CHAPTER III

Chapter 03

"I have a right to abuse my birthplace."– North and South, Elisabeth Gaskell

Looking back at the footsteps he has left, on his wake, as he strode along through the snow; the sense of such meanings as fear and torment started to draw an image before my eyes. I was not to make it to the ceremony, I was doomed. I couldn't lift my head up, walk an inch, nor move my neck: I was pinned, crippled in one place. Thoughts of wrath, violence and anger started to flash and glow in my brain and they mingled with fear, fright, and pain. He was laming me with a single touch.

At the end of the circle the trees had made, near me, he paused with a darkened glow. He stood there a moment, a breath away from me. Chest heaving, his eyes traveled up and down my body, in which the blood shall start to freeze cold if I were not to do anything against the hand he was grasping my wrist with.

I kept feeling those dark blue eyes on me, again, looking right through me as though my skin was but a see-through garment that he had no trouble casting off me. I wanted to scream, to yell and wipe up any smirk he had on his face.

This time, there was much more light to enable me to take my plan-breaker fully in.

Moving my eyes to the rest of his face, I frowned and turned my head away; for there was no smirk worn upon his features: there was only confusion drawn. I could not help liking the tall, graceful young man who was standing in front of me, enfeebling me with such an astounding hight and a single touch. His romantic, ebony-white face and worn expression interested me too much, and I didn't like that. There was something in his low husky voice that was absolutely fascinating. His cool, white, snowflake hands, which one of the two was still holding me captive, even, had a subtle charm of their own. They moved, as he spoke, like a rhyme they needed to follow- a rhyme that was unearthly, and holy from the seventh skies. I felt afraid of them, nonetheless, and also ashamed of being afraid.

Seen thus, from the hazey and frosty darkness in which he stood with an aura of an emperor, he seemed to be crowned with flames, and to drown in a mist of heat and confusion. He seemed to be as helpless as I was, but unlike me he was not fighting it, nor frightened of it. Instead, like a lost puppy he was trying to understand what was happening. The bump on his perfect, lifeless, ebony neck that was engraved to be admired was set tight, and I dared not lift my head further to his face again.

Bringing his fingers to my cheek, he ran his thumb along my chin before lifting my head up to meet his gaze. His eyes getting me mesmerized all over again.

He elevated his dark eyebrows- in which silver color of the shimmering stars started to creep in- and kept staring at me in wonder and confusion through the deep blue wreaths of deep ocean that was his eyes. " It was rather rude," said he, finally, in the same musical voice again, " You fleeing in a haste, not answering the question I addressed you," his hold on me never loosening.

He looked no villager, but, somehow, everything about him seemed to strike my mind with an old memory. Everything about him seemed to be familiar like a danger that had possessed the power over me a long time ago once upon a childhood day. Everything about him, the tall figure he was fashioned with, the cold hands that were attached to him. Everything.

Sensing my panic, he grinned at me, and said," I'm not going to bite; I have already been fed."

Terrified, I tried to hold my ground despite the strong urge that bursted through my body as though to demand,or, even, beg of me to run as fast as I can.

"You are a stranger. You're not from around here," I managed to say.

"A stranger? That I am. But I belong to this shitty hellhole alright."

I gaped at him, but he seemed indifferent– almost nonchalant to my staring. It seemed not to bother him at all and that encouraged me to carry on. Although, there was but little light to enable me to see his full face, I could swear that his jaw would be able to cut trough paper. Impeccable. "Yes," I said, answering his former question. " I, indeed, am going to the festival."

He didn't seem one bit surprised, and effortlessly said, " You country girls are so simple. You never care to evolve."

"We never care to change, for our beliefs are what makes us. We are born this way." I flashed him a smile and moved my eyes around, looking for the box.

"You have done a great job with those larks, you know? Was skinning part of the ritual? because if it were, I fear, you have missed it. Need some help?" He asked, scarily in a calm tone.

Holding the box open in his free hand, he seemed unbothered, and relaxed despite the shivering tingle his other hand was sending through my body. Looking down at the burnt lark and the frozen one in the open box, I was furious. "For a good cause they are to be used. The Mother knows best," I said.

"Of course, The mother," moving his hand around, he replied in disdain. And in one sudden movement, he let go of my hand, and the bats above our heads silenced their screeching, eager, to witness what was to come next as my body returned to its normal heat. Not much to impress them.

Looking him straight in the eye, I said, "You could get away with calling my hometown hell, for it surely is, often times, you could look at me in disdain, and you have all the right to contempt my beliefs, but don't you ever again utter such morbid things about The Mother in the sacred heart of the bushes!" By the time I finished, I was breathless.

"I never looked at you in disdain," was all he said as the bats started to fly away high above, the frost started to lift up from the grass and the green leaves, and the trees started to move backwards, freeing me to go my way. Looking back at the spot where he was standing a moment ago, he was gone and instead there was the little box. My box.