The man at the door

It did not take long for everybody, except Mike, to join us at the table. Mother came out with dinner and we all started serving ourselves our first helping. Father said grace then we all started eating.

Mother made fish stew as the main course tonight. Mike had asked her to make this for dinner tonight. That was probably why she gave him a punishment that would make him miss dinner. She knew he had been looking forward to this so taking it away would serve as a good reminder to him to follow the rules next time. She wasn't heartless, though she had said he could reheat some later. We also had Rosemary bread with strawberry jam on the side and some nice herbal tea to drink. It was delicious. Mom had made the strawberry jam a few days ago and father had baked the bread this morning. The tea was made with herbs that I had found earlier in the day, so it was also very fresh.

The atmosphere at dinner was very relaxed as always. There was very little talking, not because something was wrong. Other than Mike's empty chair everything was normal. It have been a bit more quiet because he was miss tho. He and I were the most chatty people in the family, but today I was far too concentrated on dinner to carry a conversation for long.

As we were eating, there was a knock on the door. Everyone stopped eating immediately. No one thought for a second that it was Mike. Mike would never, ever knock. In fact, we never knocked on the door. It was our own home, so why would we? We knew right away something was off.

In my entire 11 years of life no one other than my family has ever come to our forest or our mountain. My mother looked at my father with panic in her eyes. Then my father got up from his chair and went to the door. He then opened it slowly.

I had never seen anyone outside of my family before. It was a surprise to there was a hair color, other than blonde and brown! He had slicked back black hair that went down to his shoulders and was wearing a fancy looking blue jacket with gold buttons. His pants were white, but there was mud clinging to there ankles making him look less regal than I think he wanted to.

"I am here under the authority of Lord Gifford Stephen Wiggins under whose protection this land is. We have come To inform any able bodied young men to come join in the war effort. Your family seems to have…" he paused for a second and looked at a scroll in his hand. "four such individuals and we require them to present themselves at the Lords estate in one week."

"There must be some kind of mistake. We are not under any Lords protection. This is considered floating territory free from any Lord." Said my father.

"These are war times it is not that time to dispute land claim. Even if you're not under my Lord protection, you would still be subjected to a call to arms." he stated in a hottie tone. "if the threat of war is not enough to get you to put aside these concerns about whether or not you are under my Lord's protection, you can dispute it with him in a week at his estate." the man then bowed and walked away.

My father just stood in the doorway, staring daggers at the man's back as he went. Shortly after the man left Mike ran up to my father in the doorway and asked him, "Who was that?! What's going on?" Mike must have seen the man while he was chopping wood and that would have prompted him to follow him. Honestly if I were in his place I would have done the same.

My father just turned around, ignoring him, and gave my mother a worried look. She returned it in kind.

"Mike grab yourself some dinner. I don't care if you finish chopping the wood yet or not. Everyone else get ready for bed. Your father and I have to talk." my mother said trying to keep the panic off her face. Father nodded in agreement with her words.

Ray, Ben, and I silently stood up and headed off to do as we were told. Mike grumbled under his breath and headed into the kitchen to get himself some dinner I don't think he was as excited for fish stew as he once was. Mother and father went off to their room and I heard the lock click behind them. They usually only locked the door to their bedroom on Sundays and today was not a Sunday. This farther confirmed that something was wrong.

I let Ray and Ben use the out house first then I went to use it myself. The sun had yet to set completely so I was still able to use the out house instead of the chamber pot. I was grateful for this because this ment I was probably not end up needing to clean the chamber pot in the morning. It was not a pleasant task, so it made me appreciate the early bedtime. I also was enjoying the short walk out back.

I may seem odd that I was enjoying anything in this situation, but I learned a long time ago that life's small joys are what keep you going. In short I was trying to be positive. Deep down inside I was a worried mess and I was already anticipating a sleepless night ahead of me, but for now I was just going to focus on putting one foot in front of the other and nothing else.

As I had predicted, sleep escaped me that night. I did not get a single minute of sleep. I spent that whole night stuck in my own head. I would think about one problem we would have to face due to this situation, spend forever coming up with a solution. Only to have a new problem come to me and the whole process repeated itself over and over again. I was quite literally worrying myself sick. This process the both physically and mentally drained to a the point of pain.

This wasn't the first time something like this had happened to me. Normally I would have woken up someone to help me calm down. When I became like this it was impossible for me to stop it myself. It didn't take much to stop it usually I would just sit with someone on the couch and drink a warm cup of tea and shortly afterwards I would fall asleep on the couch.

After what had happened earlier though I could not bring myself to leave my room. It left like my room was a world of its own and the second I stepped beyond the threshold of my door, reality would come and swallow me whole!

So I stayed in my room, past first light until someone opened my door for me.