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- Story Listed as: Fiction For Teens
- Theme: Mystery
- Subject: Adventure
- Published: 08/27/2011
My Name is Chris
Born 1996, F, from West Harrison, NY, United StatesMy Name is Chris
Casey Chon
It was a magnificent hallway, lying deep within the parameters of the castle. The ceiling lay hundreds of feet overhead, intricate with patterns that blended into the almond mahogany. Framed portraits and still life adorned the walls of the dark, lifeless place.
One door existed in that hallway. And that one door is where our story begins. There was a dream, and a police car. That’s all I remember about that day. I was twelve.
“Cobalt! Cobalt!” I heard my mom’s hoarse voice wailing my name. I woke up from my state of elsewhere, having dreamt about a strange place that resembled a castle. I saw the police car fly down the street, leaving me clueless and confused. The only inhabitants of this house were me and my mom, so I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do.
I remembered the neighbors staring, with their bleached blonde hair and their fake smiles and their bitter politeness. I could see the contempt held for my mother in their eyes. I walked back into the cream colored building, into the mess of a place that I called home.
“Child?”
“I’m not a child.”
“Young lady, may I ask a few questions?” Startled, both at the unfamiliar voice, and my audacity, I turned around and saw a police officer. His large stature towered across my doorway; I couldn't escape if I wanted to, for even as a twelve year old, I knew that jumping off the balcony would be pure suicide.
“Who are you? What have you done with my mom?”
“I’m Officer Riley Thomas.”
“Oh so a cop. I get it. You know,” the sound of his voice really bothered me. “You could have taken her a bit more gracefully, I mean, you could have let her say goodbye. Here I am on my balcony, my mom was just whisked away by a police car, I have no idea why, and you want to ask me questions!?” I asked. “I was sleeping, for Pete’s sake! And I demand an explanation.” My diatribe ended with a bang, and I saw that I had won this Officer over.
“Alright,” he saw my smirk, a mutual understanding that he had lost this battle, but he wasn’t about to relent. “First you need to answer a few questions. Standard protocol for cases like these.”
“And how many 'cases like these' do you get around here? I’m sure 'Standard Protocol' really matters.” I gave him a look that silently expressed that he and I both knew this battle was over, so he should stop trying.
“Just a few questions, Miss,”
“Cobalt.” I snapped. “The name’s Cobalt.”
“Does your mom have a garden anywhere?”
“Hold on. You arrest her, want to ask me questions, and now you’re asking about a garden!? What kind of officer are you?”
“Okay. We can do this the easy way, or I can take you to the police station and you can be questioned there. Which do you prefer?”
“Will I come back to the house?”
“Someone has already agreed to be your legal guardian until you turn of age.” Of age? I thought, that’s like, six years away!
“Someone as in, you say you’re taking me to a house but I end up in a -”
“Your legal guardian,” drowning me out, Officer Thomas continued on, “Is now Jethro Black.”
I couldn't mask the shock on my face, as it had been years since I had last thought about, or heard that name. Dad never gave me the soccer lessons and took me to baseball games the way all the other girls were. It was simple, he was never there. The questions stopped themselves when I was older, but I never stopped wondering why he had left us. Everyone who knew him said that we looked alike. But how would I know? I could never recall seeing him once, although early photographs from my life told the story differently. They showed that he left after I was two months old. Still, you don’t remember much from when you were two months old. Eleven and a half years later, this man who abandoned me, had agreed to take me in as his own.
“Why did you take mom? Where is she? Will I ever see her again?” I felt my heartbeat surge, as an enormous ball of fury rose throughout my body. I didn’t understand. Did my dad enjoy putting me through this misery?
“ANSWER ME!” I shouted. I couldn't stop the tears rolling down my face. The world had never made any sense to me, but now I was truly confused and utterly alone. And the damn police officer was not helping.
“Cobalt, just bear with me alright?”
“I want the answers. I know you have them.”
“We received an anonymous tip that your mother was operating a full fledged business in her basement.”
So this was about a business? “I thought businesses were good.”
“She uh,” he seemed unable to spit out the remainder of the sentence, leaving me thoroughly pissed off.
“Finish your goddamn sentence already. What the hell is going on!?” and I, was losing my patience.
“SHE RAN A POT BUSINESS IN YOUR BASEMENT.”
Okay. My first thought was pots. Like actual pots, you know the ones that people cook their eggs and rice in? Do they even cook rice in pots? And then I figured it out. Pot. Like the marijuana pot.
“Mom was a drug dealer?” no wonder she never let me into the basement. That explained why I thought every other mom was always so serene compared to mine. “I think,” I said, continuing on, “that life makes sense now.” I felt as if my life was piecing itself together now. Why mom would never let me into the basement, why she would stay down there for long periods of time, and why mom always seemed to have the most random strangers around the house, always going down to the basement.
“How long has she had it for?” as soon as the words escaped my mouth, I knew it was a stupid question. I was the one living with her, I should know.
“I was gonna ask you the same exact thing, Miss Black.”
And then I started to think. Hard. The next thing I know someone’s calling my name and standing above me, and my eyes still hadn’t come to yet.
“Miss Black, can you hear me?”
“What happened? Who are you?” the stark coldness of the air caught in my throat, as I struggled to breathe. My eyes opened to a huge room in front of me, lavished marvelously with crimson and magenta furniture. And a bookcase, of course. This strange lady, wearing a bonnet, was peering over me. I blinked, and sat up.
“Who are you? Where am I?”
It seemed as if I was in some sort of castle, reminding me of the room Belle found herself in, soon after setting her dad free in the Disney classic, Beauty and the Beast. Well, I thought to myself, at least the teapots aren’t talking to me.
“You’re at your dad’s house honey. He’ll be so glad to know that you’ve finally woken up. Oh, I must be off at once! Your father needs to be informed about this lovely event, oh!” the woman exclaimed. She was plump, and to my chagrin, resembled the teapot Belle found herself talking to. “I almost forgot!” she went on. “My name’s Matilda. Ring the bell if you need me!”
I got out of bed, to examine myself in the mirror. I gasped at the sight. Not at the person in question, but at what she was wearing. When I was at the house, I was wearing my favorite blue jeans and a dress shirt. For some reason, I had felt like dressing up that day. In front of this mirror, in this strange, unfamiliar place, I found myself wearing a blue dress, with a black ribbon of satin that was tied in a bow around my waist. I shuddered at the formality of it all. I spotted my black suitcase hidden in a corner, and rushed over to it. The zippers soon revealed my favorite pair of blue jeans and the white dress shirt, neatly folded at the top of my suitcase. I realized I had no Idea what day it was, how long I was knocked out for, or how on earth I managed to get here, inside my dad’s castle. I rang the bell.
“Yes honey?” Matilda said, walking into my room. “Oh my you’ve changed! I thought that dress looked just splendid on you! Oh no, your father will think I haven’t done a good job at all. Sweetie dear, be a doll and tell him I didn’t dress you in that?” I was becoming more and more uncertain of this woman, she kind of creeped me out.
“Where is my father?” I asked. More of a demand, with the tone I used.
“Oh he’s in his study! Would you like to see him? How silly of me! I’ll take you there at once!” I realized that this woman had the most annoying voice I had ever heard. It sounded like a clothespin was pinned to her nose and she couldn’t breathe or talk for the time being. Except that there was no clothespin, and I had a feeling I would be dealing with this lady and her dreaded voice for a long time to come.
“Follow me!” her nasally voice materialized again, and I had no choice but to follow. Where else could I have gone?
I stepped out of my room, into an even more magnificent place. It was literally a castle. Framed portraits and paintings adorned the walls and suits of armor were lined up endlessly in the hallway. Hell, there was even a red carpet underneath me. I followed this lady, Matilda, as she had introduced herself to me, down the long hallway, and a story began to spin.
“You know, Cobalt, you passed out cold. The police officer who dropped you off here said you had a day in the hospital and they wanted to keep you there but he insisted on taking you here, that you would get world class treatment. And better food, of course.”
“How long exactly, was I unconscious for?”
“About four days. The fall off the balcony must have really hit you hard. We gotta call the doctors too; let them know you woke up. Boy, and to think they all thought you were going to be a living vegetable. Thank the lord you’re up and responding.”
I assumed she was waiting for a response from me, maybe to agree with her or something, but there wasn’t really anything to say. I was just grateful to be alive.
“So do you know the story of this castle then?” I finally noticed her accent, and wondered where the hell I was. Definitely not anywhere near North America.
“Sorry, Matilda, but where exactly am I?”
“Oh you’re in London sweetheart, your father didn’t tell you?”
I thought it best not to mention that my father had walked out on me before I could even remember him, but for the police officer to have taken me to London? I realized that meant that while I was unconscious, Officer Thomas had decided that I was well enough to fly over the Atlantic to a man’s house, one I barely knew. Seeing my puzzled look on my face, Matilda sighed.
“Don’t ask me how your pretty Officer managed to get you across an ocean when you were blacked out hon, because honestly, I have no i-dea.” she stretched out the I vowel, reminding me of a friend back home, one who had just moved up from down South.
“So you know the story about the castle then? How it’s been on the market for god knows how long, and no one even went near it until your dad came along and bought it? He’s still gotta hold all his meetings elsewhere since no one dares come in.”
“No, actually, I don’t know anything about this castle.” they barely taught you the names of the presidents at school back in the states, so then why on earth would I know anything about London, or this little castle?
“Well here you go. It was the late twentieth century, and this castle was owned by a great man, Robin. His name was Robin Cardinal actually, no pun intended. Ha ha. He named his kid Jaxon. And this house is called the Cardinal House. Sometimes, actually, I hear people call it Jaxon’s Lair when I’m out. I can’t believe they still believe in that myth.”
She seemed to have gone off into a trance, until I asked her, “What myth?”
“Oh right! Well you see, a long time ago, Jaxon’s parent’s decided to vacation off to Scotland one week. And the lovely little teenage Jaxon thought it would be a great Idea to throw a party. You know, one of those huge parties where everyone, and I mean, everyone, was invited?”
I nodded my head, for I was all too familiar with those.
“So everyone comes to the castle, I mean really, what better place to have a party than a castle? And they’re all drinking beer and you know the usual party things kids did back in the day, and this girl shows up.”
“A girl?” I had never really thought about it before, but I guess love existed in the late twentieth century too. I always knew it, as I assume, everyone else in the world does, but it never really struck me until now.
“Oh yes,” Matilda said, continuing on. “Her name was Calyx. Calyx Wild.”
“So tell me about this Calyx,” I said, as we were continuing this long and winding trek to my father’s office.
“Calyx Wild was a beautiful girl, or so the myth says. She was everything any boy could want, but she never seemed to want anyone. All the boys pined after her, and she just stood there, like an angel, never really doing anything, but somehow, in her world, everything got done anyways. So Calyx Wild showed up to this party, and somehow, I don’t know how, so don’t ask me, but somehow, a boy named Christopher, got her to kiss him. Now since Calyx was some kind of a holy angel to those around her, when everyone saw her with Chris, boy, did it spread like wildfire. It just blew through all the brush and pretty soon all the thousand kids at the party knew. And then Jaxon found out. Jaxon loved Calyx more than anything in the entire world, so as you can imagine, when his best friend Christopher started hooking up with the love of his life, oh man. All hell broke loose. And so the story goes like this. The police came, arrested some, everyone else fled from the scene, that is, everyone except for Jaxon, since he lived there, and Christopher and Calyx, who were upstairs, and oblivious to the scene happening below. No one knows what happened to those two, but in Jaxon’s journals, found after he had passed away, he wrote that he locked them into the room that they were occupying, destroyed the key, and got the hell out of there. Which the latter, is true. No one knows what happened to Calyx and Chris. The one person on earth who did, he ain’t on earth anymore. We never even heard about him again until he was on his deathbed.”
“So that’s why no one wanted this house?” I asked. It was a pretty crazy story, I’ll admit that much. I mean, you only saw those things on crime shows really. It’s kind of like believing in ghosts. No one did, until the Phantom of the Opera happened and the movie came out and everyone was scared out of their wits that their theater had a ghost in it too.
“Yup, that’s why! It was really cheap on the market; your dad bought it for about the price you were living in at your New York home back in New York. Isn’t that just a great deal?”
Her southern/London accent was really starting to drive me insane.
“Great!” I exclaimed, with as much fake enthusiasm as I could possibly muster. As much as I was sort of freaked out by my jolly maid telling me a story, a part of me was glad she was conversing with me, as I hated awkward walks with people I didn’t know.
“And here we are, to your dad’s study!” she left me in front of a huge door, intricate with design, and at least twenty feet high.
“Well, go on. Go in!” Matilda’s voice wavered behind me and I began to press on the door handle. The door opened, and then I heard it lock automatically behind me. A second passed and then I realized that that lock may have been intentional, for Matilda was standing right behind me when I opened the door. I looked in the hallway, took a deep breath, and screamed. This was, in no means, my dad’s office. It was the exact same hallway that had been depicted in my dream the day I fell off the balcony, the day my mom was taken away from me.
“LET ME OUT!” I screamed, repeatedly, to Matilda. A part of me, deep down inside, knew that if she had brought me this far, she would not be waiting behind that same door to rescue me.
A faint glimmer caught my eye, and I walked towards it. Anything could be of use to me here; there wasn’t any harm in checking it out. A key. That’s what it was. And it looked like it could get me out of here. Relieved, I turned to try it on the lock. It clicked. I walked outside, only to hear the door shut behind me again. And I found myself back in the same corridor. What, I thought to myself, the HELL IS GOING ON HERE?! Now I was scared. I mean, I don’t believe in stories like the one I had heard on my way to my death, or so it seemed, but now I didn’t think I had a choice. There was a door at the end of the hallway too, and it was glowing. I’m not even kidding you. There was a bright, yellow glow to the door. It looked like sunlight was radiating through it. A great thought for a time like this, Cobalt, I thought to myself. Do something!! More cautious than ever, I half tiptoed half walked to the other side of the hallway, for fear that one of the knight suits lining the hallway would pull a Harry Potter and come alive on me. I mean, after what just happened, who knows what else the world is capable of? Certainly not me.
The door opened really easily actually. It was a standard door. I kinda just had to twist the knob and pull on it. I had no idea what I was expecting, but it was surely not this. A man was tied to the wall in chains, in a prison cell. Literally. The walls were gray, there was one tiny window, and iron bars were protecting it to prevent an inmate from escaping.
“Who are you?” I squeaked. This was weird. Something was wrong. I didn’t like the feeling that was settling in my stomach.
“Who are you?” I repeated it more boldly, not sure if he had heard me the first time.
“My name is Chris.”
“Your name -“ I stopped short as my mind processed what I had just heard. My name is Chris. Matilda wasn’t lying. This wasn’t a game. How on earth had these people managed to find me?
“How long have you been here?”
“A very very long time. I don’t get many visitors around, you know. Did Calyx send you here?”
“Calyx, what?” I processed that too, and fell to my knees. My father was not here, this was all a hoax. A prank. They had the wrong Cobalt Black. I had to get out, and I had to get out fast.
“Who was your last visitor?” cautiously, I approached the man with another question.
“A man. Kinda looked like you, actually. Poor man had a heart attack right in front of me when he saw me in chains.”
“My dad? You killed my dad?” so now, with mom in prison for god knows how long, and dad dead, I was an orphan. Even better.
“I didn’t kill him. Calyx did. She calls herself Matilda sometimes. But no one knows we’re here. She answers to all the calls and letters I think.” I thought about what to do next, and my quick thinking led me to remember the key I had found earlier on the ground, now clenched tight In a fist my right hand was making, “I have a key, let’s get out of here.”
“Oh, oh why thank you. You must really have a charm, I mean, of the few visitors I’ve had, no one’s ever offered to set me free. I doubt any have even thought about it.”
“Yeah no problem.” my one goal in life right now, was to get us both out of there. I fit the key into the spot on the handcuffs, when they too, like the door, began to radiantly glow.
“Oh shoot. Oh shoot. Oh no.” Chris began mumbling, and I was getting really nervous. But before I could even ask him what was going on, a booming voice, from somewhere above resounded throughout the room.
“Christopher.”
“Oh shoot oh shoot oh shoot oh god.”
“Christopher.”
“I’M SORRY. OKAY? WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE? TOO MANY YEARS HAVE GONE BY. I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY.”
I thought back to Matilda, or Calyx, or whoever she was, I really didn’t even know her real name, and then remembered that the party thrown was in the late twentieth century. The late twentieth century was more than ten years ago. How the hell, I thought, have these people managed to survive here?!
“GO”
The voice relented a little, I guess, because it told us to go. The door swung open, and Christopher sprinted out. I followed behind him, fast on his heels. Only, the door slammed shut on me.
“NOT so fast young lady!”
“But you said to go! Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?!”
“Close your eyes.”
The voice was speaking to me. I had no choice but to listen. It was as if god had come down and was talking to me.
“Now count to ten.”
Breathing slowly, I told myself, this is all a dream right? This will be over soon. I pinched myself hard before counting, and it hurt. I guess I wasn’t really sure what this was anymore.
1...2...3...4...5....
“Good. Now open your eyes.” the voice boomed as I reached ten. I screamed with all my might as I took in my surroundings, for I was chained. Chained to a wall, in a gray prison cell, where the window had bars, and where I had no escape. I screamed again, for this was not supposed to be the end.
To Be Continued
My Name is Chris(Casey Chon)
My Name is Chris
Casey Chon
It was a magnificent hallway, lying deep within the parameters of the castle. The ceiling lay hundreds of feet overhead, intricate with patterns that blended into the almond mahogany. Framed portraits and still life adorned the walls of the dark, lifeless place.
One door existed in that hallway. And that one door is where our story begins. There was a dream, and a police car. That’s all I remember about that day. I was twelve.
“Cobalt! Cobalt!” I heard my mom’s hoarse voice wailing my name. I woke up from my state of elsewhere, having dreamt about a strange place that resembled a castle. I saw the police car fly down the street, leaving me clueless and confused. The only inhabitants of this house were me and my mom, so I wasn’t really sure what I was supposed to do.
I remembered the neighbors staring, with their bleached blonde hair and their fake smiles and their bitter politeness. I could see the contempt held for my mother in their eyes. I walked back into the cream colored building, into the mess of a place that I called home.
“Child?”
“I’m not a child.”
“Young lady, may I ask a few questions?” Startled, both at the unfamiliar voice, and my audacity, I turned around and saw a police officer. His large stature towered across my doorway; I couldn't escape if I wanted to, for even as a twelve year old, I knew that jumping off the balcony would be pure suicide.
“Who are you? What have you done with my mom?”
“I’m Officer Riley Thomas.”
“Oh so a cop. I get it. You know,” the sound of his voice really bothered me. “You could have taken her a bit more gracefully, I mean, you could have let her say goodbye. Here I am on my balcony, my mom was just whisked away by a police car, I have no idea why, and you want to ask me questions!?” I asked. “I was sleeping, for Pete’s sake! And I demand an explanation.” My diatribe ended with a bang, and I saw that I had won this Officer over.
“Alright,” he saw my smirk, a mutual understanding that he had lost this battle, but he wasn’t about to relent. “First you need to answer a few questions. Standard protocol for cases like these.”
“And how many 'cases like these' do you get around here? I’m sure 'Standard Protocol' really matters.” I gave him a look that silently expressed that he and I both knew this battle was over, so he should stop trying.
“Just a few questions, Miss,”
“Cobalt.” I snapped. “The name’s Cobalt.”
“Does your mom have a garden anywhere?”
“Hold on. You arrest her, want to ask me questions, and now you’re asking about a garden!? What kind of officer are you?”
“Okay. We can do this the easy way, or I can take you to the police station and you can be questioned there. Which do you prefer?”
“Will I come back to the house?”
“Someone has already agreed to be your legal guardian until you turn of age.” Of age? I thought, that’s like, six years away!
“Someone as in, you say you’re taking me to a house but I end up in a -”
“Your legal guardian,” drowning me out, Officer Thomas continued on, “Is now Jethro Black.”
I couldn't mask the shock on my face, as it had been years since I had last thought about, or heard that name. Dad never gave me the soccer lessons and took me to baseball games the way all the other girls were. It was simple, he was never there. The questions stopped themselves when I was older, but I never stopped wondering why he had left us. Everyone who knew him said that we looked alike. But how would I know? I could never recall seeing him once, although early photographs from my life told the story differently. They showed that he left after I was two months old. Still, you don’t remember much from when you were two months old. Eleven and a half years later, this man who abandoned me, had agreed to take me in as his own.
“Why did you take mom? Where is she? Will I ever see her again?” I felt my heartbeat surge, as an enormous ball of fury rose throughout my body. I didn’t understand. Did my dad enjoy putting me through this misery?
“ANSWER ME!” I shouted. I couldn't stop the tears rolling down my face. The world had never made any sense to me, but now I was truly confused and utterly alone. And the damn police officer was not helping.
“Cobalt, just bear with me alright?”
“I want the answers. I know you have them.”
“We received an anonymous tip that your mother was operating a full fledged business in her basement.”
So this was about a business? “I thought businesses were good.”
“She uh,” he seemed unable to spit out the remainder of the sentence, leaving me thoroughly pissed off.
“Finish your goddamn sentence already. What the hell is going on!?” and I, was losing my patience.
“SHE RAN A POT BUSINESS IN YOUR BASEMENT.”
Okay. My first thought was pots. Like actual pots, you know the ones that people cook their eggs and rice in? Do they even cook rice in pots? And then I figured it out. Pot. Like the marijuana pot.
“Mom was a drug dealer?” no wonder she never let me into the basement. That explained why I thought every other mom was always so serene compared to mine. “I think,” I said, continuing on, “that life makes sense now.” I felt as if my life was piecing itself together now. Why mom would never let me into the basement, why she would stay down there for long periods of time, and why mom always seemed to have the most random strangers around the house, always going down to the basement.
“How long has she had it for?” as soon as the words escaped my mouth, I knew it was a stupid question. I was the one living with her, I should know.
“I was gonna ask you the same exact thing, Miss Black.”
And then I started to think. Hard. The next thing I know someone’s calling my name and standing above me, and my eyes still hadn’t come to yet.
“Miss Black, can you hear me?”
“What happened? Who are you?” the stark coldness of the air caught in my throat, as I struggled to breathe. My eyes opened to a huge room in front of me, lavished marvelously with crimson and magenta furniture. And a bookcase, of course. This strange lady, wearing a bonnet, was peering over me. I blinked, and sat up.
“Who are you? Where am I?”
It seemed as if I was in some sort of castle, reminding me of the room Belle found herself in, soon after setting her dad free in the Disney classic, Beauty and the Beast. Well, I thought to myself, at least the teapots aren’t talking to me.
“You’re at your dad’s house honey. He’ll be so glad to know that you’ve finally woken up. Oh, I must be off at once! Your father needs to be informed about this lovely event, oh!” the woman exclaimed. She was plump, and to my chagrin, resembled the teapot Belle found herself talking to. “I almost forgot!” she went on. “My name’s Matilda. Ring the bell if you need me!”
I got out of bed, to examine myself in the mirror. I gasped at the sight. Not at the person in question, but at what she was wearing. When I was at the house, I was wearing my favorite blue jeans and a dress shirt. For some reason, I had felt like dressing up that day. In front of this mirror, in this strange, unfamiliar place, I found myself wearing a blue dress, with a black ribbon of satin that was tied in a bow around my waist. I shuddered at the formality of it all. I spotted my black suitcase hidden in a corner, and rushed over to it. The zippers soon revealed my favorite pair of blue jeans and the white dress shirt, neatly folded at the top of my suitcase. I realized I had no Idea what day it was, how long I was knocked out for, or how on earth I managed to get here, inside my dad’s castle. I rang the bell.
“Yes honey?” Matilda said, walking into my room. “Oh my you’ve changed! I thought that dress looked just splendid on you! Oh no, your father will think I haven’t done a good job at all. Sweetie dear, be a doll and tell him I didn’t dress you in that?” I was becoming more and more uncertain of this woman, she kind of creeped me out.
“Where is my father?” I asked. More of a demand, with the tone I used.
“Oh he’s in his study! Would you like to see him? How silly of me! I’ll take you there at once!” I realized that this woman had the most annoying voice I had ever heard. It sounded like a clothespin was pinned to her nose and she couldn’t breathe or talk for the time being. Except that there was no clothespin, and I had a feeling I would be dealing with this lady and her dreaded voice for a long time to come.
“Follow me!” her nasally voice materialized again, and I had no choice but to follow. Where else could I have gone?
I stepped out of my room, into an even more magnificent place. It was literally a castle. Framed portraits and paintings adorned the walls and suits of armor were lined up endlessly in the hallway. Hell, there was even a red carpet underneath me. I followed this lady, Matilda, as she had introduced herself to me, down the long hallway, and a story began to spin.
“You know, Cobalt, you passed out cold. The police officer who dropped you off here said you had a day in the hospital and they wanted to keep you there but he insisted on taking you here, that you would get world class treatment. And better food, of course.”
“How long exactly, was I unconscious for?”
“About four days. The fall off the balcony must have really hit you hard. We gotta call the doctors too; let them know you woke up. Boy, and to think they all thought you were going to be a living vegetable. Thank the lord you’re up and responding.”
I assumed she was waiting for a response from me, maybe to agree with her or something, but there wasn’t really anything to say. I was just grateful to be alive.
“So do you know the story of this castle then?” I finally noticed her accent, and wondered where the hell I was. Definitely not anywhere near North America.
“Sorry, Matilda, but where exactly am I?”
“Oh you’re in London sweetheart, your father didn’t tell you?”
I thought it best not to mention that my father had walked out on me before I could even remember him, but for the police officer to have taken me to London? I realized that meant that while I was unconscious, Officer Thomas had decided that I was well enough to fly over the Atlantic to a man’s house, one I barely knew. Seeing my puzzled look on my face, Matilda sighed.
“Don’t ask me how your pretty Officer managed to get you across an ocean when you were blacked out hon, because honestly, I have no i-dea.” she stretched out the I vowel, reminding me of a friend back home, one who had just moved up from down South.
“So you know the story about the castle then? How it’s been on the market for god knows how long, and no one even went near it until your dad came along and bought it? He’s still gotta hold all his meetings elsewhere since no one dares come in.”
“No, actually, I don’t know anything about this castle.” they barely taught you the names of the presidents at school back in the states, so then why on earth would I know anything about London, or this little castle?
“Well here you go. It was the late twentieth century, and this castle was owned by a great man, Robin. His name was Robin Cardinal actually, no pun intended. Ha ha. He named his kid Jaxon. And this house is called the Cardinal House. Sometimes, actually, I hear people call it Jaxon’s Lair when I’m out. I can’t believe they still believe in that myth.”
She seemed to have gone off into a trance, until I asked her, “What myth?”
“Oh right! Well you see, a long time ago, Jaxon’s parent’s decided to vacation off to Scotland one week. And the lovely little teenage Jaxon thought it would be a great Idea to throw a party. You know, one of those huge parties where everyone, and I mean, everyone, was invited?”
I nodded my head, for I was all too familiar with those.
“So everyone comes to the castle, I mean really, what better place to have a party than a castle? And they’re all drinking beer and you know the usual party things kids did back in the day, and this girl shows up.”
“A girl?” I had never really thought about it before, but I guess love existed in the late twentieth century too. I always knew it, as I assume, everyone else in the world does, but it never really struck me until now.
“Oh yes,” Matilda said, continuing on. “Her name was Calyx. Calyx Wild.”
“So tell me about this Calyx,” I said, as we were continuing this long and winding trek to my father’s office.
“Calyx Wild was a beautiful girl, or so the myth says. She was everything any boy could want, but she never seemed to want anyone. All the boys pined after her, and she just stood there, like an angel, never really doing anything, but somehow, in her world, everything got done anyways. So Calyx Wild showed up to this party, and somehow, I don’t know how, so don’t ask me, but somehow, a boy named Christopher, got her to kiss him. Now since Calyx was some kind of a holy angel to those around her, when everyone saw her with Chris, boy, did it spread like wildfire. It just blew through all the brush and pretty soon all the thousand kids at the party knew. And then Jaxon found out. Jaxon loved Calyx more than anything in the entire world, so as you can imagine, when his best friend Christopher started hooking up with the love of his life, oh man. All hell broke loose. And so the story goes like this. The police came, arrested some, everyone else fled from the scene, that is, everyone except for Jaxon, since he lived there, and Christopher and Calyx, who were upstairs, and oblivious to the scene happening below. No one knows what happened to those two, but in Jaxon’s journals, found after he had passed away, he wrote that he locked them into the room that they were occupying, destroyed the key, and got the hell out of there. Which the latter, is true. No one knows what happened to Calyx and Chris. The one person on earth who did, he ain’t on earth anymore. We never even heard about him again until he was on his deathbed.”
“So that’s why no one wanted this house?” I asked. It was a pretty crazy story, I’ll admit that much. I mean, you only saw those things on crime shows really. It’s kind of like believing in ghosts. No one did, until the Phantom of the Opera happened and the movie came out and everyone was scared out of their wits that their theater had a ghost in it too.
“Yup, that’s why! It was really cheap on the market; your dad bought it for about the price you were living in at your New York home back in New York. Isn’t that just a great deal?”
Her southern/London accent was really starting to drive me insane.
“Great!” I exclaimed, with as much fake enthusiasm as I could possibly muster. As much as I was sort of freaked out by my jolly maid telling me a story, a part of me was glad she was conversing with me, as I hated awkward walks with people I didn’t know.
“And here we are, to your dad’s study!” she left me in front of a huge door, intricate with design, and at least twenty feet high.
“Well, go on. Go in!” Matilda’s voice wavered behind me and I began to press on the door handle. The door opened, and then I heard it lock automatically behind me. A second passed and then I realized that that lock may have been intentional, for Matilda was standing right behind me when I opened the door. I looked in the hallway, took a deep breath, and screamed. This was, in no means, my dad’s office. It was the exact same hallway that had been depicted in my dream the day I fell off the balcony, the day my mom was taken away from me.
“LET ME OUT!” I screamed, repeatedly, to Matilda. A part of me, deep down inside, knew that if she had brought me this far, she would not be waiting behind that same door to rescue me.
A faint glimmer caught my eye, and I walked towards it. Anything could be of use to me here; there wasn’t any harm in checking it out. A key. That’s what it was. And it looked like it could get me out of here. Relieved, I turned to try it on the lock. It clicked. I walked outside, only to hear the door shut behind me again. And I found myself back in the same corridor. What, I thought to myself, the HELL IS GOING ON HERE?! Now I was scared. I mean, I don’t believe in stories like the one I had heard on my way to my death, or so it seemed, but now I didn’t think I had a choice. There was a door at the end of the hallway too, and it was glowing. I’m not even kidding you. There was a bright, yellow glow to the door. It looked like sunlight was radiating through it. A great thought for a time like this, Cobalt, I thought to myself. Do something!! More cautious than ever, I half tiptoed half walked to the other side of the hallway, for fear that one of the knight suits lining the hallway would pull a Harry Potter and come alive on me. I mean, after what just happened, who knows what else the world is capable of? Certainly not me.
The door opened really easily actually. It was a standard door. I kinda just had to twist the knob and pull on it. I had no idea what I was expecting, but it was surely not this. A man was tied to the wall in chains, in a prison cell. Literally. The walls were gray, there was one tiny window, and iron bars were protecting it to prevent an inmate from escaping.
“Who are you?” I squeaked. This was weird. Something was wrong. I didn’t like the feeling that was settling in my stomach.
“Who are you?” I repeated it more boldly, not sure if he had heard me the first time.
“My name is Chris.”
“Your name -“ I stopped short as my mind processed what I had just heard. My name is Chris. Matilda wasn’t lying. This wasn’t a game. How on earth had these people managed to find me?
“How long have you been here?”
“A very very long time. I don’t get many visitors around, you know. Did Calyx send you here?”
“Calyx, what?” I processed that too, and fell to my knees. My father was not here, this was all a hoax. A prank. They had the wrong Cobalt Black. I had to get out, and I had to get out fast.
“Who was your last visitor?” cautiously, I approached the man with another question.
“A man. Kinda looked like you, actually. Poor man had a heart attack right in front of me when he saw me in chains.”
“My dad? You killed my dad?” so now, with mom in prison for god knows how long, and dad dead, I was an orphan. Even better.
“I didn’t kill him. Calyx did. She calls herself Matilda sometimes. But no one knows we’re here. She answers to all the calls and letters I think.” I thought about what to do next, and my quick thinking led me to remember the key I had found earlier on the ground, now clenched tight In a fist my right hand was making, “I have a key, let’s get out of here.”
“Oh, oh why thank you. You must really have a charm, I mean, of the few visitors I’ve had, no one’s ever offered to set me free. I doubt any have even thought about it.”
“Yeah no problem.” my one goal in life right now, was to get us both out of there. I fit the key into the spot on the handcuffs, when they too, like the door, began to radiantly glow.
“Oh shoot. Oh shoot. Oh no.” Chris began mumbling, and I was getting really nervous. But before I could even ask him what was going on, a booming voice, from somewhere above resounded throughout the room.
“Christopher.”
“Oh shoot oh shoot oh shoot oh god.”
“Christopher.”
“I’M SORRY. OKAY? WHAT ARE YOU STILL DOING HERE? TOO MANY YEARS HAVE GONE BY. I’M SORRY I’M SORRY I’M SORRY.”
I thought back to Matilda, or Calyx, or whoever she was, I really didn’t even know her real name, and then remembered that the party thrown was in the late twentieth century. The late twentieth century was more than ten years ago. How the hell, I thought, have these people managed to survive here?!
“GO”
The voice relented a little, I guess, because it told us to go. The door swung open, and Christopher sprinted out. I followed behind him, fast on his heels. Only, the door slammed shut on me.
“NOT so fast young lady!”
“But you said to go! Who are you? Why are you doing this to me?!”
“Close your eyes.”
The voice was speaking to me. I had no choice but to listen. It was as if god had come down and was talking to me.
“Now count to ten.”
Breathing slowly, I told myself, this is all a dream right? This will be over soon. I pinched myself hard before counting, and it hurt. I guess I wasn’t really sure what this was anymore.
1...2...3...4...5....
“Good. Now open your eyes.” the voice boomed as I reached ten. I screamed with all my might as I took in my surroundings, for I was chained. Chained to a wall, in a gray prison cell, where the window had bars, and where I had no escape. I screamed again, for this was not supposed to be the end.
To Be Continued
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