The Cat.
20 years later...
The High Speed train flashed past towns and cities on its way to Kings Cross station, but inside it, alone and very quiet sat a nineteen year old girl. She was of medium height, her hair was short and raven black, and her eyes were a dazzling green, reading a novel, but the girl wasn't paying much attention to the words even though books gave her a joy other things in life just could not. She wasn't paying attention to the looks she was getting, but that did not mean the girl was unaware of the stares. She'd received them all her life, she seemed to be putting out a sort of double aura, mystifying men and women alike, and attracting them to her like moths to a flame, but the other aura was one of danger. It said come closer please, and give me a reason to break your nose. With this attitude, but since the girl seemed so calm no one would ever imagine her capacity for violence was unknown to anyone aside from a martial artist, or a soldier.
The girl, dressed in black jeans and a black shirt with a black jacket, reached around her neck, and removed a locket. Carefully and reverently, she opened it. If anyone was watching, then they would be seeing the girl almost crying but could not find the tears, and if anyone was looking over her shoulder, they would expect to see the face of a handsome young man. They would be disappointed. Instead of a man, the picture was of an identical woman, identical in every respect to the beautiful girl but there were differences. The smile on the woman's face barely reached her eyes, and there was an expression of pain and grief in those expressive emerald eyes her child would inherit.
The girl sighed as she ran a dainty finger over the picture. She had dozens like it, the same sadness but the same joy as she raised her only child, but the sadness was there as the girl knew, from birthdays her mother had, from Christmases their few friends had celebrated...
When the train pulled into King's cross, the girl was the first one off the train. She didn't look back either. She carried a backpack and a travel case. She descended down into the tube network beneath the mainline station, and got on a Piccadilly train, heading all the way to Heathrow. As the girl adjusted to the difference between overground and underground, she tried for the nineteenth time to try and read her book without success. The girl sighed bitterly. It would do no good, but she tried everything to calm down the seemingly desperate beating of her heart, which seemed to want to burst out of her chest. She hated this time of the year, the year she would stop her endless wandering and return home to San Francisco. Putting her hand into her pocket she withdrew a ticket that would take her back to San Francisco, something she'd been doing as a tradition for the past five years since she left America.
The girl was exhausted, she would spend a few days resting in her old home in San Francisco and then return to London. She had mixed feelings about returning home to her mothers old home. Unlike most houses, this house had magical wards all over it. When her mother had died the girl didn't stay there for shelter for good reasons - first because the place seemed to be mourning the loss of her mother as much as she did after spending two years of her life in that fucking orphanage. Second, she wanted to become independent. The girl had some good and bad memories of this place, like when she was eight years old, old enough to undergo the ritual that would remove all but a small fraction of her magical power. The girl and her mother had their reasons for conducting the ritual, but her daughter had been in pain for three days. It was fortunate in that case her mother had had the forethought to place those wards on their property, otherwise her mother would be sentenced to prison for harming her child.
The girl didn't like sleeping in her own bed again even though it was comfortable. There were too many memories, too many ghosts in her closet for her to get comfortable, but she put up with it once every year. The girl couldn't get to sleep that night, she had a day that was too heartbreaking for her to tolerate, even after all this time.
Lily Evans, beloved mother. Born 30th Jan 1960 - Died 12 May 1990. Freedom is power. That's what it read on the headstone, at the girls request. The girl, dressed completely in black, the colour and the cold breeze in the air made the colour of her outfit, the white paleness of her skin, and the girl's ruby red lips all the more highlighted. If anyone had seen her then they would also be speared by the emerald green eyes.
The exact same as her mothers.
Lily Evans, the girl's mother, had died when the girl had been eleven years old. The girl, sipping black coffee but not really tasting it, but to her the beverage could've been petrol or battery acid for all the good it did her, often remembered that night bitterly. The girl had always been different, even to her mother. She would score perfect grades in one class, and yet dismally fail another, and yet the girl had a talent in athletics, gymnastics and acrobatics. Physical fitness was more important to her than other subjects. She had another talent. The girl was good at stealing things, but she always did it for the right reasons. One night after returning home after a trip to the cinema, the pair of them had walked down a street, laughing without a reason. Then...the girl had found herself holding her mother after someone had stabbed her, and the girl remembered feeling the warm red liquid seep from her mother's wound, the iron tang of blood in her nostrils as she pleaded for her mother to stay alive. She'd looked up, only to see the man holding the knife. He was a kid, and the girl could feel a familiar rage grip her heart, but her mother was more important to her than some pathetic nothing on the street.
Her mother's weak hand had gripped her, and her mother had touched her face, and in that moment the girl had known her mother was dying. She'd been screaming for someone, anyone to call and ambulance, but as was typical no one had bothered until the last minute. Angry with everyone, the girl cried over her mother. Lily had crooned over her, smiling through her agony, and the girl could see that although she hated leaving her daughter alone, she was glad the pain was gone. The girl knew of her birth, how her mother had been raped by a psychotic monster no one had bothered to kill.
" I love you, always. You're the bright spot in my life," her mother had said to her, smiling before she died.
The girl sipped her coffee, and then she got up from her seat and washed away the dregs from the mug.
I know its short, but I wanted a short summary of the girl's life to answer some of the reviewers and to also make you think of what else might be coming. Sorry to be so mysterious, but I like my readers to ask more.