365

Chapter One

Okay, so, please endure my horrible writing for two chapters. The last few chapters are the best, in my opinion anyway. Stay tuned :)

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"DON'T FALL asleep on the train," my mother warned me as I slipped on my shoes.
"I won't, Mom."
"Your father lives far, Kiley, make sure you don't miss the stop," she warned me again more anxiously.
I gave a sigh and looked at her face peering around the corner of the wall."Don't worry." With that, I picked up my luggage and made my way out the door.
"Bye then!" she called out as the front door shut.
The sun was bright and mellow, radiating down like soft ripples. The square roads and corners formed a maze and I walked towards the bus stop, a smile played on my lips. Painful and happy.

IT ALL started when I was six-years-old. For the first time, I stumbled into that strange room. Dad lived in a town in the countryside, most of it was made of nature; hills and mountains snaked around with rivers and lakes, trees of all kinds sitting in one place. His house was large. When my mother dropped me off there for the first time, I was reluctant.
"It looks like it could swallow me up," I stated, hiding behind my mother as she stood there looking in horror.
"What is this," she hissed and glared as the front door swung open.
The house was made mostly of wood, dark old creaking wood with creepy colour glazed windows. It was big. Very big.
"Really Tim? What is this this place? A haunted house or a graveyard hunt?"
A man stepped down on the creaky steps and approached us, his hands in his pockets.
"Great to see you too, Liz. How long has it been? Si-" he began.
"Six long years, you ass. After all that time, now you suddenly want to spend time with Kiley?" My mother hissed.
The man looked at me, straight in the eye and smiled. A warm smile. The type of smile adults used to fool kids. I clutched at my mothers pants tightly. Then he looked away.
"I know, I know. You're mad. I get it," he started to explain, "but I just needed time. To settle. To get a job. Heck, I was only twenty-one!"
"And you take six years to do that?" My mother shouted. I squeezed tighter at her pants. "Sorry, Kiley. I raised my voice."
"Liz, I've changed. I swear. Even though it didn't work out with you and me, but Kiley is still my daughter. She needs a dad. She needs a mom. She needs us both."
"Yeah, I got that from your damn letter," she hissed.
Dad?
"But I agree," my mother said, almost underneath her breath, "she needs a dad."
I kept silent as the two came to some-sort-of an agreement, clutching tighter to my mother's pants.
"Kiley, that hurts," my mother soothed me. I loosened my grip.
"Spring, I'm much too busy in the winter and summer time with work and Kiley's got school during autumn," the man said.
"Fine," my mother muttered, "whatever."
With that my mother said goodbye to me and reassured me that she'd be back. Then she left, driving away in a strange blue rented car.I stood there watching her leave, and tightly in my hand I gripped a large bag filled with clothes. The man stopped behind me and took the bag in his hand. I looked at him in the face, lost and unsure.
"Why don't we go inside? Then we can talk," he said. He started to move to the house and opened the front door. Inside seemed darker than the late morning daylight. I stayed put in my spot. He looked back at me with big sincere eyes. "Don't worry, the house isn't as scary as it is on the outside. Inside, it's much more...friendly."
I stepped forward and approached him, my feet kicking pebbles and rubbing against hard gravel and soil. Then I entered the house. He wasn't lying. Inside was warm and it smelt sweet. Or perhaps that was just the smell of the pollen from the trees that surrounded his house. He led me to the living room and got me a cup of hot chocolate in a large blue mug. Then, he sat down, watching me sip at the sweet creamy liquid.
"You can call me Dad. Okay Kiley?" he said.
I stared at him, chocolate smeared at the edge of my lips. "Dad?"
He nodded and smiled painfully at me, "Yes, Kiley. Dad."
I didn't reply and only stared at him.

➰➰➰

DAD TOLD me about himself. How he enjoyed watching the History Channel and how he met my mother. He told me the house was old when he found it, and that everything inside was already placed.
"It's a really old house, you see Kiley. It was built way back in the 1960's. Do you know how long ago that is?" he asked.
I shook my head, "No."
"How old are you again?"
I munched down on another cookies and said,"I just turned six a few weeks ago."
"Oh, right."
Dad didn't seem too bad. He didn't do anything bad, but he also didn't do anything to win my favour. I think I enjoyed eating his food more than listening to him talk.
"Do you watch the History Channel, Kiley?"
"Yes. I do."
"Do you like it?"
"I don't know."
"How are you today?"
"Fine."
"More hot chocolate?"
That's how most of our first conversation went. Soon when the clock struck one, he led me up the stairs to the second floor. I saw he had pictures on his wall. Pictures of him and another lady. She looked quite pretty. She had fine green eyes and a big grin. Though, I didn't quite like her frizzy red hair. I didn't ask Dad who she was. It didn't feel right to ask somehow.
My room had faint pasty green walls and yellow drawers all around. Paintings of some strange, exotic and pretty flowers were hung on the walls. The bed looked too high for me to climb on my own, so Dad placed a box there for me to climb onto it. There was a large three-sided window, with white framing. Who would've thought the framing would be white? Especially with all that dark wood outside. The window sill had cushions on it, cushions of different shades of green and yellow.
"Can I sleep?" I asked Dad.
He looked at me with over-attentive eyes as he placed my bag of clothes on the sill. "Y-yes, of course."
"Can I explore the house later?" I asked.
"Of courses you may. I'll be downstairs in the garage if you need me."
He left me alone in the room and I sat silently on the bed. My little legs hanged down and kicked the side of the bed.
"I'm bored," I said aloud, then jumped of the bed with a thud. I walked out the room and wooden floor boards creaked. I walked down the hall way to the staircase. Downstairs I could hear drilling and screwing going on in the midst of a few hammer thuds.
Is he building something?
Upstairs, I could hear an empty wind swirl. I stared up at the next flight of stairs, and stared even more. I slipped a glance downstairs then started my way up. Up to the third floor. "He said I could explore anyway," I whispered to myself. The steps of this flight were steeper than the previous, and I had to lunge my way up each step. The third floor had a large door placed at the beginning of the hall way and it was slightly opened. I could smell books and leather seats.
"Ew," I spat at the smell, cringing my nose.
Next to the big door, there were two other door down the hallway. I moved toward the big door, the hard mahogany wood brushing my little fingers. I had to use all the force I had to push it open, it was heavy. It creaked and whined as it swung open, and I stepped in. It was a big room, large shelves ran across the walls and a desk was placed by the window. The room was big, but it was also very messy. Papers piled on top of one another, and pencil shavings were scattered on the floor. I could smell pollen.
Sweet pollen. A sewer pollen I had never tasted before on the roof of my windpipe. I heard rustling trees, so I ran to the window and pushed my nose up against the glass. Pink. Pink trees were everywhere. The trees budded with pink flowers along with white flowers too and they stretched all the way up to the third floor. I stared at them in beauty, because the truly were beautiful.
"Waa..." My voice began in an awed gasp. I could almost touch the flowers.
I ran my hand along the glass window and followed a long oaky branch. The wood was old, the wood was ancient. What I found leaning on the window sill a meter away from me shocked me out of my dumbstruck awe.
A boy. A tall boy that looked about nineteen. He didn't seem to notice me as he stared out at the flowers. Just like me.
I stared at him for a long while. His shoulders leaned against the glass of the large and long window. He had a a loose plain sweater on. He had delicate hands and long clean fingers than were placed on the sill. A black earring was placed on his right ear, and he had dark hair. The one thing that caught my attention the most, were his dark eyes that were tinted with blue. He slowly looked at me and our eyes met.
I stared. He stared.
"Who are you?" I asked. I stepped only a few steps close, just a few and looked at closer at his looming size. This seemed to have startled him, quite ferociously.
He jumped and knocked the large bookshelf next to him. It swayed from side to side, and the three thick encyclopedias and globe that was placed on the top fell down. They landed on me, as the strange tall boy heaved the shelf back in place. It hurt. At first I sat on the ground, my legs splayed out, confused at the strange throbbing on my head. I could hear my blood throbbing and thudding against my skull, so loud, just as loud as I could feel it.
"I-I'm so sorry," the boy stuttered, his voice sweet, mellow and soft, but croaky as if he hadn't spoken in a while. As soon as I heard the word "sorry", by defenses weakened and my eyes began to water. I wailed, and wailed. He looked a bit alarmed but he didn't approach me.
"Why won't you come help me up?" I sniffed between wails.
He shrugged and shifted then said in the most saddest voice I'd ever heard in my life, "I can't touch you."
The tears and wails suddenly stopped and I looked at him as if he were insane. "Three books. Three books, and a globe, just fell on my head," I said irritated, "shouldn't you take on the responsibility as an elder to comfort me?"
He shrugged again, and I started to get up on my feet.
"Wait, don't," he warned with his hands out, "I'll die if I touch you."
I tilted my head in a wondrous confusion and stared at him all hidden in a corner with shadows covering his face. I reached my hand out at him. He squirmed. I laughed at him, a big grin on my face.
I laughed and laughed.
Soon, he started laughing too.

➰➰➰➰

"MY FATHER doesn't know you're in this house? So, are you a ghost?" I asked curiously swinging in a leather chair. The boy was now sitting on a chair opposite me, he didn't seem so squirming anymore and we talked.
"No," he said, "I was just born to have an invisible existence."
"How come?"
He sighed and shifted in his seat, his tall, lean body resting comfortably. "I was cursed."
I widened my eyes, "Like witches curse and all that?"
He laughed at my face, his chuckles were warm and comforting. "No, not like that. More like a plain curse of life," he said in between his chuckles, "I don't remember it so clearly myself. I just knew that no-one would be able to see me - that is until I met you- and that I could not touch anyone, or else I would disappear into dust. Either way, I still am alive." He rested him cheek on his one hand, the hand that had its arm rested on the couch. "You look like an owl when you widen your eyes," he giggled.
"I'm not an owl!" I protested. I frowned and at him, which made him laugh even more. "How old are you?" I asked as his laughs died down.
"Well, technically seven-hundred-years-old," he said casually.
I jumped out of my seat in surprise, "Seven hundred?!" I looked and stared at his face and body features disbelievingly.
"I've remained this way since I actually turned nineteen, I don't age."
"Wait," I slowed down and slowly sat back in my chair, "why are you in this house then?"
"700 years ago, this place used to be a small castle," he explained, "over decades the castle broke down and many different buildings were built here. I've never been able to leave his piece of land. My boundaries are the gate of this house."
I looked at him sadly and almost cried. He looked at me alarm fully and said, "What's wrong?"
"Y-you've never seen the sea? Or the parks? Or lakes? Or-" I began I a small voice.
He smiled softly and looked at me with dark eyes and swirled with warmth, "Of course I've seen the sea, and lakes, and parks. 700 years can drastically change a landscape you know."
I stared at him confused by my his words, "I don't get it."
He laughed softly and said, "Don't worry, you'll learn it in school."
"Kiley," I said to him, sitting on the edge of my seat, "what's your name?"
He looked at me carefully, his posture straight, and his figure tall even when seated. His eyes glimmering with a beautiful darkness, like the moon shining on a dark pool of water.
"Hank."

That's how I met him for the first time.