ISLA

CHAPTER-3

In the candle-lit room stood family and friends, each one ready to make a pledge to how they would help the newborn boy their lifetimes. He was a precious gift of the Creator's light, a pure soul. When he cried they shed tears too, his cries were to be expected. This child freshly arrived from heaven; being further away from the Creator wasn't easy and it was their job to fill him with so much love that he could be happy on Earth - safe and content in the knowledge that not only his parents but her entire extended family loved her and watched over her. The baby was passed from person to person, each holding him, cuddling him, before carefully placing him into the arms of a trusted other. The ceremony was beautiful beyond measure, not inexpensive flowers or fancy food, but in the sharing of genuine heartfelt emotion.

The basement was a sanctuary, a place where nature flowed into the soul and sparked new healing. Long back the heirs to the throne would practice their rituals and sword fights down here but they then decided to shut this place down after Henry Anderson came to power. For years no one had entered this place until Isla. The child of royalty lives down here for 16 years.

*ocarina music plays*

"Shush it up hun, didn't I ask you to maintain silence down here" Matilda yells whisperingly.

"I know mama but It's so boring down here all alone, how long should I stay here?", Isla questions.

"See I bought you some books"

"Why would you never answer my question?"

She leaves the books on the stairs and leaves.

Isla never bothered to check her walls if they were solid even though sometimes she'd hear screams from the other rooms above her. She didn't know what daylight was, her only source of light was lamps placed at 2 corners of the basement.

Footsteps approach the basement again, it couldn't be Matilda just because this wasn't the time she's come. A young boy maybe 18-years-old walked down the stairs lifting the books that were left there.

"Did mama send-"

"AHHH" he yells

"Who are you?" he asks.

"I'm sorry I didn't mean to scare you but did my mother send you here"

"Who is your mother?" he asks.

"My...mother- Matilda Anderson" she stammers.

"Mat-what? Your ladyship?" he replies in shock.

"But your lordship has a son only, Allen-No I didn't mean to take his name bu-"

"Please calm down, sit down," she says. "What is your name?"

"Kai, and yours?" he asks.

"Isla, I will tell you my story only if you promise to mention about me to anyone, even my mother," she says.

"I promise"

As she begins to explain how she had been there for years, kai sat on the edge of the bench. It was odd for her to make a connection so fast, to give her trust so easily, tentative though it was. There was something in the way he smiled, a warmth, a genuineness, a softness of spirit she just couldn't pass up. He listened like he was absorbing her words, not simply getting her "turn" over and done with so he could return to some other topic. The more time she spent with him the more her spirit lifted, he was the new friend she'd needed for so long. I guess loneliness makes a person trust anyone.

"So you've not had any friends for all these years?" kai asked.

"Well now I guess now I have one" she replies with a smile. "Okay you need to leave now my mother will be coming soon" 

If one can savor every page, can see the joy of every moment rather than hang your emotions on the last page, then you are a real reader. For life is the "in-between," it is all the emotions, the good and the bad. Living is the challenges, the triumphs, the losses, and the comebacks from smoking ash... the last page, well, that was never the end of the story, yet another in-between, only an in-between when the author chose to stop the telling.

This was what Isla did most of the time.

The world was so ironic at the moment- Allen and Isla- if you know what I mean.