Awake yet Dreaming
The desolate alleys howled as the cold rush of the Irish wind weaved its way through the old buildings, teasing the debris that lined the cobble stone streets. I shuddered as the wind slipped down my top and ran its cool icy finger down my spine. I didn't know why I was here; actually, I didn't know a lot of things. My whole life and everything I had known had been shattered in the few weeks of coming to this place. It seemed this land does that to people, changes how they perceive the world, and themselves. However, this usually ends with enlightenment, love, a new beginning. Its not suppose to end in death. I squinted under the only working street light at the dark figure approaching me from about 2 blocks away. The light was flickering in a struggle against the blackness, not wanting to surrender its innocence, and hope to the mass of death. Then with one last flicker it went out, allowing the darkness to engulfed the neighborhood in a tar like thickness. A few months ago I would have completely panicked at this eerie situation, however, I have grown since then, I'm no longer the same person I was a couple months back. I could never be that person, even if I wanted to. As my eyes started to adjust to the new lighting, my hand instinctively clasped the dagger hilted at my thigh. With a slight hum, and pop, the light came back to life, and the dark figure stood before me.
"My, my, isn't someone a little jumpy tonight?"
"Where is it?" I hissed
"A little darkness too much for the great Ashlynn?"
"I don't have time to play around, Bernard. Give me what I came here for."
"A slight impatient aren't we Miss. O'Cleary" His lips curled upwards revealing his yellow, rotting teeth. I shuddered with disgust. This man always made me feel sick. I wasn't sure if it was just his appearance or if it was something else, all I knew was that he had something that Celia wanted and therefore, I wanted it as well.
"I'm losing my patience Bernard. Don't allow Alistair's fate to be yours." His aura shifted at these words. His smirk was now contorted into a hard line. He reached inside his pocket, never taking his eyes off my hand clasping the dagger. He pulled out a slightly crumpled off white envelope.
"I'll have you know this was not an easy find, many lives were lost to get this."
"And you'll be paid for your hard work." I grabbed the envelope.
"I guess it's true what they say then. After the first kill, you stop caring."
He was right. I didn't care. I didn't care if he died. I didn't care if Celia died. Hell, I didn't care if I died, as long as what I came here for was found. And to think this all started with an envelope, similar to the one I now held in my hand.
My life had always been plain. There had times when it was quite exciting, like the time I won the district spelling bee in grade four, or the time when I got a small part in a movie filmed in my home town starring Kate Hudson that never made it to theaters. Other then that, it's been pretty text book ordinary. I lived with my parents, worked a job at the Madison hotel downtown, and was attending a local college for my Bachelor of Arts Degree. We weren't a rich family. However, my parents did inherit some money from my great uncle when he passed away. I never met him, all I know is he was very old and lived somewhere in Scotland. As one can see, my life was not a daytime sitcom. When I was little I use to wish my life would be unordinary, like I would magically walk into a closet and enter a new world, like they do in the C.S Lewis books, or magically realize I could breath under water and go and live with the fishes. It wasn't that my life was horrible; it was quite the opposite really. My life was just really boring.
I loved my parents. My mother and I had weekly shopping trips down to the outlet malls, and went out for a girl's lunch. We would discuss jobs, school, and she would help me unravel my newest boy problem. We weren't just mother and daughter we were like best friends, we told each other everything. Well, maybe not everything. For an example, I would never tell my mother that I had lost my virginity in eleventh grade, in the spare bedroom, with Josh Harris, and let him keep my bra as a souvenir when she and dad were out for Aunty Irene's seventieth birthday. Or that it was me who broke her china vase that was handed down generations due to me busting more then a move with MC hammer. No, I suppose some secrets are better left unknown.
My father and I had a close relationship as well. I was his little princess and I could do no wrong, even when I backup his car into a fire hydrant when he took me out to drive. I remember him laughing as I sat there, bugged eyed and shaking with terror. "Maybe next time you could do a little more damage, I've been looking for a good excuse to buy a corvette." As one can see he was a fun and easy going guy. We would go to baseball games, eat hot dogs and wave our enormously tacky foam fingers in each others faces. We would go to the newest action and horror films that were just 'too gory' for my mother to join us. Those were our things, baseball and gory movies. I never 'talked' about my life with my father like I did with my mother, there was just no need. We had an unsaid understanding, and not to mention that he never did approve of my choices of guys.
Every night we would sit around the dining table and discuss what happened that day, if anything was new, and what we would do if we won the lottery. Fantasizing about winning the lottery was a hobby of ours. We rarely bought a ticket, but we would still talk about what if we did win. We would always discuss what we would buy first; my father would purchase a new car, like an Aston martin, my mother would pay off all our bills, and me, buy a designer crocodile purse, preferably Hermes. Our family loved the idea of winning, yet we ourselves never did. We weren't unlucky, but it wasn't like Ed McMan was knocking on our door. So when my father entered himself in his company draw for a trip for two around Europe and won, we all thought it was fate. I was twenty at the time. I was also twenty when my parents died in a devastating plane crash into the Atlantic Ocean on the way back into the U.S.
I remember the day perfectly. I had the beach boys playing on repeat on my iPod and I spent the day out on the porch, as it was a one of the hottest summers on record in my town. I just finished painting my toe nails when the phone started to ring. I recall contemplating if I should risk the perfection of my toes to answer it, but then I remembered that it could be that cute new guy I met at work the other day. Boys being my main priority at the time, I hobbled to the phone trying not to ruin my new pedicure. However, once I answered the phone, my toe nails were the least of my worries.
I grew up within the first couple of months of my parent's death. I inherited everything from my parents, the house, the car, and their debts. I learned how to invest, lease, and pay all my bills on time so I didn't go without heat, electricity, water, cable, and a telephone. The first few months I didn't have time to let the fact that my parents were dead sink in, I was just too overwhelmed with all of this responsibility thrown on top of my shoulders making me indifferent to the situation. I could barely handle school, learning how to run a house hold, and working. I would cry at night not because of my parent's death but of all the stress that followed it. I was losing my sanity. Instead of grieving and over coming their death, I buried myself into my work, and school. I took on extra projects, enrolled into some night courses in languages such as French and Italian. I had no time, or desire for any social activities and ended up alienating my friends left and right. I just couldn't stop, if I stopped even for a second I would remember that my parents were dead, and that was a reality I just couldn't face. Once I finished up my Bachelor of Arts degree 4 years later I decided it was time to sell the house. I was determined to start fresh, move on and I thought that a new beginning, i.e. moving, would be a welcoming change. The house sold within the first three months of being on the market. I hadn't even had time to find another place before I was asked to move out. I placed most of the stuff in storage and sold the remainder, I was planning on staying with a co-worker until I found my own place, I was hoping it wouldn't take very long, as she was one of those girls that liked to know your business and I was one of those girls who didn't like to share it.
I was destined to move fully out of my childhood home on May 9th, which by coincidence was my birthday. I finished loading the last group of stuff into my car, and stopped to take one last look at my house. The white, two-story building with the front porch wrapped around, the white picket fence and mom's rose garden in the front all seemed dead. It had lost its sparkle. All that was left was a memory. I looked away. I turned to close the gate, and noticed that the mail box arm was up. I remember thinking that, that was weird, since I transferred all my mail to my new address. Curious, I opened the flap and reached inside.
The envelope was unmarked, no return address, just my name; Ashlynn, in elegant script on the front. Inside was three things; an airline ticket, open one way flight to Ireland, economy class. A note, which read, "happy 24th birthday Ashlynn Ellis O'Cleary, It is now time for a new beginning." And stuck in the corner fold of the envelope, hiding, so I almost missed it was an off white business card with just an address on it. "450 O'Culley lane."
It was all just too weird for me. Even for a girl who use too dream about an adventure like this, who fantasized about winning the lottery, who was trying to restart her life. This envelope should have been my savoir, my guide to the freedom land. The ticket, the note, and the address, it was like a puzzle, a quest, but was it something I wanted to take a chance on?