The Artless Ana Dicker

I've begun a new story.  I'm not sure where exactly it's going to go, but I figured I'd just go for it!  See what happens.  I'm really struggling with character lately, making them interesting and unique, lovable and memorable.  But I think it's getting better.  I've restarted this story a few times, as my ideas shape and reform, and as I come up with new ways to narrate my story.

So before I get much further, I'd like your thoughts and suggestions.  Tell me about the opening line, the first paragraph – how far to do have to go before you get a feel?  Before you're sold and want to go on, before you get a feeling for what the reading is going to be like, before you're thrust into the story?  Read as much or as little as you'd like, so long as I can get some feedback, that'd be lovely.

The last storm had dumped almost a foot of snow, dead and punishing, crunching underhoof.  Fides’ breath clouded the air hard as nails; the crunching of the icy snow echoed for a mile.  The snow had turned to rain in the middle of the night and created a thin, brittle crust on the surface of the fluff.  Fortunately, an overhang of rock ten or eleven miles back kept the bulk of the precipitation off of the travelers, but Ana, a little slight of a nineteen-year-old, still shivered in her saddle.  The reins may or may not have been taut in her hands for all she knew, but she wasn’t thinking about that.  She wasn’t thinking much about anything except her lungs moving in and out, and about the town that she knew was just a few more miles.  She hoped she knew.

The pine trees obscured the view, but the smell of pine wood burning spiced the air she breathed.  The town began not half a mile along, in fact, and once they were there, they were there.  The forest ended with the first house and the town was a cluster of buildings all huddled together as if for warmth, secluding the trees to their backs.  The town was a decidedly odd sight.  For at least a couple miles, Ana and Fides had been ascending a gentle slope, but where the town began, the hill became steeper, so that the whole collection of properties was clearly built on the side of a hill.  A common strip up and down the middle, a road led up to the meeting building.

Couples riding up and down in sleighs and children tugging other children in sleds packed down the snow here so that the going was much easier for Fides now.  Ana slowed him nearly to a halt as they neared a sleigh heading their way.  “Excuse me,” she raised her thin voice over the bells.  “The inn?”

The young man in the sleigh turned away from his giggling partner and gave Ana the once-over.  “You’re looking for the inn?” he said.  His post-puberty voice hid a high pitch that tickled the ear.  “It’s about four or five buildings up.  See the sign?”  He pointed where a sign was standing out, apparently in the road.

Ana checked herself and glanced at his feminine companion.  Her hat hid most, but not all, of her curled blond hair.  Her cheeks and the tip of her little nose flushed red in the cold.  Her blue eyes stared back, nothing apparent in them.  Ana looked again at the young man, nothing of consequence to her, and thanked him.

That last distance seemed a mile before she reached the sign, which was carved and freshly painted green, with a pine tree carved above the words ‘Cole Inn.’  Her hands did not wish to relinquish the reins.

A man rushed out the front door of the inn, pulling on a coat, terribly underdressed.  “Go right on in,” he said.  “You look absolutely freezing.  I’ll care for your horse.”

Ana sighed.  “I’ll come with you,” she said.  “Where is your stable?”

“In the back,” he said.  “I’m sorry, with the snow falling like this, I haven’t been out to pack down the walk.  You’ll have to trudge through.”  Indeed, the two of them soaked themselves up to the knee; the drop startled Fides and he lurched as he found his footing in the soft snow.  The stable door wouldn’t skate open fast enough for any of them, shivering their misery in the cold.

Inside the stable, the temperature jumped to a bearable level – at least, so it was after enduring the weather so long.  Ana could not undue the buckles herself, but she saw where the innkeeper stored her tack, and inspected Fides’ stall for herself, and gave the innkeeper explicit instructions for his care.  Satisfied with Mr. Coleman’s character, she set out on her journey back to the inn.  Mrs. Coleman stood at the open backdoor, calling to her: “Come in, dear, do come in!  How far you must have traveled in this weather to get here.  Which direction did you come from?”

“The south,” Ana chattered.  Her skin tingled in the sensational warmth of the back entry.  “From Kentown.”

Mrs. Coleman was decidedly incredulous.  She bustled Ana into the private sitting room and helped her peel off her outer things.  “I’ll give you my dressing robe,” she said.  “You undress and hang your things by the fire, alright?  You’re sure a little thing.  Here you are.  I have to get back to the front room, but I’ll send the boys up to your room to get the fire going and set it for you.  We’re just a simple inn, nothing compared to what you may be used to, coming from the southern towns as you are.  But each room has a stove, which I’m sure you will well appreciate after your long journey.  I’ll tell them to move the bed closer to it.  I’m sure my husband is bringing in your things.”

“He is,” said Ana.

“Alright, I’ll be going then,” said Mrs. Coleman.  “But you strip down and relax.  I’ll send a girl back with some tea.  Or would you like coffee?”

“Tea,” said Ana, “please.”

“Not a coffee drinker?  I love tea myself, although I must have my cup of coffee.  But tea is just the thing for you.  Alright, I’ll get you some tea.”

“Thank you,” said Ana.  “I appreciate it.”  Mrs. Coleman closed the door to the sitting room finally and Ana quickly stripped out of all her trousers and put on Mrs. Coleman’s robe.  The heat from the fire pierced her cold skin like Scotch pine needles.  The sitting room wasn’t very fancy, but it was cosy.  A single portrait hung on the wall, a young woman in an old fashioned collar.  Red curtains trimmed the window and a red rug accented the table.  Little doodads and trinkets decorated the mantle as they should.  An armchair stood angled at the fireplace, and three small cushions furbished the sofa.  Ana sat on the hearth, her back to the fire when her face could no longer take the heat.

Mrs. Coleman did indeed get Ana a cup of hot tea, and she did indeed send it.  But it was not with one of her girls as she had promised.  A young man came in, catching Ana in nothing but her underthings and a robe – a thick, warm robe, but a robe nonetheless.  Ana’s heart jumped into her mouth.

“Oh, excuse me,” he said.  Hesitating, he put the tea down on the table.  “Mrs. Coleman didn’t say….  I’m Chad Phillips.”  He began to offer his hand and changed his mind.

“A-Ana Dicker.”

~Meggy