–Chapter One–
–Nocturnal–
It was very dark, long past midnight. But it was still beautiful. The moon’s pale reflection rippled in the dark pool. I sucked in the cool night air. It was so very peaceful. Of course, Violet and Scarlet were still watching me, they always were. That was what they did. That was all they did. I don’t know when they slept, or ate, or did anything but follow me.
They could have been automatons, but they were not automatons, or at least I greatly hoped so because if they were that would take the number of people I knew down to one.
Violet’s skin was a pale shade of violet and when she stood in the moonlight it looked like she was made of glossy ceramic. Scarlet had bright scarlet skin. His hair was crimson. He too looked ceramic in the moonlight.
In my head, but never out loud, I referred to them as The Lets, Scar-let and Vio-let. I crouched down and filled my hands with water from the pool. Silently The Lets were crouching beside me and filling their hands with pool water. Just to irritate him, for he was more irritable than Violet, I splashed my water on Scarlet.
It hit his left side. He stood up and shook himself off, still silent which was unusual for Scarlet. Then she started to crouch back down. As soon as he had crouched down, I stood up. The Lets stood up, too.
“Let’s go on a race” I suggested, already knowing the answer.
“We’d love to,” said Violet in her soft, melodious voice.
“But we have to keep you in sight,” said Scarlet in his melodious voice.
“And we wouldn’t want you running off,” Violet added, “like last time we ran a race.”
“It’s not as easy to lose us as you might think,” Scarlet agreed.
“Why don’t we stroll to the fairy house?” suggested Violet.
So I was led to the fairy house. Scarlet opened the door and Violet gently shoved me in. A butterfly landed on Violet’s hand and she offered it to me. I did not take the butterfly from her as the butterfly would obviously prefer to sit on Violet, and not me. Butterflies didn’t like me. My movements must have been too jerky, I could never sit still.
I sunk down onto a mushroom stool. The fairy house was a place that I used to go to all the time when I was little. It was a pretend fairy house in the middle of the forest. The walls were a spongy material and there was a kitchen-dining room combo, a living room, a bathroom, a basement, and a bedroom which was the second basement room.
It was made before I was born, a perfect play place for a royal child and their friends. But I didn’t have any friends. My mother never let me go anywhere.
I used to love this place. Now it was like a prison. Where The Lets take me if I try to come up with a way to escape.
I pulled off a piece of a mushroom stool once. It turned out to have some sort of puffy toxin inside and I couldn’t come back to the fairy house for a week. When I did come back, I immediately tried to sabotage it again, but the mushroom stuffing wasn’t toxic anymore.
The walls were unbreakable. The kitchen supplies were wooden, and I didn’t want to try to hurt the bed because with the bed I could at least catch up on some sleep when I was at the Fairy House.
Scarlet was pretending to be eating soup out of the wooden soup bowl using the wooden spoon. I always wanted to learn to carve wood, but The Lets would never let me get near enough to a knife, let alone endanger my fingers with it. Actually, Scarlet might, but Violet would never let him.
The Fairy house had no windows and only one door so it was the only place I was allowed to wander around in unguarded. I mean, The Lets were still there, just they could be in another room. To be honest, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had x-ray vision of some sort.
“Let’s play house” I told The Lets.
“What a wonderful idea!” said Violet.
“Yes, a splendid idea” said Scarlet.
“You’ll be the sulky teenage daughter,” I told Scarlet.
“And you’ll be the father who doesn’t care about his children’s whereabouts” I told Violet.
It was always funny when Violet was a boy and Scarlet a girl.
“That is a great arrangement,” said Scarlet.
“I really like my role,” said Violet.
“And I will be one of Violet’s children,” I told them “The game starts when I count to three. One. Two. Three!”.
Scarlet sighed, “I’m so bored” he said in a monotone voice.
“Then do something productive,” said Violet kindly.
“Take me to school” Scarlet said, still monotoning.
“I don’t care where you go, but I’m not taking you anywhere,” said Violet.
Violet always got more in character than Scarlet.
I snuck to the door. Maybe this was actually going to work.
“Where are you going?” asked Scarlet, turning to me. I froze.
“It doesn’t matter,” Violet said, perfectly in character.
Scarlet turned back to her.
I opened the door and ran out. I charged down the forest path. I arrived at the pool and passed it. I was free! I turned left, and ran until I reached the top of Silver hill.
It really was silver, especially in the clear light of dawn. Dawn? Wow, I must have been in the fairy house for longer than I thought. I could see the castle from the top of the hill. I could also see the fairy house in the middle of the forest. In a third direction, far far away I saw the peaks of the Menih mountains. The Lets told me that there were humans on the other side.
I saw the door to the fairy house open, and Scarlet and Violet looked around. There was no point in running; I would have to run towards them as the other sides of the hill were steep and dangerous. So I just stood there, and gazed at the castle. Violet pointed at the hill and they began coming toward me.
“Don’t try to run away” Scarlet said “It doesn’t help”.
“Yes,” Violet agreed, “and we don’t want you to get hurt”.
“Your mother will hear of this,” Scarlet said.
I looked out towards the castle and honestly, I didn’t care. This sample of freedom had been worth it.