My Mind is Made Up

© 2014 Mr. David R. Dorrycott

Chapter Three

Morning truly had proven interesting, I watched from the rough bed as the two older sisters washed and dressed. Mary was the older, her husband having died in a farm related accident, one that in my time would have only meant a few days in a regeneration vat. He had lost a leg to a horse drawn tiller and before they could get him to medical aid with nothing more than a horse drawn wagon he had bled to death, thankfully not in Mary’s arms. She didn’t even have a child to remember him by, they had been planning for after the next harvest, a harvest that never came.

Charollett was the odd one, at least so far. She was intelligent, not much in the looks department as Mary and I got the looks, but she was a wiz in school. A senior in the local High School, no one could touch her in any class, she even spoke French well enough to be comfortable in it. French, a language only father had any experience in, having served in ‘The Great War.’ Hah, and if he had ever seen the third world war he would have understood that the Great War, or World War One as my history texts called it, was nothing but a pity party, I had watched surviving films of it. World Ward Three, the last possible world war. Eight billion dead in two days, now that was a horrible war and one started for completely religious reasons with no one the winner. Entire nations had been wiped out to the last citizen, small nations in most cases yes, but India and China were the most populous and had thus been the biggest targets.

Mary helped mother in the kitchen while Charollett had classes to attend. Little Heather, as the memories informed me, was struggling in school. She might even be held back this year, seeing as she, or I, was failing miserably in Math, History and Science. That I intended to change, starting today, or so I thought. As ‘my’ two sisters busied themselves with dressing, the act informing me what and how I was supposed to do, I slipped out of bed and started my own morning ablations, only to fall on my butt with a thud as my legs gave out. My sisters returned quickly at the sound, found me sitting on the floor legs akimbo while leaning against the rough bed that was mine. At the sight both laughed, then helped me back in bed.

“You dear sister, will be weeks getting healthy” Charollett warned me. “Now take things easily, in time you will be back to normal.”

“But I am missing school” I complained, causing both young women to look at their youngest sister, that would be me, as though she had grown wings.

“But you hate schooling” Charollett countered. “Why you have said so many times, that a woman only needs to keep house and family.”

Heather’s memory informed me that this was true, though the reasons for these thoughts were her overly religious grandmother’s teachings, ones that a lazy Heather had used as an excuse. Since I had decided that marriage, no, even boys were no longer a part of Heathers future, thus my future, I had to gain an education acceptable to this era’s rules. Otherwise I would be finding myself married off to some barely educated farmhand as a baby farm and that image was enough to make my stomach turn. “Bring me my school books and the work that Mrs. Martin has assigned, along with whatever else she assigns until I am well enough to attend again” I asked Charollett. “I have changed, I wish to become truly educated like you Charollett.”

From the sisters expressions it was obvious to me that this was something Heather would never say, so I buffered the shock a bit. “I almost drowned, had I known how to swim I would have never been in danger, I realized that as the water fought to hold me. If that one bit of knowledge would have made me safe, what else is there to know that might make me all the safer?” It was a stretch, I knew that but these were country girls, Charollett’s education would never have gotten her past the second grade in my time, in my reality, but here. Here she was a well educated young lady, thus making her acceptable in much wider circles than a simple, uneducated farmers daughter such as Heather was. Studying would also tell me a great deal about this new world that I was living in, especially its society and history.

“Very well Heather” Charollett agreed, “I will see her after my last class, now lay back and heal.”

After Mary carefully tucked me in the two left, talking softly to each other, wonderful. Now their sister Heather, that would be me, was ‘touched.’