[Hey, guys. This story is based off of the song "My Body" by Young The Giant. It takes place in a fictional steam punk post-Victorian town. I hope you enjoy! ^^]
Prelude
Perhaps it was more of a dream, than anything, but the girl couldn't help but leave herself among the ashes. The sky a sullen grey, the earth a flavorless brown. The tranquility was of a sort that bragged of nothing but emptiness, for that was all it could ever offer. The icy mists of frozen dawn had long past faded and left the girl in the arms of the bare earth, alone.
So perhaps she should wait until the sky fades form its empty grey, but that would be too simple. Too easy. Life wasn't meant to be easy. And, hell, the girl knew that.
The girl took her rise from the ground and found a way through the valley. The breeze was ever soft, for in itself it lacked the effort to be anything other than melancholy. That breeze whispered to her; it told her its secrets. And yet she knew that it was the only being, other than herself, who knew how it was to live among those ashes. The pallor face of a new day, of new hopes, of new life, never showed itself to the girl. Not that she ever expected as much.
The Victorian Queen Anne stood at the corner of Meadow and Terrance drives. This was the part of town away from the tenements and high strung buildings that marked the inner city. Heartgrove, they called it. It was the place where hearts are buried, but seldom harvested. It was a town of steam, where those hearts met, lived, and parted. Where hopes were left, and yet, rarely revisited, left as specters of the past.
The house itself had no name, for no one ever thought much of it. It was the sort of building that, if seen while traveling, made one's heart ache for a more cultured time that was in itself marvelous and horridly hypocritical. However, it was haunting, different than the others of its time. The deep greys of the elaborate architecture were quite different than the rainbow shades that often accompanied the passed era.
The girl walked to the wrought iron gate that seemed to moan open at her simple presence. She walked across the sulry lawn where not a single flower dared to grow. The house was desolate, but it was home. A stone angel stood by the walkway, but it glared at the presence of anyone who walked past it and seem to jeer and mock at their simplicity.
The stairs to the second story creaked as she climbed to the empty hall of deep red oak. There was a corridor. A room, second on the left. A chest. A package of letters. And maybe memories.
Dear reader, I now find a need to tell your more about the history of our mysterious protagonist. She is Amelia Williams of 1 Meadow Drive, a eloquent home that has been in her family for generations. She is 17 years old. And those letters... those letters hold more truth than the girl would be willing to admit. They contained her hopes, her past, her dreams.
She lied on her bed and stared at the cracked ceiling. The grey crepe of her black laced dress pulled away from her upper legs and clung to the bed around her. Almost-shoulder-length copper hair settled like a nest around her face, the sort of face that could tell more stories than any other of its time. Her blue eyes then closed, like pearls in a white velvet case.
I would like to acknowledge that she then entered the captive state of a girl who knew of nothing else but to dream. She was the sort of individual who had never seen the outsides of the city limits, until the beginning of that very year. She lay there and thought of her adventure, of what she had escaped from, and what she still had left to face. And most of all she thought of him.
Let us go back to seven years ago, when the girl was only ten year old...
The smoke billowed from the train as Amelia and her mother stood upon the platform, Amelia in a deep orange dress that shined in the warming light. It was the first time she had seen her father since the war began. The doors slid open and people began leaving the trains to meet the loved ones that awaited them. It was a lovely autumn day in mid October and the gentle breeze that blew through Heartgrove made her mother's hair drift among the serenity of it al. Ebony strands took upon a sense of their own animation and waved in the inviting afternoon air.
A boy and his father were the first to part from the train. The man had the look of a professor, with quiet eyes that hid behind spectacles and well groomed, yellow hair. The boy was perhaps twelve, and looked like his father except for his shaggy red hair; he even had glasses, which were round, like most children's glasses. As they parted the train with their suite cases, they were immediately followed by a tall man with copper hair that matched Amelia's.
"DADDY!" screamed Amelia as she ran and hugged her father's waste.
"Amelia! You look so well!" He knelt down to her level and embraced his daughter. Her chin rested on his left shoulder and she could not left but look across the platform and stare at the boy and man who have left the train prior to her father. The man was having a friendly conversation with an older gentlemen not twenty feet away.
Her father stood and walked to her mother and kissed her on the cheek. She was not one for much public display of affection.
"Arthur, I hope you have been well. Things have not been the same since you left..." She was near the point of tears. Her voice quavered; her strong posture suddenly became quite weak, as if a great effort had finally been relinquished from her, both physically and emotionally. Amelia's father brushed away her mother's tears as the woman collapsed into his embrace. But Amelia could not keep her stare from the boy.
As her mother regained her composure, both parents noticed their daughter's stare and automatically followed her line of sight.
"I met those two on the train. The man's name is Robert Mason, and his son's name is James. They're moving into the old art studio on White Avenue. Robert is quite a scholar, apparently, he wishes to continue his studies in Heartgrove, or so he told me while we were on the train."
James... Thought Amelia. What a peculiar boy. There's something... different... about him.
James glanced in the family's direction as Amelia's father bounded across the platform to speak again to Robert Mason. Out of surprise and shyness, Amelia once again dropped behind her mother and out of sight of that peculiar boy. The man looked rather timid compared to Amelia's former carpenter of a father, but Arthur Williams' bombastic personality would undoubtedly win him over, if it had not already.
There was much laughter, much reuniting, much celebrating. However, life cannot be perfect forever, Amelia knew that. However, the Victorian house at the corners of Terrance and Meadow Drives had never been happier than that very afternoon.
And so that is the story as to how our lovely Amelia first met the boy who would undoubtedly change her life forever. Dreams and suffering will be factors in their never ending story of roses, thorns, and a lost sense of paradise.
