Thank you for reading my story, I hope that you enjoy it. Love Mica xx, Yorkshire England.
All email comments good or critical welcomed. Please note that all email comments from an invalid email address will be deleted immediately and will not be read, so please take care when entering your email if you want a reply. Rude or abusive comments may result in blocking. Please note that I am a British female, and I write in British English and vernacular, so for me a fanny is the correct term for female genitalia, a pussy is a pet cat and the ass is a bum or arse.
It was time to go and check the sheep, you have to check them at least once a day, if a sheep manages to lay on its back, it can't get up again and will die. And sheep do somehow manage to fall on their backs. Don't know how, never seen them do it, but they do, so my first chore on any day is to go and check the sheep.
I greased all her nipples, checked her fluids and then fired up the old Massey ready to head on out. The sky was looking stormy as I headed on out of the barn leaving behind the usual cloud of smoke. She was quite old, the Massey, but she was purely mechanical, no electronics to go wrong, and so I was able to maintain her myself. New filters every hundred hours, checking fluids to make sure there were no water or oil leaks, keeping her in the barn to make sure she was out of the worst of the weather. I looked after her, she worked well for me, and that was the way things should be. A bit of smoke? She is just saying hello.
As I pulled out on to the track to go down to the middle meadow, I saw someone sat on the grass next to my entrance. Just an early walker having a rest I guessed. It was a bit of a shock though; she looked so much like my daughter who had disappeared ten years ago. She had gone out for a walk and just never came back. Police dogs tracked her scent to the middle of the lower meadow and then that was it. Her scent just stopped. We searched all our farm, all the buildings, the becks, the ponds, wading them myself with sticks, nothing.
My wife never recovered and was weakened and ill ever after. When the pandemic came she just silently slipped away. We were all locked down, the authorities came and took her body and I never saw her again. They sent me a box of her ashes a few months later, she now sits on the Mantle in the front sitting room. It is just me now, my life overlooked by Jessie on her mantle. Oh well, life, as they say, goes on.
I left the young girl behind and headed on down to middle meadow and checked all the sheep, all standing. Good. I don't make a huge living from the sheep. I have just over one hundred and twenty, and I rotate them. Each year I select a few of the lambs to keep, usually around ten or so, and they replace the older ewes which I turn into mutton for the freezer. That keeps me in meat. I grow potatoes, just for my own consumption, a few onions for flavour. I buy flour from the mill in the next town, and that enables me to make my own bread. I just keep it simple, keeping costs down, a hundred or so lambs each year is never going to make me a millionaire, but it keeps me in food.
The lambs all checked, a quick check around the fences to make sure they were intact, and I went back for some breakfast. It would be toast and tea. It was always toast and tea. I had thought about keeping chickens, but no, chickens always, somehow, attract rats, and I did not want to increase the farms attraction to rats. Everything edible was kept in metal bins in the barn. I swept up any spillages, burnt what could be burnt, and tried to minimise the risk. Adding chickens to the mix just for a few eggs wasn't worth it.
As I pulled back into the yard I noticed that the girl was still there. I put the Massey in the barn, checked her over to make sure something hadn't fallen off or broken and turned her off, ready for tomorrow. I walked back through the yard and went to the girl sat on the grass. Oh my God she really was the spit of my poor missing Mary. This was a cruel world.
"Are you alright love," I asked her.
She just looked blankly at me. I bent to my haunches and touched her face. "Love, are you okay, do you need help?"
She just looked at me, seemingly looking straight through me as if looking at something behind me. Well, this was worrying. She was obviously unwell in some way, possibly mentally, she wasn't a sheep so I had no idea. The weather was beginning to turn, and she would get soaked if I left her out here.
"Come on love, let's get you in and get you a cup of tea."
I took her hands and pulled her to her feet and cajoled her into the farmhouse, sitting her on a chair at the kitchen table. She was wearing the same clothes Mary was wearing when she disappeared, but that may not mean anything, Jeans and a jumper were pretty common attire I guessed.
"I'll just put the kettle on love."
Nothing, no response. She sat on the chair the way that she had sat on the grass, just sitting, unmoving, non-responsive. I put some water in the kettle, I never filled it, waste of electricity heating up water I wasn't going to use. I know I have solar panels and that I export more power than I use, and I know that I recently installed a battery pack to tide me over during the frequent winter power cuts, but still. Old habits.
I rinsed a couple of mugs, tea bag in each and waited for the kettle to boil. I looked more closely at her. She was the absolute spit of my missing Mary, or rather, how she was ten years ago. If she were alive still Mary would have aged ten years by now. The radio in the background was talking about the mysterious lights in the sky last night with reports coming in from all over Yorkshire. I hadn't seen them, once I had shut up shop I was in my bed and out for the count. I remembered that the day Mary disappeared there had been UFO sightings too.
"Ptah, just a coincidence," I said quietly to myself.
The kettle boiled and I poured the hot water into the two mugs and stirred and then removed the bags and put them in the small compost bin on the window sill. A splash of milk in each and another stir. I put one mug in front of the girl, and I sat at the chair next to her with my tea.
"Do you understand me?" I asked.
She nodded.
"Can you tell me your name?" Well, I had to start somewhere.
She looked scared, her eyes flicking from side to side.
"I can't I don't know it." Oh shit, she had Mary's voice too. What cruel game was this?
"Okay, no worries. Do you know how you came to be sitting on my grass?"
"No. I just woke up there."
"Okay, perhaps someone dropped you off there. Do you remember where you were before?"
"No. I was asleep and then I was there. I know I was floating but I can't remember, it is all fuzzy."
"Okay, let's not worry. Try a sip of your tea, it may be just a bit too hot though, so be careful."
She reached out and held the mug, just holding it for a few moments before picking it up and putting it to her lips.
"Thank you," she said and took a sip, and then a bigger drink and before I knew it, she had drained the mug.
"Crikey, it looks like you needed that. I'll give it a few minutes and then I can make you another."
"Toilet." She said.
"Come on, it's over here, I'll show you." I took her hand and led her to the downstair loo. She went in, fumbled with her jeans and pulled them down and sat, no shutting the door, just sat and peed. I did look away, but my eyes did see her nakedness briefly and my brain immediately stored those images in storage. What is the matter with me? Am I just an old pervert.
I stood to one side and heard her messing with her clothes, pulling them up and refastening I hoped. I braved and turned and looked, yes, she was decent again. She walked out and I leant in and flushed. She looked at me, "sorry" she said.
"Let's get you another tea. Sit yourself down."
As she sat back on the chair, I put a little more water in the kettle and turned it on to heat. As I looked at her sat there, my brain edited out her clothes and I saw her naked. I shook my head, annoyed at myself. I know it had been years since I had last seen a naked woman, but for God's sake, this child was young enough to be my missing daughter, nineteen, twenty at most, what was up with me for God's sake.
I rinsed her mug and made her a fresh tea.
"Here you are love, let it cool for a bit first. If you are really thirsty, I can get you a glass of water to tide you over."
She just looked at me and shook her head. It was odd, I have never read up on amnesia, but she knew many things, like how to speak, shaking or nodding heads, but seemed to forget so many others, like her name, or how to use a loo. Odd, but then I am no expert.
"Do you know where you are love," I asked, I thought it worth keep asking similar questions, her brain seemed to be working after a fashion.
"Farm."
"Yes, my farm, do you know where that is?"
"Home."
That completely blew my mind. Was this Mary? Could it be? No, it couldn't, she would be ten years older now, she would, should, know who I am, no, this was a cruel trick of fate, I could not get my hopes up.
"Your home love?" I asked with a tremor in my voice, "do you live here."
"I don't know. Farm. Home."
Her brain was muddled. Should I phone someone, the doctors perhaps, and then I thought of the difficulties of trying to explain the situation to the receptionist, it would be impossible, and anyway, what could a GP do? Probably very little. They would probably take her away to a home somewhere and examine her and I would never see her again, I would never know. Is she my daughter? Jessie would know straight away, and I was angry that she wasn't here, and I was angry with myself for not knowing.
I realised that she had an odour about her. Should I get her in the shower perhaps, but I didn't have any clothes that would fit her, when my wife Jessie died, I had sent all her and Mary's clothes to the charity shop, I didn't need them, they just took up space. I had dismantled Mary's bedroom and stored the bed flat against one wall. The only bed in the farmhouse was the double that Mary and I had shared, that was now mine alone.
How could I suggest she take a shower when I had no alternative clothing for her. It seemed odd, but she really did need to get clean. I supposed I could give her one of my shirts to wear whilst I washed her clothes.
"Would you like a shower and to freshen up? I can give you something to wear whilst I wash your clothes, or would you prefer to get on your way to wherever you were going?"
She looked at me and then down at her clothes.
