Arcane ~ ONGOING

~Chapter Thirty~

so um idk what happened, but I'm here now ig

not edited

I stumbled into my bedroom, the pristine white envelopes clutched in my hands. I carefully set them on my table before rushing into the bathroom as the tears found their way down my cheeks. My eyes watered as I turned on the tap and sat under the ice cold water thinking of what content the envelopes held.

After I left the observatory for the night, I walked around in darkness, the snowstorm seemed to have seized as the sky cleared and lit the winding hallways of the mansion. I did not think much of where I was heading until I stood in front of the all too familiar double black doors. I hesitated for a moment before gripping the handle in my hand and pushing the doors open. 

The moment I opened the doors, a sweet scent of lavender hit me, the off-white furniture contrasted against the dark walls of the room as the golden lamp lit the room, painting it in a comforting yellow hue. The wing was just as it was all those years ago, just as my father designed it, just how my mother liked it.

Slowly, I made my way into their room just to notice that the room was also the same as it was. I turned the lights on, blinding myself for a moment before laying my eyes upon the all-too familiar room. I craned my neck a little to check if someone was coming before sitting on the well-made bed, facing the mirror on the closed doors. Staring at my tired reflection, I sat there silently, contemplating how different my life would have been if my mother hadn't won the custody battle for me. How different it would have been if the siblings weren't separated.

Silently, I stood up, sliding the door open to see the shelves cleared out. There was nothing there except a couple grey fabric boxes stacked on top of one another. I picked up the top box, opening it slightly to peek inside. A small snippet of my childhood peeked back at me before I decided to completely open the box. A small smile curved my lips as I flipped through our childhood pictures. 

Every moment spent at this house from each of our childhoods encased and protected by just the fabricated box made me realize how delicate they were, how easily I could forget the few memories I had from my childhood as I grew up and that scared me. The few treasured moments I had, leaving them behind is forgetting my family, my life, my roots. 

I moved onto the next box as soon as I was done with the pictures. The next box was almost fully empty with just a few envelopes at the bottom. My eyebrows scrunched together as I picked up the yellowing paper. He slightly rough paper clenched between my hands as I set aside some of the papers that looked like office documents. I separated the envelopes from the documents before turning them over and reading all of our siblings' names written on each one of them in a fancy but scribbly handwriting. 

I flipped the envelopes over to find something else than our names but wasn't able to find anything else, so I separated mine and my brothers' envelopes before carefully opening the paper envelopes and pulling out papers from it. 

It was a letter, written in the same fancy cursive handwriting. I turned the papers over to see if they were in proper condition and could be read through and through. But before I could turn them over to start from the beginning, the sign at the end caught my eye.

Love,
Dad

It was signed with a small heart at the end, just like the ones I used to doodle when I was a child. I was obsessed with hearts and every time my dad left papers around the house he would always find them with hearts with hands and legs decorating the margins of the pages. The same heart was drawn here, on this letter.

My breath caught halfway down my throat as I leaned a little in the shelves for support as I turned the pages over to start reading.

Tears welled up in my eyes as I scanned through the pages, hanging on every word, making sure to register and print on my mind. The last words of my dad to me. Every little period and every little curved 't' letting me know about Alison quirks that I never bothered to remember. I wanted to take these words that he wrote down on this piece of paper and take them.and lock them.away in a safe in my mind. Making sure that I would never forget them, hoping that they would stay with me forever unlike the precious moments I had forgotten from my past as I grew up.