CHAPTER 1
The light was bouncing off his head. I could see it from where I was standing on the top floor of the house. He was mad and his bald skin was turning pink. As per usual he was shouting at him, yelling at the top of his lungs that he had been insolent and broken something. It was the usual rigmarole.
But when I looked to Adam, his blue eyes wide and staring, he didn’t look scared once. Rather he seemed resigned to his fate of being the bad boy of the house. When his father was finished shouting, the little boy walked up the steps, his little feet patting against the mahogany. It was a long way up to where I was standing and he pouted all the way.
“Why are you always hiding up here?” he asked as he reached the top, his little lungs wheezing as he spoke.
“Because I hate your father as much as you do,”
“Hmmm….” the little boy nodded with his wise eyes staring down over the bannister. “Won’t you suppose you’ll ever come downstairs?”
“I don’t think so,” was all I said and I followed his gaze.
Adam’s father, the corpulent Sir Thomas Collins was ordering his servants about. So far he had reduced one to tears and made the others scurry away.
“Don’t you want to run away from here?” I placed a hand on the little boy’s back.
“More than anything,”
“Why don’t you then?”
“Because where can I go? I’m too young to work or even buy a train ticket,” he sighed and slumped to the floor.
“And when is your birthday?”
“May 19th. I’ll be six then,”
“Ah…. Still rather too young,” I frowned.
There was a long pause between us as we listened to the frantic voices downstairs. Sir Collins was a wretched beast who never treated his family with the love they deserved, but he treated the staff in the house worse. There were rumours of course, dreadful ones of things he did after dark. But little Adam didn’t speak of them, not yet.
“If you join me you could be free from this house you know?” I nudged him in the ribs.
“No thank you,” was his terse reply. “I want to be a doctor when I grow up, or a surgeon. I can’t do that if I die,”
“But you’ll be young forever,” I tried to reason. “Wouldn’t that be such a wonderful thing?”
The little boy shrugged and looked into space.
“I’ve been sent to bed without supper again,” he looked up at me, his bottom lip on the brink pf quivering.
“I’ll see what I can do,” and I stepped back into the shadows.
From a distance I could see him wander back down the stairs. His little head was bobbing up and down as he walked, his blonde hair flopping back and forth. I knew the boy had great things destined for him, but I couldn’t help but want him for myself. He could be my son and I his mother. We’d walk through the halls hand in hand with smiles on our faces. We could dance in the ballroom with laughter never having to end, and we could love each other until the end of time with no such thing as aging to tear us apart.
CHAPTER 2
“There’s no such person as Mildred,” Sir Collins dismissed his wife’s words as he pushed a piece of steak into his mouth.
“But Adam says there is,”
“That boy has an overactive imagination. He needs to get out of this house more, needs some fresh air that’s all,”
“But with the flu pandemic….” Lady Collins bowed her head over her plate. “I just don’t want him to get sick like…..,”
From where he was sitting, her husband may have thought she was fiddling with her napkin. What he didn’t know was that out of sight she had fished her hand into the secret pocket of her dress. Pulling out the golden keepsake, she flipped open the locket and looked at the wisp of hair that was hidden within.
“Mathilda….” she whispered into her lap.
“What was that?” her husband didn’t look up from his plate.
“Nothing at all,” she snapped it closed and put it back in its place. “I’ll speak to him tomorrow,”
~
The sun, although a rare sight in these parts of the country, had dipped into the ground hours ago. Adam had been in bed for what seemed like an eternity but he was still wide awake, his eyes fixed on the high ceiling. It was nights like this when he tried to count all the flowers on the cornicing, but as always he had lost count before reaching twenty.
He pulled the covers over his head and looked into the darkness. Sometimes he imagined a whole world resided in there. Creatures of no known species would mine for fairstone, a pink gem that was priceless in the human world. Or goblins that were half cat, half reptile would roam in the blackness looking for innocent people to prey upon.
His father was right in that he had a rogue imagination but it wasn’t his fault. Adam’s grandfather was the explorer Sir Lionel Collins, and he often came back from the tropics with outlandish tales of adventure and conquest. Someday he’d like to grow up and be just like his grandfather. He’d travel the world and see that people were protected from diseases. That way no one could die like his big sister had.
Of course he never met Mathilda. He was born after she passed away. But he’d often heard a faraway giggle in a corner of the attic, the one where his father’s moth collection lay. Once he’d seen a flicker of blonde hair as it blew around a closing door, like a flame blowing in the wind. But then it was gone and when he went to investigate, he found himself staring into an empty hallway.
Footsteps sounded somewhere in the hall and Adam popped his head out the covers. He thought for a moment they belonged to his mother with their lightness, but then he heard the knock. Only one person in this house did that.
“Come in Mildred,”
“Hello my little kitten,” I held out a tray to him. “I managed to pilfer you some cheese, bread and an apple,”
He sat bolt upright, snatching the cheese first and then the bread.
“Thank you,” he sang, his cheeks growing chubby and stuffed as he spoke.
“Slow down my little one,” I laughed as I rested on the end of the bed. “Or you’ll get a tummy ache,”
But he ignored me and continued to chomp away. After a few minutes he rubbed at his stomach, his little hand running in a circle.
“Have you had enough now?”
He nodded.
“Will you help me find the crumbs though?” he looked up to me. “Mother’s always finding the crumbs,”
“Very well,” and I proceeded to dust down the covers with my hand.
But something caught my attention. It was the boy’s sudden furtive movements as he remembered something. He hurried to crouch into the corner at the top of his bed.
“What is troubling you my darling?” I reached out a hand he refused to take.
He had a look on his face as though some tremendous and terrifying thought had swept over him.
“How do I know you didn’t put anything in the food?”
“Oh my sweetheart….” I began to say before he interrupted.
“How do I know?” he started to become tearful. “The last time you put something in the pudding I was poorly for days and mother blamed me for climbing in the apothecary cabinet,”
“I did no such thing,” I looked away ashamed. “Not this time anyway,”
My lies were obvious, my cheeks growing crimson despite the fact there was no blood in me. Adam’s eyes were wide in terror and I wanted to grab hold of him, tell him everything would be ok.
“You keep saying you love me,” his teeth were chattering. “But then you hurt me and I don’t understand,” the tears were flowing now.
I wanted to wipe them away with the end of my
apron but the laws of God wouldn’t permit it. If I were to touch him he wouldn’t feel a thing.
“I only want what’s best for you,” I fiddled with my skirt. “Someday you’ll understand,”
“I don’t think I will,” his voice was weak as it echoed through the room.
Meandering back out the door I blew him a kiss as I left.
“Sleep well,”
But he was already hiding under the covers once again.
“Sleep forever,”