Evanesce: The Beginning

It is mid October and the night is cold and dark. All is quiet and still as it usually is. Every house in the town is quiet and dark, all except one window in one little house. Here sits a girl with a candle reading fantasy tales. She is of a young age with medium brown hair, a fairly good complexion, wears raggedy clothes, and wears thin shoes. She does her best to keep her hair neat-looking everyday. Her name is Angel Bartley; her family is poor, living in a town needing more than its share of fixing and repairs. She lives with both parents and her baby brother, James.1

The morning finally came. When Angel realizes it, she closes her book, blew out her candle and lays back down until her mother came up to wake her up. A few minutes after she had lain down, she heard the front door shut, a sign that her father is off to work. James starts to cry, the room is filled with the sounds of sadness, and her mother walks in. As soon as James quiets down her mother comes over to wake her up.2

"You've been up reading again, haven't you?" Her mother asks.3

"Yes, I just can't help it; I love to read about fantasies," Angel replies.4

Her mother leaves the room with a sort of sadness in her face. Angel gets up, puts on her shoes and goes downstairs to the kitchen where her mother is setting the breakfast table consisting of only two plates of food since there are only two people and an infant eating.5

When Angel is finished her food she runs up to her room, grabs her book and goes out to find a nice place to read. This is kind of hard to do since the town is always gloomy and dim and hardly any sun is ever shown. The town is very shabby and most of the houses are broken. It is the only thing you can expect of Hollowville, although the town has many streets and houses, it has few markets that bare little food for buying. This town used to be rich, but it was abandoned years ago when the rich people built a new town. Some of the families that still live in Hollowville used to be rich themselves, but their deceiving rich friends made them buy things that were of no use to them, so they had to give these things to their "friends." Unlike the family that lives on top of the town, not too far away, with a bigger house then the villagers. No, this family was told to stay and play mayor of the town, but they do very poor at it. When they are they go to the new (but old) town to buy food or a book or two. The women may even buy new dresses. There is a forest that outlines this town with an old path that leads to a watering hole that everyone has forgotten about. Deep inside the forest somewhere there is an enchantment of some sort that no one knows about. An enchantment that, well, if I told you, you wouldn't read this anymore. So read on and you shall find out for yourself…6

As Angel is walking down the street towards her favorite reading spot, she feels that she is being followed. She turns to look, no one there. She turns back and keeps on walking. She starts to hear footsteps, she turns to look again. Still, no one is there. She turns and continues to walk. Now she hears the footsteps again, but this time they sound as though they are getting closer and as if they are getting faster. This time she does not turn, instead she starts to run. The footsteps are running too. Faster and faster, she's almost to the spot. She immediately stops and turns, BAM! Although the footsteps had stopped she is still frightened. She looks up and finds a stunningly beautiful blonde, curly haired girl standing over her. She looks about the same age and the same height.7

"I'm so sorry about that," the girl says, holding out a hand to help Angel to her feet, “I wanted to come up to you and introduce myself properly but I was too scared you would not want to talk to me. My name is Jessica Turner."8

"My name is Angel Bartley," Angel replied. "Are you from around here? Where do you live?"9

"Yes, I am new. I live in the new, but old, blacksmith house on the other side of this street."10

"We have a blacksmith now? That's excellent," says Angel.11

"Yes, it is. Where were you headed?" Jessica asked.12

"Oh, just over to that spot near the woods. I usually sit over there to read my book." Angel replied.13

"Oh, what book?" asked Jessica14

"Just some mixed fantasy tales. Want to come with me?"15

"Sure. Let me just go and get my book. I'll meet you there."16

Angel walked to her spot, sat down, opened her book and started reading. Moments later, Jessica runs up with her book and sits to Angel's right. She was reading a book about fantasy tales as well.17

A few hours went by and they had both paused their reading to get to know each other better. Angel found out that Jessica only lives with her father. Her mother passed away years ago with some terrible disease. Jessica is an only child and doesn't have any thing or one to play with. Jessica found out that Angel lives with both parents, that Angel's mother's name is Rachael and her father's name is Michael.18

The church bells tolled noon and both girls parted until after lunch. When Angel got home, she told her mother all about her new friend Jessica. When she had finished talking, her mother still seemed to have that sad look in her face. Angel was tempted to ask her mother what was wrong, but she decided to wait until the right moment.19

The two girls met later at the same spot with their books. This time, instead of sitting, they walked the edge of the forest. They walked and talked for about an hour and hardly noticed the path leading   to the watering hole. They listened for the bell tolls, it was only two o'clock. They walked down the path; it had probably taken them a half an hour before all they heard was the sound of running water. They had to fight their way through over grown branches and wildly grown weeds. They reached the watering hole at last. There was a seat next to the hole, they sat down and discussed each other.20

"My father and I moved over here because we heard that the town is low budgeted. Also because we started losing money and business because some new blacksmith moved into town." Jessica explained.21

"Wow, but yes, this town is low budgeted. My father works at the most local shoe factory." Angel said.22

"That's better than what my father does." Jessica said a little excitedly.23

"Not really, he cleans up, whatever falls down, and believe me that's not much." Angel said.24

A few hours passed of talking and it seemed to have been getting dark. They had not heard the church bell since it tolled five o'clock, so they decided to head on their way back home. Before they left, as they were getting up, Jessica noticed some strange light to the left of them. She did not say anything to Angel, not yet anyway.25

When they got into town Jessica finally mentioned about the light to Angel,26

"Did you see that light back in the woods?"27

"No, what light?" replied Angel with some confusion.28

"It was some where on the left of us by the water hole."29

"I did not see it."30

"Do you want to check tomorrow?" Jessica asked.31

"Sure, we'll leave our books at home. After lunch we will go look."32

"Alright, then I'll see you tomorrow."33

They departed and Angel went in to eat at the table once more. Her father was home from work and she told him everything about Jessica. Unlike her mother, he had a happy look on his face. She glanced over at her mother, her head was down facing her food, and she still had the look on her face as if she was sad. Angel finally asked the question after all this time.34

"Mother, why have you been looking so sad all day?"35

Her father looked up at the both of them.36

"Oh, no reason. No reason at all." She replied rather hoarsely.37

"There must be some reason. Why do you look so sad?" Her father asked.38

"It's nothing ok. Now both of you please, just finish your dinners." She said in a kind of sharp tone.39

She stormed off leaving her half done plate where she had left it. That meant that Angel had to clean the dishes.40

When Angel had finally finished clearing the table, washing and drying the dishes and put them away she was exhausted. She was heading for bed when she noticed something under the table. She picked it up, it was a letter addressed to her mother, and it was dated yesterday:41

Dear Mrs. Bartley,42

We are sorry to inform you that on this day of October 24th, your father, Miles Ayer, and your mother, Abigail Ayer, passed away around noon. This letter is to give you notice that their will be a ceremony on the 29th of October, in the Lunaville church. After the ceremony, there will be dinner for their remembrance and a reading of their last will and testament. We would greatly appreciate it if you and your family could come. The dinner will be held in the Lunaville Town Hall. We thank you for your time and we hope to see you and your family there.43

Respectfully Submitted,44

           John Cossacks45

Town Clerk46

Angel just stood there in shock and a little upset. So this is why mother has been so sad, she thought to herself. She went up stairs and she went to bed stuffing the letter under her pillow. She could not sleep at all after everything that happened earlier today.47

The morning came ever so quickly. The door downstairs closed as a sign that her father was off to another day of work. She lays down and pretends to sleep just as her mother came in the room. Her mother did not even bother to wake her. Angel got up and went downstairs; her mother was acting a little strange since last night. She sat down to eat. Her mother gave her little to eat which meant that the food supply was getting low. After Angel had finished her food, she grabbed an apple and went out the door without saying a word to her mother. She ate the apple as she walked and headed toward Jessica's house. She had been waiting there a while until the door finally opened and out came Jessica.48

"Well this is odd, what's wrong?" said Jessica noticing the look on Angel's face.49

"My grandparents from my mother's side passed away just the other day around noon and my mother didn't even bother to tell me about it. I found out from the letter she dropped after dinner last night. I just don't understand why she hid something like this from me in the first place. My father didn't even know. I don't even know if he knows it yet." Angel replied with anger and sadness.50

"Wow. My father never acted like that when my mother passed on. That's just odd."51

They came to the path of the watering hole and decided it was not the right time to go down it. What they did was walk around expressing what they thought the light was that Jessica had seen in the forest last night. The time flew by rather quickly and they departed for lunch. Angel went into the house and saw that there was only once place set and her mother was not around which meant that the plate was for her. There was not much on the plate, so when she left she took another apple. Again, she ate the apple as she walked but instead of going to Jessica's house she headed toward where Jessica was standing.52

“Are you ready for this?” She asked with some enthusiasm.53

“Yes.” Angel replied with some fear in her voice.54

They came to the path to the watering hole once again, this time the path seemed different. As if someone had come by and cleared the path for them, as if they were expected by someone. When they got to the watering hole, they noticed that the watering hole was cleaned up as well; Jessica noticed something of a small foot path on the ground leading towards the direction of where Jessica had seen the light last night. She pointed it out to Angel.55

“Come on, let's go.” Jessica said with some excitement in her voice.56

“I don’t think this is a good idea anymore. I mean it looks like someone or something is expecting us or as if they want us to go in.” Angel said in a frightened sort of tone.57

“Oh come on, what is the worst that could happen?” Jessica starts walking down the small path. Angel stood there on the spot and hesitated, and then she finally made the decision to go down the small path as well…58

Some days had passed on and Angel and Jessica still had not come home. Jessica’s father went into town and notified the police about his daughter’s disappearance. The police went to Angel’s parent’s house and questioned them about Jessica’s whereabouts. It was a Saturday and Michael (Angel’s father) did not have to work. He explained to the police that Angel was missing as well and that he had remembered her saying something about going into the woods with Jessica. Rachael was losing her mind with worry and explained to Michael that she had sort of treated Angel with some disrespect the day of her disappearance. Michael did his best to calm her down but she had still insisted that Angel might have run away. The ceremony was nearing and Rachael was getting more and more depressed knowing that Angel was probably not going to be there and that it was her parents that the ceremony was for…59

As the girls were getting deeper and deeper and the sky seemed to have be getting dark and fast as. They finally saw some light up ahead and growing brighter as they went. After about an hour, or so it seemed, of walking they reached the light at last, it seemed to be floating in the middle of an enlarged encirclement deeps in the woods. They walked around the light and looked carefully. They were both tempted to touch it.60

“You touch it first,” said Jessica, now sounding a little scared.61

“No you touch it first,” Angel said62

“Shall we do it together then?”63

“That would be a good idea.”64

“Alright then, 1… 2… 3!”65

They closed their eyes and touched the light. There was a huge bang and a very bright flash of light.66

Moments later, they opened their eyes and looked at each other. Their clothes had changed completely. They looked around at what they thought were the woods, but instead they seemed to have appeared in a village of some sort with small cottages out in fields. They saw some people poking their heads out from behind bushes. They were apparently scared of what had just happened. The girls walked around and noticed that they were standing in what seemed to be a town square. There were pubs, market houses, and places that looked like something of an apartment house. They were stopped in front of one of the market houses by a short man.67

“Hello there! And welcome to Shuriton. I am Mayor Billy Bagses," said the little man.68

“Oh, hello, my name is Angel Bartley. You have such a beautiful town here Mr. Bagses.” Angel said with a big grin on her face.69

“Please, call me Billy. And thank you Ms. Angel, " he replied very jumpily.70

“My name is Jessica Turner and I think you have a beautiful town as well," said Jessica, staring in amazement at the town.71

“Hello, Jessica, and thank you as well, " Billy said.72

Billy showed them all around the town, to the town limits and back from each road which was clearly marked on the trees. They went to the field where all the little cottages were. They reached Billy’s house which had a very bright and oval shaped door and two rounded windows on either side of the door. There was a colorful garden on each side of the entrance walk way, and a man that looked as though as he was tending to the garden.73

“Ah, girls, this here is my personal gardener, Shaun Gaunter. He lives at the next house over," Billy introduced.74

Shaun had turned to look at them. He had curly light brown hair and was kind of chubby.75

“Shaun this is Angel and Jessica our newest additions to the town." Billy continues.76

“How do you do?” The girls said as they curtsied.77

Shaun gave a courtesy wave and turned back to tending to the garden. The indoors and the hall that they walk into is a little messy. There sat a chest against the right wall with papers, books, and books with paper stuffed into them all scattered around and on top of the chest. Directly in front of them, where the intersection of the hall is, sat a coat rack and a small stool. On the ceiling hung a chandelier with candles dripping wax. Entering the next room they saw a table to the left also scattered with books and papers, two chairs sitting in front of a fire place, and pictures on the walls. It appeared to be a sitting room. There were noises and smells coming from the next room, it had to be the kitchen. They entered as they saw a young man running back and fourth from a fire place and a table which had things of food set up and down the table.78

“Girls, this is my nephew, Fred Bagses. Fred, this is Angel and Jessica.”79

He turns and looks at the moment his uncle finishes speaking. He had short black hair, clean looking skin and highly beautiful bright blue eyes.80

“How do you do?” the girls said once again as they curtsied, not taking their eyes off him.81

“Fine. Thank you.” He said in reply also staring at the girls.82

“Well, girls, I think we should find you two a room," said Billy, Breaking the silence and everyone's gaze.83

The girls followed Billy to a guest room with two beds on either side of the room, a window in the middle and a kind of night stand cabinet under the window. Angel turned and asked, “Billy, how do we get out of here and get back to where we came from to go back home?”84

“I’m afraid there is now way out. The way you girls came has no way of return as we have found out. You two are just going to have to stay with me until we figure out where you are staying.” Billy replied with some sadness.85

For the next couple of days, the girls mingled and socialized with the towns' people making more friends as they went on. Angel ended up working in one of the pubs as a waitress and Jessica is working in a visitor’s hotel as a maid. They both live in the upstairs of the pub where Angel works. How would Angel be able to contact her parents to at least tell them that she is alright? How is Jessica to be able to contact her father to tell him that she’s alright? Will their families ever find out about the light in the woods? Will they ever get home at all? I guess we will never find out.86