People bursting into song was weird to me at first. People would sing when they needed to tell someone something important but wanted to keep it secret. As we walked down the street we'd hear people singing, see them dancing, but once the song was over we'd forgotten the song's words. Everone seemed to know the dance steps or the words needed to know when the song was going on. Weird didn't begin to cover it. When Papa moved us to Villeneuve I'd recently turned 14, Belle 15. France was on the brink of war. Papa moved us to this small village for safety from the war, but even that couldn't keep us in the dark. I've lost 14 years of memories from my previous life. Another 7 and I'd forget everything. I was worried about forgetting everything, but wouldn't that be better for this life? If I forgot everything from back then maybe I would be like everyone else? I couldn't help but let these thoughts fill my head as we traveled.
"Ada?" I turned to Belle as she watched me from between me and Papa. "What's wrong?"
"Nothing. Just thinking about what our new home will be like," I lied.
"We'll have to get used to doing some things we didn't have to do in the city, but we will be together. And safe," Papa smiled at me and I returned it before going back to my thoughts. Belle then did her best to make sure we spent the rest of the trip smiling, talking, and laughing.
When we arrived at our new home, I stared up at the large house with the small bit of land we were going to farm on. I looked around at the people staring at us, whispering. We saw as we approached the village that it was smaller than what we'd been used to, but was that so bad? There was a woman sitting on some steps close to our new home, staring at us. She was dirtier than the others, her clothes old, worn and torn. She stared at us, as the others did, but there was something different in her eyes. Something I couldn't place.
"Adalina," I turned and followed my father and sister into the home, grabbing some of our things as I did. Inside the house looked larger than it had from the outside. The first area we'd walked into was a dining/living area where I could imagine Belle and I reading in front of the fireplace, the three of us eating dinner, or telling each other about our days. There was a door that led outside before an opening to the kitchen area. I placed the box I was holding down before going up the small set of stairs to the second floor. There were four rooms: three bedrooms and a bathroom. The largest rooms was Papa's while Bele and I would decide between ourselves who got the other two.
After we'd brought everything inside Belle and I cooked dinner together. After we'd eaten, we started unpacking everything and Belle and I chose our rooms. I'd chosen a room with a window overlooking the outside of the village. The village sat on top of a hill with a river surrounding the bottom of it. I stared outside, feeling as though something was pulling me somewhere, asking me something. Some kind of magic maybe?
