Allegro
Rebecca Wang
"No! I am not going there!"My ignorant step sister, Jenn yells at our doorman for the hundredth time. "I'm sorry, please take care of the house while we're gone." I apologize to him and with that I pull Jenn inside of the car. "Tell me why we have to do this?" Jenn asks angrily. "Because, it's not safe here." I explain tiredly. "And it's safe there?!We don't know anyone!" I just sigh and stare out the window, hoping this won't the last time I'll be seeing New York.
We arrive at a big, white building, with vines crawling up the walls and reaching into the windows .It has a sign saying 'Mrs. Dark's orphanage for children'. I shudder at the sight of it. I knock on the door twice and in a few seconds a lady with long, black hair, a wrinkled face and pit-dark eyes greets us.
"Good Afternoon. I am Mrs. Dark, manager of the orphanage." She says in her English accent. She stares at me deeply for a second, as if she were trying to reach in and grab my soul with her eyes. Then, still staring at me says, "You must be Annabeth. Annabeth Reyes." I nod slowly. She glances at Jenn for a second and walks away. "Come, come!" She yells and we pick up our bags and scurry after her.
I lay on the hard bed staring at the ceiling. Just four days ago, Kevin married my mother, Nicole. Then two days later, they went missing. I woke up in the middle night to go to get a drink. I checked on them but they were gone. I searched everywhere, I asked everyone. But no one knew anything. An orphanage in England rang up, and we accepted, not caring how it knew about us.
"Ugh!" Jenn yells, snapping me back to reality. "This place is hideous!" She scoffs. "Jenn, we've been over this, you'll get used to it, okay?" I sigh as I cup my hands around my face. "You're right, I will get used to-who am I kidding, I will never!" She yells in fury. "Jenn-"I start. "Don't Jenn me! If it weren't for you-"The sound of a doorbell cuts her off. I hear someone open the door and Mrs. Dark yells "Get out of here!" and then the door slamming. We both laugh and I look out the window. There's a young boy, about my age with fine brown hair that sweeps across his forehead and emerald green eyes. He's walking away from the door. "Excuse me, sir." I say. He turns around and stares at me with wide eyes. "You know it's rude to stare" I say gruffly. "You are, you are Annabeth Reyes?" He stammers. "Yes…" I say uneasily. He whispers "I need to talk to you…in private…"
As I climb down the vines outside my window, my foot slips and before I think I'm going to die, he catches me with his steady arms. "Th-thank you." I stammer awkwardly. "You're welcome, Miss Reyes." He says politely. "You can call me, Annabeth." I smile.
"So you mean my parents were kidnapped into a whole different world, and used as hostage!?" I half whisper, half yell. "Uuuuhh, yes?" He says. I feel lightheaded as I sit on a bench outside the building. "By the way where they are, is called Alicante, I am Lochran Wight." He pronounces it A-li-caan-tae. I shake it nervously. "I know, it's a lot to take in." He says after a while of awkward silence. "A lot? This is like finding out your parents are actually crocodiles!" He smiles. "Do not tell your sister about this, and certainly not Mrs. Dark." He warns, with a sense of mysteriousness in his eyes. "Okay." I exhale.
At dinner, we sit at a long wooden table. Just Mrs. Dark, Jenn and I. After twenty minutes, the maid comes to us holding plates of things that look like beef and vegetables. When it's set in front of me, I see small veins that go through the meat. I gag. "What is this?" I ask. "I hope you girlies like lamb heart." She smiles an ugly smile, revealing all her yellow crooked teeth. My stomach contracts. "Mmm, delicious…right, Jenn?" I nudge her. She looks so pale I think she might throw up. I just end up eating the vegetables only.
I awake, wincing at the sun that's peeking out from the torn curtain. My bed hair falls in front of my face but I just lay back down. A thought creeps into my mind. Will. He's waiting for me near the tree outside the orphanage. I change into denim shorts and a tank top, and then yank on my favorite red and black spotted sneakers. I climb down the vines again, making sure I don't slip this time. I see him leaning against a tree. "Ahem." I cough. "Oh, good day Annabeth." He replies brightly. "You remembered." He says surprised. "Why wouldn't I?" I ask. "Most girls are too astounded by my beauty and can't remember anything I've told them." He says wittily. I scoff, "so what do you want, Wright?" I try to sound tough but it doesn't work. "I say…you come to Alicante…with me."
"What!?" I yell. "Are you nuts? Have you gone crazy because of my beauty?!" I joke but he smirks and says, "Maybe." Something in me bubbles frantically, look down at the ground blushing. "Don't you want to save your parents?" He asks. I sigh. "I don't even know why my parents have anything to do with Alica…Whatever it's called." I say tiredly, although I had just woken up. He pauses for second. "Alicante and, Annabeth?" He asks. "Yes?" I say. "Your mother is the daughter of Robert Reyes, the ruler of Alicante." I breathe in slowly. "So my mother…she's a Princess?" I choke the words out. "Not exactly, you see, to be a Princess of Alicante, you need to obey to all the Alicante laws. Your mother, she disobeyed them by marrying a mundane. So she's banished from Alicante. But Sir Reyes' Inquisitor betrayed him. He wanted to be the ruler so he used your mother, the Princess, as a hostage." My heart skips a beat. My surroundings go dizzy and I fall to the ground. "Annabeth!" Lochran calls as he reaches for me.
The dampness under me makes me shiver slightly. The sun blazes in my eyes. I then realize I'm lying on wet grass. I groan as I get up but I get dizzy again and I lay back down. He looks over at me. "You should stay laid because you knocked your head after you passed out." I glare at him. "What am I doing here?" He cocks an eyebrow, "What's your name?" I glare at him. "Annabeth Reyes." He smiles. "Good, because I thought you lost your memory." I crack up at this and he lays down next to me, staring at the cloudy sky. "So do your parents live in Alicante?" I ask. He turns his head and looks at me blankly and sighs. "No, they got murdered when I was six." He says quietly. "Oh." I feel bad that I asked him. He glances at me then closes his eyes.
He takes me back to my bedroom. "Thanks." I say. "Oh, no need to." He replies. We just stand there in awkward silence. "I should escort you out." I say quickly.
We walk down the stairs. At the bottom stands Mrs. Dark. Uh-oh. She glares at Lochran-then at me. "Who…are you?" She pauses to sound vain. "I am Lochran Wright." He says boredly, as if he's already said it a million times today. "What, may I ask, are you doing here?" She keeps staring daggers at Will. "I was here to ask Miss Reyes about the mystery of her missing parents." He says confidently, keeping his nose up in the air. I can't help but grin. "Oh, are you?" Mrs. Dark asks raising her bushy eyebrows. "Miss Reyes, you are not allowed to go outside for three weeks! And you, get out!" She doesn't hesitate to take this forward. I grunt and he stalks out the door. Before closing the door winks at me.
Six days had passed. "UGH!" I scoff as I flung my hairbrush at the mirror. Will hadn't come around the orphanage. The mirror cracked with an ugly sound. Breathe, Annabeth, breathe. It wasn't that I was worried. I was just getting impatient…and very, very bored. I didn't begin to think that he forgot about me.
Around three o'clock a faint knocking came at my window. Then another. I stopped staring at the ceiling and peeked out the window. No one was there. Then a small pebble hit my forehead, "Hey!" I shouted. I heard Lochran chuckling to himself. All my impatience evaporated off me so I managed a smile. "What are you doing?" I said quieter this time. "Here to save your butt." He smirked up at me, throwing and catching pebbles with one hand. I tried to keep a serious expression. "Fine, I'm here to take you to Alicante." He kept his head down at the ground, probably not wanting to see my surprised and horrified expression. With one last glance and a sigh I closed the window.
"Mother!" I called out. "NO!" I yelled into the darkness as it swallowed me in, my mother dragged down into it by a tall, silver haired man. I slumped onto my knees, sobbing into my hands, letting all my feelings unravel.
I wake up with Lochran's hair tickling my face. He backs away the second anger and confusion are drawn onto my face. Lochran stares at me from a close distance, in curiosity and anticipation. Before I could ask him why he was here and what he was thinking he whispered something, "Tous les rêves sont vrais."
"Wait. Firstly, what are you doing here? And secondly, what the heck did you just say." I blurted. He laughed then his expression turned to stone. "I'm here to take you home." I groaned. "Home?" He frowned, deep creases planted between his eyebrows. "Well, not exactly home for you." He said. I knew what he had meant. I tucked my blanket over head. My muffled voice through the thick blanket. "What did you say in the other language?" I could almost hear him sigh. Then he left. What was he keeping from me?