Playing With Fire (23 page)

To
him, it was not a witch in his room.

To
him, she was a beautiful woman he might, since being at that age, mistake for
an angel or faerie. Her skin was completely white like the moon on a beautiful
night and her eyes were like two star-filled pieces of the glassy sky hidden
behind long black lashes. Her lips were as red as roses and looked as soft as
clouds. Her wavy hair was pure white and had a ghostly glow to it in the moonlight
that flooded the room. A strange red and black lace hat rested on her beautiful
head. Her clothes made her look like she should have been in the circus even
though the only colors in it were red and black. The collar was a black lace
choker and was connected to her dress by the black sleeves, which had red
designs tracing all the way down to the laced ends that changed into gloves.
The chest opened up low on the torso of the shirt, and it was divided into on
portion of black while the other was red. The skirt of the dress was short, and
seemed to be made of all red and black lace frills. The outfit ended in thigh
high black boots.

She
smiled at him, and he smiled back. The witch walked over to the naïve little
boy and put a hand on his head. The boy didn’t think of screaming until it was
too late. Only a small squeak managed to hiss out of his throat as the witch’s
finger nails jutted into his brain, now as long, pole like claws. Within
seconds the boy was dead.

The
witch smiled smugly as she withdrew her blood tipped nails from him and let the
child fall back into his bed. His parents surely would be surprised to find
their son dead in his bed when they came to wake him up that morning, but she
would be nowhere to be found by then. The witch leaned the dead child back onto
his pillow, which stained almost instantly as the corpse’s skull touched it,
and the witch tucked the dead child into bed. In mock affection, the beautiful
killer kissed the child’s forehead as she closed his eyelids.

Retreating
into the darkness to make her escape, the witch giggled sadistically. She found
it funny how easily humans could be deceived by such a thing as beauty. They
mistook what was pleasant to the eye as something pure and innocent, even when
it might be a cobra in disguise. They let it extremely close to them, thinking
it could do no harm. Utterly it is every human’s undoing. As the witch melded
away into the shadows, she stared at the dead child. She could not feel the
pang of regret, or feel the sting of sorrow when staring at the loss of life
before her. She felt nothing at all.

The
bedroom door swung open quietly as the sun began to peek through the window,
and a weary young mother poked her head inside the door with a loving smile.
Seeing her child in his bed, she assumed he was asleep and tip toed over. The
witch examined her closely from the shadows, knowing the mother could not see
her. The mother sat quietly down on her child’s bedside and stared at him with
a look of love and pride. She pulled back the covers on her beloved child and
bent over to kiss his forehead, and screamed.

The
blood from her child’s wound had begun to spill across his angelic face and was
starting to stain his sheets. The mother cradled her dead child in her arms and
held him close as she wept hysterically. The door burst open and the alarmed
father entered in confusion. The moment he saw his child he broke down, and the
look of grief and agony was plain to see on his face. He held his wife and dead
child tightly, his tears stinging his face as he wept.

This
was yet another reaction that baffled the witch. To her, the child was only
another toy to play with, and she just happened to break it. She couldn’t
understand why the parents would grieve so much for a person. It was just one
child, and they were easy to make. The witch melded into the shadows entirely,
and was gone, leaving the two parents alone with their dead child.

~

Alone
again in my room, I probably should have been scared that I was dwelling in the
castle of my worst enemy. I should have been planning my escape and trying to
supply myself with possible weapons that I might’ve found there. But in
reality, I was being driven insane by boredom. I was left pacing by my bedside
with my thoughts reeling around inside my head. Whenever I tried to concentrate
on one thing, it would bring up another thought, and I would aimlessly pursue
it only to find another that had no relevance what-so-ever. I was on the topic
of rabid bunnies when my door opened again. I jumped around with my heart
racing, only to find Alastair entering. Let down with the anti-climactic mood I
went back to pacing and thinking about rabid bunnies, only for the thoughts to
jump to hawks.

“I’ve
been instructed to take you to Velkire,” Alastair said with the slight hint of
worry in his voice, as if he cared if Velkire harmed me. “He is in the library
and he told me to bring you immediately.”

“Tell
him I said ‘too bad’,” I replied finally collapsing on my bed. “He can force me
into this cage but he can’t force me to speak with him. Now tell me, do you
think a hawk would taste like chicken because honestly I’m curious to find
out.”

“What?”
Alastair shook his head. “You must come or else you will be in trouble.”

“I’m
in the castle of a madman,” I said back lazily. “Aren’t I already in trouble?
And are rabid bunnies real, or just my imagination?”

“Please
Scarlet, just come with me,” Alastair pleaded while looking over his shoulder
to the open door that led out into the hallway. “I don’t want to but if I have
to I’ll take you by force.”

“Just
go away Alastair,” I sighed while throwing an arm over my eyes.

“Sorry,
but we need to go
now
,” Alastair made his way over to me and grabbed my
waist.

“Hey,
ever heard of personal space?” I protest while trying to pull away. Alastair
ignored my comment and tossed me over his shoulder effortlessly. I struggled
and tried to hit him as he lifted me and started to walk out of the room.

“This
counts as sexual harassment!” I fumed while kicking out and hitting nothing.
“Let go!”

“I’m
sorry, but since you won’t come quietly I have to resort to physical force,”
Alastair said apologetically. “You might as well enjoy it, this might be the
most romantic contact you’ll get from any boy if you keep acting the way you
do.” That, in my mind, deserved a swift kick to the gut. Unfortunately, I
couldn’t twist my leg around enough to do that, so instead I let out a flurry
of swearing and called Alastair every foul name I could think of and started
making up new ones when I ran out. Even though I couldn’t see his face, I knew
he had a smug smile on his face all the way to the library. Soon we were there,
with him facing large wide double doors.

Using
only one arm while the other was balancing my body on his shoulder, he pushed
open one of the doors, which gave way with a deep groan. He waltzed inside and
set me down, and I gave him a swift punch in the gut when he turned back to me
after closing the doors. Laughter that was sweeter than silver bells came from
behind us, and echoed off the walls of the immense library. I turned around
irritably to see Velkire leaning casually on a chair near a polished oak
balcony. A book with a satin red cover rested open in his hands but his
attention was directed at us. He snapped the book shut and tossed it on a
little wooden table that was next to him.

“I
could hear you screaming at him all the way from your room!” Velkire laughed as
he strode over to us and his face lit up the room. It would be nice if that face
didn’t belong to the man I hated with all my being, but life’s just not fair.
“You really do have a vast vocabulary don’t you? What exactly is a bunny
shoving snake?”

“I’d
tell you if I’d remembered saying that,” I admitted. “Now what do you want?”
Velkire shook his finger at me as if I were an impatient child, which I
probably was in his eyes—and most peoples’ eyes.

“Life
shouldn’t be all business, my dear little sister.” My stomach flipped as the
word slid off his tongue. “Come and enjoy my library with me.”

“I
can’t read,” I hissed. Velkire looked at me as though he were taken aback.

“What
a horrible curse that must be!” he exclaimed. “I shall have Alastair give you
lessons later, but for now at least come and look at my beautiful haven of
stories and facts.” Velkire beckoned to me, and I came reluctantly. He put a
loving arm around my shoulder as he guided me to the balcony, and I had to
resist the urge of burning it off.

“Isn’t
it wonderful?” he asked, but I was too absorbed in the sight to hear him.
Before me was a vast room with books everywhere. The balcony laced around the
room, creating a second floor until it reached a small staircase on the other
side that led to the bottom floor. As I looked down all I could see were rows
and rows of shelves that were stocked to the brim with books. In one end of the
room there was a large ivory desk that was loaded with maps of countries I
didn’t even know had existed. There was a large globe behind it splashed with
color on the yellowing surface. On the other end of the library were giant
glass windows flooding the entire room with light from the murky sky outside. Beside
the window were two chairs and a small table that looked as if it hadn’t been
touched in a long time. The walls on every corner of the library became
bookshelves, and ladders on wheels laced across each wall like vines on a
castle wall. The sight even took my breath away, and even though I didn’t even
know how to read I hungered to open a book and immerse myself in it. If they
had such an effect on me, I could only imagine how Seth would act if he saw it.
The memory of my book loving brother made my heart long for him and the rest of
my family. Resting a hand on the balcony, I left a print in the thick dust.

“You
can come in here any time you like,” Velkire said, most likely momentarily
forgetting that I could not read. “For now if you wish, you can roam about here
for a while before we talk. I’ll be in the throne room if you need me.”

And
more easily than I thought, he left me be, with Alastair to babysit of course.
Mesmerized by the enormity of the room I began to explore. I raced across the
balcony to the staircase on the other side of the room, only stopping to gaze
in awe of the book shelf wall that reached almost all the way to the ceiling.
Alastair followed close behind me like an annoyed parent, and he looked as if
he wanted to be anywhere other than where I was. I didn’t care. It wasn’t my
problem. I darted around the bottom floor, looking and hoping for something
would catch my eye.

I
stared at the globe and gazed in awe at all the known countries. On the
circular device there was one massive continent in the shape of a dog’s head
surrounded by a vast ocean that was dotted with a few smaller continents and loads
of islands. The continent that resembled a dog’s head had a lot of lakes all
throughout it and sort of made it look like cheese with holes in it.

“That
big one that you’re looking at is called Castellia,” Alastair said out of
nowhere. “It’s the country we live in. We used to be one nation, until Moraj
fell and towns started to become micro nations. Now Castellia is a mess that no
one wants to touch. Even though we have rich and fertile land throughout most
of the country, other countries think our soil is cursed, and won’t come near
it. They say our people are a mixing bowl of races, which is true in some ways,
but they call Castellian blood dirty and tainted. They think we are a nation of
the damned because we fight with demons a lot more here than they do there. You
see, about a hundred years ago, there was the Great Demon Uprising, and many
demons took physical form at the time. To fight back, the Healer allowed the
Guardians to start taking physical form as well. It was a war we almost lost,
and we would have if it weren’t for one particular girl and her Guardian. The
Healer was so pleased when the girl struck the prince of the demons that
entered the world that he let her become a Guardian as well, even though in
reality the war was her fault. The war had scared other countries however, and
no other nation has tried attacking us for fear of catching the curse from us.
So in a way, the girl who started the war ensured that future generations would
not be hampered by outside threats.”

“How
did she start the war?” I asked curiously, my attention being peeled away from
the globe.

“Well,
you see, at a young age, about as old as you are, she fell in love with a
demon,” Alastair began with my full attention. “She didn’t know that he was a
demon, and ended up having a child with him not a year after she met him. She
found out that he was a demon after she became pregnant, and she was horrified.
When the demon found out she was carrying his child, he put a curse on her,
preventing her from letting any harm befall the child as she was carrying it.
When the villagers she had known her entire life found out, they cast her out
of her own home and tried to kill her, but everyone who raised a hand against
her died. Devastated, the girl ran away and hid in a forest. You know that
forest to be the Forest of Death. When there she tried to kill herself, but was
stopped by an unexpected guest.

 A
handsome boy with blood red eyes and long jet black hair found her, and stopped
her. He took care of her even though she tried to cast him away many times. He
was supposedly a demon sent by the father of the child to protect the mother
until she gave birth, and the woman knew it. When it was time, the child was
born, and the mother tried to kill it herself, but she found she could not. For
when she stared into her baby’s grey eyes that were identical to her own, she
could not find the strength to kill it. She took care of it for one year,
always hating but at the same time loving him.