Title:

… and sit a while with me …

Author:

Mrs. Trabi

Timeframe:

1944 and 29 A.C.

Summary:

AU/Realization can be a hard thing and when it hits Hereweald Hrothgar, then he's not too happy about it. Through an accident, he and his student, Jamie Novak, fall back to the year 29 A.C. to meet Jesus of Nazareth and His disciples – what will he, the dark and tough man from a different time learn from a man that knows him better than he knows himself? And what will the child learn from a man his parents have always said won't care about him because he has no worth?

Disclaimer:

Well … I do not own anything written in the Bible, neither the words nor the persons, places, or happenings – the words are God's words and any other things are the attests of witness from people who lived about two thousands of years ago, or rather the translations of their testimonies … I'm just borrowing things from that book, and even though I promise that I won't misuse anything written in the Bible, that I won't dishonour God, His name, His words or our belief in Him – I nevertheless do apologize for the chaos I might create in this story … I promise, I will bring it in as much order as is possible for a chaotically inclined writer … thanks for your understanding …

Rating:

M – Not suitable for children or teens below the age of 16

Author's Notes:

Here, I'd like to say that this story isn't meant to discredit the Bible, God, His word, Jesus, or anything we believe in. God is and remains our first and most important priority – or at least that it is what should be. I am writing this in the hope that I'll live up to the responsibility every author has even though I am aware that this here will be very difficult.

I will be trying to handle the subject as delicately and as seriously as possible, I promise, and I do hope that not only I won't be flamed for this, but that also I'll find one or another of my readers who'll gain a new view and understanding … and that you'll like this one as much as you do my other stories, even though this concerns a different – and in my opinion much more important – book … thanks …

Added author's notes:

This first chapter, the foreword, might give away the impression that the story might be a biography – it is not. I have only written it so that you might know, not all of what happens in a book is fiction. There are things which might be very much reality for some people and even though the story in the book might be playing at a different place and to a different time, for different persons – sometimes part of it might be real for some people anyway, never mind if it is the story of one particular person, if it is the story of a nation, or if it is the story of how God can work miracles in people.

Warning:

Story will contain bad language and swearing.

Don't ever use such, it's neither good manners nor proper use of language and never mind how 'cool' it might sound, it surely isn't a sign of intelligence. It won't get you anywhere and people will think less of you if you are unable articulating properly.

Story will contain references to child abuse.

Child abuse is a really, really serious and evil thing, and whenever you meet someone, child or adult, who shows any signs – whichever – of once having been abused, then try to help … there are too many people in our world who are or have been mistreated.

This does however not mean I am not as evil as I pretend to be …^.~ … believe me – I am …

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

… and sit a while with me …

Part one – of teachers and pupils

Chapter one – Foreword – I was born …

6th of September, 2013

Schramberg, county of Rottweil, state of BW – Germany

I was born in 1971, at the beginning of October, to be precise, even though I have to admit that I can't be any more precise than – well, it must have been sometime between the 5th and the 7th of October and apparently it had been rather adverse circumstances – and I don't know where exactly I was born either, someplace around or between Göppingen and Geislingen. But at least one thing I can say for sure – namely that God seemed to already have a plan for me back then, because he'd had his hands not only above me but below me too – like he had a lot of times during my youth – or I wouldn't be here today to annoy you with my babbling.

Actually, it had already started while my mother was pregnant with my humble person.

She was a chain-smoker and she was an alcoholic – and I don't speak of two or three beers or glasses of wine each night and a daily jag but I'm speaking of real alcoholism – she was a real admiral on the red, and so I think, it's a small miracle that I'd survived this pregnancy of hers safely. After all – how many children are born with brain-damage, with a weak heart, or with weak lungs because of their mothers consuming nicotine and alcohol excessively?

Alright – sometimes I think that I – "stayed behind" in my heart, for the lack of a better word – and if I'm honest with myself, then in my mind and ways of thinking too. But even though I've somehow remained a child, and even though I'm seeing many things from a childish viewpoint, seeing men generally not as men but as some kind of late father substitute, so I anyway think that I can say with sureness – I'm neither stupid nor mentally retarded and the one or other mental and physical problems and scars I've not obtained during this pregnancy of my mother's but some years later.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Today I know that my fears – that I just as well could be disabled or even dead – aren't so far from reality actually.

I have four other siblings – two older sisters, one older brother and one younger brother. However, my mother had given birth to another boy, some time after my younger brother was born. I don't know under which circumstances this child had been born, nor do I know the circumstances under which he'd died – I don't even know how old he'd been, whatever. But I know that my oldest sister once told me a story about how it had been her duty to look after her younger siblings while my mother had been working at one or another job during the day to make money and while she had hung out in pubs during the night to waste the same money on drinks – even though my oldest sister had been a really small child back then herself. And seeing that the same story was told by not only her but my aunt too – and considering later years I have lived through while living in my mother's household, I can be relatively sure that it's a true story.

Apparently there hadn't been too much food back then, sometimes no food at all, and often my oldest sister had stirred water and flour to a strange glop so that her smaller siblings had at least something to eat. One day, apparently, the pastor had stood in front of the door and had asked for my mother – I don't know why, because at that time she hadn't been a believer and had she been at home back then she would have most likely thrown any pan and pot she had in reachable distance after the pastor.

On the contrary – whenever I have mentioned God, Jesus, Heaven or anything else which I had heard from either my grandmother once or at school, then it came along with trouble I got into with my mother and comments like "there's no such a thing as God and you better shut your mouth about it, I won't have any of that nonsense here in my house!"

However, this pastor had given my sister a bar of chocolate – and my sister had been very happy. Not because it was "sweets", but because it was anything to eat at all and she had fed her younger siblings with it. She's to this day saying that she's never ever again got a beating like that from her mother – not because she'd given the chocolate to her younger siblings, but because she'd taken the chocolate from the pastor in the first place.

My oldest sister surely would know more about this brother who'd died – and why – but she won't tell anything and so I could only speculate, which I shouldn't do, I know, but it's hard not to. I just know that there'd been a child, and he had to be but a few months when he'd died – and considering the circumstances in which my mother had – "kept" – her children, and nothing else it had been, and seeing that her other children – I've been away back then already – had been taken away from her around that time, I think it's not hard to imagine how he'd died – especially as no one is telling anything about it.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

However, I don't know the exact circumstances under which I was born – except that my mother apparently was dead drunk and one day she stood – just sober enough to being able to think somewhat clearly as it seems or she wouldn't have done the only good thing she'd done in my life – in front of my grandmother's house and pushed a small bundle into her arms with the words – "you look after it" – and well, gone she was again.

Back in the house – and the bundle being unpacked – oh damn, there's a child in it!

My aunt, who is 12 years younger than my mother, had been living with my grandmother still – and she had searched for some old doll-clothes from a box in the attic – so I've gotten my first clothing ever, from a doll.

I got something to drink and then my grandmother took me to her family doc. Apparently I'd been born too early and apparently I'd been very small – what surely hadn't made it easier for the doc to determine an exact time of birth – but seeing that I'm not tall now either, or still, whatever, well – *shruggingshoulders*. However, other than that, I was healthy according to the doc, and apparently he'd said: "that child has to be about two days old and therefore I'd reckon it was born on the 6th of October – more or less".

My grandmother had tried to get information from hospitals and surgeries around and between Göppingen and Geislingen, but none had any information about a mother and her newborn – well, normally people stayed in hospital following a birth, after all, and so – my mother apparently gave birth to me someplace and to this day no one knows when and where exactly this had been.

So – my birth certificate bears the – 6th of October and Göppingen as date and place of birth, even though I would have preferred the 7th of October as I love the number seven.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Aaaaalright – and then there I was, living with my grandmother, my aunt, and my uncle – living in a German-American family and environment.

Back then there had been a lot of Americans stationed in Göppingen and they'd started friendships with the German population, they'd started relationships with German women and therefore you can imagine that the "Göppinger population" has been a rather colourful and mixed bunch of people – American families or family members, friends, that wasn't something strange and no one had frowned upon it, it's been a normal thing.

Therefore I've been as fluent in American English as I was in German, and knew where to find the things in the PX as well as in the mom-and-pop-store down the street – I've had a family, I've had friends, and I've been living – and happily so. Until –

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Yes – until …

It was in the beginning of the summer holidays between grade two and three.

I don't really know how old I've been back then, I'd need to calculate it down and I've never been good in math – math is a horror for any linguist, I swear, and I've been in a coma during each math lesson – but just in case someone wants to count it down, I haven't started school with 6 but with 7, nearly 8 years.

However, one day in the beginning of this particular summer holidays my mother came – with the words "I am your mother, and I'm taking you with me."

Back then there was no child protective service which would have slowly gotten the families back together until the children could be re-integrated into the families. And back then no one had cared about the family-intern problems either – back then it had been enough to child protective service that my mother had divorced her alcoholic husband, had partaken in a withdrawal treatment and had then married again, her new husband being a teacher even, and therefore neither my grandmother nor my aunt or uncle could do anything against it – and within but a few hours, clothes, a few toys and a few books had been packed in boxes and I were sitting in my mother's car, on the way from Göppingen to Stuttgart where she was living in a house together with her new husband – and my siblings.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

I remember that I'd been nervous, that I'd been scared and that I'd been taken away by a completely strange woman which I'd never before had seen, that I hadn't known where I would end up and that I hadn't known what would happen from then on – the only thing I had known was – I had lost my family and was on my way to an entirely new family.

I also remember that my grandmother had taken me to the side for saying good-bye and that she'd said – "you don't need to be scared, she's your mother and she'll love you, just tell her that you love her too and everything will be alright. I'll visit you as soon as I can." A few words and then I'd lost her.

I had followed the advice of my grandmother, during the journey already, which I back then had thought it was a trip around the world – and in the car I'd told my mother, an entirely stranger – "I love you" – which I shouldn't have done however. Maybe I'd hoped that she – she was my mother after all – would love me too, that she maybe would tell me that she would love me too if only I told her – what a childish and idiot thought it had been! It had only resulted in the very first trouble I got into with my mother.

I don't really remember what exactly she'd screamed at me, but I know that she'd said – "your grandmother has told you to say such a thing, that's just like her, putting her nose into other people's things!" Of course it had been my grandmother's advice, but only to help me feeling better and back then my mother's accusation of a woman I had loved just hurt. She'd also told me that I couldn't buy her love with a simple "I love you" and that I had to earn her love.

I think I've never earned her love, not in forty-one years.

But I know that this "I love you" had been the last "I love you" I've said to anyone for many, many years – for nearly a lifetime, to be exact.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Well – and so there I was again, this time ripped from my family and thrown into a completely strange family, ripped from a family where very much strictness – but even more harmony and love had ruled and in which I'd been happy – and thrown into a family in which strictness had also ruled – but no harmony, only irascibility, in which no love but hate and anger had ruled, in which violence had been the first topic on the agenda.

I'd been the last of 5 children who came back to my mother. I don't know in what order my siblings came back to my mother, but my two older sisters as well as my older and my younger brother were already in Stuttgart in the house of my mother and stepfather when I arrived there – as the fifth wheel, in the truest sense of the word.

I remember that we'd been sitting at the kitchen table and our mother handed out kinder-eggs – yes, they existed back then already and for all of you who don't know what it is as they are uncommon in the States because it's toy and food in one which isn't allowed in the States, it's a chocolate egg and inside the egg is a yellow thingy with a small toy inside. However, she's had four – one for Elke, one for Gaby, one for Charley and one for Andy. And then there was an – "oh, Claudia is here, I'm so sorry, but there's none left for you."

It's been kinder-eggs, it's been chocolate bars, it's been yoghurt, it's been cookies, it's been candies, or it's been anything else – never mind what it was, it was always one less, for years, and my common answer was just – "never mind, I don't care, I don't like kinder-eggs anyway" – chocolate bars, yoghurt, candies, cookies … never mind what … I had learned to not like it because I wouldn't get it anyway …

Well – one, I'd soon learned that crying wouldn't help me – second, I'd learned that a scene only led to a beating – third, it wouldn't change anything anyway – and forth – yes, what a stupid thought, but, maybe – just maybe – my mother would love me if only I were patient enough, if only I were obedient enough, if only I were good enough, if only I were – well, if only I were … just what? I hadn't known it when I'd been a child, and I still don't know it to this day.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

What I also had learned very quickly was – if my mother said jump, then you better jumped. You didn't ask why. You didn't ask for the height either – but you jumped, and you'd better jump as high as possible. Figuratively only, of course, it's a saying here in Germany.

She'd taught me in this first summer holidays how to cook – and that had been one of my duties from then on – besides of doing the dishes, cleaning the floors and doing the laundry - not to mention cleaning the kitchen and the bathroom. And woe betide me had the food gotten burned or the garbage forgotten to be taken out.

I remember that she stood before me one time, asking me why I hadn't taken the garbage out – and each time I told her that I had just forgotten to take it out – then I'd gotten a slap in the face. What do you answer to such a question if you're not allowed to say that you have forgotten it? And if you know that it is just the beginning, that the afternoon could be very long and that it would only get worse? I'd stopped saying anything at one time. After all, I didn't want another slap in the face – instead I'd got a good beating for it because I'd refused to answer her.

My mother used to sit at the sofa with a very strange activity – she'd been reading Jerry Cotton, John Sinclair, and other such shlock, and while she'd been reading she'd marked each and every vocal in the thing with a pencil. I don't know why she'd done that, I think, no one knows why she'd done that, but this is what I remember when I think of her – sitting at the sofa, reading and making circles around all the vocals – but well, she had enough children for working and only one thing she'd done herself – namely handing out the beatings, and she'd been good at this.

She'd always started with her hands, had then gone over to taking the next best thing that was in reach – and she hadn't cared about what this thing could do or what injuries the thing could cause, I think, she'd been just too angry to think clearly in such moments – and she'd gone over to using her feet in the end when we were laying on the floor.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Today, I know that my two sisters didn't have the best life in her household either – but back then I often had thought how unfair all of it had been. My mother had always had drawers where she put us in – again, only figuratively, of course. Gaby has always been the pretty one, the beauty. She didn't have to be intelligent and she'd been allowed to get bad marks. She'd been a pretty dolly-bird and a pretty dolly-bird didn't need to have anything in her head and therefore she'd gotten a lot of clothes and make-up, beauty articles. Today I know that Gaby had never wanted all this, that she would have liked it more if someone had cared about her dyslexia, if someone had helped her with learning and that her – playing the beauty, had only been so that no one knew how much she was crying in her heart.

Elke had always been the oldest and the intelligent one. She'd been to the high school and therefore it had been more important for her to care about her school than doing work in the house – today I know that she'd had her work outside in the garden – not to mention that, as a child she'd had work and responsibility enough for an entire life, and that as a youth she'd been burying herself in learning so that she didn't have to see our mother – and maybe so that she didn't have enough time to think, because today, years later, I know that she's suffering deep depression because she has too much time to think.

Charley has always been the charming one – not to mention a boy and of course a boy didn't have to do housework. He didn't even have to tidy his room. I have never understood why Charley had always been her beloved one, and neither do I understand why he's still her beloved one – but well, that's one of the things I'll never understand but I think it isn't my place to understand it. It's just like this, and it always has been – Charley had done one thing or another, and upon my mother starting to give him a lecture he had just smiled at her and the world was alright. Sometimes I think, maybe I haven't smiled enough at her? On the other hand – I would have been stupid had I not tried his tactic also, and I know that I'm not stupid, and so I'm sure that I did and that it just hadn't worked for me as it had for him.

After all, there are many things of my youth which I have – and successfully so – pushed away as far as possible, which I have buried as deeply as possible and I don't really dare to dig deeper than I absolutely have to, because I know that nothing good can lay down there, I'm not a coroner, and I need to examine neither bodies nor things.

Well, and then there was of course Andy. Andy has been the little one – and that was a very comfortable place – but not as comfortable a place as his older brother held. It's been strange, he's been the little one and a boy too – but anyway he'd had to help me with the dishes. I had to wash them and my little brother had to dry them. Dunno why he had this task, but well – for me it meant that it was one duty less and at least it was a few minutes more each day which I had left for other chores to finish before the evening. Today I know that he, most of all, had felt being left alone by his mother when she moved out – even though my mother had never cared about his nightmares and about his fears, not once, even though he'd been the little one.

And me –

Wait! Me?

It's been like always and there hasn't been a drawer left for me – I've simply been nothing. I haven't been smart, I haven't been pretty, I haven't been charming and I haven't been the little one. I haven't been the oldest either – I've been – just nothing. I didn't have a place and I didn't have a drawer, I didn't have a label. Maybe that's been a good thing though, because maybe that's the reason as to why I have never followed one crowd or another – I've always been alone, always followed my own direction and often even going against the tide, never mind what.

If I want to sit on a table – then I do it, if I want to wear black – then I do it, if I want to sit – and Indian style so – on the counter in 'the other shop' where I am working two times a week, then I just do it. If I have to say something to someone, then I do it, without sugar-coating it and I won't ever lie to anyone just to spare this one's feeling. I don't care about what people think of me, about what people say about me behind my back, because I have nothing to lose. Alright, I'm sure that I'd be very unhappy would they call me nice or something similar, because I am not nice, but except of that, I don't care and there's only one person for whom I'd change if he so wished – namely God, but for no one else, and so far God has not told me to change.

I've always remained me – dark, tough and cold, unkind and harsh towards others, and unmoved by anything the world threw at my feet. Or at least that was the picture that I've presented the world with – and sometimes, often, still do, but what I want to say with this is simply – I am me, and I do not change for the sake of the people around me. I have learned to keep true to myself, and people either take me the way I am or they leave it, but I won't play a role just to fit into one drawer or another.

Just one example – for my baptism people said "you need to wear white, that's important because it's a symbol for your sins being washed away". Right. I do agree on the symbolic of it. But I have thought over it for weeks, and weeks, and weeks, and I have been worried about it. Because I don't like white, white is the worst – colour – existent, it isn't a colour even! How can people wear plain white? You know what I did? In the end I've been wearing my jeans, my trainers and my usual black t-shirt. Because had I worn anything else, then it wouldn't have been me, then I would have worn a mask, I would have played a role and that would have been the wrong thing – to give myself over to God with playing a role.

A good thing indeed then, that there hadn't been a drawer left in my mother's cupboard.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

My love for the English language – even though it might not be perfect and even though I may annoy people with it …

Well, I don't really know what had been – or still is – my mother's problem and I don't think that I have the right to speculate. But fact is – my mother hates my aunt and my uncle so very much, she would be ready to do nearly everything to hurt them or anyone else who'd been loved by them. Maybe because she'd had to share my grandmother's love when my aunt was born twelve years after her, maybe because my aunt had been happy in her marriage later while my mother hadn't been happy in her own first marriage, maybe because my uncle is an American and not German, I don't know. But unfortunately I'd been one of those who'd been loved by my aunt and uncle, and so the first thing she'd done after she'd taken me to her home was – she forbade any kind of English language, readings, contacts, whatever. If it was red/white/blue then it was bad, if it had stars and stripes – then it was bad – if it sounded English or she couldn't understand it – then it was bad. If it was Hamburger or Hot Dogs – then it was bad. You could continue the list endlessly, she always found enough things to blame me for/with, just because it was one way or another English, American, or had to do with my aunt and uncle.

It wasn't that I couldn't speak German, I could, but seeing that English is a language easier to learn and speak than is German, well, it was easier to me too. Anyway, I don't think that I would have had a problem with speaking German, which was necessary anyway as my mother didn't understand the English language to begin with – but the fact that she'd forbidden it entirely, it hurt me, and it scared me. For me it was as if she had taken a part of my person away, as if she had eliminated part of my past – one part of many others which she'd eliminated.

Well, it hadn't gotten any easier when I visited fifth grade and brought home better marks in English than in German and I'm sure that my mother would have taken me out of the English lessons had they not been required subjects back then already. Today I think that a good portion of the beatings I had gotten over the years had just been because there had been one or another English word or even comment which had just slipped my tongue accidentally.

I think, at one point or another I'd started to think English instead of German, even though I'm sure that back then it must have been really chaotically because – if you don't practice a language actively, then you'll forget a lot of it over time and maybe that's the reason as to why now, years later, my English is a strange mixture of British English, American English, slang, and Middle English – not to be mistaken with Old English. But well, it's been the only thing which she couldn't take away. She'd been able to take away the clothes I'd gotten from my grandmother and from my aunt and to replace them with new ones, and she'd been able to take away the few toys and books and to replace them with new ones, and she even could forbid me to see my family, she could destroy pictures of me with my family which my grandmother had packed too – in other words, she could take away all my past, all that had to do with my real family, but she couldn't take away my thoughts.

And therefore – well, that's the reason as to why I love the English language so very much – because it's the only thing left, the only thing that is left from my past, from my childhood, from my family, whatever, because there's nothing else …

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Of course my grandmother and my aunt had over and over tried to visit me – Göppingen and Stuttgart weren't – and still isn't – too far away from each other after all, forty-five minutes with the train only, and later when we'd moved to Bochingen then my aunt even came to visit the Black Forest in the attempt to visit me or to at least see me.

I don't know why my mother always had forbidden any contact, had forbidden my aunt and grandmother to see me, not once in all those years, but I only can guess that she'd not only feared my aunt – or my grandmother – could find any marks from beatings but that she also wanted to hurt my aunt too. However, she'd always locked me away in the cellar when my aunt or my grandmother was to visit. I don't know what she'd told them – my aunt has never told me about that and I don't dare to ask and to dig any deeper in my past than I already have, but I know that I'd often been in the cellar, most likely even more often than there having been visits from my aunt or grandmother, and most likely just because my mother could lock me up there. There had been a lot of things she'd done, just because she could.

I remember that one day I'd been crying in the car because of it. My mother had told me to help her with shopping – never a pleasant experience, believe me, and while other kids loved it, to go shopping with their parents, we always feared it. However, we'd been driving from Bochingen to Oberndorf and I think I must have known that my aunt had been visiting shortly before and so I'd been crying because of it – and my mother had said "you stop this crying right now or I'll throw you out of the moving car."

Of course it had been a ridiculous statement, today I know this. It wouldn't have been even possible because she would have had to stop the car anyway to open the passenger door – but as a child I hadn't thought along this line and as a child such nonsense statements were just horror. The threat that she'd keep me locked up in the cellar forever – ridiculous, because in Germany school attendance is required by law and so she couldn't have locked me away forever. But again, as a child I hadn't thought along this line while at the same time I knew very well what she was capable of and so I feared the day she'd keep me in the cellar to rot down there.

She'd had a whip hanging on the wall in the dining room – for decoration – but over the years it didn't remain a decoration and neither a threat of hers to use the thing but she'd actually done it – because she could. The threat that she'd beat the hell out of us if we told people private things – one time I'd passed out at school because I'd been too tired and because I'd had to little food, I guess, and the school called for an ambulance, of course they did, and I've ended up in hospital – it's been one of the worst beatings I ever got afterwards because my mother said I'd done that deliberately just to give her a bad reputation.

Not that it had been the first time that I'd had the opportunity to look at the floor from a closer point of view, it happened from time to time, especially during work at home when I didn't have the chance to walk a few steps or to move otherwise but had to stand in one place for hours. Whatever, I think, I'd quickly learned that a threat of hers could come true sooner than we liked – because she could make them true.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

I think, I'd soon changed and I'd learned to avoid my mother as best as possible – or to keep silent in her presence. At one time or another I seem to have thrown this person together with all other persons in one large pot, have stirred and the outcome was a very peaceful and calm school-time, very silent and human-avoiding too.

My place had been the backmost table by the wall with the windows – for years and I've never ever accepted any other student at this – at my – particular table.

One time, at the beginning of a new school year, dunno when exactly it had been, there had been a new girl in the class and she'd actually come towards me and then sat down at the table beside me – and without asking even! Even though everyone knew to better keep away from my desk! I'd been so shocked – and so angry about it, knowing that I wouldn't be able to bear it having anyone so close, I'd just stared at her. I hadn't said anything, why should I have done – staring at people angrily was enough and really, just a few minutes later she'd taken her schoolbag and had left my table to sit at the other side of the classroom – well, I'd been satisfied and she'd never ever again dared to come close or even talk to me, and so I had again ensured my freedom and my reputation.

I've never had friends – because I've never wanted friends. I think, I could have had some, I remember that there had been one or another who tried to approach me once in a while, maybe because I'd been a miracle to them with my stillness and my seriousness, maybe because I've been really good in swearing and cursing in English at other times and they thought it was "cool" … I don't know, but I've always driven them off right away, never accepting any other people in my life, neither students nor teachers and I think they'd gotten used to it with time. I think, sometime from grade seven on I even could have been sleeping back there in the last row, laying with my arms and head all over the table, visibly and openly sleeping – and no one would have cared about it. And again I've been satisfied with it, because that meant – I had my peace. No idiot students who annoyed me with their presence, no idiot teachers who annoyed me with their stupid questions – I think, I did love school very much, because that was the only place where I had peace, where I didn't need to be scared, where I didn't got beaten and where I didn't got screamed at – not to mention where I could rest, physically as well as mentally.

And at the same time my teachers knew very well that – sleeping or not – I got good marks, or at least halfway good marks, anyway. One time my older sister had to learn "John Maynard" and for learning it by heart she asked me to help her and in the process of listening to her reciting the poem, I'd learned it too. Grade seven or eight it was our part to learn the poem by heart and the moment our teacher presented us with the news there could be heard a small whisper coming from the back of the classroom, a whisper that said: "John Maynard, who is John Maynard? John Maynard was our helmsman true. To solid land he carried us through. He saved our lives, our noble king. He died for us; his praise we sing. John Maynard. From Detroit to Buffalo, as mist sprays her bow like flakes of snow, over Lake Erie the "Swallow" takes flight and every heart is joyful and light. In the dusk, the passengers all can already make out the dim landfall, and approaching John Maynard, their hearts free of care, they ask of their helmsman, are we almost there? He looks around and toward the shore: still 30 minutes ... a half hour more ..."

The only teacher who'd tried to change things had been my class teacher from grade eight and nine – and I think he was even close to managing. I remember that we had to do a presentation and I had the subject Japan. I'd written the presentation, I'd drawn maps of Japan and then I'd handed it in to my teacher before the break – the conversation that had followed had been, kind of funny, or it would have been kind of funny had it not been one of the rare occasions where I had talked at all.

Teacher: "There's no need to hand it in right now, you'll need to present it during the next lesson."

Me: *shruggingshoulders* "nope."

Teacher: "A presentation needs to be presented, that's why it is a presentation."

Me: *liftingeyebrow* "nope."

Teacher: "Now, you keep this and present it next lesson."

Me: *scowling* "nope."

Teacher: "You must."

Me: *scowlingevenmore* "nope."

Teacher: "If you don't present it, then this will be a failure."

Me: *shruggingshoulders* "so what?"

Teacher: *gettingangryabit* "You'll present it, period!"

Me: *evenmoreangry* "You call me up there – and I'll pack my things and leave. I won't present the thing, you can turn upside down to perform a headstand and waggle your feet, I don't care."

Well, of course I'd been the very first one after the break whom our class teacher called up to the front for the presentation – I should have known. I've looked at him for a moment, packed my things, and then I've left the classroom without a word.

I'd gone to the park and there I smoked a cigarette – yes, I'd been smoking already back then in eighth grade – but the strange thing? It was 45 minutes later when the lesson had ended. I was still sitting at the park because going home early? Despite everything I wasn't suicidal after all. Well, and then my class teacher had appeared, sat down beside me and lit a cigarette himself. He was the very first person I allowed to sit down beside me and he was the very first person I talked to after years of – not muteness, but talking as little as possible. And I think – maybe he could have done something, most likely he'd even been ready to bring in child protective service – and maybe I would have been ready to accept it, and to tell him – or them – more than I'd told him during these thirty minutes while I was waiting for the bus – just to be able to leave my "family".

But then everything changed and I couldn't afford such a thing anymore.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Today I don't really remember if it was at the end of grade eight or at the beginning of grade nine, I've pushed many things away for years and it's not easy to get everything in an order now without digging more than I need to, because sometimes I think there are things I don't need to know, and I don't wish to know either.

However, my mother moved out. She'd been meeting someone for months already, she'd started to work in his embroidery and for a few months we'd even had one of those 12-headed embroidery machines in our garage. But well, of course not our mother had done home work, but we – added to our regular duties of course.

I remember that she'd promised us 10 pennies for each finished towel – that would have been an hourly wage of about 60 pennies and we've been very happy about it because so far we'd never gotten anything for the work we'd done. I should have, however, known that it was wishful thinking only, because of course we hadn't seen just one penny of it and somehow I think – I hadn't really counted on it either. But for a moment it had been a good thought anyway, especially in retrospect.

Never mind – my mother and this guy had come closer and they'd started a relationship, my mother moved out and into a flat together with him – and fortunately they had started their own embroidery so that the guy could leave the old one to his wife – fortunately because therefore they had needed the embroidery machine from our garage and so the added work went bye bye – I was so unhappy about it! … *huff* … not really, on the contrary …

Whatever, I'd stayed at home together with my little brother, my stepfather, and the mother of my stepfather. Both of my older sisters were already married and had left the house long ago and my older brother had started a carrier at the federal armed forces.

I was happy about it, that my mother had moved out, even though it had gotten rather difficult then. But she was gone, she was gone and she couldn't scream at me anymore, she couldn't tell me how worthless I was anymore and she couldn't beat me anymore. I had finally found some peace.

The problem?

Well, she'd come once a week – not that she would have entered the house – and not that I would have been unhappy about it that she hadn't entered the house – no. the problem was, she'd brought one basket with food each week which she put into the downstairs corridor – and this basket with food needed to last for a week – for my little brother, for my stepfather who suffered from Diabetes and was sitting in a wheelchair with only one leg left, in the small granny-flat downstairs, and for the mother of my stepfather, a diabetic too and she didn't even manage leaving her bed anymore – if she really couldn't or wouldn't, I don't know, but really? I can understand if she just hadn't wanted to leave her bed anymore. I've often been at this point too, after all.

Well – so there wasn't much room when it came to food and honestly, it's been a mission impossible to divide portions so that at the end of the week there would be any food left – not to mention so that it would last until then even and often I went to bed or school without anything to eat as I knew – as a diabetic my stepfather and my step-grandmother needed food first, and three times a day even, and I also knew that my little brother needed something to eat before I did – all in all I think we have just existed, not really lived in that house – because at one point or another there hadn't been anything left to live there. Food, heating, power – name it, and we didn't have it.

Our mother soon had stopped paying any bills and my stepfather – he had sat in his wheelchair all day long, down there in his granny flat, and he had been too ill and too dependent on his beer bottle to really manage anything at all and if I have to be honest – he'd never managed anything from the beginning on. It had always been my mother who had paid the bills and who'd gone shopping – with his money, but she'd done it. I think, he hadn't left the house for years already, when my mother had moved out and I had to care for him in the end too.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Not that I would have hated him, and surely not that I would have feared him the way I have feared my mother, on the contrary. Today I have a lot of respect for this man. He'd married a woman who'd just made a withdrawal treatment, who had five children scattered all over the place in BW, and he not only had encouraged her to get her children back but he'd also bought her a house so that this woman and her children had a roof over their heads. Not to mention that he'd fed her and her children, children which weren't his. He'd never beaten us, not once, and he'd never screamed at us either. Maybe he'd thought that – with their mother they're in enough trouble as it is, there's no need to get them into more trouble even.

On the other hand – he'd never done anything against it either. And back then, when I was a child, I guess I'd blamed him for it, because he hadn't cared, at least in my heart, because never would I have accused him openly, but in my heart I have blamed him.

And he was a strange man.

I think, if I have shared ten sentences with him during all those years I have lived with my mother and him – then it's been a lot. Alright, that was exaggerated – but it's surely never been more than a hundred sentences during all those years! However, it hadn't only been because of me, but because of him too, because my siblings hadn't had much more contact with him either. Maybe it hadn't been as extremely little contact as it had been with me, seeing that I'd had no contact with anyone, but it had been similar. I think, Elke, the oldest of us, she'd had the deepest relationship with him and even that was – more than just reserved.

One of the clearest memories I have of him is, that one day my homework had been to draw a map in my geography exercise book and my mother hadn't been at home – and so I'd shown him the exercise book with my homework – the first time that I'd shown my homework to him instead of my mother who'd normally demanded to see them. Sometimes I think that she'd done so, just to make sure that she had another reason to beat us and surely not because it was important to her that we'd done our homework. I don't know what I'd been more scared of – showing her my homework, because she always found something she didn't like, or being late in showing her, which she didn't like either – what often resulted in me standing in front of the living-room door, with my exercise book in my hands and rooted to the spot, knowing that I should hurry up with going in there but being unable to actually move and to really enter the living-room, trying to delay the upcoming beating for just a second, and then for another second, and then for just one second more …

However, back then, this one time, my stepfather had taken the exercise book, had looked at the map and he'd really been interested – he'd then started to skim through the pages, to look at older works and in the end I think he'd been really happy – and me too, because he'd said that he wished all his students had done such a good work than this one had been, and because it was the first time (and sadly the last time too) that I'd gotten any praise from one of my parents. I've never forgotten that one moment and whenever I think of my step-father, then I remember this particular incident.

Today I think that he was just as scared of my mother as we were, even though she's never beaten him. I think, she just could hurt him with her words as much as she hurt us – and today I'd wish to see him one more time and to tell him how much respect I have for him, and to thank him for what he'd done for us.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

I was 17 when I realized that, after two years of caring for my stepfather, his mother and my younger brother, while having none to nothing of anything, I had reached the end of my rope, mentally as well as physically.

During ninth grade, during my exams, and during the first year of junior high school I'd fought to somehow feed the remainder of my "family" with one basket of food per week – in vain. Two years during which I myself didn't have much food and I don't know how I would have survived had I not had the subject "cooking" at school – because when I think back at that time, today, then I think that these had sometimes been the only times I've had a meal myself and after two years I've been ready to simply disregard the responsibility I had towards my family, because I haven't been able to carry out that responsibility any longer. Maybe I was too tired, maybe too hungry, maybe I just hadn't cared anymore, I don't know which – maybe all of it.

In the end I contacted my oldest sister and then moved out of the house and have left my family behind.

Not that it had been too much better then. My school? Forget it, because I needed to work so that I had money to pay the rent for the room I lived in and to buy food – but at least I had food.

The problem was that at this time I was so deep down the road of an eating disorder – and a sleeping disorder – that the food I had at home didn't really help. Not that I've suffered from anorexia or bulimia – surely not. I've just always forgotten to eat because I wasn't used to regular meals and most likely I was far beyond the point where I really felt hunger. A problem I'm still suffering from, I have to admit, even though it's getting better. I'm able to forget any meals completely, while at the same time a lot of food is wasted as I'm buying – and cooking – too much. But somehow I still fear that there could be not enough food at home, that anyone in my house could be hungry, and therefore – well, I'm buying too much, therefore I'm cooking too much. I wouldn't care about me being hungry, I wouldn't really notice it anyway and I can forget eating, for days even – until my husband gets angry and reminds me of it when I'm feeling ill because of it. He always says that I don't need to be surprised if I feel ill or if I have stomach aches. But I'm always scared that my children could go to bed hungry the way we have.

It's gotten better with the years, seeing that I'm 41 now – at least I think I'm 41 – but still it's an eating disorder, added to a sleeping disorder, an attention deficit disorder, a speaking disorder and a social phobia – damn, can't I just go to a junkyard and get rid of a few things? I'd really like to give a few things away, and I don't even want to have anything for it, they could have it for free.

But joke aside – I have a different life-story than my oldest sister has, but anyway I can say that just like her, I had enough pain, work and responsibility for a lifetime and I'm not surprised that I am the way I am, even though it's getting better the more time passes.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

During the years after I have left home, I think I have deepened my misanthropy even and I didn't leave the house if I didn't really have to – except for work and except to buy one thing or another – for me people had become the worst creatures on this earth – the only animals which could destroy themselves, gruesome animals which are deadhearted and able to do the most horrible things imaginable towards each other. And so I've started avoiding people even more than I've done in my youth, except for one friend I've had for years – until I've met my husband.

Of course there hadn't been too many changes in the beginning.

I've left the house a bit more – if my husband, who hadn't been my husband back then – was with me. I've started to speak to others – if he was with me. And I've gone to one pub or another – if he was with me. Except of that – there weren't too many changes in the beginning. We've married, but I've always stayed at home with the children – and happily so. And surely not just out of the feeling for responsibility towards my children but rather because – why should I have gone out there and handle annoying, stupid, and depraved people? And why should I do this to other people, having to handle me? It's been better this way, because this way I wasn't annoyed at the people out there, and the people out there weren't annoyed at me either.

However, why my husband had married me – and had then stayed with me despite all my failures and despite all my inadequacies, I don't know – but I think it's like it's written in the bible – one man, one woman, one lifetime. A man will leave his parents to take a woman and they will become one – a unity, and that's what we became with time, a unity, in good times and in bad times, and we've proven it because – bad times have been very present for many, many years – until, let me say, three or four years ago.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

And I don't speak of – "not so good times" – but of really bad times.

"I love you" – had been a sentences I'd said to my mother many years ago when she'd taken me from my family – and it's been one of the last sentences I've said at all without being requested to speak while I've often had times when I've just ignored such requests – it depended on the person who requested speech – whatever reason for should I have said anything after all? Whatever reason for should I have explained anything? Or asked anything? The only request I've never ignored had been the request of my mother, because one didn't ignore any request she made, never mind what kind of request it was. But except for that? I've soon become in the truest sense of the word – still.

Maybe that's been the reason as to why I wasn't shocked when one day I wasn't able to speak anymore at all, even though it lasted for months.

I think – any other man would have said – "alright, now you've lost it and you can go and jump in the lake but I won't have it anymore". I think, Elsa with her view of men – 'if you know one, then you know all' – could learn something from my husband if she weren't a fictive person.

And I don't speak of Elsa Harvest, the elderly lady I've come up with for WCPS in my other stories – I'm speaking of Elsa Nock whom I've invented for the mini-story for our community, a 29 year old lady who's managing a small print shop, .oO( I just say "google the shit", one of her favourite sentences ), and those who know this mini-story – even though I think that barely anyone of those people will read this here – will know whom I'm speaking of.

However, I myself hadn't thought too much about it when from one moment to the other I haven't been able to speak anymore – just another failure, nothing new here. But my husband never left me, never mind all the months of written conversation from my part, and never mind how often this happened afterwards, never mind how many relapses, the longest relapse being one and a half years of mutism and written conversations without a break.

But well – that isn't so important.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

Important is – as strange as it is, but I seem to be important to God or he wouldn't put up with all the work he has to do with me, all the times during which he's protectively holding his hands over me and all the years during which he's had his hands below me to carry me. He really has to be very patient with me – and all of that just because he has a plan for me?

I don't know if I'll really be able to live up to the expectations God has set in me … but he's been doing miracles during the past let me say two or three years – or I wouldn't have been able to write this, looking back at all the things without screaming bloody murder and wishing to kill someone, preferably my mother. I have grown during the past two or three years, not in height, but in my heart, I think, in my mind – whatever, I don't really know.

But most strangely – I have even started to love people.

And such a statement coming from my person!

I, the dark and cold misanthrope, the one person who hated human being enough to turn my back on them forever, the one person who could stand up to a guy who'd just broken my wrist, looking up at him with a disdainful smile and with the question if this was all he could do, getting the same wrist broken a bit more for it before again standing up to him and asking him the same question, not even hating him anymore but only feeling disdain over him because he was human. I think I could have felt more respect towards a rat or a snake, even a spider than towards that guy – and not even because he'd broken my wrist, such a thing hadn't been the first time after all and it wasn't the first scar either. Someone who'd lived with my mother didn't get out of it without scars. No – but just because he was a human being.

And to say now that I have started to love people? People I don't know even – just because they are people?

That is as if Hereweald Hrothgar – or Severus Snape – gave away a declaration about how to love the world – they would both end up in a closed ward right away. And a year ago it would have been simply impossible for me to say such a thing – I'm sure that a lot of people who knew me up to now would happily call 911 if they knew, without blinking an eye even and send me to a mental ward, preferably a closed ward. Because people knew that – I don't love anyone. Not ever.

But well – God actually seems to have a plan for me, and I also think that God had even given me a place, and the place even seems to fit, seeing that I like to draw and to write. But again – will I be able to live up to the expectations people around me will set in me? Will I be able to live up to the expectations this team will set in me? Won't I disappoint them? Will I be able to live up to the responsibility my place will clearly bring, too? I don't know it and I can only hope and trust in the people around me to have patience with me – something that doesn't sit too well with me, trusting people.

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

And concerning the logic of the place I've found myself in – I've forgotten to tell you about my love for writing – well …

Maybe I should first apologize for the chaos that will make appearance in the following chapters before I start explaining anything, just so to set you at ease – and that the upcoming chapters will be chaotic – well, no one, and lest of all me, can deny that.

Let me just say – would any of my prior German- or English teachers get this here between their fingers, then they would most likely – alright, they would surely lay it aside with a shocked expression on their faces upon just reading the name of the author. It would awaken memories in form of horror-visions, because those poor people – and all of them – had been regularly driven to despair – due to anecdotes as they were wandering from the subjects as well as due to essays as they'd been too detailed and comments like "too detailed" … "too comprehensive" … "too circuitous" … "too explanative" … "too nested" … "too complicated" … and even "too loquacious" – even though I doubt that – well, with time they didn't have to come up with such comments anymore, no – they just needed to copy them from the past works of mine.

One teacher of mine once even said – you could describe a leaf floating down from a tree, carried by the wind in autumn – and for this one scene you'd need at least four or five pages in your tiny handwriting in your exercise book. I'm still not sure if it was a compliment or an insult.

On the other hand – I've never been able to avoid just this – what however wasn't because of lack of attempts but rather because there's a really strange formula which – and I'm sure of that – even the best scientist wouldn't be able to explain –

Namely: me plus pencil equal chaos.

And well – seeing that I've been the worst case in math, me needing ten fingers to add two and three together just to get to a wrong result anyway, the teachers of this particular science having gotten as desperate upon my questions as to – "but why is two plus three equal to five" as my German and English teachers had gotten desperate upon my essays – so, well, I've never been able to alter this formula myself either, not to mention getting to an – for my teachers – adequate outcome.

The reason for that was simple – whenever there was an essay or similar to be written, actually anything that had to do with words, then I didn't have any influence over my pencil anymore which – apparently – always found its own way across the papers, and so the outcome of an essay was generally inevitable – it was at least six, seven or eight pages, most of the time even more, in a handwriting that was – well – small. I was entirely innocent of it, it hadn't been my fault.

Anyway, even after school, writing one thing or another has kept up with me, has even followed me upon each step I took, whatever the reason.

Some years there had just been a few short and nonsense stories the result of my writing which I would delete from my laptop with the same expression of horror on my face which would be found on the faces of my teachers would they get these upcoming chapters between their fingers – nope, I'd delete it without thinking of it even once, let alone twice and without blinking an eye even.

And so I've stopped writing at all – there was no reason in producing trash, after all, and nothing else it had been and so some time passed – alright – just a few weeks passed, maybe a few months but surely not more because …

Well, yes – because then there was Hereweald Hrothgar who stumbled over my path someplace deep down in the labyrinth of my brain – and he's reminded me so very much of myself that I wasn't able to forget him ever again. And when shortly after, Hereweald even met Herbaceous VanHarkins – well, then I didn't have another choice other than – no, of course not to take the pencil from the place whence I'd banned it, but to start my laptop. Not really to write a book, but rather – to write anything at all. After all it's been weeks since I'd last written anything, and for me that was – like years.

And so I've sat there – not at a table in a classroom this time but at home in front of my laptop – but how should it be otherwise? I had to deal with the same problem again. Not my pencil had his own will this time, but my fingers, just as if they'd ignore the impulses my brain was trying to send over to them with a devilish grin and they hastened across the keyboard, quicker than their muscles could react – in other words, I didn't stumble over my tongue but over my fingers.

However, what came out of it was – chaos, again!

But this time it wasn't too bad a thing because – Hereweald had been a messy guy himself and so the thing fit well. Just how I could integrate Herbaceous into this mess – I really didn't know this. But again my fingers had taken this decision from me by themselves and when I've read over the thing one evening, about what I had written for the past few nights – well, what am I to say? I've been more frustrated than ever, I've been close to tears even with desperation and short of deleting the entire rubbish.

Because Hereweald and Herbaceous living together in the same house? Never! That would be something like – as if you'd drive with a container filled with high explosive nitro-glycerine over a bumpy and jolty crushed stone road – it just couldn't work! Fortunately however I wasn't able to do it (deleting the rubbish I mean, not the drive across the bumpy road with the nitro-glycerine) and I've rather racked my brains over it once more, for days and days.

And really, I've been able to – against all logic – not only befriend the thought but to even get new ideas out of it – because imagining what chaos had to come out of it if you threw the most normal, sober, and logical person existent on this planet called Earth together with the definitely most chaotic, messy, and impulsive person – well, as my husband one day said: It couldn't be worse than it is with the two of us – and he'd been not only serious about it, but he'd been correct too.

However, the two – Hereweald and Herbaceous of course – grew in mind and character and with the months the two of them had started a life of their own and somehow I've lost any influence on them. They just didn't care anymore about what I – the author – wanted them doing, but they just did what they wanted, imagine! Can you understand how much their constant bickering and picking at each other got on my nerves with time? Not to mention Hereweald's constant sarcasm towards Herbaceous and Herbaceous always being so damn calm about it what drove Hereweald nuts at the same time!

But well, as someone who loved fantasy novels or movies, it was about two years later that I, of course, stumbled over Harry Potter – and with it of course Fanfiction – and then started writing there. Hereweald and Herbaceous got in the background of my writing – alright, actually I've put them in a file of my laptop so that I could concentrate on Snape and Potter which allowed me so much more room to play. And seeing that I had already learned how to throw the most different – and difficult – people into the least likely situations – I think I've been good in my new job as an internet-author on Fanfiction – at least my readers have never complained much. One thing here or there if they were unhappy with one direction or another I had approached – but generally I got good reviews, and a lot of reviews – and I've been happy with throwing Snape and Potter together into the most difficult and complicated situations where they had to – grow.

It was kind of a special challenge, taking two already existent characters and to then change them without changing their basic nature, without changing who they are – while changing them so that they could form a family. You can come up with a new character, but working with given specifications – it's a real challenge and any other author on Fanfiction will surely agree with me on that.

However, with the time Hereweald forced his way back into my writing again and became a friend of Severus Snape, and seeing that my readers seemed to like him too, he'd accompanied several of my stories over the years on Fanfiction as a minor character, together with Herbaceous VanHarkins even – until – yes, again until there was something that didn't leave my mind anymore after a daring from Catlady, one of my most loyal readers and reviewers.

Her words have been something like: evil, you really need to stop tormenting people one of these days and I dare you to write something sweet and fluffy … it's been something along these lines and she'd even offered a cup of black coffee afterwards – virtual coffee, of course, seeing that she's sitting in the States and I'm sitting in Germany – to get the bad taste of the sweetness and fluffiness out of my mouth, how very nice of her … :D …

But well, the stone was laid and – well, and I wondered – what about Hereweald?

Not as a minor character as in my Harry Potter stories but as a main character again?

Not that I wanted to write another completely new book with Hereweald and Herbaceous – surely not. Fanfiction had become my home – and so on Fanfiction I will remain – what means, I do need – or rather did need – an already existing book to write about.

But – what about changing books from Harry Potter to the Bible?

A rather audacious thing to do was my first thought, but then?

I've always done the daring things when it came to my writing. And I've always lived up to the responsibility any author has towards his readers. I've never sugar-coated child abuse, never mind if my readers were happy about it or not, I've never sugar-coated anything at all and if I needed to have a character dying, then I've done just that, even though it's been a character my readers have loved. Not to mention that, if I needed to use bad language and cursing to get my point through, then I did just that – which is the reason as to why none of my stories should be read by children or teens below the age of sixteen (even though I'm sure that they're much better in that area than I am) – and I've always thrown people together or them in a situation where my readers at first thought – strange, why would she do such a thing? That won't work, not ever!

But in the end it always worked out.

Some people say they don't know which of my main characters they pity the most, but that's what makes it as interesting as it seems to be – and so I have made my mind up and I have started writing a new story, with a new storyline, with a new plot and with a new background – without wizards, without magic, and the only things that remain are Hereweald Hrothgar, Herbaceous VanHarkins whom I have re-named into Hendrik VanHarkins even, and the fact that Hereweald is a teacher and will be thrown together with a student he doesn't like in a situation that will be – once again – least likely.

But even though it's a new story and a new book – I fear that, again, it lacks the sweetness and again it lacks the fluff – in other words, I fear, I have lost the dare, my dear Catlady … but the idea has me hooked and so it's even become my first priority – very much to the regret of the readers of my other stories as they will get a chapter every fortnight only instead of every Friday like before … it's just that apparently I am unable writing sweet fluff because I have learned that – life isn't sweet and life isn't fluffy either … and I would lie to not only you, but myself either would I disregard these lessons …

And I am no one to lie to anyone, never mind the truth …

Thank you …

Breåk· … ·~†~*~*~*~*~*~†~· … ·Łine

To be continued

Next time in … and sit a while with me …

The first chapter: there will be a war, a teacher, a boarding school and some thoughts

Added author's note

thank you for reading – and yes, I would appreciate it if you won't throw this aside from the beginning on, seeing that you won't be used to such a writing style coming from my person as I've never ever written a foreword to anything here on Fanfiction – the next chapter will already contain the beginning of the story, don't worry and thank you …