Thea Hargreeves had already experienced loss in her short life, but her family was something she was determined to keep together and close to her heart. No matter what.
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"The heart wants what it wants, or else it does not care."
⊱ .⋅ ✯ ⋅. ⊰
Bleary blue eyes shifted from the words printed on the aged paper and towards the closed door at the sound of a bang from below.
Pausing momentarily from reading her book – a fantasy, one where the protagonist ventured across boundless seas and met timeless friends along her journey – the girl blinked slowly, taking in the sounds of countless bodies moving within the house. She blinked once more, confused for a moment.
As far as she knew it was only herself, Pogo and Grace that lived here. Nobody else. Not even her father anymore.
Her face had been just as blank the day she'd been told the sad, unexpected news – Reginald Hargreeves was dead. Pogo had waited anxiously for the girl's reaction, but had only sighed in resignation when he got nothing.
Her face barely shifted from its blank nothingness.
Pogo had left the girl to her self-isolation, where she continued to sit, dwarfed by the vast bookcases around her.
More sounds came from downstairs and now the girl could hear the echoes of voices. Voices from so long ago, voices that called into memory times of childhood. Her mind ran through the possibilities of what could be happening.
Were they visitors, coming to commemorate her father's death? But that couldn't be right - after all, her father hadn't any close friends to speak of, and certainly no associates who would be welcomed into the man's home...
Her questions were answered when the sound of footsteps came from the stairs and towards the library; the clicking of heels against the wooden flooring. The door opened slowly with a long, drawn-out creak to reveal a face adorned in a mass of dark curls.
The girl recognised the intruder of her silence, and vice versa. The woman stared in surprise at the sight of the girl, sitting there on the high-backed chair, a book in hand, with her dreadfully long hair falling down her back like a golden veil.
The shock of the image was like a punch to the gut, and Allison had to grip the edge of the door to keep standing on suddenly unsteady feet.
"Thea," she breathed out, barely a whisper, but the girl met her gaze nonetheless.
