Forbidden Tales: Sword
Chapter One
On the morning of Miu Miu's fifteenth birthday, her mother did not arrange a visit by a matchmaker, as all the mothers of Goose Village did when their daughters reached marriageable age. Instead, Miu Miu rose early to pick a basketful of green olives from the cliff of Goose Mountain behind her village. She washed them clean in the gurgling river fronting the town's houses and laid the olives, a symbol of longevity, before her father's memorial name plaque placed in the ancestral hall on the sacred central hearth in their two-story brick home. The delicate wooden plaque was mounted on a wide bronze base, with her father's name engraved at the top and the dates of his birth and death at the bottom. It was always there, standing solemnly, reminding Miu Miu every day that even though Father had died before she was born, he was always there, watching over her, no matter that he was no longer among the living. Sometimes she thought the only proof of his having lived was this evidence of his death.
Miu Miu prayed to Father every day, the first time at sunrise before she left the house for Goose Mountain to cut wood for her ... read full excerpt from: Forbidden Tales: Sword ebook
