II-
Disclaimer: Don't own it. Never will.
I gave her a warning look, and heard my own heart throbbing in my chest. We had been talking for two whole minutes and no one had come in yet. He must have been there the whole time! I felt my cheeks get warm. Alee was still calm, brushing her fingers through her long reddish golden hair.
"What's wrong?" she asked. This was the third time I had been asked the question. I couldn't lie my way out. Not even to myself. Something was definitely wrong.
After a day of peeking at the elusive youth, I was ready to retire at my house. After my first two classes, he disappeared. He wasn't at lunch, though he should have been if he were in sophomore year.
Besides the usual mortification of having a limo pick me up, though it was ten fold worse in front of fellow students, I reached the house easily. Getting out of the car, it didn't seem like anyone had popped in for a visit. After checking every inch of the garage as a young child losing a colorful marble or precious doll, I left, depressed. In the beginning, I had mixed feelings. I wasn't excited that I cold throw parties every week. I never have been very excited at the thought of parties. Images I conjured up were teens obscenely dancing to loud music, hands everywhere, with alcohol adorning the place like decorations. But the good side in all of this was that I wouldn't be needled to death by my mother. My mother had a knack for interfering with my life until the point that she had to know how many boys were in each of my classes. As much as I pushed her and inquired about her curiosity, she shrugged off my pestering with a too-innocent shake of her head. She probably thought every guy would be dying to flirt with me every second of a class. Ha. Like I could twirl my hair and play along. But the joy of a little more freedom didn't hurt.
But after a while, the giddiness sort of faded. I started to feel lonely, in a huge house with several servants and a butler rushing about. Oh, and a hot tempered Italian cook who tried, and failed, to make me eat every meal, which I was not accustomed to. A limo didn't help solve anything. Even trying to sneak out failed, for there were a dozen security guards encircling the house like leering crocodiles, daring me to climb out my window and down the balcony. I was trapped.
Now, climbing the perpetual staircase, past a multitude of rooms on the left side, I counted till the 10th door, pausing Daniel's study. I peeked inside, hopefully. No one was there. Disheartened, I trailed into my room, ignoring the inviting canopy bed. I made a beeline for the balcony, placing my homework on the lounging chair and went downstairs to get myself a drink.
As I got my Raspberry-Lemon tea, two of the maids caught me in the process of running up the stairs, occasionally sprinting over several steps. "After doing thiz again and again, you thought zat we wouldn't see you, eh? Well, from now on, let us do our job and you do yours! By ringing ze bell! D'accord, mademoiselle?" one of them shot at me.
There was a button inside my room where a light switch would usually be that would buzz one of the maids to me. I just stood there, mumbling "Okay", though I had no intention of doing so. I wouldn't let them win. Then I continued running up the stairs.
When I finally got to my sanctuary, I called Alee.
"Hey, Alee here. If you're listening to this dismal recording, it means I am probably busy. Doing something fun like homework. Before I start ranting on why I'll let you guys leave a message."
I left a message and shut the phone, clueless on what to do. I started on doing homework, which seemed pretty easy. I guess it was because I was not occupied with anything and was putting my full attention and effort into it. An hour later, I was done. I thought of going outside, when the phone on my night table flashed on my right. It said Maid's Quarters. Did they think it would be a tiresome journey for me to come down the stairs?
"Miss, your equestrian teacher is here." I groaned, but complied.
After the dreadful lesson today, I went home, not bothering to knock on the door and wait in the freezing weather for the butler. I picked up my jacket without looking in the foyer to keep myself warm in the unusually cold weather. As I put it on, I shivered. The jacket was really cold from hanging in the hall. I walked out the door, ignoring the hot-tempered French maid, who had caught me a couple hours earlier, now calling my name from the foot of the stairs. Apparently, she wouldn't go any farther without the butler there. I walked on, feeling pleased that I finally did something wrong in the open, instead of falling to cloak-and-dagger. I buttoned the front of my hated Burberry jacket that every girl owned or at least wanted. In a sense it was a gift, whose sole purpose was to keep me hidden at school, since it doubled as camouflage.
I walked absentmindedly into the forest that bordered the right side of the manor. The ground in front of the stately chateau was inlaid with large black and green stones in a swirling pattern, and led out to a twisting road lined with small trees that ended with the highway. A quintessential garden bloomed on the manor's left. On the right, the way I was headed, lay the forest. I loved the wild, tangled mess of the forest, with its natural water sources, bubbling up in a nook of the woods, or racing down the side of a hill, in the form of a rapid stream.
I felt comforted by the dense and voluminous canopy of leaves and branches, like they were caring arms that wrapped me in a protected embrace out of harm's way. I didn't know how wide or how many acres the woodlands extended. Probably till the ocean. I just loved the feeling of openness while still enjoying the distant awning that covered the sky. The air was cool, but yet light and not very breezy. It was like the fresh breath of Mother Nature. There weren't that many inhabitants that came out during the day, so unfortunately I was not occupied mentally. I could picture the boy's eyes in my head. Instead of the topaz I was strongly attracted to, the same pair of eyes had dimmed in color, becoming a darker toffee color, almost threatening to turn the lightest shade of black. Their beauty wasn't marred though. They still seemed—
Suddenly, I stumbled, falling down a hill, with a dead tree. The tree wasn't harmed in any way by me, but I definitely earned some bruises for knocking into the once sturdy willow. I made a note to at least seem to separate reality from fantasy. I cursed at myself for not changing out of my boots and outfit from equestrian lessons. I had just threw the helmet on the floor of the manor and took off.
My fall suddenly stopped. I had wandered (okay, fell) into a new part of the seemingly never-ending forest. Before I could realize what happened, I stared up at the beauty of the new place. It looked similar, but more devastatingly beautiful, once I gave my undivided attention to it. To stare at it was an understatement. It was more like drinking the most pure water in the world, and never getting satisfied by one small taste.
I looked around greedily, devouring the beautiful site. There was something exceptionally scenic about the place, but I couldn't figure out what. It seemed pretty normal looking in the beginning. But now… I could only stare. I finally found one of the factors for its heartrending splendor. The sun. Not the normal one that glared down at me every morning through my window. This one was different. It shone through the curiously less dense forest in this part of the forest. It created an impressionist painting on the ground, with different shades of pale yellow, white, and light beige. The ground seemed to be strangely clear of leaves and grass, just flat earth. The place had a sort of shimmering touch, though there was nothing natural to cause it. There was an aura around the place; I felt a sort of reverence for it. I walked toward the center, limping slightly, to see where the light was coming from…Everything was a blur and slowly my vision receded to darkness. I was thrown over someone's shoulder. I felt an electric jolt through my bones, when something cold touched my face, murmuring something to low and fast for me to comprehend. A human. I tried opening my eyes, but I could get no more than a shadow. Then, the shadow was touching my neck, shocking life back into me, as though I were a failing heart patient.
I gasped for air, opening my eyes to look at the stranger. But there was no one. No one was touching me or around me, but I could still feel the cold electric shock administered to me by someone's cold hand. I put a hand on my neck anyways to see if someone actually had touched me. I felt a surprising breeze on my right, and caught the shadow of a silhouette returning to the forest. It took a couple seconds for me to realize that if it had a hand, it must be human.
But no human I knew of could travel over 80 mph and drop me on the floor into the mud outside of the forest in one minute. I blinked stupidly in the merciless sunshine. I glared at it while it leered back. The burning light scorched my face. I looked down, defeated. So I wouldn't be able to make it to the end of the forest today.
This shadow thing has made me amazed, mystified, and curious. I will definitely write a story or poem on it, I thought to myself, climbing the perpetual staircase of boredom to my room. I took a quick shower, and a couple minutes later, came out donning some 300 dollar jeans, now torn from use at the knees, with a tight-fitting lacy olive green top. I let my hair out; giving it the right to do whatever it wanted, though it wasn't as if it ever obeyed me any other time.
My room phone rang. It said Dance Lessons in five minutes. I moaned, slumping onto a pillow. While lacing up my converse, I thought about wishes. I wished for something to distract me or help cure my boredom but doing the tango for one hour straight wasn't my idea of treating monotony. Nor was it fun.
