Chapter One

Rose closed the journal and set it on the table where it had always been kept. She stepped out onto the porch and made her way down to the shore. The sun was beginning to fall, setting the sky on fire. She watched it go down, sitting in the sand. Her blonde hair wrapped around her face and she gently pushed it back behind her ear and lied back, watching the stars appear. She lived her life day by day and alone; and she was happy. She would travel to town once a week to get the essentials that she needed on her horse, and live the rest of her life around the house. She painted, wrote, and read. Then once a week, she would take out her great-great-great grandmother's old bow and arrow and practice.

She spoke elfish, just as her family had in the past. Only the women ever learned, because only women were ever born into the family. The men never knew elfish, and never knew of the encounter with the elves. The men had a much more negative view of the elves, and the women didn't want to risk their relationship with their loved ones over the controversy. So they kept it secret. It also seemed the family had a curse. The parents always died while the child was in their teens. For Rose her mother died when she was sixteen, and on her deathbed told her husband about the elves. The husband was so disgusted he told Rose that either she was to deny her positive view of the elves, or he would abandon her.

Well, he abandoned her. So she learned to live for herself, and decided that she needed no one and would never fall in love. All she had ever seen of it was death and deceit. The only person who had lived into old age was her great-great-great grandmother, and she never lived with whoever had gotten her pregnant. Her child fell incredibly ill, and her child died on a journey to find her father, and her child was Rose's mother. So Rose took it as a sign.

Rose began counting the stars as she did every so often when she spent her nights lying on the beach. She had her journal with her where she wrote all of her poetry and stories in. They were all written in elfish, as she was not willing to share them with anyone. They were too private, and revealed too much about her. She sat up and wrote by the moonlight. The words seemed to light the page as she used the pen that the elves had given to her family. She wrote of how she wished the world to be, with men and women who ventured to the woods and held and open mind to new ideas. She wrote of being rescued from the town and taken to a place far away which had people who were not much different than herself. The people there wrote, read, sang and understood the world as it was, and how it had not become yet. She finished and set the book beside her on the blanket, looking back at the stars. They softly appeared as they did every night, and she watched them in wonder. She understood that there was still a world outside of the humans, and that there was even more of a world on her own planet. The humans were too concerned with themselves and keeping order in their town, not allowing anyone to stray from their stereotype of what a town member should be. Rose's family was no longer considered part of the township much to Rose's relief, but the townspeople long ago decided that her family could remain on their piece of property as long as they did not disrupt the town.

It was a lovely piece of property, a short distance from resting on the shore and surrounded by a field. The path to her house disappeared around a corner by the far corner of the woods. The wood line was a good distance away from the house so that if a human were to approach the house she would know long in advance. And she always knew. Although she rarely had a visitor, the few who did come out were only allowed into the front room of her house. There was once a small group of young people who tried to sneak out to her house at night, but she was awake and sitting on the porch and they did not notice her sitting there until she could nearly reach out and touch them. No one had strayed to her house since because the ones who had ventured out had made up a story of the house being haunted. Although the story was false, Rose did not mind because no one came to bother her.

She continued to stare at the stars. She felt as if someone was with her, and was comforted by the presence. There was warmth about who ever was there with her, even though she could not see them. She had this feeling often on the beach, and decided that it was either the spirits of her family, or just the peacefulness of the ocean. As her mind began to slow down in the darkness her eyelids began to slowly fall and she succumbed to a light peaceful sleep, dreaming of the stars and of a world that she could only dream of experiencing.

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