Longing.

She had brown eyes. The normal kind. But big, brown and kind. She had trouble speaking the local language but the locals loved her. All she had to do was smile and her eyes would speak and sparkle. She lived far outside the little village in a farmhouse. The land she lived on was lush. Green. Fresh. Breathtaking. She liked to think of herself as Heidi in the Alps. Free space, clean air, lovely vegetables, beautiful flowers. 

The farmhouse was big but most rooms were closed and covered with white sheets. Built and reinforced over the years, it stood strong and tall. Brown and mossy, it had 3 storeys with 8 bedrooms, 2 large living rooms, one large dinning hall and a beautiful kitchen. It was centred around a courtyard, a place where she spent most of her time. 

An old swing sat at the south wing with curly creepers growing over its railings and crawling all the way up to the floor above. She loved the swing. She had piled it with a cushions and fixed the pulley system that held it together. If you wanted to see her-especially on a rainy evening-that should be the first place you go to. With a bowl full of fried food and a classic novel that would normally take weeks to finish, she would be curled up on those soft cushions. 

Her favourite room was obviously the library or study that was located on the second floor in the east wing. That's where she spent her winter mornings. Soft sun rays caressing the large chair by the gigantic French window that opened into a wide balcony. A pot of steaming tea and a plate of the sweetest chocolate cake that she had baked herself would be seated on the coffee table beside her. The balcony had a cliched but ever so appealing rose garden.

The large dinning and living rooms were possibly built to host gatherings and socials. But they hadn't seen any such program for decades. Grand furniture, magnificent chandeliers, numerous cabinets with numerous beautiful crockery all covered and collecting dust. 

She loved the kitchen and had renovated it the minute she had got there. Modernised equipment, stoves, ovens, microwaves, tons of utensils. She had a number of locals who helped her run the whole place, the kitchen, the cleaning of the mansion, the farm and the animals. She wasn't very fond of the animals though, but didn't mind living with them. 

She made a trip down to the village every evening. Weekends were meant for the farmers market but the rest of the week she came down simply for a stroll or to buy some of those tit bits to give her books company or simply to say a hearty 'Hi!' and deliver a big smile that melted anyone right away! But the locals knew... She, just as the farmhouse, lacked something. Longed for something. Missed something. Craved to be completed. They were like an incomplete story, needing a perfect happy ending. Had she had her heart broken? Who would do such a thing? Where was her family? She is so young. They could all see she was drowning out a lot behind those seemingly bright eyes. No one had ever asked her where she had come from, what she was doing here. Was she running away and hiding from her reality? 

She brought a pocket full of sunshine to that little village on the hill. Through the drifting clouds she was danced in the drizzle with the children splashing in the little puddles formed. She helped the old lady in the orange hut to do her daily purchases and took her to the near by pond to look at the exotic birds that would swoosh by at a particular time of the year. She'd come and condemn the drivers who spent their afternoons gambling their morning's earnings instead of working. She worked at the fruit sellers stall on few days, other days at the weavers, mainly learning the art than making something substantial. Some warm summer evenings she would gather all the kids around and tell them stories of ghosts, ghouls and witches that ate little children! The kids loved her and would scream at the end of each story despite knowing the climax of many of them. Then their tired mothers would beckon them and they would each give her a peck on her cheek and a hug and scramble off to their tiny cottages in the little village, promising to find her again the next day.

She filled her emptiness with the village and its people. She loved nothing else as much. The birds, the rain, the cotton-y clouds drifting ever so slowly as if time didn't matter to them. She felt at peace at all. Smiling, she hopped happily with a basket full of goodies back to the farmhouse, far outside the village, thinking of what story she would tell the little ones the next day. 

One unsuspecting cold autumn morning as the villagers stepped out for their daily chores, the old woman in the orange hut began weeping, the kids raced to the farmhouse outside the little village, the animals moaned. There was a shift in the wind, the fisherman knew it. The horses knew it. The old woman and the ever smiling children of the village knew it. From the distance they could see that everything had changed. They found the farmhouse padlocked, the farm cleared, the animal houses empty. The flowers were all sleeping unaware of the change and the tall trees stood naked with their leaves all whittled lying on the damp ground.

The girl with the bright brown eyes had left as suddenly as she had appeared.