Chapter 1
"Have you ever seen a man dying?
"Have you ever seen him whine?
"Have you ever heard a man crying?
"At the end of his line?"
"No, I haven't seen a man die
"For after he's gone,
"And doth Heaven fly,
"Comes another dawn."
"So, pray tell, have you seen:
"A woman dying in your arms;
"Making a scene;
"Clutching your forearms."
"I have seen a woman dying
"And I dream it so harsh,
"I have seen a woman lying,
"Near by the marsh.
"I have seen a woman crying
"And the pain I have felt.
"I have seen a woman dying
"Whilst by her I knelt."
If it was possible, Gia would jump through the books she read each night and live her life in there. Live her life as a wolf in The Sight by David Clement-Davies; live her life as a psychic in Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater. Live her life as a fairy tale character; live a real life.
But no, Gia had to live her life in an orphanage. And, even worse, at the age of twenty one she still had to stay. With so many unemployed people, who would pick up a girl like her? A girl who lived in an orphanage since she was seven after her mother died from- No. Gia didn't think about that. She stayed away from all that...icky weepy stuff. Yes, an orphanage meant that not many people trusted you, but it taught you had to keep your emotions in check, how to create a shell. In an orphanage, you didn't have to show true feelings, you just had to look after yourself. And that could have been why she spent her days working as a trainee care-worker without ever being asked "Why are you crying" or "What's so interesting about that" or stuff like that - because she only showed one emotion.
"Alright kids, off the TV!" Gia yelled, her straight emotionless face staring at the kids. Seven in total - not as many as when she was younger - all of them piled onto the old, creaky flower-print sofa. Some of the older kids from Gia's day had nabbed it from a junkyard so that they could sit comfortably whilst watching TV. It had had stuffing poking out of holes in the material and one of the legs had snapped but the team and joined together to fix it up and it looked like something someone might have bought a million years ago and kept well tended.
"Aw...Gia!" they protested, some of them speaking together in their whining tones but others coming in earlier or later.
"No," Gia shook her head stubbornly. "No, you can't 'Aw Gia' me. No. Now get up!"
The kids blinked and then leaped up, fleeing the room before she grabbed the baseball bat behind the door. She had done that before and some of the kids had started crying but they ran. No one messed with Gia. No one messed with the Orphan Girl. Once they were all gone Gia strode up to the TV and blinked. BBC Robin Hood was playing, a pile of old cassettes sitting in a pile on the playing machine. Crouching down, she took off one of the tapes and sighed.
"Great. The little monsters have recorded over our old cooking lessons," Gia muttered. "Oh well, might as well just put these away."
Sitting up back up onto the balls on her feet she crouched like a tense predator, ready to pounce, as she watched the video. Robin Hood was stalking across the ground, a bow and arrow in his hands as he prepared for the ambush. Reaching out, Gia stroked her fingers over the character, staring at him longingly. All her life she had wanted to live like Robin Hood. She had been surprised when in one of the last episodes she had found out Robin was an orphan for she had never actually...expected that.
"Oh Robin, you live such a great life compared to me," she whispered, her large enchanting blue eyes yearning to be in there, prowling through the trees, hunting her own food or better, a carriage of gold. Hopefully, she reached out her fingers and touched the small, flickering screen once more as if she could just step through. However, she found herself still sitting on her haunches, waiting for a miracle which would never come. "Oh TV, you have no idea how much I wish I could just step through you into another world."
However, she didn't touch the screen again as she stood up and grabbed the remote, turning the TV from beautiful, radiant greens and browns to a simple, boring background of black. For a moment longer, she waited to be enfolded by a bright light and transported to the land of her dreams, but - as the sensible part of her mind expected - nothing happened. Then, she lifted the cassettes and shoved them inside a cupboard.
It must have been the middle of the night when Gia was awoken by a shuffling downstairs. She grunted, figuring it was one of the kids getting some cookies for a midnight snack, when the sound of the TV flowed up the stairs to her. Snoring patterns shifted slightly as the sound stirred some of the occupants but no one got up. Well, no one except Gia.
Grabbing her flashlight she pried open her door, glancing down the corridor anxiously. She wasn't afraid, nothing scared her, but she did feel the need to check anyway. This sort of scene was usually when the bad guy hopped out and the hero and villain battled. Yet Gia had a simple flashlight and nothing more. How was she to fight them? Then again, that only happened in her stories.
She took a few seconds to glance into each bedroom only to find every child fast asleep, no one unaccounted for. Frowning, she hesitated, ready to turn back when a quiet banging came from the kitchen and some voices gasped in their sleep inside their bedrooms. In a flash, Gia had made it down to the TV room, grabbed the bat and made it to the kitchen. However, as she stood their wielding the bat in a baseball position she noticed that nothing was on the floor or the desks that hadn't been there before. And that just made her even more uncertain.
"Something out of place. Something I missed," Gia paused. Something was tickling her brain, not coming within reach but always there. And as she searched out, net in her mental hands and caught the thought, she realized. "The TV!"
Sprinting, Gia raced back into the TV room and saw that BBC Robin Hood was playing only...all the tapes were on the desk including the one that had been in the playing machine. And plus, Gia had never seen anything like what was happening on screen happening in the episodes.
Silently, Gia tiptoed forward and stroked the screen hesitantly only to find that the TV was like water and her fingers had slid through it, ripples running out across the divider that had once kept her from her dreams. It took her a moment before she decided to enter and, making sure she had a hold on the bat and the flashlight was hidden in one of the inside pockets of her plain clothes/pajamas, she slid through.
The softness of the carpet in the living room left her and was replaced by the discomfort of lying face down on dried leaves. She hadn't fallen onto the leaves but rather it was as if she had slithered onto it as she wriggled through the TV. Not far away was the sound of horses and the sheriff from Robin Hood's voice. A shiver rippled down her spine followed by a comforting warmth. She had made it! She was in Sherwood Forest! She was...caught.
"Get her!" the sheriff yelled. Not bothering to struggle, she just sat up on her knees and waited as five horses with guards for riders encircled her. Her eyes clouded over as she thought of the misery the sheriff and his lapdog Gisborne would put her through. "Are you in alliance with Robin Hood?"
"If I said no would you believe me?" Gia answered defiantly. She imagined what they might do: burn her with scolding water, press a hot iron stamp to her chest, whip her skin, cut her arms, and other grotesque things. A strange sort of smile played on her lips at the challenge. She'd been drowned in the attempt of one of the orphans from her time to kill her only to be stopped by a care-worker; she had been locked in the old ice shack that was as cold as it had been in the old days; she had been pinned down by children when some of the kids had built a bench of bricks around her. All sorts of horrible things had happened to her because of her hold that she had over them, making them shake in their sleep and wet their pants. They thought they could scare her but boy were they wrong. The only thing that had ever scared her was-
"No, I would not," the sheriff snarled with a sneer.
"Thought so," Gia said calmly, holding out her hands. "Well, okay. Take me back to the castle. Take me back and whip the skin off my back. Do something interesting."
The sheriff's smirk flickered slightly and a question glittered in his eyes but he refused to ask something that might give away his surprise. "Very well then. Guards!"
In a few seconds Gia had her wrists tied and one guard held the end of the string. She jogged along behind the guard on his horse as they cut through Loxley and headed for Nottingham. People in Loxley stared in surprise and one group of people wearing hoods and cloaks leaning against a building were especially surprised. Gia returned just as much interest with a knowing smile before she was yanked away.
The people in Nottingham paid her the same sympathy as the guards slowed and instead had their horses walking through the town as Gia strolled after them, scanning the buildings and people intensely, printing the image in her mind. But last of all, she was dragged through to the courtyard of the castle, shoved down the stairs to the dungeons and thrust into a single cell. All the others in the dungeon were men and they stared at her in confusion. After a moment, she turned her cold eyes on them, sending them skulking back into the shadows.
"What?" she snarled.
It was a few hours before the torturing began.
"I hope you enjoy this, girl," the sheriff spat. "Because when you look in your reflection you will see nothing but a horror that not even your own mother could behold."
"Then it's good I don't have a mother," Gia sneered.
The sheriff's face distorted into a gruesome look of anger before he swung round and stormed from the cellar dungeon. The torturer looked at her bare chest in interest and she scrutinized her eyes at him. She was hanging by a set of shackles with her feet hanging inches from the ground but she didn't feel the slightest bit embarrassed or self-conscious. In fact, she felt stronger than ever.
"Don't even think about it," she hissed, a loud threat twinging her words. Instantly, the torturer looked away.
"You know, I am almost sorry that I am doing this," the torturer murmured, lifting up a long stick with a cross on the end which was flaming a heated red.
"Almost?" Gia growled.
The torture looked up, a twisted smile deflowering the little good looks he may have had. "Yes."
Gritting her teeth, Gia forced herself not to cry out as the hot marker made contact with her stomach, leaving red cross marks all over her white skin and bringing sweat down her forehead and over her chest. The pain burnt her bones but not a single tear was shed nor a cry from her voice box as the torturer finally moved away. Next up was the whip and this time a quiet yip of pain did escape her lips as the whip tore the flesh on her back and set fire to her skin.
The torture continued, on and on until she could barely breathe and her skin may as well as been hanging off her. However, she still had her shell, still had her emotions and still had her body. The only thing she had lost was her lovely white skin.