Willow's Story

Willow's Story

Chapter 1

"Que la verité blesse."

-A French Folk saying

"Only the truth hurts"

Thirteen-year-old Willow Marsden swung her heavy school bag onto her shoulder, rushed down the stairs to the kitchen. Her mother looked up from her breakfast, "Good Morning sweetheart! You're late again."

"I know Mum, I know." She picked up a slice of toast and rushed out the door. "See you later Mum!"

Willow lived in a small village called Ottery St Catchpole and she went to school in the local school. Willow ran down the road, her long chestnut hair streaming like a banner behind her. She heard the school bell ring just as she burst through the school gates. She crossed her fingers as she knocked on the Math room door. Mr. Vencor, the Math teacher opened the door. "Late again Miss Marsden?"

Her emerald eyes went to the floor in submission, "I'm eternally sorry, Mr. Vencor, it will not happen again."

"I hope so, Miss Marsden."

She went meekly to her place next to her best friend Ella Casherman.

"As I was saying..."

At the end of the day Ella and Willow walked out of the school, Ella was lecturing Willow about tardiness, "Wllow, this really has to stop. It's the tenth time this month that you were late for class! What the hell is wrong with you? Old Vencor isn't going to be as nice next time..."

Willow nodded as if she would do something about it, but the truth was that she didn't know what was happening to her. Every night she would wait until her parents had said goodnight and gone to bed, then she would get out of her bed, go down stairs and into the garden. She didn't know why. It was almost like an instinct. Then she would sit on 'her' boulder and watch the house for the rest of the night. At about four in the morning she would go back to bed. After she went to sleep she was always haunted by a strange dream. Dreams of a pregnant woman running, then the woman would have the baby. A baby called Willow. Then the woman would die. Every night she had the same dream.

Willow and Ella said goodbye as they reached a fork in the road. Willow climbed the hill. Her legs were aching. She reached the house. She heard voices inside. It was her mother and someone else.

"You must tell her! She is old enough to know that she isn't your real baby!"

"No! I'll never tell her!"

"So you want her to believe lies?"

"Look I don't care if you think that I should tell her that I adopted her, it makes absolutely no difference to me because I love her like if she were my biological child. But right now we should just stop because she is due back from school and I certainly don't want her to find out this way..."

Willow could take no more; she burst into the house.

"Mum, what does this mean? Who is not your real daughter?"

Her mother clutched at her heart.

"Oh My God!"

The man looked at her.

"Good afternoon Willow. I am Mr. Mindy. What your mother meant to say was that you are not her 'real' daughter. I am aware that this will be a bit of a shock..."

He got no further. Willow had run off. She ran like if there was no tomorrow. She had to get away. She was running up the hill in back of her house. She ran through the forest. Her clothes were ripping into pieces; she didn't care. She was running with her feet hardly touching the ground. Her long dark hair streaming after her. She stopped at the edge of a pool of water; she bent down to drink. She froze at what she saw reflected there. Her hair was blacker than a black hole, her skin was as white as ivory, her eyes were amber and she had... wings and her ears were long and pointy at the ends. She looked exactly like a creature in her father's book "Ye Olde Faerie Creatures". She looked in amazement at her refection for a long time.

Suddenly she looked up startled out of her reverie by an inhuman laugh. Soon, she heard the sound of many feet coming closer and closer to her hiding place. She jumped up and fled to a tree and tried to melt into the wood of the trunk. To her amazement she felt herself blend into the bark of the tree. A man's arm made a place in the branches and hundreds of hounds burst through the gap.

"Look well, my sweets. We don't want anything to be here tonight for The Grand Meeting. After all Master would be very angry with us. Yes he would. And we don't want Master to be angry with us now do we?"

The hounds were looking around the pool, sniffing where Willow had been. They followed her trail up to the tree. Willow was scared stiff. She was afraid that these hounds would find her. They were sniffing at the tree trunk getting closer and closer to where she was. One of their paws brushed her nose. She felt nothing. The hounds gave up. They went back to their master. He led them out of the clearing. Willow decided to wait in the clearing. She was going to wait for the meeting, she wanted to find out what was so important and who this "Master" was.