If this world was a perfect world, and if there was a person who knew how to run a government so that everything worked right and nobody did wrong, then I might consider staying. I hope that whosoever reads this letter will understand. This world is a terrible place for me. It’s a terrible place for any sane person to live. Even though I was sane up until the end, it was very hard for me. I hope he will understand. And her. They are the ones who need to understand the most.
So Sophia, my beautiful daughter, I hope you will understand. I did everything I could to keep you alive but hidden, and I hope my efforts were not wasted. I leave my locket to you, and our book, in hopes that one day you will understand everything I never got to say to you.
And Ayden, if there’s any love still left for me, and I hope you can forgive me after all I have done to you, that you will take our greatest memories, and all that you have promised me from the time we spent together, that you will take what you need. You know what I mean. Take care of our Sophia.
From the bottom of my heart, or what I have left of it, I love you two. And I always will.
It was a bright and sunny day when she got the news. Sophia Jankson was on her way to a friends house-Ellie had some new clothes she wanted her to try on for the wedding. Out of all the years of hiding, her mother had finally expressed her love for Sophie. In a suicide note.
Her mother had gotten pregnant out of wedlock at the age of fifteen, and she had hidden the pregnancy as best as she could. The only person who knew of her condition and how it had happened was an uncle in the cathedral some twenty thousand miles away from where Helena had grown up.
She came to her uncle in a desperate and dire need of help. Since her family was strictly religious, and she was not a wife to the father of the child yet, she would be looked down upon by her family if anyone had ever found out. Her uncle was sympathetic, given the circumstances, and took her in the nine months she was pregnant. When the time came for the girl to be born, Helena took all risk and went natural. One of the nuns in the cathedral at the time assisted in the labor, and it nearly killed Helena. She named the baby girl Sophia, and left her at the orphanage, where she visited occasionally.
The only thing her mother had ever given her was sent to her on her eighth birthday. It was a locket, with flowers entwined around a butterfly on the front. The locket would not open for anyone but Sophia, her mother had said in a short note, and only would open when the time was right.
She had seen her mother twice after that, and both visits had been short and brief, with nothing said about the locket, which Sophia had wore around her neck every since. Now she was fourteen, just mere months away from fifteen, and her mother had finally told her she had been loved.
And who was Ayden? The way her mother had told him to protect ‘our daughter’ made it seem like he was Sophia’s father. But she had never heard of any such man, nor had her mother said anything about him.
So it was left, and the messenger had came and went, leaving Sophia with the uneasy feeling that this was not the end. Her mother had always been one of little words, and Sophia had the feeling that there was still more to be told.
She wanted to go and see her mother, which she could easily do. So she went that way, and when she arrived, the place was empty. No policemen, no doctors. Just her mother’s house as it had been. Where was her mother? As Sophia looked through the house, she realized that a door stood ajar, as if waiting for her. She cautiously opened the door further, looking in a little at a time. A fleet of steps led down. Taking out the matches she had in her handbag, Sophia lit one and held it up, showing the wooden staircase with the writing on the wall. The letters were in red, and with a gruesome shock she realized that her mother had written her a message-the last-in her own blood, even as she was dying.
She followed the stairs down, taking the turns as instructed. There was a narrow hallway, and a door that was left open at the very end of it. She went that way, directed by the blood prints on the wall and the drips on the floor. The blood was still fresh, hadn’t dried all the way into the floor. As she came into the room, she was almost surprised at what she saw.
The room was lit by several red candles, each nearly burned out. The table had been pushed toward the middle of the floor, and the bookcase was splattered with ink. No doubt her mother had used that ink for her last words. Out of all the people who knew that her mother had bared Sophia, Sophia herself was the only other person to know about this room and the secrets it contained. Without a glance to her mother’s body, she went over to the bookcase. She pulled back the cover, and from it she took a small key. She slid the cover back into its place, and ventured further into the room.
At the far end of the room there lay a door, where a bright red S was marked, again in her mother’s blood. Sophia took the key, and opened the door, venturing into the unknown passage.
It was a long wide hallway. Shadows danced on the walls. She half expected to be attacked by a menacing stranger.
