Beneath

Part 1- Chapter 1- Secrets

There's something strangely calming about being awake when nobody else is. No one is there to be cruel. No one to tell you you're not good enough. Just me and my book. The one I found at the abandoned library no one knows about. The rest were wrecked, or overgrown with plants like the rest of it was. It was a really old library. There was a picture hidden in the dedication - to the only one who truly understood. It seemed to sink deep into the words, just like the library had sunk into the ground. I almost felt guilty pulling it out. A picture of a woman with ivory hair, ebony skin and a scarlet dress, shimmering like blood . Her face was very pretty. She makes me smile. She's sitting on a stool talking to an invisible camera. Her hands are in the air, flying around, animated as she tells a story.

The book has a deep faded cover. It's brown now, but I think it used to be red. There was only a faint tint of gold when I found it. And letters carved into the bottom. They say "By Dhalia-" and that's where they stop. The book is about a place, A painfully beautiful place. A place of peace and happiness, but also a place of horrific destruction. A heart-breaking and wonderful tale of wars and hunger and strange beings ruling over a planet. Of loneliness and belonging. Of wild emotions and racing hearts. Dhalia is good at writing books. If she was smart, she could have been really pretty too.

That's why I think she's the girl on the poster. It's stupid though. Mama says that most of my ideas containing pretty girls and beautifully written books are infuriatingly stupid. That's why I never told her about my secret library. But I think it's ok to think about things. Even stupid things. Even secret things.

Dhalia gives me a sense of hope. Maybe if she was successful and profound, I could be like her too. I only know about a fraction of who she was. I could only become a fraction of who she was. I'm not like her at all though.

I'm lazy and I don't care about writing profound things. My hair's not blonde like hers. My skin isn't ebony, but it's a dull scarlet, something like dried bricks. My dress isn't teal, it's depressingly black. Dhalia says she only ever wears black at funerals. Funerals are what happens when someone dies on her mystical planet. In lo dolobha, we just throw the body into Phetho. Dad says he's been there once. He says that that's how you get to umhlaba. I think that's the mystical planet Dhalia's from. He says he went to umhlaba once. He says it was green and blue and there were strange beings with varying shades of beige skin and 5 fingers. He said they chased him away back to lo dolobha.

Kron says dad's got a screw loose. Kron says a lot of things though. And he's only right about half of the time. Time! What's the time? I run to the kitchen. Good, 00:00, no one's awake except me. I run back up to my room. I'm on page 112 of Dhalia's book. I've read it a lot of times, and I know it from front to back. I can recite every line in that book a hundred times over, and I would to anyone who would listen. But I don't trust anyone with my secrets. Kron would tell mama, mama would be mad, baba would make me sit on the coals again, People at school would laugh.

I take out the poster of Dhalia. I tell her that she doesn't need to worry about me. That I'll do something to give me hope that one day I shall go to magical umhlaba, and I shall meet her there. I shall hug her and tell her everything and she shall smile and tell me that everything's going to be ok.

I put Dhalia back in my secret cupboard, I put my head on the pillow of my uncomfortable mattress and I tell myself that my secret will be well guarded. My Dhalia secret. My library secret. Secrets, secrets, secrets.

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It was never a secret