Excerpt of The Songbird With Sapphire Eyes by Anna Brentwood

PROLOGUE

Hannah Speaks

Surely life should consist of more than work and endless acres of dust and dirt? What's wrong with wantin' to know things, to experience more than getting up every morning with a long list of chores to do and only farm animals for company? I was an unruly child, lonely, energetic and fanciful beyond measure. Emalith, my Mama seemed to care more about farming than anything else. She covered her wiry body in shapeless garments of washed out gingham, while I yearned to have pretty things, which she believed to be vain and sinful. If vanity was a sin, it was just the beginning of the many sins I would commit. Labor defined our lives. Depending on the season, Mondays were washday, Tuesdays ironin', Wednesdays mendin' and we did odd chores on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. If hired help was scarce, we tended to the horses, cattle, sheep and pigs too. On Sundays we went to church.

Mama truly believed hard work was the path to heaven. I wondered whether her Heaven was worth aspiring to. I envied the birds bein' able to fly, the colorful flowers; daisies, asters and primrose for their beauty, wishin' and wantin' things I was told I wasn't meant to have or be. According to my Mama, a body had to accept things the way they were and to stop askin' questions. Problem was, I couldn't stop. Often, by summer's end, when the flowers were dying and the bees flying erratically, living fast and furious to make up for their lack of time, I felt like they were the only ones understood exactly how I was feelin', like time was runnin' out and we had to hurry up and live before it might all be over. I worried somethin' awful I'd be sucked dry, brittle and hollow like the wheat stems lying in the field after harvest. I didn't want to be left with nothin' but regrets and tough work hardened hands like my mother, whose once remarkably smooth skin was dry and parched as an old wagon road. I wanted things, things I suspected existed yet I didn't know where. And, I burned for freedoms I had yet to feel, for something different, for change, for pleasures yet to be. I learned too late perhaps that wantin' lots of nice things is its' own kind of trap and true freedom comes from letting go, not from holdin' on and from acceptance and forgiveness but that's gettin' ahead of myself here.

Folks say I was pretty as an angel. I was no angel, but was it so bad to listen to my heart, to want, need and dream? In the telling of my story some might judge me harshly, think I got my due. Times I was greedy, impulsive and a willing partner in my own corruption, yet even now I don't regret my choices, for they were mine and felt right at that time. Still do considerin'. So why talk now? Because I need you to know that every life whether lived well, foolishly, or barely has a clear–cut purpose to it. That it's better to live life true to oneself than to just exist to be safe or comfortable.

Tragedies befall us. We don't always grasp the need for hardship, pain, or suffering while we're livin', but it's okay, all part of the BIG plan. And, I have learned from life and death that there is a plan. That there are unlimited beginnings, infinite, sad or happy endings. But, most importantly, never endings. My name is Hannah and this is my story.