Page 1 of A Rugged Beauty
One
The woman wokeup to the feeling of something tickling her cheek.
When she opened her eyes, pain like a broad needle pierced inside her skull. She closed her eyes, but the pain persisted as a throbbing drum.
Little by little, it abated to a dull ache that seemed to echo the beating of her heart.
This time, she cracked her eyes first.
How much time had passed since that first awareness? She didn’t know, but now a faint shadow fell over her face. She squinted and registered the small, even leaves of a box elder sheltering her from the sunlight.
She was outdoors.
But where was she?
Her stomach twisted violently as she pushed up on one elbow, and then to a sitting position. Somehow she knew there was nothing inside her empty belly. She pressed one hand against her midsection and tried to breathe. Her mouth felt as parched as a preacher’s tongue after a long-winded sermon.
Something was wrong. She was sure of it, even as the ringing in her ears cleared away and was replaced by a bird chirping from somewhere nearby.
Scanning all directions, the unsettled feeling persisted. She seemed to be sitting beneath a copse of trees. The soft breeze and warm air might indicate it was summer. Beyond the trees and some undergrowth, there was only emptiness. As if the land was one vast prairie.
Her stomach lurched, but this time from nerves.
The sense of wrongness solidified, and she realized she could not remember her own name.
She turned her hand in front of her face, searching the light brown skin as if the shaking appendage could unlock the answer for her.
The more she pressed her mind, the bigger her headache grew. Fragments of... memories?… what must be memories pressed behind her eyes.
Her... brother. Yes!
Remembered affection flowed through her, along with relief, as her mind showed her images of a young man with black hair and laughing dark brown eyes.
Her mouth tried to form a word—his name—but the information stayed just out of reach as the pounding in her head grew so intense that she could no longer chase the thought-memory and it slipped away.
She did not know her own name. Or her brother’s.
Nor why she was outdoors in the middle of an echoing wilderness.
The blue gingham dress and dirt-smudged apron were unfamiliar to her as she patted the fabric and searched her pockets for any clue and found none.
She pushed one hand into the springy curls of her damp hair. A trickling of water nearby registered, as did a terrifying memoryof being submerged beneath surging water. The memory only lasted as long as her blink, but for that fractured second she felt trapped in a vortex of water and her body sucked in a breath to dispel the image.
What had happened? Something terrible. It must have been terrible if she was out here alone.
Was she alone?
Her brain felt sluggish and hazy but the thought lodged and stuck.
“H-hello?” Was that her voice, feeble and raspy? Had it carried any farther than the box elder standing sentinel?
Speaking reminded her of the dryness in her throat and mouth. She was so thirsty and the trickle of water rushed and rushed in her head until it was all she could hear.
Her head pounded again when she forced her shaking legs to stand, but she made it to her feet. What had happened to her?
One wobbly step, then another. Something caught her eye on the ground... it looked like someone had vomited?—
Another glance encompassed where she had been lying in proximity to the sick mottling the ground strewn with decaying leaves.
