Faerytale, The Greatest TAle Never Told... *Book One*

*Fear* (2)

*Fear*

(2)

My life was now my own. I'd walked out the door and out of their lives. I'd disappeared without a trace, or so I'd thought.  I'd kept hidden, kept my identity and age a secret. Being seventeen, I still wasn't legal, but I was fortunate that I had always looked older, so no one really asked. Especially when you had the means to always pay with cash, my own cash. Not a penny from them. Never having deep roots, always moving around and never trusting anyone, the money was good, but even it got low with the extra measures I'd had to make to ensure my identity was safe. Six months, that was all I needed and it had been worth it, worth every penny spent.

                I'd learned more about myself than I’d ever dreamed possible. I was talented. Spinning a tale and illustrating a book in no time at all. My imagination had now become my salvation. On a whim, I submitted a sample of my work for a magazine contest, and I'd won. The money was good, so I'd continued. This realization made me a hefty profit a little over a year and a half later, when I submitted my first novel and it'd accidentally ended up on Catherine's desk. Her response had been nearly instantaneous. It allowed me to support myself and put down roots, permanent ones. I'd already had my daughter by then, she'd only been a few months old. But my life had changed irrevocably. Now that I was the mother, I finally understood and I would never let her down.

*

It had been my pregnancy that had changed everything for me. It had opened up my mind, allowed me to view the magick within me, to see things in my head, in a depth that often went beyond the ability to see things in the real world. My pregnancy had opened my eyes and my heart to the ability of real magick. I could not really be sure how to describe it, only that it was true. It was almost like an alternate reality, a world of my own. I was able to create an entire world from scratch. It had depth and vibrancy. I could create the characters and give them souls. They took flight and came alive. I was the outside observer, watching the day to day. Even if I stepped away, I could come back and see the way the world had progressed in my absence. It helped me to see my own world in a unique way. Now it influenced the way that I lived. My life now depended on the very imagination that had been denied me as a child. My soul had obtained freedom on a level of extraordinary.

                I knew that I was sound, at least, in mind. I had serious issues. I was damaged goods, I knew that and I understood it. I had forced my way out of an abusive situation, but that did not make the evidence any less damning. Neither, did it make me a better person for allowing it to happen in the first place. I knew that I had been young, but I'd also known that what they'd been doing was wrong. How do you wrap that around yourself when you're no more than a child? But I worked for a change, and now, here I was.

                I had someone to care for other than myself. I found a way, I was still struggling, but I knew that I didn't have any other options anymore. My daughter came first. She was the future, my future. Between my imagination and keen instincts, I was creating a safer world to live in, for myself and her. I never wanted to imagine her having to go through the things that I had been forced to endure. So, I left nothing to chance. I was a survivor. My soul had been scorched with all that it had been through, and it allowed me to avoid the danger of smoke now, before the flames.

* * * * * * *

                I had a second sight and right now, my defenses were up. This latest incident on the news filled me with a numbing terror. The idea that a Magickal Realm was real was absolutely amazing, the fact that terrifying things were emerging from it, was paralyzing!