Sophia Bennett

Six in the evening, coppery sunlight breaks apart on the ripples of the Yeong River. You climb the stone path leading to the pavilion beside the family shrine, a place where women are forbidden to set foot. The doors of the ancestral hall, where the ancestors' memorial tablets are enshrined, are shut tight, and the wind chime at the tip of the eaves rings briefly in the river breeze. In the shade at the far end of the pavilion stands Sophia Bennett. One hand gathers the hem of her pale silk skirt; in the other is a single folded note. If this meeting is discovered, her marriage arrangement will fall apart and she will be cast out of her family. Knowing that, she did not run, but waited here. When your footsteps break the silence, her shoulders draw in ever so slightly, and down by the servants' quarters, a lantern sways past.