A Twisted Cinderella

Chapter 2

My heart beats so hard I can't hear anything but the rush inside me, throbbing in my ears, choking me when I swallowed. Was there really been a black bear and wolf there? I charge forward wanting to be as far away as possible, my entire body shakes I don't know how my legs have been holding me up.

"What's the hold up?" My mother snaps

I open my mouth to tell her about the animals, but I feel stupid so I shut it. She looks at me weirdly and I didn't even get the chance to get to know her.

I sighed somehow telling her that I just saw wild animals in the woods isn't going to gain any points in the "not a loser" department. I was already beginning to think if I hallucinated the whole thing. I knew that there were wild animals in national parks and other places, but never had I ever seen them in person.

I also don't think there are very many or close to none chances of this becoming like Little Red Riding Hood. I was just daydreaming, I was in unfamiliar territory with a creepy forest and shadows playing tricks on me.

"Do you need help with that?" She asks, I could tell her was growing impatient with me.

"No, I have it," I tell her ignoring her scowl.

I pushed onwards trying to not get caught up in my daydreaming again, I also wasn't about to let this frosty woman who abandoned me help me with anything.

I don't remember her abandoning me, when she left Dad use to tell me all kinds of stories about her, how happy she was when she found out she was expecting, how she bawled her eyes out when she found out she was having a girl. How she agonized over twenty different names cause she wanted to pick the right one.

How much of it was a lie? She didn't act like that now, she couldn't even look at me nicely, I feel as if I hiked ten miles my shoulders beginning to cramp and ache, I hear noises.

At first voices, then I began hearing laughter of children, not the wild animal noises I had heard in the woods. As we stepped out of the woods and into a long clearing, everything goes quiet, a group of kids who were playing with a Frisbee stop, an old woman with flyaway hair reclines nearby. Two little kids sit on a patch of Sandy soil, intently digging with spoons.

The kids who were playing with the Frisbee looks a little older than me, a black guy and Asian guy, both wearing glasses, sweaters and dark jeans, play with a purple haired white girl wearing skinny jeans and a T-shirt with a faded band name on it.

The moment we appeared everyone stares at us, watching us before last week I might have loved the attention maybe if I wasn't wearing sweats or a to-big-sweater, maybe if I didn't have mud on my thigh from where I fall, maybe if I had worn makeup, if I wasn't red from all the hiking I just did. If my dad was still alive, I would have enjoyed the attention but now I don't.

Louisa takes a determined step forward, her head held high, after half a second I square my shoulders and follow after her. I prayed they were all staring at her and not me. As we pass they move closer to the woods, and I recognized that it's me they're afraid of, I didn't understand why.

"Weird" I mutter to myself.

We pass the cluster of kids my age, and I try and take in my surroundings. There were picnic tables and a circle of rocks where a bonfire once was, stepping back into the sparse woods I see more people, though they seem lighter here, less threatening.

"What's going on?" I asked when we were out of sight of the people. "Why is everyone staring?"

Louisa doesn't answer she just gives a look that makes me flinch away from her, she then picks up the pace. We emerge from the dirt path into what looked like a summer camp.

After living in a city for too long the forest seemed to quiet. I drag my feet against the dirt, it echoes off the mountain around us. There are little log cabins all around, with dirt paths leading to each door. A few of them have smoke coming out of the chimneys. More people stop and stare at us.

My mother doesn't stop or even look at them.

A little girl runs to us, looking at me with widened eyes filled with curious as I looked closer I noticed a strangeness of her eyes, the irises are a dark blue ting filled with gold, it was a deep honey gold. It was disconnecting, especially in her warm complexion, where you'd expect brown eyes.

A streak of white darts through her dark brown hair, right behind the ear. I meet her eyes and something flickers inside me. I couldn't dwell to longer on the feeling when an Asian girl with long dark hair bounds forward from one of the groups around.

"Is this her?" The girl asks my mother, as she grabs my arm. I do my best not to flinch again.

Louisa nods stiffy at me. "Yes, this is Victoria."

The girl gasped and jerked back as if I burned her, she stumbles into the guy behind her who falls into the black girl next to him who steadies her and mutters something under his breath. Another guy that I don't recognize, circling what looked like a heart, from the way his eyes go wide I can see more of the golden around her eyes.

I could tell by the circling heart it was a sign to warn off evil, like I was a monster. A nerdy-looking guy holds onto his arm looking like he's going to faint.

I glanced at my mother hoping she'll have an explanation, but she stares into the woods not looking at me or any of the children. The last girl in the group, a stocky Mexican with one arm that ends at the elbow and a scar across her neck that makes me shiver, whispers words I don't know in Spanish.

"She's not like us," my mother snaps at the group as she grabs my suitcase from me. What did mother mean I wasn't like them? Was I different because I didn't grow up in this weird hidden village? My thoughts think of the worse as I followed after my mother.