Snow and the Wishing Well (Fallen Tales series)

Snow and the Wishing Well

Snow and the Wishing Well
Prologue
Sarah
My heart ached from the pain, from the lost. Such a great man. A kind, loyal, gentle, man.
I lied on my bed, in the dark. It was merely hours after my father had passed away in his sleep. I could hear the servants running up and down the halls, trying to find something. Or hide something.
My hair stuck to my cheeks, as tears stung my eyes. I rubbed my face against my arm feeling the great lost.
Heart attack, someone said. Another said stroke. But my father was a healthy man. Someone said that he was poisoned in his sleep. But who would do that to him. 
"Beatrice!" Called a maid as she ran past my door, "How is she?"
"The mistress is a mess," Beatrice, Victoria's maid, told her. Victoria had brought her from her home town. Said that she was the closest thing to family she had left.
"Do you think she..." the first maid trailed off, "I mean, if it's true. If the Lord was..."
I felt the lump in my throat again at the thought of someone murdering my father. Someone who spent his life trying to help others.
It wasn't long after they left, that I heard my door open.
"Come on now miss," I recognized Heather's Scottish accent when she spoke. It only made me cry harder.
"Miss, Miss," her whispering grew louder making me stop and face her.
"It's not safe here anymore for you miss, you have to leave," I frowned as she started to take a bag from my cupboard and started to throw anything she could reach into it. I was surprised that she could see anything.
"I don't understand," I sniffed.
Heather stopped to face me.
"Your father gave everything he owned to you and left not one penny to that witch. You are now the Lady of Willow Tree Abbey."
"I don't understand, why do I have to leave?" I asked.
Heather ignored me, continuing putting clothes in the bag. 
It felt like a slap in the face when I realized.
"So it's true, my father was murdered."
Heather stopped but didn't face me.
"She'll try and kill me too, won't she?"
Again she didn't answer.
Tears began to fall harder as I realized how much I would have to give up. My home, where I was born and raised. My dear maid who was like a mother to me. The grounds where I learnt to ride, play and laugh. And now it would be the place where my father would be buried. The lost was too great.
Heather wrapped her arms around me, slightly rocking me.
"No, no," I cried, "If I leave, she wins."
I felt a fire burning inside me. A rage that could warm me on cold winter nights.
"Just for a couple of years, Miss. Then maybe you can come back when you're safe."
"Where is she!" the roar of my step mother hit me like a tone of bricks. The person that killed my father, would kill me when she had the chance and was now taking my home away from me.
"Sarah!" she bellowed.
Taking my arm and pulling me off my bed, Heather said, "you must leave now, Miss."
I trusted Heather with everything that I had, and now I was trusting her with my life. She took the bag and dragged me down the hall. We stayed in the shadows making sure that we weren't seen.
When she spotted two footman up ahead, she pushed me into another hall, shielding their eyes with her body.
"Sarah, get down here!" I could see her.
She paced in the middle of the void, wearing her long nighty and dressing grown. Her dark hair was tied into a bun as if she had done it only a couple of minutes ago. It was only then that I realized that it was almost two o'clock in the morning and I was also in my PJs. She didn't look like the grieving widow. She looked like the Evil Queen.
"Come on, Miss," Heather whispered bringing me back to the obstacle at hand. Getting me to safety.
She led me down a number of dark halls, a dark staircase that led to the Servant's Hall and to a door that led outside, to the court yard. This part of the house, I had never seen or been before.
"If you go down that path, you will reach the town. There's some money in there for food, and a bus ticket. Take a bus to Carlisle, then to London. She won't be able to find you there."
My heart was pounding as the feeling of the unknown grew heavy on my shoulders. What would there be for me in London? Where would I live? How would I buy food? How will I make enough money to buy back my home?
Heather wrapped her arms around me, bringing me on the verge of tears again. Could I say goodbye to the place I've only ever known as home?




Chapter 1
Justin
I sat in the library. Natural sunlight lit up the room and warmed every surface.
I had always loved this room. It was the only room in the house that looked over the pine trees and beyond to the boundary line of the estate. In the summer and spring, I would watch as the birds would fly just above the tree tops.
I turned back to the book of Ornithology, the study of birds. My fascination with the creatures had started at a young age. When Pa had brought me my first pigeon. When I realized that it had to live in a cage, I let it go.
"Justin! Justin!" I heard my mother call from down the hall.
"I'm in the library!"
I heard the door open and the sound of Ma's heavy breathing making me wonder how long she had been looking for me.
"There you are, I've been looking for you."
"Clearly," I said as she kissed the top of my head.
"You and those bloody birds," she muttered looking to the open page. It was a report on Mocking Birds.
"Ma, birds are beautiful and –."
"Cleaver creatures, so you keep telling me," she sighed finally getting to the point, "I just wish that one day, you will get your head out of the clouds and maybe, one day, you might find someone."
"Well, maybe I'm just waiting for someone who will understand what birds mean to me."
By the look on her face, she didn't like my answer, "Well Justin you maze well just stay up in those clouds because I doubt you will ever find that girl."
She left leaving me to think about that.
I believed that person was out there. I just had to find her.



Sarah
I sat on the cool pavement of London streets. I wrapped an open sleeping bag around me, as the autumn breeze grew. Thanks to the people in the building on Maple St for leaving this, good enough, sleep bag in the garbage bin outside the building.
Business people walked past, not even acknowledging that I was here. I didn't know if I liked that or not.
I buried my head into the ruff linen of the sleeping bag. I wonder what...
I shook the thought away. The pain was too great to ever think about Willow Tree Abbey.
I looked up at the dying sun and knew that I would have to make a move if I were to sleep inside tonight. Though winter was more than three months away, the nights were growing cold.
I picked myself up, wrapping the sleeping bag tighter around me as I walked. Again people acted as if they couldn't see me. To them I was just another homeless person on the street. But I use to be so much more...
I shook the thought away.
When I got to the homeless shelter, a few of the beds were already taken up. But as if knowing, mine was clear. I smiled and moved over to it. It had to be the best bed there. It was in the corner, lined the wall as the other beds circled it like sharks. When the place was filled, in the middle of winter, it was the warmest place because of the sleeping warm bodies that surrounded me.
I lied down on the ratty mattress that lied on the steel frame. Sighing, I knew I would get little sleep. I never really did these days.
Not when that night still haunts my dreams.
I shook the thought away.
Deep in my dreams, I thought about it. The panic, the worry, the lost, the pain.
When I first came to London, I was so frightened. I went along the streets, jumping at every little shadow, face, creature. Anything I saw was a monster to me. I remember screaming as I ran to what seemed like a forest. Tall trees had surrounded me, cutting of any chance of escaping. I remember being so overwhelmed with fear that I blacked out. The next thing I remember was being woken up by a pack ranger. I had ran into a park and fainted.
I shot awake feeling my heart pound. When I slept, I had no control over my thoughts. Which make me dream about Willow Tree Abbey every time I fell to sleep. 
When I wake, I lock those memories up tight, so I never realize just how much I miss my old life.