Welcome to sleep stories with Steph your go-to podcast.
That offers you a calm and relaxing transition into sleep.
Into a great night's sleep.
It is time to relax and fully let go.
There is nothing you need to be doing now.
And know where you need to go.
Close your eyes.
And feel yourself sink into the support beneath you.
And let all the worries of the day go.
Drift away.
This is your time.
And your space.
Take a deep breath in through your nose.
And let it out with a long sigh.
That's it!
There is nothing you need to be doing now.
And know where you need to go.
Happy listening.
Chapter 13 A daughter of Eve.
New Moon was noted for its apples and on that first autumn of Emily's life.
There both the old and the new orchards bore a bumper crop.
In the new were the titled and pedigreed apples,
And in the old the seedlings,
Unknown to catalogues,
That yet had a flavour wildly sweet and all of their own.
There was no taboo on any apple and Emily was free to eat all she wanted of each and every kind.
The only prohibition being she must not take any to bed with her.
Aunt Elizabeth did not want her bed messed up with apple seeds,
And Aunt Laura had a horror of anyone eating apples in the dark,
Lest they might eat a worm into the bargain.
Emily therefore should have been able to fully satisfy her appetite for apples at home.
But there is an odd kink in human nature by reason of which the flavour of the apples belonging to someone else is always vastly superior to our own.
Emily,
Like most people,
Possessed this kink and consequently thought nowhere were there such delicious apples as those belonging to Lofty John.
He was in the habit of keeping a long row of them on one of the beams in his workshop.
It was understood she and Ilse might help themselves whenever they visited that charming dusty shaving carpeted spot.
Emily considered that day wasted,
Whose low-descending son had not beheld her munching one of Lofty John's big green sweets.
In the back of her mind she knew quite well she should not be going to Lofty Johns at all.
To be sure,
She'd never been forbidden to go,
Simply because it never occurred to her aunts that an inmate of New Moon could so forget the old family feud between the houses of Murray and Sullivan.
She wandered rather lonelily into his workshop one September evening at twilight.
She'd been alone since she came from school.
Her aunts and cousin Jimmy had gone to Shrewsbury,
Promising to be back by sunset.
Lucy was away also.
Her father,
Prodded thereto by Mrs Simms,
Took her to Charlottetown to get her a winter coat.
Emily liked being alone at first.
She felt quite important over being in charge of New Moon.
She ate the supper Aunt Laura left on the cookhouse dresser for her.
Then she went into the dairy and skimmed six lovely big pans of milk.
She had no business at all to do this,
But she'd always hankered to do it,
And it was a good chance not to be missed.
She did it beautifully and no one ever knew.
Each aunt supposing the other had done it.
And so she was never scolded for it.
By the time the cream was skimmed and poured into the big stone crock,
Emily didn't forget that either.
It was after sunset.
And still nobody had come home.
Emily didn't like the idea of going alone into the big dusky echoing house.
So she hired her to lofty John's shop.
Which she found unoccupied,
Though the plane,
Halted midway on a board,
Indicated Lofty John had been working there quite recently and would probably return.
Emily sat down on a round section of a huge log and looked around to see what she could get to eat.
Then she spied one.
Biggest suite she had ever seen,
All by itself on one of the steps of the stair leading up to the loft.
She climbed up,
Possessed herself of it and ate it out of hand.
She was gnawing happily at the core when Lofty John came in.
Just been in to get my supper,
He said.
The wife's away so I had to get it meself.
He fell to planing in silence.
Emily sat on the stairs counting the seeds of the big sweet potato.
You told your fortunes by the seeds,
Listening to the wind woman whistling elflishly through a knocked hole in the loft.
And composing a description of Lofty John's carpenter shop by lantern light to be written later on a letter bill.
What's become of that big sweet apple that was on the stair?
" said Lofty John,
Whirling about suddenly.
I hate it.
Stammered Emily.
Lofty John dropped his plane,
Threw up his hands and looked at her with a horrified face.
Saints preserve us,
Child.
He never ate that apple.
Don't tell me you've gone and ate that apple.
Yes,
I did.
That apple was poisoned for the rats!
They've been plaguing the life out of me here and I had my mind made up to finish their fun and now you've eaten it!
It'll kill a dozen of you in a brace of shakes.
Lofty John saw a white face in a gingham apron flash through the workshop and out into the dark.
Emily's first wild impulse was to get home before she dropped dead.
She tore across the field,
Through the bush and the garden and dashed into the house.
It was still silent and dark.
No one was home yet.
She gave a bitter little shriek of despair.
When they came they would find her stiff and cold,
Black in the face likely.
Everything in this dear world ended for her forever.
All because she'd eaten an apple which she thought was perfectly welcome to eat.
It wasn't fair.
She didn't want to die.
Hands shaking in panic.
She got a candle lighted.
It wasn't quite so bad then.
You could face things in the light then.
But suddenly she felt terribly alone.
Would it hurt to die?
She had a vague idea poison did hurt you awfully.
Just a little while ago she'd been so happy.
She thought she was going to live for years and write great poems and be famous.
Something rose up in her and took possession,
Some inheritance from the good old stock behind her.
She ceased to tremble and accepted her fate with bitter regret.
But calmly.
I don't want to die,
She said,
But since I'll have to die as becomes a Murray,
I shall die,
She said.
He'd read a similar sentence in a book and it came pat to the moment.
And now she must hurry.
The letter to Ilse must be written.
Emily went to Aunt Elizabeth's room first.
She assured herself the right-hand top bureau drawer was quite tidy.
Then she flitted up the garret stairs to her dormer window.
The great place was full of lurking,
Pouncing shadows that crowded about the little island of faint candlelight.
But they had no terrors for Emily now.
And to think I was feeling so bad today because my petticoat was bunchy,
She thought.
As she got out one of her dear little letter bills.
DLC.
Wrote Emily,
Her hands shaking a little,
But her lips firmly set.
I am going to die.
I've been poisoned by an apple Lofty John put out for rats.
I will never see you again.
But I'm writing this to tell you I love you and you're not to feel bad because you called me a skunk and a bloodthirsty mink yesterday.
I forgive you,
So do not worry over it.
And I'm sorry I told you you were beneath contempt.
Because I didn't believe a word of it.
I leave you all my share of the broken dishes in our playhouse and please tell Teddy goodbye for me.
He will never be able to teach me how to put worms on a fish hook now.
I promised him I would learn because I did not want him to think I was a coward.
But I'm glad I did not.
I know what the worm feels like.
I do not feel sick yet,
But I don't know what the symptoms of poisoning are.
And lofty John said there was enough to kill a dozen of me.
So I can't have long to live.
If Aunt Elizabeth is willing,
You can have my necklace of Venetian beads.
It's the only valuable possession I have.
Don't let anyone do anything to Lofty John,
Because he did not mean to poison me.
It was my own fault for being so greedy.
Perhaps people will think he did it on purpose because I'm a Protestant,
But I feel sure he didn't.
I think I feel a pain in my stomach now,
So I guess that's the end draws nigh.
Farewell and remember her who died so young.
Your own devoted Emily.
As Emily folded up her letter bill,
She heard the sound of the wheels in the yard below.
A moment later Elizabeth and Laura Murray were confronted in the kitchen by a tragic faced little creature grasping a guttering candle in one hand and a red letter bill in the other.
"'Emily,
What is the matter?
' cried Aunt Laura.
" I'm dying,
Said Emily solemnly.
I ate an apple Lofty John poisoned for rats.
I have only a few minutes to live.
Laura Murray dropped down on the black bench with her hand at her heart.
Elizabeth turned as pale as Emily herself.
Emily,
Is this some play-acting of yours?
She demanded sternly.
No,
Quite Emily,
Quite indignantly,
It's the truth.
Do you suppose a dying person will be play-acting?
Aunt Elizabeth,
Will you please give this letter to Ilse and forgive me for being naughty?
Though I wasn't always naughty when you thought I was.
And don't let anyone see me after I'm dead if I turn black.
Especially Rhoda Stewart.
By this time,
Aunt Elizabeth was herself again.
How long ago is it since you ate that apple?
About an hour.
If you'd eaten a poisoned apple,
You'd be dead or sick by now.
Then Emily transformed in a second.
A wild sweet hope sprang up in her heart.
There was a chance for her after all.
But I felt another pain in my stomach just as I came downstairs.
Laura?
Said Aunt Elizabeth,
Take this child out to the cookhouse and give her a good dose of mustard and water at once.
It'll do no harm and may do some good if there's anything in this yarn of hers.
I'll see Lofty John on the way.
I'm going down to the doctor's.
Aunt Elizabeth went out very quickly.
If it had been anyone else,
It might have been said she ran.
As for Emily.
.
.
Aunt Laura gave her the short order and two minutes later Emily had no doubt at all she was dying there and then.
The sooner the better.
Mustard and water she did not like.
When Aunt Elizabeth returned,
Emily was lying on the sofa in the kitchen as white as the pillow under her head.
Wasn't the doctor home?
Cried Aunt Laura.
I don't know,
" said Aunt Elizabeth.
There's no need of the doctor.
I didn't think there was from the first.
This was one of Lofty John's jokes.
I did have a pain in my stomach,
Wailed Emily.
In whom fright and mustard and water combined had temporarily extinguished all spirit.
Anyone who eats apples from dawn to dark must expect a few pains in her stomach.
You won't have any more tonight,
I reckon the mustard will remedy that.
Now take your candle and go upstairs.
I hate that dog-dusted lofty John.
Said both aunts together.
He deserves it,
" said Emily.
That dreadful word you used!
" said Aunt Laura.
What's the matter with dog gusted?
" said Emily,
Quite mystified.
Cousin Jimmy uses it often when things vex him.
Emily,
Said Aunt Elizabeth with the air of one impaling herself on the easiest horn of a dilemma.
Your cousin Jimmy is a man and men sometimes use expressions in the heat of anger that are not proper for little girls.
Worn out,
Emily fell asleep as soon as she got into bed.
But an hour later she wakened.
Aunt Elizabeth had not yet come up,
So the blind was still high.
Emily saw a dear,
Friendly star winking down at her.
Far away the sea moaned alluringly.
It was nice just to be alone and to be alive.
Life tasted good again.
She could have a chance to write more letter bills and poetry.
She could play with Ilse and Teddy.
She could scour the barns with saucy sow,
Watch Aunt Laura skim cream in the dairy,
And help Cousin Jimmy in the garden.
But she would never go to Lofty John's workshop again.
She felt so indignant with him for frightening her after they'd been such good friends too.
She could not go to sleep until she composed an account of her death by poison,
Of Lofty John being tried for her murder and condemned to death.
And of his being hanged on a gibbet as lofty as himself.
Then when she had finally cut him down and buried him.
The tears streaming down her face out of sympathy for Mrs.
Lofty John.
She would forgive him.
And very likely he was not dog-gasted after all.
She wrote it all down on a letter bill in the garret.
The very next day.
