Chapter One –
Hiccup's POV
The sudden sharp clap of hands and rhymic pounding of drums brought me groggily to consciousness, making me roll further into the warmth of my cocoon, burying my face and my moaning my complaints into my pillow. I let it play for a few moments more, the words adding to the music, slowly pulling me further into wakefulness. I rolled back over sluggishly and lay there for a minute listening to the song play itself, one of my feet already tapping against my mattress slightly of its own accord.
"One, two, three, four, five years by, I don't really know, I know don't really know why. Seven eight, eleven years go by, I don't really know why. I don't really know why. I still, feel the same way I did when I was seventeen. I still, look over my shoulder waiting for the world to change." I began to hum along, muttering the words under my breath as I reached out from under my duvet with a trembling hand to rub the gathering sleepy dust out of my eyes.
"But these are, the good old days! These are, the good old days. These are, the old days and I think I'd like to stay. Oh, I'd like to stay. Oh, I'd like to stay!" A sharp thud against my bedroom door brought me abruptly back to my sense, and I tried not to cringe at the loud, rough voice that followed it, booming from the other side.
"Harriet! Turn off that awful noise and get up! School bus will be here in ten minutes!" I reluctantly dug out my other arm and fumbled around for the off switch on my phone. With a pained sigh, I braced myself and flung back my covers in one quick motion and forced myself to roll groggily upright, gripping the side of my bed with my hands as my head swam with the too-fast movement. I took a couple of second to get used to it before staggering to my feet and stumbling through my morning routine, pausing only to pull on my some random clothes from the pile scattered across my bedroom floor that passed a quick sniff inspection before scooping up my rucksack and bolting out of the door and down the stairs into the kitchen.
Dad wasted no time with greetings and scowled at me in annoyance as I slipped into the room and made a bee-line for the door, shutting it firmly behind me and scurried down the garden path to the street, coming to stop at the pick-up point just in time as the school bus rounded the corner ahead of me. It pulled up beside me and I climbed on, nodding a silent greeting to the driver before ducking my head to avoid the unwanted gaze of others and dodge the various feet that stuck out form the rows of seats in an attempt to trip me as I headed to my usual spot near the back of the bus. I slumped down into my seat and pulled out my head-phones, praying for the day to be over as fast as possible and trying to ignore the ball of dread building up inside my stomach at the thought of facing the school day ahead.
I guess luck was on my side today. I got off the bus and made it through my lessons without incident. Normally my cousin "Snotlout" and his poses would try to cage me in and stir up trouble if they saw me, but luckily for me, none our class schedules mix on a Friday, meaning as long as I went the long way round to my classes and took care to avoid the busy corridors that most of the kids used to travel down, I was unlikely to cross paths with them today. Small mercies I suppose, although a small part of was disappointed not to catch a glimpse of Astrid, my long-time crush who usually hung out in the same group as my ass-hole cousin. Why, I'll never understand but it was probably the only good thing about having the group around, not that she'd ever look at me anyway. But still, everybody's entitled to their own fantasies even if that's all they'll ever be. Friday's were always my favourite day of the week for both this reason and the fact that it was the last school day of the week. Still, I was relived to get safely back on the bus and driving away from the dreaded school building. My relief was short lived as the vehicle turned the corner onto my street and pulled up at the drop-off point near the bottom of my road. Time to go home. I sighed for what felt like the thousandth time today and got relucntantly to my feet, making my way carefully to the front of the bus and hoped down onto the pavement. I wearily made my way up the road towards my house. It occurred to me as I mused to myself distractedly that most people felt happy towards the end of the day to be heading back home, whereas I felt almost as much dread now as when I was heading too school this morning, treading up the garden path. It turns out my instincts where right once again.
No sooner had I reached the back door, the sound of shouting drifted out to me from within, and I heisted. With yet another deep, bracing sigh I reached out and gripped the handle, pushing the door open and took an unsteady step inside. I shut the door behind me with a cringe as I listened to the earth-shaking voice of my father and peered cautiously around the corner to see him unsurprisingly shouting like a football supporter of a losing team at a stadium into his phone. Carefully, I began to edge my way across the room, willing myself desperately not to be seen. I suppose my luck had to run out sometime.
Stoic spun around and finish his conversation with a partially aggressive insult and snapped his phone shut roughly, before glancing up to spot me, stuck half way between doorways, just another few meters from freedom. His eyes narrowed dangerously and I immediately tried, without success not to shrink in on myself under his intimidating stare. His huge hand buried itself in his pocket as he replaced his phone and an uncomfortable silence ruled for a moment. Then finally, he spoke to me.
"I have to make a business trip out of town so I won't be home for a couple of weeks. I leave tomorrow morning but I'm having dinner with a local client tonight to ensure things here will stay in order while I'm away."
I looked up at him in surprise, momentarily forgetting my discomfort. This wasn't what I was expecting. I fumbled for an answered as Stoic pulled out his bleeping phone to check it. "Umm, well okay then, I'll just be in my room. I guess I'll see you when you get back-"
"No, the dinner is going to be happening here. I need you to get out of the house for a few hours." He snapped his phone shut again and returned it to its place in his pocket, barely glancing at me and he walked to the table to pick up his iPad instead. I froze, taking a moment to comprehend the meaning of his words. It would mean that I'd have to stay out pretty late, not that it made much of a difference, I often worked the evening shifts meaning that I was home late most days anyway, not that he'd really noticed.
"O-okay, so where am I supposed to go then exactly?" I stuttered anxiously. He sighed, as though long-suffering as he flicked through his iPad, still not looking round.
"Honestly, Harriet you're almost a grown woman, you should be able to take care of yourself by now. Why don't you go stay with a friend?"
I winced and began to mutter awkwardly, rubbing the hair at the back of my head, a nervous tick that I'd long picked up at some point that I don't remember.
"Umm, Dad, I don't have actually have any friends so I'm not sure how-"
"I don't care, just be gone within an hour and don't come back for at least four" And don't even think about going to that awful job of yours!" He cut me off before I could finish hold a finger up in front of him to make his point, his eyes narrowing dangerously on the last part. I cringed at the mention of my job, working part time at Gobber, a family friend's bar. It was a sore spot, well, another sore spot, between the two of us. Stoic strongly disapproved of his daughter working in a bar, even a friends. Well, disapproved might be putting it a bit mildly actually. Hated is probably a better choice of word. If was only thanks to Gobber's uncannily ability to talk sense into his friend that I was allowed to continue with my job. Shame he wasn't around to help me now.
With a defeated sigh, I held up my hands in a surrender. Stoic nodded briskly and turned back around, still typing away on his device wordlessly. I shrugged my slipping rucksack back onto my shoulder and quickly scurried out of the room and up the stairs to my room to change and grab some things. Pulling on my hoody and stuffing the rest of my stuff into my bag, I reached out to grab my iPod from its charging station before trudging towards the door, pausing when I caught sight of a large black box sticking out from under my bed innocently. I suddenly remembered my previous engagement later and realised I would need to grab my gear out of it anyway, something I wouldn't be able to come back and do later if Stoic wanted me out of the house. I took a couple of steps towards it and pulled it the rest of the way out from under my bed and crammed it into my bag on top of my other stuff before retreating back down stairs again, passing Stoic in the main room and walking straight out to the kitchen and exited though the door without a backward glance.
I kept walking, pulling on my headphones as I went, scrolling through my extensive music list absentmindedly while I let my thoughts and emotions run wild inside my head. I knew me and Stoic didn't have the best father-daughter relationship, heck we barely had one at all to be honest. Gobber had been more of a father figure to me since everything fell apart all those years ago. Since Mom died.
I paused suddenly as an over-powering wave a grief hit me, making me literally sway on my still feet slightly. It was a painfully topic for everyone who knew her. My Mom was a very well-liked person. Especially my Stoic and me. He took it harder than everyone when we lost her, made worse by the fact that nobody even knows what happened to her. She was a biologist, a good one too, but she loved music as much as I do, something we had strongly in common. I don't have a lot of memories of her, I was very young when it happened, but some of my best is of the two of us dancing around the house, twirling and singing along together to the music that blared at full volume from the stereo, laughing and shrieking and she'd attempt to lift me up high above her high head during some points, only to tumble down to the floor into a tangled mess of arms and legs. It was probably the happiest part of my childhood. That changed when it happened. When she disappeared.
She'd had been doing research on the types of animals living in the forest, much to the disapproval of her husband and she had become certain that she'd found something incredible. She'd apparently discovered evidence of what she was certain was an unrecorded species, living somewhere deep within the mysterious wood of the town. We'd come home to find an excited note attached to the fridge door saying that she was onto something, had plans to do some further study and would be home late. That was the last we ever heard from her. She never returned that night, and soon search parties were sent out to look for her. The outer rims of the woods where she was supposed to be working with her team were explored with great difficulty as a number of miniature disasters that the forest was famous for occurred, preventing the expedition from going very far. Eventually, they found something. Her rucksack was found abandoned among the forest floor a little way outside of where she was supposed to be working. I was never allowed to see it, but there were apparently signs of a struggle with something. Stoic was heartbroken and the official search as called off, the worst assumed. Determined, Stoic tried to continue the search himself but it was impossible. The forest was considered impenetrable for a reason. Eventually, even he gave up and had to accept that his wife was gone. He was never the same after that. He became brisk, and cold, burying himself in working and doing everything possible to pretend that I didn't exist. Leaving seven year-old me to grieve alone, for the mother that was suddenly taken from me with no explanation. He would become aggressive when I tried to ask about her, and yell and shout, only to be stopped by Gobber. Eventually, I learned to stop asking, and simply adjusted to growing up alone.
I was snapped out of my painful reminiscing by the feeling of hot tears running down my cheek leaving wet tracks behind them. I shook my head to clear it of those painfully images and rubbed my eyes with my sleeve shamefully before glancing around, surprised to see where my feet had taken me. I was stood at the turning point of the dirt path running alongside the very woods that had taken my mother from me, the high stone wall that was built to keep people out towering over me and casting a low shadow on my small form. I pulled my headphones down to hang around my neck, stuffed my iPod into my pocket and stared at the grey structure blankly for a moment before a sudden, insane resolve possessed me and I found myself sliding my rucksack off of my back and aiming to toss it up onto the wall in one swift throw. It landed perfectly and I was soon bracing myself against its stone structure, preparing to climb up after it before I was even aware of what I was doing. I tensed and jumped, almost making it, missing the top by about a foot. I stumbled for a second, regaining my footing pretty quickly and braced to try again. It took a few tries but I eventually managed to get a grip on the sharp edge of the walls top, and carefully pulled myself up with trembling arms until I was balanced precariously on its narrow surface. Carefully, I rotated around till I was facing my bag and scooped it up onto my shoulder awkwardly before jumping gently down onto the other side, into the woods. I braced for impact but still landed awkwardly and immediately found myself tumbling helplessly forward down a sharp hill, bouncing from point to point until I finally came to a halt, landing sprawled out in the dirt, the world still spinning around me, my body aching with the feeling of bruises forming underneath my skin.
I lay there for a moment, stunned before climbing painfully to my feet and stood up unsteadily to look around. Tall trees loomed up all around me, almost blocking out the sun above me. Turning around to look behind me, I could see the track of broken vegetation and disturbed dirt of the steep hill where I had fallen and made sure to memories the location so I knew how to find my way back out later. I scoped up my headphones and iPod from where they had fallen off me, caught in a bush near the bottom of the hill that I'd fallen through, mildly surprised that both were undamaged and still connected, and slipped them back on, turning around to stroll carefully through the tall trees trunks and thick undergrowth of the woods.
I switched my iPod back on, pausing when I saw the page that it must had landed on before my brief climbing experience. Of all the music we used to listen to, Mom loved Broadway soundtracks the best. A particular favourite of hers had been James and the Giant Peach. I vaguely remember that we'd gone to see the panto of it when I was very small. Amy thumb moved almost of its own accord to tap the name of the album on the list and pressed play on the first song that came up listed. I slipped the device back into my pocket and continued with my walk, humming along as the song began to play, singing quietly to myself when the music turned to words.
"If this is what my family has to be, then I don't need one watching over me. A family doesn't make you sleep outside. A family doesn't laugh and say you lied. Remember what, a home is. Think of how, your life should be."
Something about the lyrics struck a chord within me and for an odd second, I found myself pondering the words eerie likeness to the current state of my own life. Without realising it I began to raise my voice even louder, slowly losing myself in the rhythm and rhyme of the song.
"When you're stuck, in the middle of a moment. Can't crawl out of where you are. Only steps away, the worlds okay. But you can't see that far. Stuck in the middle of a moment, that's half way to somewhere new. Can't go back, you're moving through."
A strange, almost pleasant, light feeling came over me, and I could feel my body relax, my worries washing away like rain down a storm drain as the music play, as was the usual effect it had on me. I could myself lift up both in spirt and in body as I raised myself up on my toes and suddenly spring forward to leap gracefully over a high tree gaining speed to stand in the center of a clearing just a short way ahead of me, where I skidded to stop, spraying dirt and sand in front of me, heart still pounding warmly.
"You'll have to think in ways you never thought. You'll have to make the best of what you've got. Find the answers hiding in-between. See a door that no one's ever seen. Somethings there, you feel it. Stop to look, it's all around."
I leapt up high and spun, kicking up dust with my feet like a little kid playing in water, a grin creeping up onto my face, becoming blissfully happy and light-hearted in a way that only the magic of song and dance could bring out in me.
"So you're stuck in the middle of a moment. No clear path, no shining star. Just a step away, the world's okay, so try to see that far. And there in the middle of a moment. You're half-way to somewhere new. Can't go back, keep moving through."
I slowed, dropping into a low crouch, falling forward until my knees hit the dirt, hands falling loosely in front of me. In one swift movement, I tucked into a roll and sprang back up again, hold my arms high above my head, raising my voice loud again.
"Cus there is magic, now you know. You made magic, made is grow. And marvellous, wonderful things, can come true. In the middle of a moment. In the middle of a moment. In the middle of a moment."
I fast walked in several loops, spinning on the spot as I went, before halting in the center of the clearing and raised my arms back up again and finished at the top of my lungs.
"You're on your way!"
I stayed there for a moment, arms up high and beginning to ache form being held there so long, panting heavily, feeling the warmth of the sun leaking in through the gap in between the trees on my face, eyes semi closed against it.
It was in this position that I noticed the glinting reflection of my watch, causing me to pull my arms down away from the light, much to my body's relief and look at it properly. What I read on it made me swear viciously with words that I'd picked from too much time spent around a not-entirely-sober Gobber and rush to retrieve my bag from where I'd dropped it in the dirt at the edge of the clearing while I'd been busy dancing. I was going to be late for my shift!
I pulled off my head phones and hurried to stuff them into my bag clumsily and it was thanks to this that I heard the sound of twigs breaking somewhere behind me that I normally wouldn't have noticed with my ever-present headphones on. I froze, listening as the noise sounded again, slightly closer. A trickle of fear went through me as I thought of my late-mothers last trip into these woods and, ever so slowly turned around, hopefully desperately to find the same empty clearing that I'd been standing in mere seconds ago. What I saw instead made my heart fall out of my mouth and onto the ground beneath me and my bag slip out of my bag to fall beside it…..
The main song this time is "Middle of a Moment" From James and the Giant Peach (Skylar Astin version). Bonus points for anyone who recognises Hiccup's alarm song! (Hint: It's one of the lesser known songs from the latest solo album of my all-time favourite singer). I'm sorry about the wait for this chapter, and that I unfortunately can't say when the next one will be as I've been very busy recently and am about to become so again. I do have a Poll up listing all of my current stories so if you want another chapter for this one next, be sure to vote for it. Until next time. SS
