Young Writers Society

Thanks all those who have been reading and reviewing, here is newest chapter, written 4 and a bit of 5 but needs opinions on this one. Warning first readers, this probably wont make sense on its own so make sure you look back and read chapters 1 and 2! =D Thanks a million x

Chapter 3

I could barely breathe beneath the suffocating scratchy material which felt and smelt suspiciously like burnt burlap. My captivator was not hosting much care for me. She jostled and jabbed me, whether intentionally I didn’t know. Her elbows and ribs were bony; I winced every time one poked into me. I was used to my mother’s soft, gentle touch, carrying me with such love, fashioning a sling from her arms into which I was nestle. My kidnapper was quite the opposite, gripping me unpleasantly around my throat and waist like a rubber chicken. I started to scream but she clamped a hand over my mouth and hissed at me to be quiet. All I could see was pitch black. I couldn’t paint an image of my surroundings since everything was so unfamiliar to me.

After what felt about half an hour of walking, the woman stopped suddenly and flung out her arm, keeping a dangerously insecure grip on me, forced me into the crook of right angle made with her one arm. I heard a grinding of metal, the type that sounded like it hadn’t been oiled for years, met the cobblestone road, growing closer and closer. A tap of heels seemed to follow the pattern and path of wheels. A carriage? The sounds of people’s voice had been dying away and now I could only hear the wheels, and the woman’s sharp ragged breathing. The sound of wheels came to halt. The tapping stopping. A stream of music similar violins issued suddenly but a harsh cry of a man and a crack of whip sent the beautiful music into a screechy oblivion, and then silence. I heard the man say something to my kidnapper in oily tones. She answered back into their strange language shortly. I heard a soft landing of feet and then the creak of a door being swung open. My woman lifted her skirt with one hand and held me fast in the other and clambered into the carriage I presumed.

To my dizzy relief, she grasped a handful of my hair and threw me out of her coat. We were indeed in a carriage. It had the look of something that had once been grand, but its past owners had gotten tired of it so they passed it away. What survived were ruby silk seats, leaking stuffing like blood and springs poking out like intestines. The mahogany panelling had cigar burn holes on them and graffiti scribbled onto them, that I couldn’t have read even if it was Russian. The windows were either supposed to be black out or totally covered in grime. An orange lamp was swinging gently above us, filling the carriage with dim light but still, after my imprisonment of dark, it hit me like a neon glare.

I heard a crack of the whip once more and we started to trundle forwards, still with the peculiar sound of tapping, as if horses wearing stilettos were dragging us forward.

“What this rubbish that you are from Earth?” the woman barked at me in Russian once more. She wasn’t fluent, that I could tell. “Where you learn Russian? One of my Serviteurs teach you? Eh? Eh?”

“But, ma’am, I am from Earth!”

She struck me across the face. I fell sideward’s and tears sprung, clutching my cheek.

“Such lies from mouth of yours!”

“I don’t lie!” I said defiantly through my tears. Something my mother had always drilled into me. The woman pursed her lips.

“Hold still, boy!” she demanded. I dared not disobeyed. She was so frightening, with her strange appearance and bulging eyes. She stared at me, muttering under her breath constantly. Her eyes grew wider. Then, she stopped. She looked scared.

“You are from Earth? Truly?”

“Yes, that’s what I’ve been trying to…”

“Hush!”

I fell silent.

The woman began wringing her hands. The carriage swayed back and forth precariously. I bit my lip, waiting until I felt I could speak again.

“What is your name?” She asked me.

“Aveeno." I said, simply. I never had never had a last name. The woman seemed to breathe a sigh of relief.

“You’re not called Circus Boy? You are absolutely sure?”

“No ma’am but I’m from….”

“Praise Contrôleur!” She cried, throwing her hands up in the air “You are not the boy from the prophecy. But still, you are from Earth…”

She trailed off, clearly deep in thought. I said nothing, too afraid of saying anything. I had no idea what a prophecy was.

“We keep this between us, boy.” She said finally. “No one needs know you are from Earth. I find children all the time and get them work for me, it will not be of unusualness. You become one of my Serviteurs. I teach you Feeparle, and all the ways of our people, creatures and gods. Our world very different to yours.”

I didn’t quite know how to take this. So instead of getting out that carriage and running while I could, but I didn’t. Better still, instead of nodding and agreeing to this, I could have demanded to know what the prophecy was about since technically, I was a circus boy, but I didn’t. Instead, I made the foolish mistake of trusting in her, the mistake than triggered off a whole spiral of disasters.

“I’m not sure where to begin, its lucky we have a long journey ahead of us, this could take some time. My name is Olga. I am not a mortal, unlike you.” At this, Olga wrinkled her nose as if I was the utmost repulsion. She drew herself up grandly. “I am immortal, a proud Assailant Spirit of the mind. I can read your thoughts. I could even see past of yours.” She finished impressively. I frowned. We had had a woman who claimed to read minds come to the circus once, begging for work. She wore a lopsided turban and carried a crystal ball under her arm. Pierre threw her out after she hazily predicted that was going to die a painful death that night at 7 o’clock yet he remained alive.

“I am no fraud! Unlike this other woman you think of!” Olga suddenly snapped.

I jumped, startled. She must have been able to see straight into head like a window and read my thoughts like a book. I didn’t like the vulnerability and shifted around uncomfortably.

“Our world is split into creatures, spirits, and fairies. And that is the order of importance. Our creatures, magical to you, nothing special to me, do our slavery, our work. We rule over them. The hobgoblin driving this carriage is a creature. The chasschevaux that pull us along are mere slaves to us.

“Spirits on the other hand have more of an upper hand of things. Some creatures can think and feel like us spirits, some even have intelligence. Only we can do something with them though. Spirits all belong in their separate groups, I’m not sure how many there are. I was born into the mind reading family and there I shall stay. We live for our powers of magic. However, we live to serve the higher. Higher spirits, until you reach the fairies.

“The fairies are our monarchy. We have a queen, king, several princes and one beautiful princess. We serve since, at the dawn of time in Tondrefeeconte, fairies ruled by themselves. They frolicked in Harmonia, carefree and happy. Yet they got bored of parties, drinking and dancing.

"Their magic was phenomenal. But they decided to create things then. They created the spirits and all the creatures. They created a town, separate from Harmonia city for the spirits to live in and a deep forest for the creatures to reside in.

"They bound us with deep, old magic for a lifetime of servitude. All sorts of prophecies were made, all one day to be fulfilled. All prophecies have been met except three.” Olga held up three bony fingers, and counted them off

“The Prophecy of The Circus Boy, The Prophecy of War and The Prophecy of Chaos. All spell out disaster. It is everyone’s, including the fairies who made them in the first place, worst fears that they are ever fulfilled. But they will happen one day. Fate is unstoppable in Tondrefeeconte. I know you morals don’t believe in such.” Olga looked at me scornfully. “But it exists. Fairies created it. Along with love, hate, all emotions. Other things too, time, possibilities, dreams, nightmares. This is why we serve them.”

At this, Olga leaned in closer to me and whispered words I will never forget. She spoke her hushed tones like a sacred chant and all noise surrounding seem to stop.

“We are too afraid they will take our own magic away. We are too afraid they have too much power. We are too afraid that they will make our whole world collapse if we do not please them. We are too afraid they will take away loved ones. We are too afraid.”

Now, you would think a million questions would be whirling around my mind, yet, they weren’t. You must remember, I was at the age were I was able to understand thing, but yet maybe understand them too easily. To me, I would blindly accept this story since; it did make sense in a way. For now, I was only concerned about myself. I voiced a question that had been on my lips since I arrived in Tondrefeeconte.

“When can I go home?”

Olga snorted.

“You will never be leaving. No mortal has entered Tondrefeeconte, so no mortal will leave Tondrefeeconte. You may find a portal somehow. How did you get in? Maybe same way? I do not know and I do not care. Your home is now with me. You will work with me, eventually. For now, you shall not. You will remain with me and I shall teach you our ways and our language. Do you know how to read and write in Russian?”

I shook my head. Olga made a disbelieving noise and muttered something scathing in Feeparle.

“I teach you. You do not speak to the other children. Like I say, our secret you are mortal. No one else to know. Do you understand, boy?”

I nodded meekly.

“Good. For tonight you will reside with other child spirits. I let no one into my room, not even mortal boy. You may disturb my aura. Ah,”

The carriage shuddered to halt.

“Remain here, boy. I must pay our creature. We pay with magic, not money.”

She drew out a leather pouch similar to the ones I had seen people exchanging for the multicoloured scrolls back in the street and left the carriage. I waited, listening to them converse in Feeparle. I wondered mildly how I was ever going to grasp a whole new language. My stomach giving rumbling groan. My legs felt like lead. My eyes were so heavy. How I longed to eat, sleep and wake back home…back to my mother.

Oh mother, how I miss you…