I shook any nasty thoughts from my
head, gathered my courage, and reached for the doorknob, twisting it. As soon
as I twisted it, the door fell off its hinges and crashed to the ground, me
with it. As I hit the ground, the gold door knob jabbed itself into my chest
and was making breathing hard. When I looked up, I saw the queen in the middle
of brushing her hair, looking at me with a surprised expression. I got up
hastily, my face burning of embarrassment.
“I – I’m sorry,” I mutter, thinking it
was my fault for the broken door. I looked down and miserably shuffled my feet.
All I could think of was what a stupid klutz I was. The queen smiled and rested
her brush on the table in front of her. “Not to worry, Orchid. The door has
been loose for years, and since it’s so heavy – with all that gold and silver
and whatnot – almost every hinge I use to replace the old one would break into
pieces.” She tapped on a piece of broken hinge with her foot. “Just like that.”
Well! I felt a bit better when I heard
that, but not enough to make the fear of becoming a sudden slave vanish. Even
though the king at the gate made be a teeny bit confident that I wasn’t about
to become a prisoner and the elves were good people, anything could happen,
right? Just like that door crashing to the floor as soon as my fingers closed
over it – nobody expected that.
So after I
helped the queen clean up the mess of a door, (I’m surprised she doesn’t make
servants do it, but she turned out to be a very modest queen) I cleared my
throat and got this over with: “So, um, your majesty,” I said, feeling a bit
disrespectful to not be bowing but I still was not prepared for that. The queen
smiled as she swept the remaining pieces of broken doorknob into the dustpan.
“Please Orchid, just call me Mercedes.”
“Oh,” I said timidly, feeling a bit
out of place. “Well, okay, your – Mercedes.” I felt my face heating up. Why, oh
why did stupid things always happen to me? Guess it’s to pay for all that
negative thinking. “Well,” I said, nervous. “What do you want me here – in your
room – for?” Mercedes dumped the remains of the hinges and doorknob into a big
black rubbish bag she held in her other hand and said: “Hold on, dear. I’ll be
with you in a second…..oh please, go in already!!”
The last bit was referred to the broken
doorknob and hinge pieces as they were finding it really hard to go into the
rubbish bag. Mercedes leaned the dustpan against the wall and wrenched open the
rubbish bag so that the opening was bigger. Seeing her almost rip the thin
black material of the rubbish bag terrified me, knowing that what happened to
the rubbish bag could all too easily happen to me.
Once all the broken pieces finally
found their way into the rubbish bag, Mercedes opened a tiny door (the same
length from my feet to my knees) by the side of the wall and pushed the bag
into blackness. Once she shut the door and pushed a cabinet in front of it,
concealing it from view (must be the door for the rubbish chute, don’t want
anyone seeing that) and dumped the
broom and the dustpan into the storage room next to the tiny door, she looked
at me and smiled. “Now, what was it you were saying?”
I stared up at her with my violet
eyes, then said: “Um, well, why did you send me up here?” I said, swallowing
hard, the words sticking together. Mercedes blinked, and for a moment I almost
thought she couldn’t understand what I just said. I opened my mouth to say it
more clearly when Mercedes said: “Ah! Yes, of course, please, sit down.”
I looked around the room and was
relieved to see couches and smooth, wooden chairs, not the same branch/nail
chairs I sat on in the little house with Danika and Astilda. I sat on the edge
of a fluffy white couch and eyed a tray of coffee and cookies that sat on top
of a coffee table in front of me hungrily. Mercedes caught sight of me hungrily
watching the cookies and coffee, and said: “Well, you can have some, dear.”
That was all the words I needed!! I
grabbed so many cookies the tray was empty in the matter of seconds. When I
finally finished all the cookies I immediately felt greedy and, most of all,
self conscious because Mercedes was watching me eat for I have no idea how long
already. And it didn’t help that now I had cookie crumbs all over my face.
“Sorry,” I muttered, my cheeks on
fire. Mercedes smiled and said: “No, no, it’s no problem. I told you could have
some, right?” She took a handkerchief from a drawer and helped wipe the crumbs
from my face. She took a cup of coffee and handed it to me, but I shook my
head. “I don’t drink coffee.” Mercedes laughed and said: “Orchid, this isn’t
coffee, its Elven hot chocolate. Not surprised you thought it was coffee,
though. This stuff is really dark, but sweet.”
“Oh,” I mutter, taking the cup.
Another stupid mistake! When was I ever going to learn? And it didn’t help that
I was slouching and Mercedes was sitting in what could only be called a perfect
posture. I straightened my back hastily and took a sip from the cup. Mercedes
was right about it being sweet. As the sweet taste of the chocolate swarmed
about my mouth, I almost forgot all my sorrows and worries. Wow, that is some
good hot chocolate. I kept drinking and drinking until the cup was empty and I
was vaguely aware I had a chocolate mustache.
I set the cup back onto the table
and wiped the mustache away with my sleeve until I remembered the clothes
weren’t mine. Horrified, I tried to wipe it away but only succeeding in
smudging it more. My cheeks sizzled and I hid the sleeve (and my hand) behind
my back. Mercedes grinned, amused, and said: “Well, you are probably still
wondering why I sent you up here, correct?”
I nodded.
Mercedes sat back and said: “I care about
you, Orchid. I really didn’t expect a girl this little to be caught in a crash and
washed ashore in my town. And your sister…..even the most talented wizards here
probably can’t determine whether she is alive or not. And you told me your
parents – both of them, nether less – died in a car crash last year. The life
you have now is more horrible than any I have ever heard. If you want, you can
stay in Elluel, and let me take care of you. Be your foster mother.”
I almost fell out of my chair!! Did she
actually mean it? I looked up at her, eyes wide in surprise, wondering what my
answer was. Did I want her as my mother? After some thinking, I found out that
I did. I really did! “Yes,” I whispered, smiling for once ever since the storm
hit the ship. “I would really like that.” After those words, Mercedes smiled at
me. I was surprised she didn’t act surprised or anything, like this was what
she had anticipated all along.
“Alright then,” she said, reaching out to me.
“Welcome to the family.”
****
So, for the next two years, I stayed
in Elluel with Mercedes and the king, which I later found out, was named Mekay,
or just Kay, as my foster parents. I had the most fun in my entire life,
staying in this little elf town, mostly hidden by the forest. Even though I was
a human, the elves my age did not treat me as an outsider at all; they treated
me the same way as they did to their close friends, and because I was the only
human here, I was most of the time the center of attention, and the attention
got even worse when the teacher, Miss Morgan, told us to tell the story of our
life, like what exciting or life changing experiences we had. At first, I did not
want to spill out my tale to the whole world of the classroom around me, but
Miss Morgan was a nice teacher, so I decided I could tell her, along with the
whole class, about the life changing experiences that could only be called: My
Life.
After I spilled out all my ‘life
changing experiences’, Miss Morgan just stared at me. The whole class had their
hands clapped to their mouths and most of them were giving me looks that I
could feel say: “Oh my goodness, poor thing.” I felt my face burning up until
Miss Morgan cleared her throat and told me I could sit down now. The elf
sitting beside me, also known as my BFF, Emily, gave me a reassuring squeeze of
a shoulder and a smile that said: “I’m sorry,” which of course only made me
feel WORSE.
When the bell finally sounded for the end of
the school day, I raced back to the castle which was now my house and poured
out my woes to Mercedes. Mercedes listened quietly without interrupting and
when I was done, offered me a cup of hot chocolate. “Well dear, I’m sure the
children mean well. Next time, if you don’t want people to know your story,
then maybe you can just tell it to Miss Morgan at break.”
“I don’t want anyone to
know!!”
“Well, that can’t be helped. You
already told the whole class about it, didn’t you?” she said, sipping her cup
of coffee. I hung my head in despair. How could I have been so stupid? Mercedes
was right; if I didn’t want anyone to know, I shouldn’t have talked about it.
Mercedes sensed I was upset – believe me, she always can – and smiled. She set
her cup down on the coffee table and said: “If it helps your mood, why not we
go down to the forest and have a little walk?”
That brightened me up immediately,
just like Mercedes knew it would. The forest, even though was the place where I
was washed ashore when I first came here, was beautiful. The ground was dappled
in shadows from the high trees that rose high above the ground. What little
sunlight that pierced through the thick roof of branches and leaves shone onto
the grass and made it appear a startling pale emerald green. The squawks of
birds overhead made the whole green world around me appear so alive.
My favorite game to play in the
forest with Mercedes was hide and seek; me always the hider, Mercedes always
the seeker. She always found me in, like, a minute, but if she was really using
her sensing powers she would have found me in ten seconds flat, but she enjoyed
her evenings with me as much as I did with her and would much rather humor me
than find me straight away.
And of course, I loved the flowers;
roses and daisies and some I couldn’t even name. One day, we stumbled over a
patch of orchids and Mercedes said: “Look! It’s a whole patch of you!” and we
fell about, laughing. When I wanted to pluck some to bring home, Mercedes
stopped me, saying that the forest was as one, and that even the tiniest flower
shouldn’t be separated from its others. At first I was hesitant to let the
flowers go, but then she said: “How would you like it if someone separated me
from you?” That shut me up.
However, one day, I needed to go
to the doctor to get an injection. I was hesitant at first, but I knew that it
was good for me, so I gritted my teeth and prayed, prayed, PRAYED it didn’t hurt.
(It did) As the needle penetrated my skin, instead of my normal crimson blood,
dark purple liquid, as thick as blood, seeped out of the hole. The doctor leapt
back, and Mercedes inspected it quickly, before muttering something to the
doctor, helped me get my injection and quickly got me out of there. I didn’t
see her a few days later, and I didn’t know what happened.
Even so, I loved life in
Elluel, even if most of the time I was vaguely
aware I was different. When I was sad, Mercedes took
to on walks to the
forest, just the two of us, until I calmed down. I had
a huge group of friends
which I played with every evening. This was the life I
longed for, last time,
just a few years ago, when my life was still nothing
but crap.
But then, when I was seven, an
incident shattered it again; the Great War. It happened overnight, when I was
still tucked in my bed, fast asleep. It had been a tiring day, and all I wanted
was to fall asleep in my bed and to wake up to another new day. Just as I snuggled
into the thick folds of my makeshift blanket, awaiting Mercedes to come in
carrying my favorite thick book of Fairy Tales, a huge boom rattled the castle
and sent the floorboards rattling like waves. I was suddenly terrified, and hid
myself under the cover of my blanket, like this gesture would suddenly make
everything go away.
Suddenly, the door of my room burst
open and I screamed, like really loud, until I realized it was just Danika,
hair wild, forehead beaded with sweat. She was huffing and puffing, like she
had run up the stairs faster than the Olympic champion. I swallowed a lump in
my throat and pulled the blankets up to my chin, “Your highness,” Danika said,
wiping sweat from my brow. (Ah, yes, I think I forgot to mention that most of the
elves call me ‘your highness’ because I’m Mercedes’s ‘daughter’) “Please, come
with me.”
Before I could respond, another boom
rocked the castle, louder and much more powerful than before. Bits of ceiling
rained down on us and I scrambled out of bed at top speed and grabbed Danika’s
outstretched hand. Together, we galloped out of the building and made it out in
the nick of time. Just as we stepped out the front door, a fireball – which had
been the source of the booms – blasted the top floor of the castle – which had
been my room – to smoldering ashes. Danika pushed me onto the ground and
covered my body with hers and flaming bits of debris rained down onto the
ground. I screamed – much to Danika’s discomfort – and as soon as the debris
stopped raining down, I scrambled out from Danika’s grasp and looked back. It
wasn’t a pretty sight. Most of Danika’s back was burnt and still had some
smoldering bits of ashes on it. She winced as she got up and continued to lead
me through the city as fireball by fireball soared through the sky.
“Danika, are you alright?” I asked,
and she nodded, even though she was fooling no one. I looked around in dismay
as each fireball left a crater the size of me in the earth. Parents were
gathering their kids and pushing them to wherever Danika was ushering me to.
Soon, I reached a huge stone building with a flat roof that seemed the only one
that was unaffected by the fireballs. A crowd of parents were currently
standing by the front door, whispering things to their kids. Some were crying
and hugging their children, then finally releasing them, saying a little bit
more, and then vanishing back into the smoldering town, leaving the children
misty eyed and miserable, wishing for nothing but that this was all a dream.
“Where are we going?” I asked
Danika, fear in my voice. Danika squeezed my shoulder, then said: “The Black
Mage’s army is attacking, and her majesty has instructed you to be put in the
safe house with the other kids.” I gasped. I had heard all about the Black
Mage; that he was an infamous wizard that practiced very powerful dark magic,
but he was pure evil, and all he wants is to have Maple world sitting in the
palm of his hand. I swallowed hard. The situation was worse than I thought. Whatever
dream I had been living in these two years – taking walks in the forest,
playing with friends – was now over.
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