It started out like an ordinary day, peasants roaming the dirty streets, carriages pulled by well-groomed horses dragging lords and ladies along the rocky paths, street beggars calling out in desperate need. As the carriages passed, peasants knelt and bowed to the wealthy passengers, lowering their solemn faces to the dusty ground, their expressions stiffened by endless years of hard labor. Slowly in the dusk of sunset, the village lights blinked, flickered, and shimmered on like the beautiful stars in the dark of midnight. Just outside of the small village, a house, massive in size and decorated elaborately in the finest bricks and glass, stood quietly in the green fields, one small candle twinkling in every window, the courtyard lit by busy lightning bugs preparing their nocturnal dance of festivity. Owls hooted from their trees.
Chuckling with merriment inside the house, Lord Bushburn happily enjoyed his meal with his family, wine flowing from cup to cup, gentle hands clutching forks of meat as the food began to disappear. Outside, near the entrance of the courtyard, a passing peasant on her way home from herb gathering watched jealously as the Bushburn daughters, dressed elegantly in silk and satin, threw back their heads in laughter. The peasant’s fingers tightened on the basket of herbs and she briskly walked away towards the village, her left hand curled deeply into her dirty skirt.
Suddenly the following day just before the clock struck noon, a rumor began outside the manor house. “Did you hear?” one peasant would whisper to another after a carriage passed by, their eyes finally sparkling for the first time since their youthful years. Giggling, the women gathered around a poster on the fence, squeezing their heads into the crowd just to get a glimpse of the notice. Grace, the peasant who passed by the manor last night, shuffled her feet as she wondered what it would be like to be rich. When her friend came up to her, Grace asked,” what happened?” The friend quickly replied, “Lord Bushburn is looking for his long-lost daughter! Whoever finds her will get twenty pounds!” With this understanding marked in her mind, Grace began to think up a plan. If I succeed in tricking them into thinking I’m the long-lost daughter…  Wasting no precious time, for she needed to be the first to the Bushburn family if she wanted to “win”, Grace rushed to execute her plan, sweat from anxiety and effort streaming down her skin.
After purchasing a new skirt with her mother’s hard earned coins, Grace explained to her mother that she was moving out, beginning a new life outside of the village. Running out of the house, Grace smiled and ran for the manor, ignoring the pleas and shouts from her mother. She has stepfather to take care of her, she thought, forcing a grin. Look towards the future. You can buy her loads of jewels later with the money.
When Grace reached the manor, which as usual was filled with the aroma of spring flowers, she walked into the gates. “I'm the daughter!” she called out, banging her fists on the gate’s iron bars, “look at me!” Walking out from the red manor doors, Lord Bushburn with a stern look said, “that’s the fourth person! We have already found our daughter. You, even with your new skirt and jewelry, are not fit to be a lady. Scram!” Quickly, the guards took her by the shoulders and walked her down the streets of the village, taking steady, rhythmic stomps on the dirty ground, causing dust and dirt from the road to fly up into the air. Screaming in humiliation and rage, Grace looked around and saw her mother turning her head in disgrace with her stepfather lowering his eyes. Although Grace was pardoned from death and punishment, her mother would not take her back in and the villagers looked at her with distaste and scorn. Within the village, gossip began to spread about Grace’s fail as a villager.
Rapidly, spring flowed into summer and summer rolled into fall while fall twisted into winter. Then winter broke away and the spring love was back in the air. As the sun started to set, the spring breeze whisked through the streets, stirring dust and dirt into the villagers’ sweaty faces as they smiled proudly at the blazing sun. Good fortune was yet to come. Still, far away in the abandoned forest, a woman sat gathering herbs into her dirty skirt and looking enviously at the manor where a happy family sat finishing their meal. Striding away with brisk steps, the woman walked farther into the forest towards her home, one hand tightly clutching her skirt of herbs while her other hand grasped deeply into her side. The village lights would soon appear.