As her father said welcoming pleasantries to their guest Marie quickly understood who exactly was sitting in her house, and she'd notice her hands beginning to shake as she placed several plates down on the table.
After setting the plates around the table Marie walked past the living room and into the Kitchen. To avoid getting anything on her mother's dress she'd put her apron on before filling up a large bowl with some soup and then bringing it into the dining room, where she'd spot her father standing by a bookcase.
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James nodded slightly at Major Tallmadge to acknowledge his presence before looking back at General Washington.
"Shall we? or shall we wait for the others?" asked the General, and James would stand up and walk over towards his personal bookcase before responding.
"We'll go ahead and begin and bring them up on what we've discussed when and if they arrive. For now though..." James would pull a large worn bag styled like a reticule from behind a row of books on the second from the top shelf. "This was my wifes. he began as he made his way back to his seat. "She made it this large so that she could carry letters and various objects back home from the British Taverns. She had two, but the other one was on her when they shot her in the back, and the stolen things inside it were used as justification for the cowardly act of murder. We had a neighbor at the time, a fellow Patriot residing in the city, who gave me and Marie enough warning to run. We didn't have much time to pack but I made sure to grab this for it has information inside that's absolutely invaluable."
Marie was entranced as her father spoke, it had been a while since she heard the story of her mother's death and laid eyes on the bag her father was now holding.
She'd put the bowl of soup down and turn away from the living room after feeling her eyes well up with tears, and she'd promptly wipe her eyes clean before heading back into the Kitchen.
As she dropped some spoons into a bucket of water to clean them Marie would catch something past by the Kitchen window out the corner of her eye. Surprised she'd stop what she was doing and stand up to walk towards the Window, but before she could a flurry of rocks would come smashing through the window - one hitting her on the forehead, causing her to scream and run from the Kitchen.
James instantly leapt to his feet and let the bag on his lap fall to the floor as he ran to his daughter, meeting her halfway down the hallway.
"Someone threw rocks into the window father, what's happening?" she asked frantically as her father noticed a small stream of blood dripping down the side of her face. James would pull out a piece of cloth and stop the blood flow before it hit Marie's attire, and before he could utter anything rocks began smashing through all the windows on the first floor that faced towards the front of the property, and after one hit a candle atop a table by the front door the wooden floor would light up in flames.
"Back here!" James yelled at General Washington and Major Tallmadge before he pulled Marie into his bedroom, pulled a bookcase to the ground revealing the secret back-door he put in place shortly after they moved into the house, and then began furiously throwing things into a large handmade bag ofhis. Marie was frozen in place as the ruckus in front of their house grew louder and the fire began to spread, but suddenly she'd remember her mother's bag. "The bag father, mother's bag - where is it!?" she asked, and after her father cursed under his breath she'd realize he must have left it in the living room and instinctively pushed past everyone to go for her mother's bag. However James quickly caught up to his daughter and insisted she let him get the bag instead. Reluctantly Marie listened and stood outside her father's bedroom door as he ran past a wall of fire and into the living room.
He was out of her sight for what felt like an eternity, but after only several second she'd spot her father making his way back towards her.
Before James made it to the hallway the front door was kicked opened and in walked a group of Loyalist and Red-Coats. James instantly dropped the bag and began to tussle with the first man who approached him until he knocked the guy out, but after spotting just how many where behind the initial intruder James would throw his hands up into the air and beg them not to shoot, but not before kicking his wife's bag down the hallway. Marie quickly picked it up and then tried to run to her father but a large piece of debris from the ceiling fell down in front of her blocking her path. She wasn't giving up however, and began lookinh around for something, anything, to move the fallen debris from out of her way. She already lost her mother, there was no way she was going to run out that back door without her father!