down her cheeks. She never realised how forlorn she was.

It was a tradition that on the anniversary of Everett’s death she would visit the church in Hauxwell. Tabitha needed somewhere to think, somewhere where she could be alone, without feeling it.  She always felt guilty morning Everett’s death in a church. She felt she was being judged in church, judged for the things she did. The terrible things she did.

She stepped out of the door, onto the rain stained cobbles. It was still raining and small streams of water were trickling though the gaps in the big stones. 

The church was only over the road, towering over her house. Staring at her house.  The church was old, and the beautifully crafted windows depicting the saints were reflecting the moonlight.  Saint Bernard, Saint Andrew, they were all there. There with a look of distain in their eyes.  She pushed the big oak doors of the church open, and stepped inside. The wind was whistling through the church, an icy wind that chilled you to the bone. The priest should still be there, Tabitha hoped he was. She wanted to do a confession. She heard footsteps behind her, the priest was standing there. He was aware that Tabitha came every year on this night, so had stayed to keep an eye on her. They walked over to theconfession booth, and no words were spoken. She sat down on the hard wood seat and began to talk. Tabitha told the priest about how she wished Everett was still alive and about her yearning for children. She told him about how lonely she was and how she had no family. She told him how she thinks she may have had something to do with Everett’s death, how she hadn’t given him his medicine that night. Tabitha hated lying in church, especially in confessions. Though, god couldn’t ever forgive her for what she did, so lying won’t make much difference to her fate.  When she was talking to the priest about forgetting to give Everett his medicine, the priest looked concerned and saddened. If only he knew.

If only he knew what happened that night, the night of Everett’s death. The night that she walked into Everett’s room whilst he was sleeping with the knife. The night she looked at Everett’s beautiful face briefly, then stabbed him in the heart. If Everett could not give her a child, then what was the point of having him around any longer? Tabitha had killed Everett. Tabitha had murdered Everett. Tabitha Milton was a murderer.