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Chapter 2

Early in the morning I got ready to leave for my new job. Goodbye king sized room. Bye-bye small bathroom. Good riddance water hose. I won’t be coming back because I’ll have a new home after this job, maybe a new truck?

I have all my bags packed with the necessities for my stay. I contacted the landlord as well about my leave and called Drew from a payphone to ask if he could fix my truck which is still on the side of the road. Now all I have to do is wait outside with my stuff so Máiquel’s driver can see me.

Exactly at nine I see a black Lincoln come up to the trailer. Putting my things in the trunk I look up to see the driver get out. The driver looks nothing more than a boy.

“Need help miss?” he asks.

“No, this is my last bag but thank you,” I say to him with a sincere smile. He gives me a wan smile in return and goes to the backseat door and opens it for me. Closing the trunk I get into the car. The boy closes the door gently for me and goes to his seat in the front. He put the car in drive and we’re off.

Looking at the village through tinted windows of the car seemed so different than looking at it from a truck. In the truck everything seemed normal and serene. It looked as if there were nothing bad to ever happen in the quaint village, but in the dark car everything looked more real than fairy tale. I could see decaying buildings with half of them boarded off from intruders. There were homes that looked like they needed major touchups. People were going on about their day with others in thin clothing but that was nothing to worry about since people are so accustomed to the weather here. This place may have little money but I could see that people enjoy the isolation here. Some might not but they try to make up for it.

We continue to drive through the village and into the trees on a road leading to the next village. We continue to drive until the boy driver takes a sharp left turn onto a hidden dirt path. The motion of the car is unsteady as branches of the trees lightly touch the vehicle. The ride takes on a journey of its own as the continued jerky movements lull me to sleep. How far away does this man have to live from the villages?

I jump at the sound of a door closing. I look around me and see the driver is not inside the car. Just as I was going to open the door it was pulled from me. The boy is standing outside behind the car door. I look past the boy to see a huge house covered in all sorts of vines mostly decayed. I continue to gaze around and studying the front of the house. The driveway is gray brick and leads one way into the forest from where we came from and the other behind the house.

“Welcome to Verdadeiro Lar, Ms. Ollard,” the boy tells me. I realized I have been calling him “the boy” since I have met him.

“I’m sorry I forgot to ask but what’s your name?”

“Heath, miss.” With that he went to the trunk and grabbed my bags.

He leads the way to the house through an open arch at the center of the house. We are still outside but in an area under the house. I look ahead of me and see a beautiful court covered in dead leaves and a tower connected to the house covered in bare vines like the front of the house. If I looked further I could see that one part of the house stretches on past the tower. The exterior of the house is so authentic. This place is too amazing. It’s as if I’ve stepped into a fairytale.

I see Heath open a door to the left of me in my peripheral vision so I decide to focus my attention on him and not get lost in this fairytale of a castle.

“Do you know what time it is?” I ask Heath as we start to walk up a flight of stairs.

As he struggles with my luggage he tells me, “Almost three in the afternoon.”