Chapter 4
I trailed behind my queen nervously. I knew she was going to interrogate me the moment we got into her chambers. I also knew that Jason, the director, hadn't found Shelia. It wasn't unheard of for him not to have caught her but her minions or her numbers instead. She wasn't going to get caught that easily. Although these were only passing thoughts in my mind when she closed the door and faced me, looking as if she was going into battle. The mantra that I kept thinking was "how the hell am I going to tell her about me?" As I was opening my mouth to try to explain, she held up her hand.
"All I want to know is your real name," she sighed losing all the fighting spirit that I had seen from her while marching up here. Shocked I stared at her for a brief moment before nodding slowly.
"Castor. My name's Castor," I answered hesitantly waiting for the barrage of questions to begin but when she just sat down and leaned her head against the couch cushions, confusion overtook me. "Why aren't you asking anything else?" My question didn't appear to affect her much because she glanced up, her eyes looking through me.
"If you want to explain it in time then you can. I don't have anything against that and I still trust you. I just wished you would've told me your name before I got this shock," she explained. Sinking down next to her, I considered what she had told me. There had only been two other people who had found out about me fully before they had killed themselves. The notes each of them left had said that they weren't able to deal with what I had gone through or the fact that I may end up betraying them. Both deaths had hurt worse than they should have because the two people had been my lovers.
"Then tell me things slowly. I don't need you to tell me all about yourself in one go. Just a little bit and then we can get the newbies settled in," she offered as I realized that I had said my thoughts aloud. Looking down at my hands, I thought it over before sitting up and taking a deep breath. She shifted to where she leaned against me wordlessly, giving silent strength to tell her what I wanted to.
"I was born to a hedge witch who didn't use her remedies for birth protection. She was a beautiful woman and loved me more than life itself. She brought me up with a mixture of smiles and small punishments that hurt deeper than any actual physical pain which allowed me to learn from it. I never met my father. When mom spoke about him, all the light went out in her eyes and she would look into a place that I couldn't see. I didn't like that so we never talked about him. I knew that I looked like him but as to who he was...it's a mystery that I don't want to solve. I was eight when my mother got killed. They came in the middle of the afternoon with only me as a witness. We lived too far out of the way for anyone else to see. I didn't know who they were and at first thought that they were customers so I hid myself because most of Mom's customers didn't like knowing that she had a child. It was...horrible and disgusting and humiliating to watch and not be able to do anything about. My mother was raped multiple times and was beaten so hard when she tried to get away that she had broken bones and bruises were forming as they did it. She never saw me watching, paralyzed, unable to move. I wanted to save her, to do something to protect her but even as they slowly chopped up her body and then cooked it to eat it, I couldn't do anything. I tried to move...I honestly did but...something stopped me. The murderers never found me that day and the only thing that was left of my mother was the blood on the floor and her bones. Once they had gone away, I climbed down and stared at the mess unmoving for days. I vaguely remember one of her customers coming to get something but once she saw the horrific scene, she grabbed me and ran out of there.
"I'm still not sure of those days and as I try to remember all I get is a dark room with rats that scurried around. I ended up making friends with them and they brought me small morsels of food that sustained me over the weeks that I was in there. I talked with them so much through mental speech that I didn't even use my mouth anymore except for eating. When I finally was released, I found out that I had been imprisoned for my mother's murder but the real murderers had come to light so they let me out. I stayed in the slums with my rat friends that talked and provided for me. The other slum kids didn't seem to know how to take to me until I rescued one of them from a passing carriage. The shock of nearly being run over was a lot to deal with and he ran away from me in terror. For a time, I was left alone as they considered me again with fresh eyes. Oddly enough, they took to me and the boy I saved came into my small corner.
