RedInk

Wishes Of The Six

Trying to make sense of the world around me felt like staring at a window during a storm — my eyes set to soft focus on either the many drops of water that ran down it, cutting through the fog on the glass or the grey skies that rested beyond. There was no in-between. No middle ground I could stand on to take in where I was. I clutched onto my head tightly, and my eyes even more so as the deafening winds howled like famished wolves. Unruly, and desperate to swallow me whole.

I was about six years old when my father got a job at the local newspaper as an intern. Each morning, he'd wake up early to get prepared for his day. I'd get wake up even earlier and stumbled into the kitchen, barefoot and sleepy with a sheet of paper clutched tightly in my hand. He'd take it from with a smile, then read it and said he was proud. And I could tell by the stars in his eyes that he hadn't been lying.

By the time he got home, he had been exhausted by the days' doings – his previously perfectly kept clothing would now be filled with stains of ink and coffee. He'd greet my mother, then walk into my room without turning the lights on and read to me a bedtime story based on the story I gave him in the morning. I would listen to his voice and allow it to sooth away my troubles like rain would the air.

I thought back to the days before that; when I fell asleep to the original Grimm brother pieces – world's of not only happily ever afters and missing slippers and love in hopeless situations and knights in shining armour, but worlds filled with bathtub murderers and curses and revenge and gore. I've never been afraid, nor unsettled by any of it. Yet now...

I could feel myself drifting aimlessly through my thoughts as if the world around me had been engulfed by an all-consuming black hole, but, a light pierced through it all. It was faint, yet lit the up the inside of my eyelids as a voice broke through. I opened my eyes, feeling my soul pulled down by the gravity of the real world.

"Dad?" I asked, staring at the figure in front of me. A gaslamp behind them turned them into a negative space.

"I'm sorry, no," A girl spoke, crouching down to my level. It had been the girl from before – her scarf now rested around her neck, exposing the several lines of black text that ran across her left cheek. A tattoo? No... A birthmark. Her hair was a soft honey colour that reminded me of summer. It swept across her forehead and disappeared behind her back, tucked into her heavy black jacket that buttoned all the way up to her neck.

"Who are you?" I asked, standing. Though, I might have had bigger questions. But her name may have been a good start.

"Ivy," the girl spoke casually as she looked at the area around us. It had been nothing like I'd ever seen. The cobblestone streets at my bare feet twisted seemingly aimlessly between the wooden buildings, too tall to seem structurally sound. It smelt of dust, too. The kind of dusty smell you'd find in a second-hand bookstore with thousands of bits of gold, yet no proper ventilation. She pulled a slip of paper out of her pocket with writing across it, too small for me to read. I frowned as it suddenly took light, falling into nothing more but ashes. "Dammit, old man. Couldn't you have brought us to somewhere safer?"

"Okay, Ivy," I spoke in the calmest voice I could muster, despite being on the verge of a panic attack. I knew this feeling. First, my heart would thunder and then suddenly stop. "What was that thing?"

"I'll explain everything when we get somewhere safer," She spoke, wrapping her scarf tightly over the wound on her arm. "Reds aren't exactly welcome here. Just keep your head down. Please?"

"Where are we?" I questioned, ignoring her words. My own rising in pitch. She shrugged me off.

"Not where you're used to, that's for sure," She continued down the road,  hugging the heavy stone bases of the tall buildings as if trying to blend into the darkness. I followed closely.