Life by Patricia Silva (e books for reading TXT) 📕

The queen gave us a tour of the magnificant Main castle. She lead us down stairs to the first floor, we then worked our way up each of the 24 floors, then headed back down to see the gardens. By this time, the setting sun had turned the sky into hues of pink and orange.

"You'll find that time can fly by real fast in this castle," said Isabelle with a smile.

"It sure can," replied Tomas.

We were standing around a beautiful white fountain with little carvings of fish and stars inside it. Just behind it was a patch of elegant, creamy white roses. Though, mixed in here and there, were a few dried out, drooping, brown roses. I longed to make them as beautiful as the rest. If only I knew how.

"I'd say it's about time to get inside," stated the queen.

We went into the dining room where there was a dark, shiney wooden table just big enough to seat the six of us. We ate a nice meal of salad, roast turkey, potatoes, bread rolls, roasted vegetables and pasta, then chocolate cake for desert. We sat and chatted for a while before heading upstairs.

"Get a good-nights rest, girls. There's alot to do tomorrow," said the queen as she led us down the hallway to our rooms. "Sleep tight."

"Goodnight," Sophia said before closing the door to her room.

"Goodnight, Queen," I said as I opened the door to my room across the hall.

"Same to you, Princess," she replied with a smile before walking towards her own room down the hall.

I was standing in the middle of a clearing in the forest. It was the first clearing that you couldn't see the houses from. I shouldn't be there. I glanced around without moving my head, peeking through every corner of my eyes. The trees around me were on fire. The fire was slowly creeping all around me. Why didn't I run? What was I doing?

Now, I was surrounded by flames, the heat so intense that I could feel my skin burning even though I wasn't touching the fire. I was trapped. There was absolutely no way out. Why didn't I yell? Scream out for help? I just stood there.

Someone set a hand on my shoulder from behind. I finally managed to gasp, though I didn't turn around. How could anyone possibly enter this flaming enclosure?

"It's time," spoke a deep voice. I yearned to know who the voice belonged to, yet I could not move my body.

I looked down at the hand from the corner of my eye. It was large and pale with several scars. The fire seemed to get hotter and hotter.

"You're going to come with me," he whispered in my ear.

"What?" I managed a whisper that burned my throat worse than the fire.

Then, the hand's grip tightened and it grew claws that sheathed into my shoulder, not stopping until they scraped my bone. I didn't scream. I couldn't.

The anonymous man chuckled deeply. The evil laugh drowned out the sound of the fire crisping the leaves into ash. It drowned out my racing thoughts. It drowned out the sound of my heart beating out of my chest.

   ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I sat straight up. I was in my room in the castle. Nothing was on fire but, even though it was raining outside, the blankets felt extremely hot. I shoved them off, then got up to go open the window. I stood there, leaning on the window seal, staring at the cloudy night sky.

 Why did I have such a huge rain fetish? Tomas always said it was a funny story, though he never told me the story, so I couldn't exactly agree.

Speaking of which, the door slowly creaked open. I could only imagine how loud I must have been screaming. Much to my surprise, it was a small, dreamy voice that spoke behind me.

"Siena?"

I turned around and walked over to her.

"What's the matter, Sophie, you okay?" I whispered to her.

"Yeah I'm fine. It's just..." She looked down.

"What is it?"

"I had a bad dream," she whispered.

I thought back to when my nightmares began to get unbearable. It was just before I turned ten years old.

"Oh, sweetie."

"I know. I know it's stupid. I'm almost ten, already. I shouldn't be scared to go to sleep, but..."

"Oh, Sophia. It's not stupid."

"It's not?" She looked at me, the moonlight reflecting off of her big, watery brown eyes.

"No," I sighed, "In fact... you wanna know a secret?"

"Sure."

"I'm afraid to sleep. Not just sometimes, every day. Every day I'm afraid to sleep."

"Really? But why?"

"Because. I have bad dreams, too."

"Every night?"

I shrugged. "I guess. I wouldn't really know, I don't sleep every night."

"Why not?"

"Because I'm afraid..."

It was quiet for a few minutes as we both stared at the ground. There was a flash of lightening and thunder, though neither of us flinched.

So that made two. Two creatures in the entire world. Only two knew my problem, and one was about to have the same problem.

"Is that why you always stare out your window at night, because you don't wanna sleep?" she whispered.

I looked at her. "I guess. But how do you know I always look out the window?"

She srugged. I smirked at her.

"You should get back to bed," I told her.

"But I don't want to," she replied in a soft voice.

"You have to, or else..."

"Or else what?"

I grinned. "Or else you'll be like me."

She looked at me, not understanding what exactly I had meant by that. I sighed. I didn't want her to go through what I had to, though I knew it was inevitable.

 "Why don't you sleep in here tonight?" I asked.

She nodded her head. I closed the door then laid in bed and wrapped my arms around Sophia. I noticed her glance up at the window. I reached my hand up and used magic to close the window. The rest of the night was quiet as we both slept peacefully.

The next week went by incredibly fast. I got used to traveling around in the castle and soon memorized almost half of it. I learned alot at the castle, from Isabelle, Tomas, some of the castle officials, one of the maids, and the head chef.

By saturday morning I didn't even realize it was time to leave. I slept with Sophia every night that week, and every night that week I slept. It was the longest I could remember sleeping every night in a row without a nightmare. It was also the longest I could remember not looking out into the rain. Though that was impossible because there wasn't any more rain. The day we arrived at the castle was the last day it rained.

On the drive back to Mead, I stared out the window into the azure sky. Once we got there we dropped Lisa and Sophia off at Lisa's house. Tomas then drove my mother and I back to his house where, I assumed, we were going to use a portal to get back home.

Tomas and my mom went into his office room and I went into the kitchen and got an apple. As I took a bite out of it I listened to their not-so-quiet coversation. Sometimes it seemed as though Tomas felt the same way about her as I did. I mean, lately, he usually seemed to be a bit... defensive around her.

So, it turned out that, in a few days, my mom was going somewhere again, this time for two months. So, I was going to stay with Tomas for those two months, which neither of us minded. So, it was becoming clearer that something wierd was occuring with my mother.

Before she left she called Lisa, and Tomas came into the kitchen.

"I guess I might as well just unpack my stuff, huh?" I asked him.

"You heard."

"Yeah." I crossed my right arm over my body, holding my left arm. He sighed and scratched the back of his head. We stood there like that for a few minutes, then my mom walked in.

"Well, sweetheart, look-" she began, though there was no need, I already knew exactly what she was going to say.

"So, I guess I'll see you in a couple months then," I said.

She looked at me, not an ounce of confusion in her expression. "So, I guess you've already heard," she said, glancing at Tomas.

"Yeah," I replied. She nodded. It was quiet.

"I hope you have fun," I stated with the biggest smile I could manage, which was just a pretty big grin.

"I'll try," she grinned back.

We walked into the office, where Tomas opened a portal. Mom turned to me and gave me a hug.

"I'll see you in a while, be good ok?" she said to me. I nodded.

"Thank you, Tomas," she said, turning to him. He nodded.

She grabbed her bags and went through the portal.

One of the maids at the castle had taught me how to read other creatures thoughts. Well, I already knew how to do that, though she helped me improve.

Tomas' thoughts were pretty bad right now, and it was pretty bad that I kind of agreed with them. I was hoping that she would take longer than two months. He was hoping she would take much, much longer than two months. Though, there was one thing that I was unable to find in Tomas' mind.

I looked at him. After a few seconds, he realized that. "What?"

"What's going on with her?" I asked.

"What do you mean?"

"She's been gone alot lately. I mean come on, your work can't let her take that many days off, can it?" I questioned.

"Well, appearantly, she's been doing work while she's away, so I guess they're allowing it. But if you ask me, it's bullshit," he replied, walking back into the kitchen. I followed.

"Whenever I ask her why she's leaving, it's always the same reason: to take care of some business. What kind of business is she taking care of?" I continued.

"Well, I'm not exactly sure but..." his voice carried off as he grabbed a water bottle out of the fridge.

"But what?" I asked. He took a long sip of water.

"Tomas, you know something. Please, just tell me."

He put the cap back on the bottle and sighed. "Well, I don't know anything. However, I do have some... theories of what she might be doing..."

"And what are those theories?"

He hesitated before replying,"You wouldn't like them much."

"But I might. Why don't you tell me so that we can be sure."

"Hah, nice try, but no. I'm not going to tell you because they might not be true. I don't want you to hate your mother or think bad of her."

"A little too late for that," I mumbled.

"Siena, look," he said, putting a hand on my arm," I know as much as you do about why your mother takes off so much. However, I know that, no matter what her reason for leaving is, she loves you. Very much. You're her daughter and she loves you. And, trust me I know, she's not the easiest person to