Forgotten Memories

Chapter 1

Copyright ⓒ 2017 by NEVERENDINGMIND (of Wattpad)

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**Charlotte Alcott's POV**

Charlotte dashed through the door all the way to the kitchen. She hurriedly cleaned up the table, the dishes left in the sink from a few hours ago at breakfast, the sticky, wet counter tops, and floors, before running back to the foyer where she switched out the flowers in the vase that were brown and corrugated from many weeks ago. She then bolted to the living room to throw away trash, straighten pillows and blankets, and spray the room down with Febreze, before continuing to the anterior room and family room to do the same thing.

Her two brothers, Dom and Hailen, were busy attacking the four grimy bathrooms while her sister, Sophia, and her mom undertook the disastrous bedrooms and her father worked on the normally clean-cut backyard, which was now full of clattering toys from babysitting their cousins, Kat, Carly, and Mar, for two weeks.

"They're only a few miles away from the driveway which may be long, but it's not the Oregon Trail!" Charlotte hollered up the newly redone wood stairs, her tone frantic and full of anxiety.

The good thing about living on a farm in the middle of nowhere with a straight road and long driveway is that you can see people coming from at least ten miles away, giving you time to tidy up. She was delighted that she had accomplished cleaning the whole main floor in under six minutes. Glancing around, she noticed that it wasn't flawless, but knew it was better than it would have been if the carriage had been a friend, neighbor, or stranger.

The visitor was riding in what was one of many royal carriages, though not one that actually held the royal family. She was fairly certain that it was just a courier carriage though she knew it very well could be one of the investigative carriages which were new to Trordon, so new, her family hadn't yet gotten one. They were used for royal guards to search houses on a random basis in a random order, for the protection of the royal family and supposedly for the protection of the citizens of Trordon.

As the stories go, they search for hidden refugees, illegal stock, and suspicious behavior and objects. If they deem something illegal or if they deem you suspicious, you have to go to trial for possible treason and if they deem something suspicious, you are given a warning and whatever they deemed suspicious is taken away. If they find the same suspicious item in a house more than once you also have to go to trial.

"Yeah, we're nearly ready and your dad is hastily watering the backyard," she replied, peeking her head out of the doorway of one of the bedrooms. She would never understand how her mom could remain calm with a royal carriage driving towards our house carrying an unknown passenger.

Charlotte sat on one of the divans in the living room, closing her eyes and centering her attention on her breathing while trying not to think about the visitors who she would soon have to meet. She patiently waited on the mauve fabric as the seconds flew by like hawks, her heart trying to climb its way out of her throat. At some point, she heard her brothers come down from the bathroom, but they headed straight to the kitchen to use the Gojo pumice hand soap to get rid of the bathroom cleaners on their hands. Shortly thereafter, her parents and Sophia came and sat with her in the anterior room, each choosing a different armchair.

Once Dom and Hailen finished washing their hands in the kitchen, the whole family sat in the anterior room in silence, their anxieties flying higher than kites. She realized that the unidentified travelers would be arriving in only a few negligible minutes, but she couldn't force herself to wait at the front door for them.