Spirit run wild

*Chapter 3: As Free as the Wind*

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Amara found Hilda in the garden at dusk. The old woman’s hands were deep in the soil, planting lavender like she’d done for forty years. Same hands that had delivered babies, mended tears, and held Amara when she cried as a child.

Hilda didn’t look up. “You’ve got questions. I can hear ‘em in your footsteps.”

Amara sat in the grass beside her, pulling her knees to her chest. For once, she didn’t have a smart answer. Just... quiet.

“Hilda,” she whispered. “What was it like... when my mother passed?”

The trowel stilled. Hilda closed her eyes for a long moment. When she spoke, her voice was softer than Amara had ever heard it.

“Complicated,” Hilda said. “That’s the only word for it. Your mother... Eleanor Bellewood. Eleanor with the laugh that could make the whole house feel warm. She was gentle, Amara. Too gentle for a world this hard. But when it came time for you... she was fierce.”

Amara swallowed. “Tell me.”

Hilda set the trowel down and looked at her, eyes glassy with memory. “It was a hard labor. Lord, it was hard. She pushed and she cried and I thought we’d lose both of you. The bleeding wouldn’t stop, Amara. Your father was downstairs, pacing, praying. And Eleanor... she knew.”

Hilda’s voice cracked. “She knew she wasn’t gonna make it. But when I finally heard your cry - that strong, angry little wail - she smiled. Like the sun coming out after a storm. She said, ‘Hilda, don’t you tell me I won’t die. I know my body. I know my time.’”

Amara’s breath hitched.

“Then she said, ‘Place her in my arms.’ So I did. I put you, tiny and screaming, right on her chest. Bare skin to bare skin. And she looked at you... Lord, the way she looked at you.”

Hilda reached out and tucked a curl behind Amara’s ear, same way she must’ve done for Eleanor.

“She took off the necklace she always wore. Gold chain, little locket. Put it right on your chest. And she whispered to you, ‘Amara. Amara Bellewood. Whatever you do in this life... be as free as the wind. Don’t let them cage you, baby. Not for me. Not for anyone.’”

A tear slid down Hilda’s cheek. “Then she handed you back to me. Looked at your father one last time. And she said goodbye. And she was gone.”

The garden went silent. Only crickets and Amara’s breathing.

Amara was crying now. Not the pretty kind. The ugly, shoulders-shaking kind she’d never let anyone see. “She named me,” she choked out. “While she was dying... she named me.”

Hilda pulled her into her lap like she was five again, not twenty. Rocked her. “Yes, child. She named you Amara. ‘Eternal’. And she gave you that wish.” She pressed a kiss to Amara’s muddy hair. “You’re fulfilling her wish every day, you know that? Running wild. Helping those kids. Refusing Wilson. Refusing cages.”

Amara clutched Hilda’s apron. “I’m scared, Hilda. What if I’m too much? What if Father’s right?”

Hilda wiped her tears with her thumb, rough and gentle. “Then be too much. Your mother’s last words weren’t ‘Be proper.’ They weren’t ‘Be safe.’ They were ‘Be as free as the wind.’”

She cupped Amara’s face. “So you be the strong, untamable brilliance she saw in you before you even opened your eyes. That’s what she’d want. That’s what I want.”

Amara buried her face in Hilda’s shoulder and cried for the mother she’d never known. And for the first time, she understood why she couldn’t sit still. Why parlors felt like prisons. Why Spirit called to her.

Because Eleanor Bellewood’s last breath was a command to fly.

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