Page 287 of Sinister

Their parents indulged their friendship and even encouraged it. They were the only children of similar age in the area, and they only had each other.

But after puberty, things started to change. For both of them.

Agatha noticed her feelings shift from friendship to love.

One day, on the cusp of her seventeenth birthday, she decided to confess her feelings to Elroy and hoped he felt the same. She was sure that when they reached maturity, their parents would support them getting married.

It was a hot spring day when Agatha and Elroy went to the river. This time, as they slowly undressed to get into the water, she noticed a reticence in Elroy’s movements, and an odd expression on his face as he was watching her.

He seemed to blush when she went to remove her dress. Even though she was only in her shift, he was too flustered to look at her.

Agatha then decided to be the daring one, and she called out to him.

“Look at me,” she said, grabbing his chin and turning his face so she could look into his eyes.

He did so, but his entire face was flushed red.

“I love you,” she told him then.

“I love you, too,” he replied casually.

Agatha felt annoyed at this, thinking he wasn’t understanding she meant a different type of love, not merely that of friends.

“I am in love with you,” she clarified.

Elroy’s eyes widened, and he stared at her in shock for moments on end. The boy who’d never stuttered a day in his life was now suddenly at a loss for words.

Agatha felt a stab of disappointment at realizing he might not feel the same way. But slowly, he offered her a reply.

“I-I’m in love with you, too. I’ve been in love with you forever.”

That day, they shared their first kiss.

Their parents welcomed the relationship, and they were soon engaged to be married.

A wedding date was set for spring 1762.

Both Agatha and Elroy were excited to start their life as newlyweds. Perhaps a little too excited.

My eyes widen when I get to a certain passage that recounts their first night together. It was winter, months before the wedding, and they’d snuck around at night to the stables.

Agatha doesn’t spare too many details when she writes about their first time together, how awkward and painful it was at first, but how lovely and fulfilling it ended up being after their second attempt.

She writes that her mother would have her head if she knew she’d anticipated her vows, but that she cannot find it in herself to regret it because it was Elroy, her sweet, beloved Elroy.

But the happiness did not last.

My heart is in my throat as I read on about the soldiers who arrived at their home, looking to draft young men into the British Army. The war against France was raging, and they needed more manpower. Any man over the age of sixteen was to be conscripted into the army.

Agatha begged Elroy not to go but soon understood that if he defied the orders, he would be arrested and executed.

So, Elroy went to war.

At first, he wrote to her as often as he could.

But a few months after he’d gone, the letters stopped.

It was early 1763 when the war officially ended, and still, there was no word of him.