Chapter 1 page 1

1996

Kaylene pov

The snow icicles swirl in the air, so light, so free, and they end up anywhere they wish they want to lay down. Within a night, the forest was covered with a thick white blanket, making the air colder and vicious. The world has turned white, equality, they said, no matter how big your house, how far your house is, your house will be covered by them.

White fairies.

That is what was told when she was young, those white icicles were a fairy's shedding wings, they flipped up there in the sky, and flipped their wings so they get new ones, every day until they were satisfied with the new wings they get. If theirs was pink and transparent, or black night color, the shedding wings will always be white and cold.

Being up here, on one deserted mountain was hard already, it's winter longer than the ground people usually stay. Up here wasn't always warm, no matter what season, they always get colder air.

How's life down there? In those talking boxes they called television, they always show good interactions, a good place, a warm place, different than this scene. Trees and wild animals, cold and mostly winter than other seasons. Those books, their sheets turned yellow in a matter of a year, yet their knowledge never ceases to amaze her. Human intimacy with each other, how they interact, how they betray each other.

Human.

A creature she is, but still many that confused her. Why do they bicker? Why are they working on their dress and suit and going to do their job and get home tired and stressed out. Why?. Why they walked up on the bus, in a car, and went to those torturous places, they were forced to read books, talk in front of others, and write down something when adults watching them from betraying. Who are they betrayed to? They already sat alone, far from their friends, on their right, on their left, behind, and their front. Examination they said. What was that?

She was never in that place they called the school, they would tell her that she was a home school for almost her entire life. She has no friends, nor does she have those people who would push and kill them in the compartment called the toilet. Her parents wouldn't put her under surveillance like those adults would. But still, she never felt freedom.

She was always here, with many resources yet still many to explore. Up on the mountain, with the clouds always surrounded their place, the chimney always lit up from the morning to the next day's morning, and candles with a few drip wax from it, always as long as her palm and never shorter. With those bricks dolled up with wallpapers, painted, and accessories.

She was getting bored.

Bored of the same view,

The same conversation,

With the invisible restraint around her neck,

There's nothing she could do,

No excuse she can give.

"Something bothering you, sweetheart?."

A soft melodic voice is just as warm as a hot pot of soup in winter, a warm dress to cover, a warm sensation sipping inside her bone. She turned around to face the softly wrinkled face, her dark hair have some layer of grey hair adorning her head waving just below her shoulders. The soft and thick clothes wrapped her up, keeping her warm from the freeze and cold, even the heater doesn't always give the warm they need, not when the temperature was off to coldest.

"Mom."

She whispered. She took some steps off the wide squarish windows pane, shaped like an arch connected on top of it. She took a seat on the thick brown couch, with floral beige small covers on top to beautify it. Her mom follows her movement and took a seat beside her. Another open window allowed the breeze to enter and dance with the curtains, whether they were on the windows pane or the bed's canopy. Her room smells divine, roses and vanilla, it's struck and calmed the nerves.

"You haven't been out so often lately. Is it because of what we discussed?."

Her mom finally pop the question after a few minutes of awkward silence. She sighed heavily seemingly feeling tired from the topic already.

"I am fine. It's not like I am never getting used to being on top of this mountain with the heater constantly breaking down with the longest snow and thicker at that, and having to always check all those livestock! Mom, I am already with this, and I am already a grown-up lady. I am 19, seriously. You can't just lock me up here and expect me to question nothing!."

Her mom picked her skin, and pinched down the nerves she was having inside. She saw her mother's eyes, looking at something that wasn't there on the brown fur rug. She could see her nervousness, perhaps all her complaints already make her parents lose all the solutions to stop her from stepping her feet out from the mountain line and the wide field down there.

"Look, mom. We just had this conversation this morning and I knew dad wasn't pleased with that. And I hope you can leave me some space. I need to calm down."

She softly spoke as she gets up from the couch and to the stool, far from the couch and her mom, between the canopy bed and the open window. Even though the window near the couch has a more interesting view than this, she can't find the feeling to be anywhere here with her mother at the moment. She heard her mother's scarf hit the well-polished floor, and she guess her mother would be out any second from now

.

"Don't let the snow in. You can get flu."

With that reminder, her mother went out, leaving her with her messy thoughts.