Box of Chocolates

Dark Secrets

Reaching the highest point of the trail that snaked steeply up the rocky precipice to a small, flat, grass-covered clearing before it vanished under the thickly grown trees of the encroaching forest, I turned back, to catch one last glimpse of the place I loved the most in the world.

As I watched the setting sun sending its long rays to scatter, glimmering like spilled diamonds when they touched the glass of the hundreds of windows set in the castle's sky-high turrets and towers, saw them caress the multitude of rooftops like elongated, gilded fingers, I couldn't stop the memories from trickling into the forefront of my mind. This place had been my home for many long years, its headmaster, my beloved, adoptive father.

°•□•°

"Come here, little one."

Raising my eyes to the silhouette standing perfectly still at the bottom of the dark lane, my breath caught with fear.

They found me again... Maybe I could outrun them like the last time, but I'd have to find another place to get to the scraps of food nonetheless. I tried to stand up, but my legs gave way, refusing to obey, sending me back on the ground. I was too weak for running this time. It had been months since I lived alone in the streets, I couldn't...

"Come here, little one," the dark-clad figure repeated, the man's voice sounding even gentler than before.

He wasn't one of them... But I was past trusting people. I shook my head, hiding deeper behind the enormous rubbish bins surrounding me.

He didn't speak anymore and I was sure that he had left when I felt his arms around me, lifting me in the air effortlessly, taking flight and shocking me into obedient silence before I could start screaming.

Strangely, I felt my fear abandon me even as the ground disappeared from under his feet, as he shot into the moonlit sky too fast for any preying human eye to notice. I glanced at his face, and finding it shrouded in shadows, I focused on his black hair, looking blue in the eerie light of the distant moon. At that moment, I didn't care where he was taking me. Anywhere would be better than where I had been.

I only realised that I had fallen asleep when I woke up in a room which I didn't recognise.

Moving aside the curtains of the four poster bed, I gasped at the sight of an arched window-- an ancient patchwork of dozens of pieces of glass. The fireplace set in the wall next to it looked just as ancient, and a real fire burned within, the dancing flames luring me out of the bed, craving to feel their heat on my skin. A large wooden trunk stood open at the bottom of the bed, a multitude of clothes spilling out of it.

I must have been in a castle. Or I had timetravelled into the past. Maybe both.

In any case, I wasn't in my world. Before my mother died a few years back, we lived in a tiny rented flat so close to a railway that the whole place shook every few minutes, with each passing train. There was no fireplace and no money for any sort of heating in winter. And after... I lived in the streets. It was my desperate decision to run before the landlord or the authorities would turn up when mum didn't come back home one day. I couldn't, I would never go to an orphanage. From a well hidden place, I watched the flat from a distance for weeks, hoping that she would return, but she never did. She never told me what she did to earn the little money we had, where she went when she left me in the mornings, there was nowhere to search for her...

A knock on the door disturbed my memories.

"Come in," I called and found a girl a little older than me dressed in a plain black robe, looking at me from the door.

"The headmaster would like to speak to you. I'm to show you around."

Alexa was quite talkative. The flow of her words never stopped as she showed me the bathroom, her room situated next to mine, as she helped me dress in the same minimalistic dress she wore. She never stopped talking until I asked where we were and why. Then, she remained silent until I changed the subject.