Welcome to sleep stories with Steph your go-to podcast.
That offers you a calm and relaxing transition.
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 6 Downstairs,
Everyone was waiting for Emily.
She said goodbye to Ellen Green rather indifferently.
She had never liked Ellen Green at any time.
And since the night Ellen told her her father was going to die,
She now hated her.
Ellen amazed Emily by bursting into tears and hugging her.
Begging her not to forget her and asking her to write to her too.
She even called her my blessed child.
I'm not your blessed child,
Said Emily.
But I will write to you,
And will you be very good to Mike?
I believe you'll feel worse overleaving the cat than you do overleaving me.
Sniffed Ellen.
Course I do,
" said Emily,
Amazed that there could be any question about it.
It took all her resolution not to cry when she bade farewell to Mike,
Who was curled up on the sun-warmed grass at the back door.
Maybe I'll see you again sometime.
She whispered.
She hugged him.
I'm sure good pussycats can go to heaven.
Then they were off in the double-seated buggy with its fringed canopy,
Always affected by the murries of New Moon.
Emily had never driven in anything so splendid before.
Once or twice her father had borrowed Mr Hubbard's old bug board and grey pony and driven to Charlottetown.
Cousin Jimmy and Aunt Elizabeth sat in front,
The latter very imposing in black lace bonnet and mantle.
Aunt Laura and Emily occupied the seat behind.
With saucy sour between them in a basket,
Shrieking piteously.
Emily glanced back as they drove up the grassy lane and thought to the little old brown house in the hollow.
Had a broken hearted look.
She longed to run back in comforted.
In spite of her resolution,
Tears came into her eyes.
But Aunt Laura put a kid-gloved hand across Sal's basket and caught Emily's in a close-understanding squeeze.
I love you,
Aunt Laura.
Whispered Emily.
And Aunt Laura's eyes were very,
Very blue and deep.
And kind.
Emily found that drive through the blossomly June world.
Rather pleasant.
No one talked much,
And even Saucy Sal had subsided into the silence of despair.
Now and then Cousin Jimmy made a remark,
More to himself as it seemed than to anyone else.
Sometimes Aunt Elizabeth answered it and sometimes not.
Aunt Elizabeth always spoke crisply and never used any unnecessary words.
When they got to Charlottetown they had dinner.
Emily,
Who had no appetite since her father's death,
Could not eat the roast beef which the balding-house waitress put before her.
Then Aunt Elizabeth whispered mysteriously to the waitress,
Who went away.
And pleasantly returned with a plateful of delicate,
Cold chicken.
Can you wait that?
Ask Aunt Elizabeth sternly.
I'll try.
Whispered Emily.
Aunt Elizabeth?
" she said.
After she had forced down some of the chicken.
What?
" said Aunt Elizabeth,
Directing her steel blue eyes straight at her niece's troubled ones.
I would like you to understand.
" Emily began trying to speak very primly and precisely so she would be sure to get things right.
It was not because I didn't want to like the roast beef.
I did not eat it.
I was not hungry at all.
So I just set some of the chicken to oblige you,
Not because I liked it any better.
Children should eat what's put before them and never turn their noses up good wholesome food.
Said Aunt Elizabeth severely.
So Emily felt she had not understood after all,
And she was very unhappy about it.
After dinner Aunt Elizabeth announced they would do some shopping.
We must get some things for the child,
" she said to Aunt Laura.
"'Please don't call me the child,
' exclaimed Emily.
"'Makes me feel as if I didn't belong anywhere.
'" Don't you like my name,
Aunt Elizabeth?
Mother thought it was very pretty.
And I don't need any things.
I have two whole sets of underclothes.
Only one is patched.
Said Cousin Jimmy,
Gently kicking Emily's shins.
Castle Jimmy only meant she would better let Aunt Elizabeth buy things for her when she was in the humour for it.
But Emily thought he was rebuking her for mentioning such matters as underclothes.
She must not wear that cheap black dress in Blair Water,
" said Aunt Elizabeth,
As if she had not even heard.
You could sift oatmeal through it.
It's nonsense expecting a child of ten to wear black at all.
I shall get her a nice white dress with black sash for good.
And some black and white Czech gingham for school.
Jimmy will leave the child with you.
Look after her.
Cousin Jimmy's method of looking after Emily was to take her to a restaurant down street and fill her up with ice cream.
Emily had never had many chances at ice cream and she needed no urging,
Even with a lack of appetite.
Cousin Jimmy eyed her with satisfaction.
No use getting my anything for you elizabeth could see he said But she can't see what's inside of you.
Make the most of your chance for goodness knows,
There won't be any more.
Do you never have ice cream at new moon?
Cousin Jimmy shook his head.
That night,
The tone of Aunt Elizabeth's goodnight would have spoiled the best night in the world.
But Emily laid very still and sobbed no more,
Though the noiseless tears trickled down her cheeks in the darkness for some time.
She did in fact lay so still.
That Aunt Elizabeth imagined she was asleep.
And then went to sleep herself.
I wonder if anybody in the world is awake but me?
Thought Emily,
Feeling a sickening loneliness.
If only I had saucy Sal here.
She isn't so cuddly as Mike,
But she'd be better than nothing.
I wonder where she is now?
I wonder if they gave her any supper?
Aunt Elizabeth had handed Sal's basket to Cousin Jimmy with an impatient,
Here,
Look to this cat.
And Jimmy had carried it off.
But where had he put it?
Perhaps Saucy Sour would get out and go home.
Emily had heard cats always went back home.
She wished she could get out and go home.
She pictured herself and her cat running eagerly along the dark starlit roads to the little house in the hollow.
Back to the birches and Adam and Eve and Mike.
And the old winged chair and her dear little cot.
And the open window where the wind woman sang to her.
And at dawn,
One could see the blue of the mist on the homeland hills.
Will it ever be morning?
Thought Emily Perhaps things won't be so bad in the morning.
And then she heard the wind woman at the window.
She heard the little low whispering murmur of the June night breeze.
Cooing Friendly and lovesome.
Oh,
You are out there,
Are you dearest one?
Whispered Emily,
Stretching out her arms.
I'm so glad to hear you.
You're such company,
Wind Woman.
I won't be lonesome anymore.
And the flash came too.
I was afraid it might never come out at New Moon.
Then suddenly her soul escaped from the bondage of Aunt Elizabeth's stuffy feather bed and gloomy canopy and sealed windows.
She was out in the open with the wind woman and the other gypsies of the night.
The fireflies,
The moths.
The brooks,
The clouds.
Far and wide Emily wandered in enchanted reverie.
Until she coasted the shore of dreams.
And fell soundly asleep on the fat,
Hard pillow.
While the wind woman sang softly and luringly in the vines,
They're clustered.
Over new moons.
