Stolen Youth

Chapter 8

*Nathan POV*

Marge is sitting at the little table in the corner eating a croissant she has started baking for tonight. She looks up and sees me.

"Oh hey sweetie. What's up? Why aren't you up getting ready for your party?" She stands up shaking crumbs off her skirt.

"I came to ask you a favour."

"Oh and what's that?" She asks with her smile that makes me feel safe. She has always treated me like a normal person. Not like royalty like everyone else. It was refreshing and showed how much she cares about me.

"I met a girl in town today and it turns out she's here as well. And I found out it's her birthday today as well. I wanted to get her something to make her feel special."

"Oh well isn't that sweet. Well I'm not sure I can cover you to go into town with us having so little time before your party."

"Oh no I wasn't gunna go. I was hoping you might know of something in the house?" I ask holding my hands out in front of me like I was praying for her to know of something.

"Hmmm I mean I don't know of anything specific but your mother has a few boxes in the basement that she keeps all her old jewellery and clothes in that are headed for donation centres. Maybe you can find something in there?"

"You're brilliant. Thank you." I kiss her cheek before turning on my heel and heading for the hallway to the basement door.

I get to the basement stairs and pull the string to turn on the light before heading down. At the bottom of the stairs was a huge open space filled with junk. Mostly antique furniture that hadn't been used in years and random boxes of baby stuff from when we were younger.

I start my search through boxes and a lot of them are just outgrown clothes or nothing of any value or anything I deemed worthy of a gift to Anna.

After what seems like hours but probably only like 20 minutes I have given up hope of finding anything. I had found some of mothers old jewellery but I didn't like any of the pieces. They were nice but not what I imagined for Anna.

I go through a couple more boxes and then clear them out of the way. Behind the last cardboard box I see an old trunk. It's nothing I'd seen before but maybe it had something in it. I open the lid and the smell of lavender and eucalyptus. I see books that look as if they had candles burned on them as they are covered in wax and dried herbs tied with twine in little bundles. I lift a book out and open it. It's written in a language I don't understand or recognize and covered in symbols and pictures, I flip through the pages and after a few pages i flip one and find nestled in the crease is a necklace. White gold heart with diamonds. It's perfect.

I grab it out of the book and lift it up to the light. It is sparkling to the point it almost seems like it is glowing. I shove it into my pocket and head out and up the stairs. I'm going to go to my sister and see if she has a box I can put this in.

I walk up the many flights of stairs and down hallways until I get to my sisters door. I knock waiting for her to open.

"Who is it?" I hear her voice coming from behind the door.

"It's me open up"

I hear high heeled foot steps and then the door opening. She's already ready for the party and is putting in some earrings. She looks at me and smirks.

"You are going to be in so much trouble if your late for the party. You're not even ready yet."

"I was just about to go. Do you have something to put this in?" I hold up the necklace in front of her face.

She takes it from me and holds it in her palm. "It's beautiful who's it for?" She turns and walks into the room.

"Just a gift for someone I met." I say hoping she doesn't pry but I know my sister too well to know she will.

"The girl you were following around like a puppy dog at lunch?" She opens one of her dresser drawers and starts looking through boxes.

"Her names Anna. And if you must know yes, it's her birthday today too."

She grabs a small jewellery box out of the drawer and places the necklace in it nicely and shuts it. "Well I hope she likes it but I don't think it's going to distract her from your horrible personality." She sneers.

She hands me the box. "Thanks but I haven't scared her away yet."

"Because she has no where to go." She mocks back at me.

I turn to leave her room as I put the box in my pocket.

"Hey Nate." I glance at her over my shoulder. "If you actually like this girl sometimes the best gift is just to be there." She gives me a small smile.

I smile back and leave the room. I had to start getting ready or I would be late and I can't be late. I don't want to miss anytime to get to know Anna. I basically run to my room to get ready.

After a shower, I get ready in the clothes my mother has chosen for me. I fix my hair and brush my teeth. As I'm about to leave I grab the box out of the clothes I was wearing earlier and slide it into my pocket. I head down to the party.

I see Anna and start to head over to her. I feel a tug on my arm and see my mother standing behind me.

"A little bird told me you have a crush on one of our guests." She says with a c****d brow.

"Umm maybe kind of. I don't know." I shrug unsure what to say.

"Well honey I just don't want you to get too attached." She says and I can't tell what she means by that.

"I mean no one wants to get their heart broken but I'd prefer that than never knowing if we could have something" I answer knowing that I'm probably coming off as a hopeless romantic or something but it's how I feel.

"It's not always a heart that gets broken, honey." With that eerie statement she turns and walks towards my dad and sister who are mingling with some of our guests. I notice that even though mother invited the two orphanages she also invited some of her more noble guests.

I catch a glimpse of Anna standing at the edge of the dance floor. I walk over and whisper in her ear that she's beautiful.

We have a brief conversation with Mary before she runs off to play with other girls her age. I'm happy to have alone time with Anna. I ask her to dance and we dance to a song. And before anyone can interrupt my time with her I grab her hand and lead her into the garden.

I decide I'm gunna tell her my feelings. I ask about love at first and that conversation didn't go as bad as I thought it would, she didn't turn me down and that is a win in my book.

She turns to leave and I remember the necklace. I had been so worried about the feelings conversation I had almost forgotten. I give her the box containing the necklace and judging by the look on her face she loves it. Her words make me second guess it though. After a bit of convincing that she deserves this she lets me put the necklace on her. It looks beautiful on her neck like it was made for her.

I grab her hand as we head back to the party and she doesn't pull away. Holding her hand now feels different compared to earlier. Maybe the conversation had officially changed our relationship to more romantic leading.

We arrive back at the party and Mary runs up to use with a plate piled high of cake. She's so excited to have cake and I realize it's because she doesn't get to have cake very often. My thoughts were interrupted by the sudden loss of warmth when it comes to my attention that Anna has let go of my hand. I decide to take my leave and mingle with some other people before my mother forces me to and so Anna can enjoy a bit of the night with Mary. Space is good right?

I walk over to my sister who is having a boring conversation filled with the normal small talk of weather and how beautiful the party is.

"Hey do you know where mom went? She is supposed to make a speech or something soon." Eden asks.

"No idea. I'll go check inside." I pardon myself and head inside. I check her office and she's not there so I kind of just meander up and down hallways until I make my way to the kitchen. I hear voices coming from inside.

"Why did you leave me that note?" A female voice comes from inside the kitchen. I recognize that voice. I mean of course I would it's the most beautiful voice I've ever heard. Anna was in there talking to someone.

"Because I need to warn you about the real reason we are here." A male voice speaks which is also familiar but I can't quite place it.

I sneak closer to the door to hear better.

"And what reason would that be?" Anna replies.

"I don't know. I just know that the queen has something awful planned for you girls tomorrow morning." I peek around the corner to try and see who the male voice is. It's Brick. Of course it's brick.

"That sounds crazy you know that right?" Anna is saying everything I'm thinking.

"I know how it sounds but I need you to be aware of it. I tried to tell you yesterday but you ran away." Brock explains to a very unamused Anna.

"Where would you even hear something like that?" Anna questions.

"I overheard one of the queens guards while they were in town. They were speaking at the pub about how after tomorrow there'd be 15 less orphans running around."

"What were you doing at the pub?"

"I clean there sometimes for some extra cash. What does it matter?"

"It doesn't I guess. But why do you think it's us girls and not you boys." Anna seems sceptical. Which I understand as what I'm hearing makes no sense.

"Because the boys are leaving after the party...." He pauses like it's something she should've known, even I didn't know that.

"Oh I didn't know. But what's going to happen? Like are we gunna get sold or something?" She nervously chuckles at her own question.

"I don't know I just know that the queen has something planned" Brick answers back.

"Well what am I supposed to do? Run away? Try to stop her?" Anna crosses her arms in front of herself.

I decide it's time to put this nonsense to an end. My mother is something but not some villain. "You know you sound crazy right?" I say startling them out of their conversation.

"How much did you hear?" Anna asks. I walk up beside her.

"Enough. I know my mom is intimidating but she's not evil."

"I'm sorry Your Highness. I didn't mean to offend you. I was just passing on what I had heard" Brick explains.

"Well I'm sure there's an explanation why don't we find out?" I question at both of them.

"Like go ask her?" Anna asks. I giggle at the innocence of her question like someone is just going to willingly admit something like that.

"No." Brick and I say in unison.

"We'll go snoop in her room. Some old fashioned sleuthing." I finish what I can only assume is both brick and ours thoughts.

Anna and brick both nod their heads in agreement. I put my arm around Anna waist and motion for brick to lead the way out of the kitchen.

He heads out ahead of us and I guide Anna in front of me with my hand. Mostly because I just want to touch her a bit longer.

"So where are we going? This is your house not mine." Brick says as we get into the hallway.

I grab Anna's hand and walk ahead of him. I smile a bit when she doesn't pull her hand away just follows. I know I should've asked or at least offered it but I didn't think of it at the time. I just wanted her closer to me than Brick.

I lead us up the stairs and into the hallway that has my mom and dads bedroom and her office.

"We should split up to be quick we don't have much time. Brick go in here it's my parents bedroom." I point to the door to my left. I lead Anna and I to a door down one room and on the right.

I open the door and it's pitch dark. I flip the light switch and the room lights up. I let go of Anna's hand and she immediately starts looking through books on the bookshelf.

"What am I looking for?" She asks me.

"I don't know anything suspicious?" I shrug my shoulders.

We search a few different places and come up with boring work stuff like taxes and town infrastructure plans. Every once in a while I catch Anna peaking glances at me. Then I come to the bottom drawer of my moms desk. I push a lot of stuff to the side and find nothing. Then on the bottom of the drawer I feel a tab. I pull it up and it reveals a false bottom.

"Anna come here."

Anna comes over and we both gawk in shock at what I found. Definitely suspicious. In the false bottom is a book. I take it from the drawer and hand it to Anna.

She grabs it from me. "This is a spell book." She says to me.

"How do you know?" I ask.

"It says it on the front. Spells of the dark coven."

I look at her then the book. "You can read that? It's in a different language."

"What? Um no I don't know, maybe I've seen it before."

"Well why would that be in my mothers desk." I ask trying not to ponder about the weird language apparently Anna can read.

"I don't know" she opens the book and starts flipping through it. She comes to a page that has my mothers writing in the margins.

"Wait that's my moms writing." I take the book from her. In the margins my mom has written 'Joy's school for girls-15 girls.' That's the name of Anna's orphanage. We look at each other with confused looks. The spell on the page looks dark just based on the colours. It is bright red writing and then black symbols.

Then we hear the door creak open.

"Shit."