by Esther Chen
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Esther Chen
Copyright 2013 by Esther Chen
Contents
Evelyn
About the author
Other works
Evelyn
In the mountains of Gammon Range, there is a small kingdom called Hamless. At the edge of the kingdom, a town called Noham was where a little girl called Evelyn lived. Evelyn has dark hair and blue eyes, and with the constant chill in the mountain air, she also had rosy cheeks on pale cheeks.
The town of Noham, is very small and there are only about a hundred families living in it. Most of the town folk made their living trading with travelling merchants, gathering mountain herbs and hunting the small animals in the mountain selling their pelts and dried meat. All in all, even though it was a trading town, the people were not rich.
Evelyn loved to go into the mountains, and even though her mother often told her about the ‘Man of the mountains’, she preferred going in to the mountains to play rather than stay in the town. The ‘Man of the mountains’ is a monster who carries away bad children, and children who run into the mountains to play but that only happens at night so as long as she returned daily before night fall, she felt reasonably safe.
One day, Evelyn left for the mountain as usual. She was teased again by the other children for pigeons followed her where ever she went in town. She wondered why the birds loved to fly around her, but the dull gray and green feathers and the beady eyes of the birds did not make them look flattering at all.
Huffing and puffing, she made her way up the side of the mountain from the back of the community hall. Here, she found that the pigeons did not follow her, as if the mountain itself was so foreboding that even the birds knew not to venture in.
Sitting on a crop of land facing the town, Evelyn sneezed and wiped her nose against the sleeve of her jacket.
“Coo!” She sneezed miserably. Even her sneezes sounded like those pigeons! No wonder she is called pigeon by the other children of the town.
Evelyn stayed on the crop of land until the sun started making its way to the west side of the mountain.
Making her way back home along the main road of the town, Evelyn noticed a carriage ramble down the road pass her. In this town, carriages are rare and that caught her interest, and she followed the general direction where it went. Trotting down the road, she found that the carriage had stopped outside of her house. Wondering if they were guests, she quickly made her way towards her house.
Her house is the biggest in town, which was only right since her father is the Mayor of Noham. She entered the house through the back door in the kitchen and scurried past the bustling maids and cook, quickly making her way to the front of the house in time to see the Mayor welcome the guests. She hid behind a pillar as she observed the guests. A tall man with dark hair and piercing blue eyes and a boy with hair the colour of golden wheat stood next to the Mayor as he welcomed them warmly. Her half sisters stood next to their father and smiled sweetly at the guests.
“Welcome! Welcome!” The mayor enthused, grabbing the man’s hand in his own, vigorously pumping it. “It’s an honour to have a member of the Group to visit us.”
The man’s thin lips twisted in a cruel smile. “I see you have two beautiful children.”
“Yes, my two daughters, Emilia and Emerald. They are ten this year, I see you have a boy yourself.”
The boy with wheat colour hair bowed in greeting and stayed stoic though out the entire conversation, ignoring the smiles of Evelyn’s two sisters.
“Please stay the night! We will inform you of the time for dinner. A suite of rooms will be prepared for you and your luggage brought up.” The Mayor said, signalling to his butler with a wave of his hand.
“Thank you. Let’s convene in the study before dinner. I need to discuss some business with you.” The man said and walked with the Mayor to his study. Her half sisters tittered and tried to gain the attention of the boy but he ignored their attempts at conversation and trotted up the stairs to his rooms following the butler as he directed several maids and footmen to carry the luggage up the stairs.
“What are you doing here?” a harsh whisper by a maid startled Evelyn from her place behind the pillar.
“I am looking at the guests.” She said, excitedly.
“Well come along. Cook needs your help in the kitchen. There are important guests tonight and we will need to pluck some chickens for dinner.” The maid beckoned to Evelyn and turned towards the back of the house, not bothering to check if the girl followed behind her.
Evelyn took another look at the empty foyer and gave a sign of desolation, wishing that she would be allowed to greet the guests together with her sisters. In silence, she headed towards the kitchen, knowing in her heart that her wish will never come true.
Dinner was a busy event, made more so by the sudden arrival of the guests in the dining room. After the night has ended and the activities of the kitchen wound down, the servants hunched around the big serving table eagerly anticipating the arrival of the butler to signal the start of their own meal.
The dour man appeared at the head of the table, said a short grace and giving a curt nod, the signal for the meal to begin. Hands dove towards the dishes laid out on the table and plates of boiled potatoes passed between people, eager fingers grabbing shreds of leftover chicken from the Mayor’s small party. Delight was on everyone’s faces as they hungrily stuffed their mouths with the thin scrapes of meat.
Evelyn sat at the end of the table along with the other lower level maids and ate her potato silently. The excitement of the day and her brief excursion out of the town into the mountain has exhausted her and all she could think of is her blanket in the room below the stairs. The cook noticed her head bobbing up and down as she struggled to keep awake and sent the nearest boy to send her to bed.
Bundled in her blanket and on the thin mattress, darkness overtook Evelyn as sleep claimed her.
Evelyn woke up with a start. It was the dead of the night and in the darkness of the room, she could hardly make out the shadow of her hands. She lay in the silence, wondering what it was that awoken her. Lying on the mattress, she listened to the rhythmic murmurs and the faint rush of air coming from the lips of the other servants, drifting off to sleep. A muted thump came from above stairs and jolted her back awake. Evelyn lay on her back listening attentively, another thump came from above stairs and this time she was certain that it was not her imagination.
The unfamiliar sound stood out from the old creaky moans of the old house and Evelyn knew that there must be some activity above stairs. She lay there in the darkness, wondering if she should check out the source of the sound. Surely someone, the butler perhaps, would have heard the same sound and came awake. It could not be an intruder, there is no crime in this sleepy town and the dogs her father kept in the yard would have howled at any stranger. The silence of this night is evidence that nothing is wrong this night. Against all evidence, Evelyn felt the compulsive urge to check above the stairs. May be it was the arrival of the guests this evening, she felt an overwhelming curiosity towards the boy. She silently got up from her mattress and crawled gingerly over the sleeping figures of the other maids in the room, lying beside her. She tiptoed to the door and opening it, slipped out of the room. Making her way carefully up the stairs, each creak of the stairs made by the weight of her body upon it sounding like a drum beat to her ears, each sound ringing out in the deafening silence. Perhaps it was the thundering heart in her chest and not the creak of the wood under her feet, but each move she made was torturously noisy to her.
Reaching the top of the stairs, she peered down the corridor, nothing seemed out of place. The flickering flames of the candles on the wall scones casting their glow on to the opposing wall. Another dull thump came from
a room near her and she gulped. Wondering if it was caused by the wind due to some forgotten window left opened by a careless servant, she made her way towards the room. Edging closer to the door, she was about to twist the handle when she realised a thin sliver of light snaked out from a gap in between the door and its frame. Deciding to take a peek instead of opening the door, she edged closer to the gap and looked through it.
She saw a man’s foot and twisting her head to adjust her view, another’s head next to it. Wondering who it could be, she tried to change her view again, when she was suddenly grabbed from behind. A hand came over her mouth to stop her shocked cry as she struggled in the forceful grasp. She struggled as she was forcibly brought into another room and the door closed softly behind her. In the sudden darkness, she realised that her kidnapper was hardly bigger than
