Lighthouse - Part One

A/N: Well, it looks like I finally got around to redoing Lighthouse. And it seems to still be lengthy, so I am posting it in two parts. Warning though, there is mature content in here including language. If you don't feel comfortable reading that, don't feel obligated to read this. Also, the first part may seem a little dull compared to the other part so stick to reading both of them. Well I hope you enjoy it, and here is my first part of Lighthouse.

EDIT: I just realized that even in parts it is bloody long. Sorry guys. xD

------------------

Lighthouse

We enjoy warmth because we have been cold.

We appreciate light because we have been in darkness.

By the same token, we can experience joy because we have known sadness.

~David Weatherford

23rd December 1935

London, England

I ran, my breath appearing before me in cloudy wisps in the frigid night air. I frantically looked around, my vision blurring from the tears that were coming. I didn’t want to cry, all I did wish for was to find my mother, the mother who had disappeared in the darkness. I scampered past people, trying to get away from all the confused and worried faces looking down on me, the crowded street making that almost impossible. The rhythm of steady voices and jingling bells surrounded me as I whirled around once more because of childish hope of finding her.

I was enclosed by people, large bodies pressing into me, knocking me over. Voices spoke to me, told me to move, asked me if I needed help, but they all blurred together as I looked around, scrambling for any sight of my mothers golden hair. I called out, trembling. Arms reached for me, hands tugging at my clothing. I shook my head, screaming against them, and I pushed my way away from them, finding myself once more running.

Cutting around a corner, I leaned up against an old wall, trying to catch my breath before I began the seemingly forlorn pursuit once more.

“Mother, where can you be?” I choked the words under my breath as I wiped the tears that fell onto my cheek. “Mother… I am scared.”

I took a glimpse around the corner once more, noting the abundance of people still wandering around, completing last minute Christmas shopping, and I felt my breathing catch. She wasn’t there. I stared into the crowd, peering harder just hoping to catch a glance of my mother’s long beautiful insipid hair and elegant stride. Was she looking for me at this moment in time also? Was she crying out my name, as I had been crying hers?

I missed her sweet voice, as smooth as velvet. I longed for her comforting words. I dreamed of that smile I had so seldom seen.

To see my mother smile was the most marvellous moment I could have ever imagined. Her painted lips would gently pull aside into a crescent shape and her perfectly straight white teeth would be revealed. Someone had said a long time ago that my mother’s smile was what made my father fall in love with her. She was also rumoured to be one of the most beautiful women in all of London, but born into a poor family, her status insignificant in the world; that was until my father met her.

Apparently, my mother used to always smile, but as soon as she married father, she stopped and her beautiful looks seemed to fade away back into the darkness as if it never existed. When she went out she would usually wear a hood over her head, hiding her hair that was like fine golden strands of thread. Her bright blue eyes that once emanated happiness seemed dull and lifeless now. She wasn’t happy and every night I worried that I would lose her to herself.

“Mother!” I called out into the streets that were slowly empting as the people slumped home to their families, to sit by fires with a warm cup of cider. And then soon enough the store lights faded out and I sunk to my knees, the tears falling silently down my cheeks. I pushed them away quickly. Ladies weren’t supposed to cry. But they also weren’t supposed to sit in streets in the cold alone.

And then the snow started to fall as if from nothing. I heard a door slam and an animal cry out. I surveyed the clouds hanging low in the sky, blocking the moon from sight. I always wanted to walk down the streets of London at night but now as I sat here, the snow settling itself in my hair like little crystals, I wished nothing more but to be at home in my mothers arms, her running her hands through my hair and singing sweet nothings in my ear.

It wasn’t that I was so afraid of being alone; it was more distressing about not knowing if my mother ever did make it home and if she was worrying just as much as I was worrying about her.

I stood and examined my surroundings around me in a daze, my feet feeling like lead and my heart even heavier. I felt like I had lost all hope. I was scared, cold, wet, and lost in the middle of London at night.

Utterly alone.

I rubbed my hands together in aspiration for warming them up but I figured out it was futile. I shoved my hands in my coat pockets and walked quietly along the sidewalk. A black car drove by, crashing through a puddle sending the muddy water spraying everywhere. I stared longingly at the retreating car as is drove farther down the street, wishing that in that car were my mother and father who would turn around, wing open the doors, and welcome me in with open arms to bring me home.

Complete desolation.

I stared down another dark alley before I crossed and I felt my heart leap as I saw movement and sparks ignite like fireworks. I edged into the alleyway partly because my curiosity took a hold of me and I saw a figure hunched over a small fire that was refusing to get going in the damp atmosphere. I neared closer knowing that it wasn’t safe but part of me longed to sit beside a fire and bask in its warmth.

At the sound of my footsteps, the figure jumped to his feet and swiftly turned his head to face me. I saw it was only a boy in ripped and patched clothing, dirt on his cheek and a hat on his head. His eyebrows were arched in astonishment and I knew that what a sight I must have been, with my swollen eyes from crying and my disarranged clothing. He turned away from me, scratched the back of his head casually and sat back down at the small fire he was trying to get going. The boy was no older then I and it surprised how poor he looked and how sparse his clothing was. I was cold in my well-made coat and I could not imagine how cold he must have been.

“What do you want?” His voice was stern and piercing in the quiet. It seemed to echo off the walls and come to me from every direction.

“N-nothing,” I replied nervously and stepped closer, staring at the boy.

“I would invite you to sit by my fire but at the moment it doesn’t seem like I will have a fire tonight,” he said turning to me with such hostile eyes. I would never be able to forget those eyes, somehow accusing and miserably sad at the same time.

“I-I-I’m sorry. Sorry for bugging you,” I said hurriedly and turned around to leave. I didn’t like those eyes.

“You weren’t bugging me. You can stay if you want. I am not much company though for someone like you.” His brown eyes stabbed into my back and I knew he was acknowledging my warm clothes and shiny black shoes, probably calculating how much they would have been worth. “A child like you shouldn’t be out on the streets anyways.”

I turned on my heel with childish rage, and looked at him directly in the eyes.

“You can’t be that much older than me!”

“Yes, but from the look of you, it seems that you haven’t been alone for a day in your life.” His smiled then, a simple crooked smirk which seemed to remind me that he had probably spent many nights on his own. I adverted my eyes back to the cobblestoned pavement. It seemed like such a cruel world.

The fire caught and grew bigger in size. I could feel the warmth that imparted off of it, and I felt myself subconsciously drawn to it. When I sat down, I noticed his head jerked over to look at me warily, the hostility clear. I ignored his glare and changed my gaze back once more to the meagre flames which were endlessly licking the sky as if longingly. It was hopelessly romantic. Snowflakes would float to close the flames and melt in mid air, the evidence of their existences gone. The boy threw a stick into the fire and sparks flew everywhere, taking me by surprise. I looked up at him, and he sneered mockingly.

“Not used to fires I see.”

“I had a fireplace at home.” I gazed at the fire lovingly, remembering sitting in the living room with my mother covered with a wool blanket as she read me a story. The memory only made me long for my home even more.

Silence fell upon us, save for the gentle crackling of the flames. That was until he spoke.

“Why aren’t you in your home? Why aren’t you with you mother and father with a full stomach and warm? Why in the world would you be in some place like this?” His voice was brusque and it made me feel even more unwelcome here.

“I have lost my mother. I don’t know where I am. I don’t know my way home.” I watched as a snowflake gently fluttered down into my palm and disappeared there.

“What is your name?”

“Alyse Harrods,” I said timidly. His eyes seemed to widen in realization.

“You mean you are the daughter of Thomas Harrods? The man who is in charge of Harrods’s Stores Limited?” It seemed to just dawn on him, that this here in front of him was the daughter of one of the wealthiest men in the country. He looked at me in disbelief, examining me even closer but then looked way, his face becoming flushed. “My name is James,” he alleged. “I never knew my parents so I don’t know my last name, nor did the people who were taking after me. They named me though, and took me in as if I was their own.”

“What happened to them?”

“They both died.”

An awkward silence settled over us, leaving me to dwell in my own thoughts. I did not know what to think of the boy here, nor of his circumstances. He seemed to be comfortable in the streets, yet the longing for what he once had was definitely there, noticeable just by how he looked at things. Yet he would still smile; wave the horrendous things the world would lay on his shoulders off like it was nothing. A mere child forced to play a man.

“I don’t want your sympathy. I am perfectly fine here,” he finally spoke. I hunched over and placed my head in my hands, staring once more wearily to the damp cobblestone pavement, noting the way the fire was reflected in the small water filled crevices. “You are probably thinking that you could never live out here. I am just barely, myself. It is not the best life to live, but it is all I got, right?”

There was so much different between us. I had had everything I ever wanted. I had had all the things I have ever needed. I got three meals a day plus snacks when ever I asked. Meanwhile this boy had to look and scrounge for his own food. Sometimes he probably went for weeks without eating and he had no home to return to and a place to take shelter from the cold drizzling rain of London. This was what poverty was like and I looked intently at him, trying to figure out how he felt and what was going on in his mind. What it was like not to be sheltered by anyone or anything. There was nobody to defend him. Nobody to stick of for his needs and he was too small to be heard.

A scream echoed in the alleyway, the familiar voice making me jump to me feet.

“Let go of me!” My mother screamed. My breathing caught, and I sprinted towards the alleyway across the street. My heart pounded in my chest and all I thought to do was help my mother. I heard her cry of pain and I tried to push myself faster.

-----------------

That was my attempt at leaving a cliff hanger so you will read the dramatic part which is the second. Epic fail, no? Well because of that pure awesomeness right there, you should go to the second part. You will get a fun fact at the end.

Click here to get to Part Two.

~Incognito