Charlotte

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Charlotte

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Chapter Two: Alone?

The girl now walked past the shops and even though she never looked at the brightly colored decorations she still knew that they were there, like silent invitations to come inside. It wasn't like she was allowed to have any money of her own. She remembered that she had helped Toby Williams, the butcher, in his shop once and that she had been forced to give the money she had earned to her foster parents. Surprisingly enough that memory didn't hurt her as much as some others did (mainly because her other memories were worse than that) but it still prevented her from getting a job or going into a shop right now.

She remembered how Martha Williams, Toby's wife, had hissed the word 'thief' at her one day because she had grabbed bread off the table without asking. It hadn't been stealing but Martha hadn't believed her when she had tried to explain it. She had been terribly hungry that day, true, but she'd never steal something off somebody else's table. But it didn't matter now. It wasn't like anyone ever believed anything she said so she'd better get used to it. That's what her foster parents had told her when she had said something about Martha's behavior. Instead of supporting her they had laughed at her and told her that Martha had been right about her. She was a thief and a liar.

Of course, she had been obsessed with regular rebellions against her foster parents from the very moment they had seen the birthmark and accused her of being a witch. But if you got that rebellious feeling beaten out of you by a person you once trusted...

The girl shook her head slowly before closing her eyes. Some things never changed. Just when she thought that she had forgotten all about the beatings, the hurt, the accusations... the memories came flooding back to her just as vividly as ever. She felt tears come to her eyes but she blinked them away furiously. She had vowed a long time ago that nobody would ever see her cry and she was determined to hold onto that vow for the rest of her miserable life. Yet one salty tear escaped and rolled down her right cheek tragically, slowly, the only witness of the hurt that was imbedded deep in her soul. She wiped it away quickly with the sleeve of her worn jacket.

"What is it, my dear child?" a woman asked suddenly and put a hand on the girl's shoulder. "Do you need help with anything?"

She backed away from the girl as soon as the girl turned her face towards the woman. It was always like this: people would stop by and ask if she was okay and then back away if they caught a glimpse of her face. The girl walked past the woman without giving her a second glance.

She had seen her own face in the mirror before but to say that she was so horrific that people would just walk past and stare at her openly, maybe even point her out to other people... no, she couldn't see why anyone would do that, even though people did that exact thing all the time. Of course, she wasn't perfect but she wasn't ugly either. Her nose was slightly upturned and a bit freckled - though nobody could say where that came from, seeing as her hair was as black as the night - and one corner of her mouth was always curled upwards as if she wanted to smile but couldn't because she had forgotten how she could smile, but apart from that the girl thought that she was pretty normal.

People hadn't pointed her out to others when she was little, nor had they stared at her so rudely as they did now. Truth was that once her family had found out that she had the mark of a witch - codswallop, she thought savagely - everyone else had been told that she was dangerous and a threat to average civilians such as themselves. She hadn't been able to play with the children she had once called her friends (leaving them to grow up with the same ideas as their parents) and hadn't been given any presents with her birthday or with Christmas either. She had to go to church though, every Sunday morning, because her foster parents believed that those visits would sooner or later exorcise the devil from her mind. As if that was possible, considering that old priest Thatcher only talked about the devil and the seven sins, she thought with a grim smile, but her foster parents always told her that it was worth to try it. And of course she wouldn't like the church - no witch did, in her foster parents' opinion - but sometime in the near future she would be grateful to them.

"As if," she muttered to herself, "I'd ever be grateful to people who have tried to beat the devil out of me with belts and ropes." She was aware of the stares she was drawing to herself - better exaggerate it a bit more, that way everyone would think that she had definitely lost her mind - but continued in the same fashion for a while. "And then they say that I should be grateful to them because they had not dropped me off at the orphanage in London like they had planned to do when they saw the mark," she grumbled. "It would have been better in an orphanage than with them, anyway, but nobody ever listens to me."

She turned away from the main street, still muttering ominously to herself, and walked down the alleyway that led to the place people expected her to call her home. And what a home it was, she thought with a cruel smirk, with its creaking stairs and without a heating for the cold winter nights. All they had was a dusty old fireplace that had never been in use, a kitchen door that could not be closed, and a couple of broken windows. One of the windows had been completely destroyed in a storm and the glass had been removed shortly afterwards by the person who called himself her father, the others had been the result of the girl's own temper reaching the highest point yet.

She readied herself for the outburst that would follow if she entered her so-called home. Her foster parents would be waiting for her, no doubt about it, and there would probably be a lot of shouting and screaming done by them before the day ended. She crossed her fingers as she neared the place she hated the most in the world - even the church didn't cause the blood in her veins to go cold - but was startled out of her thoughts by a cool voice that held only the slightest hint of a drawl.

"I have been waiting for you for quite some time now. I could only hope that you would indeed take this road to your home and not another one, for I wanted to warn you first."

The girl whirled around, bracing herself inwardly, determined not to lose her temper, but could only stare at the person in front of her in disbelief when she finally faced him.

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