Young and Beautiful

Chapter 1: At The End of the Hall

"You know, honey. Everyone in this house has at least one big, scary secret. Yours can't be all that bad."

The hand that grazed Victoria's cheek left suddenly as the doctor turned her back on her. She advanced towards the hall door. Slowly, as if expecting to be stopped.

Victoria felt a strange heat bubbling in her chest. She could hear the blood roaring in her ears like crashing waves as the frantic need to seize this window of opportunity crawled up her throat and finally escaped her lips in the form of a strange cry.

"Wait!" she had called, finally finding her words. She lowered the arm she had found outstretched as Doctor Hoffman turned somewhat gracelessly to meet her gaze.

Vicki pulled back, blushing and frustrated that she had allowed herself into this situation. She never trusted doctors, and Julia was no doubt a doctor. What was it that made her so different? Perhaps it was her intriguing tone or the way she had touched her face so gently-the kind of contact she had missed so desperately during those many years in Windcliff.

But it was those fascinated eyes of hers that barred her. That pure yearning to know her secret... to consume it, feeding her desire to unravel every last layer of her mind and study its every detail. It set the fear of exploring her past ablaze and yet she found herself compelled.

Julia seemed to sense all this in Victoria's expression. Without hesitation and with a semi-tired sigh, she took a step forward and clasped her fingers around Victoria's fragile wrist, pulling her-perhaps a bit too forcefully-away from the balcony and down the hall.

Victoria hardly had the chance to protest and as a result found herself being tugged rather quickly through the dimly lit hallway. The ceilings were high and the walls were lined with once glamorous paintings that had since become chipped and dusty. It was somewhat eerie, Vicki thought.

At the end of the hall they came upon a staircase. Victoria watched the curve of Julia's hips with wondering eyes as they descended the stairs into a long corridor with two glass-paned doors at the very end.

It was only moments later that Victoria found herself in Julia's lair-a place she had intended never to visit, but she was here now and attempting to escape would only make things awkward.

She felt uneasy as Julia released her wrist from her grip and sauntered across the room to a rather large and ornate cabinet. The doctor removed two glasses from the top cabinet and a bottle of whiskey from the bottom, placing both the glasses on the wooden surface and pouring a generous helping for herself as well as for her guest. She walked back over to where Victoria was standing, gulping from her own glass as she offered the other one with an extended arm.

Vicki received the whiskey but did not drink it. There was a long silence as Julia made her way across the room.

The space was different than Victoria had imagined it would be, though she was not entirely sure what she had expected. An elegant couch sat in the center of the room, a wooden coffee table separating it from Julia's tall, black chair on the opposite side. The back walls held floor-to-ceiling bookshelves crammed with books-most of them ancient and untouched. The walls, however, were surprisingly dull.

Victoria's hand brushed against a large fern in a decorative vase and she jumped slightly.

"Sit," Julia spoke at last, gesturing vaguely to the couch as she deposited herself into her own chair.

Victoria felt her chest tighten and she swallowed hard. Cautiously, but with her head held high, she approached the couch, staring at it as if it were a foreign object. She perched herself, timidly, on the edge of the couch and clutched her glass of whiskey to her chest as she stared, wide-eyed at Julia.