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Biography
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Copyright 2016 Courtney Quick
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Biography
I was born in a military family where moving every year was the norm, and keeping secrets was second nature. Being the child of a parent in the military causes you to either adapt to your constant changing surroundings or fall into a dramatic state where you fight the current. Fighting the current however will only get you so far. I was forced to keep my mouth shut. Everything I did or said would reflect on my father. If I messed up in school, you better believe it was going to get back to his commander. The hardest part of being a military brat, is watching someone you love leave for war. In my pain and confusion I turned to words. I found myself letting all of the pain form itself on the blank sheet of paper. Before my eyes were worlds and characters whose fate I could control. I was the creator. I found myself sharing my secrets through characters. No one knew that this was I, that I was revealing pieces of myself within my creations. Within these tales I was able to let go of the box full of secrets I was forced to conceal.
I realized I was a creator, and this is what I was meant to do. People wanted to see what I wrote; they wanted to find out what happened to the character. Do they die? Do they find love? Most of the time I didn’t know the ending, I just wrote, and wrote until the story ended and it was like watching it come to life before me. I didn’t know what was going to happen until I started it and when it was over I found myself in awe of my creation.
ONE
When I was a little girl, I thought that I was invisible. It was a strange feeling, to stand amongst a group of people and not be seen. When I grew older I realized that I wasn’t invisible to everyone just to one man. This man I had done a great injustice to. An injustice that I could never take back, because I had taken away the only woman he had ever loved. This was my burden; I wear the scars of my father, and the death of my mother.
It was in France around the 1300’s that my Father and mother married and began their happy home. My father was a well-known blacksmith and soon after their wedding they had a beautiful baby boy named Thomas. Father would talk about how he would take over the business and one day expand their work to greater heights. It wasn’t too long after they had a beautiful baby girl who had the voice of an angel. She was so beautiful, that couples would stop on the street to admire her as mother and would shop through the market. After those two beautiful children were two miscarriages which took its toll on Mother and Father’s marriage. Father wanted another boy, but mother wanted another girl. The physician warned mother that she shouldn’t have any more children. It was the year of 1328 when the snow began to touch the ground that complications of the birth of her third child began to take place. The labor lasted longer than expected and Mother lost more blood than expected. I came into the world screaming and she left it the same way. My first breath was my first sin. I didn’t choose to be born that morning, but we never get to choose the circumstances we are born into. Because of these circumstances I would never receive the love of a mother, or the love of my father.
I was named Nicole, a shortened version of my mothers name Nicolette. I don’t remember my mother, but I was told she had beautiful gray eyes like mine. It wasn’t until I was six or seven that I understood the weight of what I’d done. With every year I grew older Father grew colder. Maybe it was how much of her he saw her features in my face. Unlike my sister and my brother who had dark brown hair, I had mother’s dark blonde hair, her pale skin and gray eyes. Sometimes I would sneak into Fathers room to look at pictures of Mother, with her thin frame and sweet smile. The way Father idolized her made me wish I could bring her back. I use to pray at night that she would come back. When I realized that wasn’t possible, I began to pray that my hair would darken like Thomas or my sister Denise’s. Anything to make me look less like her, and for him to look at me and not wear a mask of resentment.
Most of our time was spent in Father’s shop. Thomas, my brother was sixteen and would help Father work while Denise, thirteen would work on her chores or needlework. Being very small for my age, I spent my time chasing birds outside the shop. As long as I stayed out of Father’s way, he didn’t mind what I did. Father would spend his days working and his nights alone in his room. We would all have dinner by the fire usually prepared by Denise. I sat to the left of father, most of the time I would stare at his hands and wonder what he did in his room all alone all night. His hands were always calloused and covered in black markings. He had many scars, and on his left finger he wore a wedding band.
“Eat your broth Nicolette,” Denise says.
“Nicole,” my father corrects her. I stare at his face and for a moment he looks at me. Just a moment of contact, “I’m tired,” he says standing abruptly. He pushes the chair in and heads upstairs.
I stare at his empty seat and half eaten broth. Denise and Thomas watch him disappear upstairs. Denise looks at me.
“I’m sorry,” I tell my soup bowl. I’m sure it was my fault he had left. What did he think when he looked at me?
“Eat your broth Nicole,” Denise says again.
I stare at my face in the reflection of the broth.
Thomas had a Gambling problem. Every Thursday of the week, the one-day that he was given off, Thomas would head down to the docks to gamble. I knew this routine by heart, because on this day he was to watch me. Denise had begun meeting suitors, so she was too busy to watch me Thursdays. So every afternoon, Thomas and I would ride his horse down by the docks. He would sit me in front of the Saloon with my doll, and tell me not to leave until he came out. I was not to tell father where we went on this day of the week. Father did not approve of this habit; he believed Thomas should be looking for a good wife and start a family of his own. I didn’t blame Thomas for not wanting to marry; after all I didn’t want to marry either. When I told Denise this she told me that my nose was crooked and I looked so strange I wouldn’t be married anyway. I told her my nose wasn’t crooked, but that didn’t stop me from staring in the mirror and wondering if she was right.
I grew accustomed to sitting on the step outside the house of laughter. The saloon was always bustling with music and strange people moving in and out at all times of the evening. I would buy my time playing with the flowers, chasing the birds or sitting by the canal. Most people didn’t notice me, and that was okay, I was invisible. When the weather was very warm and the moon was high in the sky I would sit on the rocks by the canal and stare up at the sky wondering if Mother could see me.
“May I sit?” A boy was kneeling to my left. I hadn’t heard him approach. In fact he stood there so silently, waiting for my response that it was almost startling to think this was real.
“Are you talking to me?”
He smiled a white-toothed grin. He had pale blonde hair and eyes bluer than the sky on a summer day.
“That is if you don’t mind?”
“Apologies, I- I don’t have my mind about me,” the truth was it had been over a year since anyone had bothered to speak to me outside the saloon. He sat down next to me on the rocks and stared into the dark water. I tried to act normal but this wasn’t normal for me. Do you talk to people that sit next to you after they say hello?
“Do you often come to sit by the canal?” He asked.
“Once a week, my brother-“ I stare back at the house of laughter, “He likes
to frequent this place.”
“My father and I are here on business matters, my name is Samuel,” he said outstretching his hand.
“Nicole,” I said as he took my hand. He leaned down to kiss it. His blue eyes glanced up at me as I withdrew my hand to my chest. Never before had a boy kissed my hand. He kissed it the way gentlemen do to ladies, like Denise’s suitors do to her upon their arrival.
“I am enchanted to meet someone as lovely as you Nicole.”
“You think I’m lovely?”
“Of course.”
“My nose