Strength From a Weakness

Chapter One, Her Motherly Love.

---Because You remembered Charlie

Everyone in the village of Krongst knew Marten and Candace Thomas. They were the type of average people that no one disagreed with, simply because they were so down-to-earth, intelligent and, well, perfect. They lived in a large home on King’s Corner and, when not working, kept to themselves inside it.

Mrs. Thomas was a well-known realtor who had sold houses to many a celebrity, and a tall, pretty woman with long dark hair and large blue eyes. Her husband was a short, plump, scruffy blond man who worked as a professor of mathematics in a nearby college.

But Gossip, as it usually does in towns as small as Krongst, had raided the Thomases of their perfect reputation, causing the people of Krongst to question their (now considered “mysterious”) ways. Rumor was that they had a child, a son, who they kept from the public. Those who claimed to have seen the boy had retold their story again and again, so it was not long before everyone living in Krongst knew of “The Thomas Boy”, and, in that odd way people sometimes are, they were right.

Charlie Thomas was, at the time, about a year old, messy, and completely unaware that he was the subject on the lips of many a person in Krongst with nothing better to discuss but a baby that may or may not exist.

This subject of gossip had vanished, however, on a clear, sunny Thursday some ten years later, when Charlie awoke on 127, King Street to a strangely silent house. A swoop of excitement hit Charlie’s stomach as he raised himself from his bed and looked around at the large, windowless room that, despite the blinding orange walls, he had always thought of as his dungeon.

He dressed quickly and, without bothering to brush his hair, hurried out his bedroom door. Rushing down the stairs, still buttoning his shirt, he didn’t even establish that his parent’s bedroom door was wide open.

He reached the mudroom and threw open the mahogany double-doors, breathing in the sweet, crisp early morning air that he had never smelled before.

Suddenly, he heard a soft ‘Thump’ behind him. He turned to see his mother, holding a mug of peppermint tea, smothered in a pink bathrobe and wearing a frown. She marched towards him, grabbed hold of his collar and jerked him towards her, spilling tea down her front as she did this.

“Charlie Thomas!” she roared, looking distressed. “I have told you time and time again, not to go outside. You have everything you need in here. What more could a simple boy want?” She was now breathing heavily. “If they had seen you, oh what torture that would be, the rumors, the hardship, they just began to trust us.” She was speaking more to herself now than anyone else. “How would we deal with….’ Her voice trailed off into nothingness. She was staring up to the top of the stairs. Charlie jerked his head around, knowing what was coming.

“Hello then Charlie” said the man standing at the top of the stairs. Marten Thomas’s face, unlike his wife’s scarlet one, wore an expression of sympathy.

“You know I trust you” said his father.

“Yes dad.”

“And that exiting that door would be betraying this same trust?”

“Mm-hmm”

“As well as that you will leave when it is time?”

“Yes dad.”

Charlie was feeling a mixture of extreme boredom at repeating this for what he felt must be the millionth time, and rage at the fact that he had not been able to escape this time.

“Charlie?” His father beckoned him closer.

“You may get your chance sooner than you think” he whispered

He winked at his son and disappeared upstairs. Charlie followed, finally re-entering his bedroom. He threw himself onto his bed, pulled his blood-red blankets up to his chin and tried, eventually succeeding, to re-enter sleep.

He dreamt of a face, a loathing, hating face, sneering at him through the hazy lavender mist that was his dream. It was the face of his mother. Then, inexplicably, its features grew as soggy as melting clay, its mouth was forced into a wide grin, its nose shot out and it began to grow chubbier, rounder, until it portrayed Marten Thomas exactly.

After his father, the face showed Charlie a long-haired beutiful girl with a bright smile and incomprehensively violet eyes. Then a boy with a mischievous face and high cheekbones, followed closely by another girl, this time with dark crimson curls sprouting out of her head in perfect ringlets.

Charlie looked at the shape-shifter, for suddenly he was standing in front of it as it changed into a woman that greatly resembled him. It opened its ever-changing mouth and spoke in a deep voice that sounded like metal-on-metal, it seemed so wrong for the red-headed girl, for she had once again appeared.

“Charlie” it said, laughing throatily. “Of course, it would be now. Genny’s been getting anxious, you know, thought you’d all died out”.

“Well we haven’t!” cried out Charlie. Apparently his dream self was much better informed on whatever this thing was talking about than he was. At this point however, the sun was beginning to seep through the windows of King’s Corner in all but one bedroom, where a young boy of twelve was silently stirring.

Breakfast was a solemn thing that morning; Mr. Thomas ate silently, occasionally glancing out the vast window at the azure sky outside. Charlie’s Mother, her hair still in large emerald rollers, kept shooting Charlie icy looks over her oatmeal.

Their house had an air of superiority, though the photos on the walls (none of which contained Charlie) didn’t help as to make the house look lived-in. As far as homes go, this one will never be welcoming.

Charlie thought of this as he twirled a piece if potato on his fork, never touching the sunlight cast by the enormous dining-room window, always keeping to the area at the end, shaded by the walls that enveloped him night and day.

Charlie was shaken awake late that night by a strong, hard hand that felt like a metal clamp on his shoulder. He turned groggily in his bed to see his mother, wide awake and staring directly into his eyes. Charlie gave a jolt that nearly knocked over the leaning tower of books perched on his bedside table. Candace, still with an evil glint in her all-too familiar eyes, pulled Charlie out of his bed and marched him down the hallway.

Now she’s going to punish me he thought as he was lead down the spiral staircase. Now that dads asleep, she’s going to do something horrible to me. But just as Charlie was imagining himself being thrown by his mother into a pit full of alligators, she did something that never in his wildest dreams did Charlie imagine her doing. She opened the front door.

The moments that followed that first gust of wind were happy ones, he saw amazing things. A metal chain-link fence, surrounding a large green structure in which Charlie recognized a slide and swing set from his books. A house, which of course he had seen, but looked to him so much different from the outside compared to the inside. And, lastly, the trees, forests, streams and grass. The brighness, greenness and beauty ofit all! He wanted to breath in every minute of it. But his mother was still striding…

As Candace marched, she spoke solomelly to her son. 'look, child" she said. "And listen. The world is still evolving around you, much to rapdly than is my liking. But find Alibi and you shall be fine. Just follow the boy." she held his and still, but stopped marching now, long enough for her child to see the children, gathered in the center of the road. Enough for him to spot the boy, lying as if dead, on the street. And just long enough to tell him "keep the gift within you" before she erupt into dust colored flames and blew away from he soft wind,surrounding him with nothingness.

 you are going to be silent...I can tell. I can read your mind. I don't like what I'm reading. But if YOU like what YOU're reading, please comment. And even if you don't, tell me what I can improve. Please. Beacause I know that some of you are much better writiters than I. And we all want to improve, right? So comment!