The Exceptional Clockwork Journey of The Perpetually Alone Hugo Gerard (NaNoWriMo 2012)

Chapter 8

Awkward spacing :P

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Chapter 8

When he returned home, unspoken words between Hugo and his mother transpired. Hugo went to bed, while his mother pecked his cheek and went out into the cold, not even bothering to bring a jacket.

To fill time in those lonely night hours, Hugo completed his book and began the next, Oliver Twist. By morning all three of his books had been read and left strewn around the room.

And still Adéle did not return home.

By six o’clock in the morning Hugo was sickened with worry. His mother had left before, that was sure, but never for this long. On his wit’s end, Hugo finally looked up from his breakfast and belted out, “Time!”

In seconds the air to his right erupted into golden flakes that settled around his shoulders until they flew together to create the body of his father. “What has upset you, my son?” Time asked, pawing at his beard and plucking out a gear near his chin.

“My mother, she is gone,” Hugo whispered, looking down toward his plate and almost falling asleep into the bowl of oatmeal.

“What?” Time exclaimed. “What happened?”

At first he was hesitant to tell his father of what had transpired between him and Oblivion, but in seconds it all came tumbling out, acquainted with quite a few tears. By the time he was done, Time had a reserved and stone cold expression graced upon his face.

“Poor Adéle,” he whispered, interlacing his hands together in an act of worry. “We must save her.”

“Where do you think she is?” Hugo pushed away his oatmeal and placed his elbows on the table, his head in his hands.

“Lanrete Manor,” he replied strongly, toying with the gear that had been removed from his golden beard.

“Where is that?” Hugo’s confused expression baffled Time.

“Hasn’t she told you?”

“Told me what?” Hugo was confused, standing up and pushing his chair in.

“Hugo, your mother left me for Oblivion.”

-

Time gently touched Hugo’s arm, almost in, well, comforting way. For the past ten minutes Hugo had just blankly stared at the wall, no words were transpired between them, nothing.

As for Hugo, all that could run through his mind was the fact that his own mother had left his father for his uncle. An evil one at that. What on Earth was going through her head?

And right at that minute, Hugo was hit with the presence of betrayal. His own mother had lied to him his entire life. He had been told his father was a cheating know-it-all who didn’t deserve his mother, and here he was, talking to a fairly (if not very) civilization man with worry etched across his face who claimed to have sired him. It was all too much. Too much for one seventeen year old boy to process within a matter of days.