Asulon: Where Secrets Lie

Chapter Two: Loo

I know this chapter seems super long, but just keep reading! It gets better as it goes on!! I promise! Thanks for reading!! I apprecaite comments and votes, too!!! :)

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If you are intelligent, you will be praised; if you are stupid, people will look down on you. - Proverbs 12:8

It is a proven fact that Sally Hamilton always wins and never loses. Of course, I am lucky enough to be her daughter and not receive a single ounce of that gene.

The day I found out I was going to be sent off to an entirely different country to a stranger’s house I had begged and fought with my mother to not let me go. Of course, that didn’t happen.

Here I am, riding in the back of a spotless Range Rover with an ancient butler named Giles, off to some place called Asulon where supposedly my Great Aunt Elizabeth lives. At first, I thought my mom was sending me off to a nursing home, but then she briefly explained that Asulon is an orphanage or refuge, and Aunt Elizabeth is in charge of the place.

So my mother is sending me off to an orphanage, somewhere in the middle of England, for a whole summer as a punishment for my ‘unacceptable behavior’ during the school year. I think that it is a little dramatic like an old 1950’s movie, but Mom thinks that it is ‘highly appropriate’ and that it will hopefully knock some sense into me. I officially think that my mother is delusional and insane.

Luscious green foliage in full summer bloom whirls by outside my window. If it was any other day the forest scenery might cause me to feel a little homesick for my busy suburban life, but today I am too upset at my parents (especially my mother) to have any kind of longing for home.

“Hey, Giles,” I say from the back seat. I did not want to sit shotgun next to the weird butler.

“Yes, Miss Hamilton,” he replies, drawing out the ‘s’ in yes in a freaky way.

“Um, how much longer before we get there?”

The old man gives a creaky chuckle. “In a hurry are we, Miss?”

“Actually, I am,” I say a little too sharply. “I have had to go pee since I stepped off the airplane, and that was forty minutes ago. So if you wouldn’t mind stepping on it that would be great.”

My snappy reply does not even seem to faze the old man. He simply gives another small laugh and glances back at me in the rearview mirror. His dull gray eyes are deeply set into wrinkly sockets, almost giving him the look of an old bulldog. I shudder as our eyes make contact in the mirror, and I quickly look away. There is something disturbing about the butler that I have been trying to figure out ever since I set eyes on him at the airport. Maybe it is the stringy, gray hair that oddly only covers the top of his scalp, or the strange way he prolongs his s’s; but I think the main reason is his bizarre resemblance to Mr. Willoughby, my belly dancing neighbor. Why does it always seem that butlers turn out to be old creeps?

“Did you say something, Miss?” Giles suddenly asks.

Startled, I hastily stammer, “Uh, no. I was just, uh, humming.”

He does not look totally convinced at my lame alibi, but he dismisses it with a shrug of his bony shoulders. My cheeks instantly warm. Could I have been thinking out loud?

Without warning, the car suddenly hits a nasty bump in the road and the duffel bag that had been peacefully sitting on my lap tumbles to the floor.

“Dang it,” I mutter under my breath as I bend down to retrieve my bag. As I reach for the strap my fingers brush something hard and smooth. I pick it up to find that it is a permanent marker. It is random, but also very useful.