Beyond the Lies: Part One

PROLOGUE: GAIL

10 YEARS PREVIOUS 

I awoke to the bitter smell of burning fire, army green eyes darting about. Through the dense, sooty smoke, I could see glowing orange flames, flashing and flickering as they sent luminous embers into the atmosphere. Crawling off the tattered sofa and onto the creaky hardwood floor, I made my way towards the front entrance, coughing, wheezing, beads of perspiration trickling down my dust caked face.

It seemed like a millennium before I felt my trembling hand grip the metal doorknob.

"Help!" I called weakly, stumbling out, into the cool night, my head spinning like a top.

What's happening? Where are my parents?

Delirious, I fled into the vast, untamed forest surrounding—tripping over tree roots and breaking through skeletal branches until I could go no further. Collapsing to the leafy underbrush, I let sleep wash over me, as I was lifted up, into the loving arms of a stranger, and carried to safety. 

CHAPTER ONE: GAIL

Surrounded by the thick, flourishing branches of an oak tree, I watch as the sunlight's first rays peek over the horizon.

Cawing crows dot the vermillion sky, and somewhere deep within me a well-known, nagging curiosity takes form. Emitting a gentle sigh, I let my fingers loosely curl about the silver locket that dangles from my neck, carefully tracing its intricate design. Then, lifting the precious pendant up before me, I unlatch it, gazing wistfully at the photo inside. Two baby girls, both with beautifully vivid green eyes and a strangely familiar smile are pictured, dressed in matching pink lace-trimmed onesies and tiny woolen boots.

Who are they? I wonder to myself for what must be the one millionth time. Clamping the locket shut, I quickly slide it beneath my shirt and out of sight.

Perhaps I'll never know.

Climbing from my high perch, onto the shingled rooftop below, I take one last look at the rising sun, then clamber down the woodpile shed and onto the grassy ground. After brushing a layer of sawdust from my well-worn capris, I sprint around the house and up the front steps, where my secluded tabby cat, Bunny, is mewing and clawing at the screen door, a bloody field mouse clamped between her powerful jaws. Unconcerned, I turn the handle and observe as she darts through the open door.

Bunny often brings home souvenirs from her long night of hunting. Cottontails, baby birds, rodents, and a variety of strange items that careless people leave around the woods. Car keys, leather wallets and shabby baseball caps—those kinds of things. She will entertain herself with these finds for hours, and when she gets tired of an object, she will drop it in the corner and never touch it again, as if it contains some contagious disease.

There are few toys Bunny forever appreciates, and the ones she does are guarded with each of her nine lives. Just last summer, during the pleasant time when daylilies and lemon-yellow daffodils are in bloom, Grandpa and I had decided a furry friend might just be the simple answer to her being so solitary. So ultimately, we brought home Nugget, a cream-coloured kitten; energetic, playful, and extremely curious. At first, the two tabbies kept their distance. Neither seemed to have the slightest interest in the other. Then, one day, Nugget's curiosity took the upper hand.

Bunny had been behind the floral loveseat, basking lazily in all her favourite odds and ends, when he had silently crept up, eyeing her most cherished toy, a beady eyed stuffed mouse.

I guess that saying, "Opposites attract" isn't entirely true, for the moment his velvety paw reached out to bat at the tattered plush, Bunny erupted.

We rushed to Nugget's aid from our view in the doorway, only to find it was too late.