Chapter One: The Rose. Part one.

In her world, everything was always the same. She got up every morning, dressed, ate what little breakfast her mother could scrounge for her and her older brother, and went into town to sell her goods, which consisted of the fruits and vegetables her mother grew in the garden. She didn't mind her world, it was just a bit too monotonous. Her brother on the other hand wouldn't even tolerate to hear a word out of her about leaving the country, he loved his life.1

"Viley!" her mother called again. "Viley, can you hear me?"2

"Yes mum!" Viley snapped out of her miseries and ran down the short flight of stairs from the upstairs bedrooms down to the living area of her small house. Her brother Rigel was already sitting at the table eating his breakfast of corn and toast when she entered the kitchen. A plate piled with the same sat at her place as well. She sat down and began to eat.3

"Viley," her mother said, "a boy came to see you earlier, but you where still in bed."4

A boy? Viley thought to herself, what boys do I even know? then "Who was it mum?" aloud.5

"I don't know, he said his name was... I can't remember... Alreck?"6

"Arec, mum." Rigel corrected, then to his sister "You know him?"7

Of course she knew him, everyone knew him! Arec was the son of the richest man in the entirety of Goah Glen, and also the most sought after man there, too. Nearly every unmarried women in the Glen wanted him for their husband, even at his young age of eighteen, just barely older than Viley, who was seventeen and a half and very proud of it. Now, why had he come to see her?8

"Did he say why he wanted to see me?" she asked. Her brother gave a half smile and looked down at his now empty plate.9

"No," he said, "But he left this." He held out a long stemmed, blood red rose. Viley took it. Why had he sent her a rose? I'm the plainest girl in the Glen! she thought, and, even though she hated to admit it, she knew it was true. Her best friend Eedy on the other hand was the most beautiful girl for miles, why hadn't he sent the rose her then?10

"Viley, you're bleeding!" Her mother's words jerked Viley back to reality. She was indeed bleeding. She had pricked the palm of her hand on a thorn from the mysterious rose and blood as red as the flower was dripping down onto her plate, staining her uneaten corn a sickly crimson. She jumped up, pressing her palms together to stop the bleeding, and ran to the washroom.11

She looked in the mirror as she wrapped her hand in soft white linen, soon stained an ugly red by her blood, thinking. Why me? she thought, her thoughts running sluggish through the loss of blood, as little as it was, why did he leave a flower for me?12

A knock on the door made her jump. What if it was Arec? He couldn't see her like this, in her nightclothes, and she hadn't run a comb through her hair either. But the familiar voice of her friend Eedy sent that thought spinning out of her mind. She leaped from the washroom and back into the kitchen in three great bounds, landing just in front of Eedy, who smiled and said "Viley! You nearly scared me to death!" Viley smiled and hugged her friend, eager to tell her what had just happened.