The Makers of Destiny: Monarchy

Chapter One: The Ghost Girl

Lillian Starke can't remember the first time she saw the ghost girl. Of course, remembering specific dates had never been one of her strong points. However, she had managed to deduce that she first saw the eleven, or perhaps twelve, year old girl on her way to school somewhere in October or November. Although the exact date was murky, the details of the first meeting were not.

It was a warm day for fall, and she had been walking to school without much of a fixed thought in her head. She covered all the general topics - the movie she watched the night before, the tests she had that day, what gossip was currently circulating the school. It was a perfectly ordinary, completely unmemorable day. She wasn't even paying attention to the path as her feet followed the same route she had taken practically every day of her life. Then she saw ghost girl. She wasn't a ghost exactly; it was only several days later did Lillian notice herself calling the girl that. The ghost girl was sitting on a low brick wall that circled one of the houses. It was a white two story house with a wrap around porch. Vaguely, Lillian remembered that the house had a sign marking it for sale for a few weeks. A part of her brain noted that the sign was gone and some signs of life were blooming around the house. A parade of garden ornaments like clay butterflies and flowers lined the porch fence. A swinging chair hung from the tree in the front yard. Most obviously were the girl sitting cross-legged on the wall humming slightly to herself and making a daisy chain. Another part of her brain registered the fact that the girl should probably be in school, but then one more part of her brain was quick to respond that the girl could be homeschooled or a million other things that were none of her concern.

"Hello!" the girl called, looking up at Lillian's approaching figure. Lillian stiffened and almost tripped. She hadn't been expecting a greeting from the stranger. The girl had pale skin, like a milky white moonstone. She was wearing a white shirt, black vest, and jeans like she was about to set off to a semi-formal meeting. Her curly dark brown hair and glittery gold headband made her look slightly like some sort of fairy princess. Despite the lack of sun, a pair of sparkly gold sunglasses covered the upper half of her face. Using one finger, the girl pushed the sunglasses up onto the top of her head. The largest eyes Lillian had ever seen looked out at her, big and a strange silvery blue.

Lillian nodded her head at the girl when she walked past, but didn't respond.

"You know," the girl yelled after her, "'abattoir' is a really great word for you to know."

Lillian didn't look back or respond. Behind her, she could hear the girl laughing loudly.

"A freak," Lillian thought, "Maybe she has some brain problems and that's why she doesn't go to school." What kind of twelve years old knows the word "abattoir" anyway? Or yell at random fifteen-year-olds as they walk to school? "That girl is insane," Lillian told herself firmly and put the matter out of her head.

Similar encounters happened. Lillian's route always passed by ghost girl's house. Sometimes, ghost girl wouldn't be there, and sometimes she would be, sitting on the fence or laying on the grass in the front yard. Then she would yell some crazy nonsense that Lillian immediately dismissed, but the words would still send a strange, sinister chill down her spine. Lillian never knew when the ghost girl might appear, which is probably why she started calling her that. Or maybe it's the paleness of her skin or her silver eyes that had some sort of wrongness.

Other than the obvious strangeness that clouded each encounter, the words rarely bothered Lillian, so she often ignored them. Usually, she forgot the words yelled at her as soon as they had been said. Soon, it became a routine, as familiar as the worn sidewalk she took to and from school. However, this all started to change one spring afternoon.

It was a relaxed Friday, one of those when you know that you would be allowed to watch as many Youtube videos you want over the weekend without consequences. Lillian was walking home, admiring the flowers that had started to bloom on the trees and daydreaming about the video she had watched at school during lunch. She almost walked by the ghost girl's house without even paying it the slightest attention when she heard a cry.