Guardian Angel
She came from the woods, her hair deserving of jewels and her face as sad as a dying tulip.
She came from the woods, her hair deserving of jewels and her face as sad as a dying tulip.
“Is it true you do not spank me because I am blind?”
Father said nothing. Only his breathing sounded as Miles’ heart sank. It was true, after all. It was not love; it was because he was blind. Disabled. Different.
He was ten years old and already running from the blaze on the horizon where his parents and siblings, servants and friends burned in the flames.
The place smelled of the smell of sadness; salt mixed with ashes and dead rose petals. A cloak of tragedy settled over all those who entered to walk the paths between the burial plots.
They hold me prisoner deep within the earth. It is a world of death and hate.
I miss the sun. Here in these caverns there is only darkness. Even my thoughts are not my own.
The nursery fell quiet as the children stopped playing to listen to his answer. Miles looked in the direction of the governess’s voice. “I want my mother.”
Father picked him up, turned him over his knee, and Miles began to wonder as he wriggled, wanting to sit up but held down by Father’s arm.