She had lived in the shadow of the mountain all her life. No matter the season, it’s snowy crags had punctuated her world, piercing the sunrise and reflecting the fire of sunset. Now, standing here on the old Roman road, it stood as the final bastion of my old life.
The road itself seemed as timeless as the mountain. From the first time I saw it as a child running wild on the moor, it had fascinated me with its ancient mystery. When I asked my father about it, he would only say that it was the old Roman road. My mother gasped over her loom and dropped her shuttle, something her expert hands never did. In twenty years I had never asked again, but its stones had called to me in my dreams, and often I had searched for its path among the heather and gorse.
Now my parents were dead, my mother to a fever my fifteenth winter, my father to old age only a month gone. Nothing held me to the village; marriage would soon no longer be a possibility even were I drawn to any of the young men. Already glances slid over me as if I were no more than scenery.
I walked the moor for the last time, and for the first time placed my feet upon the ancient Roman stones. My breath caught in my chest. Soon the mountain would be behind me, only the road stretching before me stone after stone. I hefted my bundle and with a deep breath set one foot before me, then another.
The Word Worker 
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