The young mistress leaned heavily upon the golden railing which lined the outside deck, protruding out into the morning sun from the silver-lined halls of the mansion that had, for all of her years, been her prison.
As her face gingerly turned to the yards, a sole tear on her face stood as a mark of the story. The tear-stained flowing garments that hung elegantly from her delicate frame. Her tears spoke of a girl bound by fate into a cursed existence, the life of a captive lined with jewels and tinged with the substances of wealth, so heavily adorned as though to mask her true state.
Her fingers tightened their grip on the smooth surface of the rail as her smooth porcelain face made a stormy transformation from despair to anger.
No.
The oppression could surround her, but she would not let it consume her.
Her misted eyes lifted with a harsh determination to the ancient trees that lay beyond the meadows, and, casting one last glance on the world that had done its best to conform her heart into a lace-gloved doll of silence, she broke those mighty chains that kept her tethered to the ground for all of her life.
-
The forest was exactly like she remembered it. The colossal bodies of the hardwoods shielded her from the plague of the outside world, and the stalwart limbs encircled her in a protective embrace, just as they had done when she had wandered through these fairy-filled groves when she was a child. Her feet pressed solidly onward as she made her way down the paths that, though she had not set foot on them for perhaps ten years, led her along in her memory as though they had only recently been parted form her.
Her hands traced along the archaic stone walls of the ancient tunnel as she emerged at her destination. Before her stood the wishing well, shrouded mystically in the cool, comforting fog that sank below the morning sunlight, seeping like water through the branches and pouring across the spotted forest floor. She pressed her hands to its edges, her heart both racing and stopping in a moment of pure hope, forced from the malevolent face of desperation as she drew, from her neck, the locket.
The Locket.
It had been given to her by her grandmother when she had been but the most fragile of children. The old woman had endured the suffocating punishments of the life of nobility and wealth; all her life had she longed to reclaim a life of freedom and independence; a life of adventure……
….a life she had missed, and would never see.
She saw, in her granddaughter’s eyes, the spark that would fuel her soul and start within her a fire that could not be doused. On a warm summer’s eve, she placed the golden chain around the young girl’s neck, smiling with eyes that shone of wisdom purchased through defeat and told her:
“Only once will you get the chance to set your heart free. Do not miss it.”
And now, holding the locket over the dark abyss of the wishing well, she made her wish; she wanted he who could take her form this pained existence, and lift her soul on the wings of adventure; she wished for her one true love.
Her breath drew in tightly, and her heart raced;
The forest rushed aloud with the sounds of the spirits that lived among the enchanted trees;
The wind arose and cut through the tiny clearing and drew about her, tossing her hair across her face;
Her fingers loosened; the chain grew slack, and the locket fell.
