Desire (On Hold)

Chapter 1

Hi! This is the first proper chapter of this story! It's starts off slow, I know, but please hang in there. It'll get more interesting! Enjoy :)

Chapter One

I frantically rushed around my tower like a whirlwind, picking up all sorts of things.

I shoved clothes in my overflowing wardrobe, stuffed useless paper in the garbage bin and swept the room swiftly.

“Do you want some help, Miss?” one of my servants, Samara asked. Samara was the daughter of my main servant. She was also my best friend. We had known each other for over fifteen years and had formed an unbreakable friendship, but whenever Samara’s mother was around, we had to act as though we didn’t know each other well.

“Samara,” Andorra, her mother, scolded. “You know Miss Elle isn’t allowed help cleaning up when the Mistress is coming for her check up.”

Samara shot me an apologetic smile as I continued around the room like a human tornado.

Andorra who was obvious tired of watching my useless efforts trying to clean up, left the room and went to the kitchen, probably to instruct the chef – her husband - on what to cook.

“Happy birthday, Elle!” Samara said to me quietly with a smile that lit up the room. “You’re an adult now; sixteen! You really should stand up to Mistress Asteria.”

“I can’t Sam, you know that!” I said heavily, falling onto my bed and staring up at the tall walls. I felt like a prisoner. In the end, that’s all I was. I was a prisoner, trapped in this tower with only a handful of people to keep me company: Samara, Andorra and Lucas, the chef. They, like me, were trapped in this tower in case one of them blabbed to somebody about my existence. Of course, I was never meant to know that, but being in here for so long, I had learned a few tricks on how to listen in on conversations. “I desire nothing more than to get out of this place, but I can’t. She’s my mother, I can’t disobey her.”

Samara cast her eyes down and shrugged. She knew better than to argue with me. I was fiery and stubborn. I would never back down.

“Come on, Elle,” she finally said. “Let’s get you beautified! This is the only reason I like it when Mistress comes, you know.”

Samara smiled brightly and pushed me down into the seat at my dressing table. She pulled out the hair tie from my long plait and started combing it through with her fingers.

I hated my hair but Samara loved it. It was a honey colour and extremely long, reaching just down to the floor. It was so difficult to maintain that I usually just left it twisted into a plait, but Asteria needed my hair to be twirled into the right sort of plait. It was a pain, but that’s what life is… a pain.

Samara held out a long red dress to me, which I slipped on quickly.

A piercing whistle sounded through the room, alerting me that Asteria was here. I rushed out of my bedroom to the loft where I saw Asteria standing on a beam. I always wondered how she got up there, but learned from a young age it would do no good to ask questions.

“Elle, let down your hair,” Asteria said as she always did. I lay down on the floor and dropped my plait down. Asteria reached up, grabbing hold of the end. Samara and I pulled my hair up, me cringing the whole time. Didn’t Asteria realise how much it hurt? Didn’t she care?

“Ah, Elle,” Asteria said when she finally reached the top. She wrapped her jewel-encrusted arms around me and her lips brushed my cheek. As always, I could tell it was a chore visiting me. That’s all I was to her: a chore. She could be out there, living a wonderful life – and for all I knew, that’s what she could do when she wasn’t visiting me – but once a week it was her duty to visit her prisoner daughter.

“Mother,” I said respectfully, giving a small curtsey.

Asteria looked around my tower critically. She ran her finger on all surfaces, checking there was no dust. My breath caught in my throat when she stood in front of my wardrobe, hands on the handles.

“Would you like a tea, Mistress?” Samara rushed to my aid.

“Not now,” Mother waved her off and tugged the wardrobe. The clothes I had stuffed in earlier tumbled out, carpeting the floor in front of Asteria. “Elle!” she shouted. I shrunk back behind Samara. Asteria’s anger was always petrifying. “I ask you to do one thing – one thing – each week and you can’t even fulfil that simple task. All I want is to make you appreciate what you have.”

My confidence came back after her last sentence.

“What I have?” I said incredulously. “What do I have, Asteria?” I saw her flinch at my use of her name instead of calling her ‘mother’. “I have nothing but the walls of this stupid tower with windows so high I can’t see anything but a patch of sky, and a few people to keep me company. Also, my mother doesn’t seem to think I’m important enough for a visit more than once a week.”

Asteria’s face flushed angrily, but I could also catch a glimpse of something else there… was it remorse? Surely Asteria wouldn’t feel any remorse to how she treated me.

“I’m leaving,” Asteria hissed. “I shall come back tomorrow and when I do, I expect your tower to be cleaned up properly and your attitude fixed.” Asteria left in a flurry of material.

“That has to have been the shortest visit she’s ever had,” Samara whispered. She was terrified of Asteria, even more than I was.

I sunk onto my bed and covered my face with my hands. I always had to ruin everything. Maybe that was why Asteria hated me and we didn’t have the same relationship Samara had with her mother. I wished I could turn back the clock and fix everything between us, but that was ridiculous. How could I change something I did when I didn’t even know what that something was?

Trumpets sounded from outside. I heard them every birthday of mine. I always imagined that they were playing for me but that was just some childish fantasy.

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