Part One
Prologue: Memories
Brielle Corletti
Mother left. No words. No goodbyes. She just left.
Mother left me and never came back. I was four years old.
I waited for her at the back door and she never came.
She just said she was going for a walk…
I didn't know my father and all I had of him was a small painted portrait that my mother gave to me.
She said he was a soldier in the king's army and he was very brave.
Either than that, nothing about him. She never told me his name.
So there I was. Four years old. No mother, no father.
Alone with a family I didn't know; I didn't want; and I thought I could never love.
I was wrong. I eventually did come to love them.
They were kind, but they weren't my mother.
I remember that I didn't cry when it became dark and she still wasn't there.
Maybe she'll be here in the morning.
No. The side of my bed where she usually slept was empty. It was empty after that. And so was I.
At first it was hard. I lived minute by minute. Then, hour by hour.
Eventually day by day, month by month, and then year by year.
Eleven years since I had been left alone. Eight of those years were in the worst hell I could have imagined.
When I was seven, the family I was living went into some financial problems.
A wealthy lady said she would help them…under one condition.
They, including me, would work for her as her servants.
Servants? We were her slaves.
If cruelty, anger, fear, pain, terror, and horror were all physical aspects of life you could see, hear, feel, and touch, it would have been her.
Lady Jadellias of Ettinsmoor.
She made nightmares real. She made the dark eternal.
Well, we managed to get away. From her and Ettinsmoor.
We had to separate after that. I haven't seen them since.
I hope she didn't find them. If she did, I pray she only found their dead bodies.
That was a year ago.
And where am I now? In a prison.
Why? I was hungry. I just wanted some food. I hadn't eaten in days.
Those guards throw a 17 year old girl in prison like some criminal.
Well, stealing is a crime…even I know that.
I wonder what the death penalty is for stealing in Narnia.
That's where I am. Narnia. That's where my mother was from.
Mother…