Lana was not happy when she found out her parents were shipping her off to live with her aunt. Her aunt was the epitome of snootiness. She was going to teach her how to be a 'proper' lady, to learn to control her temper, to crack her code. They basi...
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Chapter 1: The Unknown
~"She's whiskey in a teacup."~
Lana could hardly believe the words on the piece of parchment. But it was true; it had to be. It was the old woman's exact cursive handwriting, always written in a sinister black ink. She bet money that the woman wrote with a quill, especially since the lady continued to write letters instead of using modern technology.
Her hands started to shake at the sight of the letter to her parents. Anger. Fear. Sadness. But most of all, betrayal.
I will promptly send for Lana on Friday morning. She should have all of her belongings with her, all except her cellular device and other distractions. This is essential for me to turn her into a proper lady. Then it was signed with her hated Aunt Marge's signature. Aunt Marge was the only person in the world that scared Lana. She was the epitome of snootiness and whenever she visited for a weekend, she brought her dictatorship with her.
Lana had been going through her dad's study, sometimes she liked to snoop since she was almost certain her father was having an affair (she had a vivid imagination at times), and boom her eyes caught the letters of her name on the paper. It had been read, the letter sliced with the letter opener, and left on top of his desk. When was he preparing to tell her? Clearly, her parents had been discussing it with Aunt Marge for a while.
By now, she was beginning to tremble. Clenching her hands till they turned pearly white, Lana breathed heavily. Her parents didn't want her, plain and simple. They wanted her to be a 'proper lady'? Well times had changed; they were in the twenty-first century now.
Before she could tell what she was doing, Lana was storming through the corridors of their large house, up the winding staircase, and straight into the drawing room where her parents were having some toffee-nosed guests over; she was supposed to be there with them but was hardly ever appreciated by her parents so she often disappeared from the party. The whole room seemed to stop when she came hurtling in, the doors banging open loudly. It was quiet now besides the background classical music. "What is this?" she demanded her parents, her voice deadly as she raised the crumpled letter in the air.
Her mom and dad rose from their chairs where they were chatting and having a glass of expensive wine, they stared at her with wide eyes, their mouths opening and closing, trying to explain. Lana barked out a humorless laugh. She made a show, in front of all the lavishly dressed ladies and gentlemen, of crushing the letter and rolling it into a ball.
"You want to send me away? To get rid of me, like-like trash? Ship me off so you don't have to deal with me? I am your daughter." She punctuated it by harshly throwing the wad of paper at her father's chest.
"We know you're our daughter sweetheart," her mother comforted, looking wounded, her brown eyes soft. Lana could've laughed at that, her mom was only saying it because they had an audience.
"Honey, why don't we talk about this later? We are at a party, have some fun, we even bought you a dress," her father even tried to shut down the situation.
"I have fifty more dresses like these!" she tugged at the midnight blue dress she was donned in. It was beautiful she admitted, it made her look slender with the iridescent color and the thin swishy fabric as well as the low cut. Her parents had saw it at a fashion show and thought buying it for her would make her more interested in the material things in life. "I don't like dresses, I don't need to get dressed for every single occasion!"
Lana could tell her dad was getting frustrated by the way his blue eyes darted to the crowd around them, listening to their gasps. She could tell he was going to step in and put 'his foot down'.
"Now listen to me Lana Elizabeth Montgomery. This is exactly why we are giving you to Aunt Marge," he was raising his voice now and pointing his finger at her. "She is to teach you to be the lady you are most definitely not. She will teach you manners and to control your dreadful temper and foul language. How are you to find a husband when you are only a brat?"
"A husband? Who are you people? You've controlled me my whole life! I have been home-schooled, I have no friends, I haven't even met someone my age besides that annoying prince that one time, and it's your fault! I'm not letting you do this to me anymore. I'm sick of this house that is so big that I can go days without seeing you and I'm pretty sure it's haunted. I'm sick of these stuck-up people you surround yourself with, news flash: in the entire universe you are barely a speck! And I'm especially sick of you two as my parents!" She sucked in a deep breath after her speech, her expression falling and her eyes flitting around, beginning to become nervous. This was the time Lana finally snapped. She felt it for a while, the bubbling and boiling water rising slowly till it sloshed over the pot. It was the pool of anger that had been stored away for all of her eighteen years.
"Pack your things. Plans have changed. You leave tomorrow."
Lana's indignant blue eyes, identical to her fathers, burned into his. Then she pivoted on her heel and she left the room swiftly, all the scrutinizing eyes of the room following her out, they itched at her. And as she exited, not even bothering to look back, she raised her hand behind her and flipped the bird.
The collective intake of offended and outraged breaths made her satisfied, but it didn't cause her to smile. Instead, as she hurried down the stairs (kicking her heels off in the process), Lana's eyes burned. With tears, she was crying, the first time in many years.
Thrusting the door to the gardens open, not acknowledging the servants warily watching her, Lana dashed down the stairs, passing by the stately garden, and flew towards the decoratively cut hedges. She was going to do what she had planned to do for a long time. To run away.
She didn't really know where she was going. But as her bare feet pounded against the gravel of the garden and through the hedge maze, she was brought instinctively to the edge of her estate. Lana knew what was behind it; the woods, the one that no one ever dared to go into. It was apparently too dark and deep to venture. She didn't listen; she had a long history of not listening. But this time she would admit, she should've.
Bracing herself, she pushed her body through the hedge, the branches scratching at her arms and her dress, surely tearing the fabric and drawing blood from her skin. Once on the other side, she drew a fresh inhale of the air, she was free. This was exactly what she needed. They wouldn't find her. She had heard that everyone got terribly lost in these trees, but she wouldn't. This would be her new title when she got out 'The Girl Who Went into the Forgotten Forest'; it was her clean start.
The woods were most definitely dark, true to the rumors; since the long brooding trees above her were so tall they covered the sunlight even the light coming from her garden. It was strange to her. It was like the forest was cut off from the outside world. She couldn't even hear the noises from the other side of the hedge, no party music, no servant chattering, no snipping of the sheers trimming. The woods in itself was also eerily silent, making her ears fuzzy. But as her eyes adjusted to the near to blackness of the dense woods, she realized she could handle it. Just needed to get through the woods. It wasn't that big of a forest she bet.
But in a little less than five minutes, she was lost. Completely and utterly lost.
And all Lana could think about was her praying that the rumors of the monster wasn't true.
