Hey guys! Welcome to my new and slightly more gothic fiction, starring Rachel Weisz as Bethany Foster, the protagonist.

Rating: NC17
Disclaimer: Please don't copy, I will sue, because I'm broke lol.

Cast:
Bethany Margaret Foster (Rachel Weisz)
Maya Mortimer (Mika Boorem)
Lt. Blanchard Richards (Gerard Butler)

*clears throat* on with the Prologue!

PROLOGUE

Being left outside alone meant being an outsider, yearning for acceptance, for the warmth, for humanity, for love. Distanced from the world, from society because of appearance or beliefs.

England is known for its weather, absence of warmth and pelting rains, nights when the pale moon is veiled by dark storm clouds, sinister and looming. The rising of the golden disc in the sky brings the new day, and a promise. But in England, where all is dark and damp, in a time of mourning, and resentment against Germany, the weather seeps into the earth. The buildings are cold and dark, the houses, phantoms, yet the people carry on with smiling faces, a facade, hiding how much they resent and fear the land, the desolate area of Cornwall, and Number 6 Abbey Place.

OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! I've been anticipating this and it's here! *excitement* **hugs you tight** Wow, I'm suckd in already. Good opening.

Chapter 1
The Inn at Abbey Place

Gazing at precipitous stockings and a long, floral hemline Maya admired her aunt’s sense of style. The preteen stood at her bedroom door in a chemise, listening to the Joyce wedge shoes her aunt wore resonate as she crossed the wooden floorboards. The heels echoed as she passed down the hall and followed the large staircase to the lower storey, the scent of jasmine following her in a masquerade, the epitome of feminine beauty, and the epitome of Bethany Margaret Foster, who seemed in herself serendipity. Her waist length locks of ebony set in a practical bun, stubborn strands of hair framing her face, sweetening her emerald eyes that scanned her corsage of orchids, fingers nimble and meticulous. Paired with fiercely red lips, they were the eyes of a succubus as the neighbours would say, she-demon and seductress, the enchantress at Abbey Place.

Maya walked surreptitiously barefoot across the floorboards, with fast footsteps, pale feet a glimmer across the distance. The furniture in the hall was a dark jade, serpentine and Maya passed with a weary look, heading for the oak door of the bathroom. Predisposed to the natural etiquette of the female race as she gazed at her reflection. Her hair she noted, was long and golden like her father’s, pre-Raphaelite. Her glossy hues envied, but never enjoyed by their owner, the child longed for the ample curls and ebony hair of her Aunt Beth. Maya’s cupid bow lips and button nose were pleasant, and she did not mind them. Creating a lather and cleansing her face, Maya observed her most loved feature; emerald eyes, a trait passed from mother to daughter for as far back as she could remember. Sparkling and bright, emanating their own light from within, soulful and mysterious, yet in the case of the preteen, exceedingly cheeky.

A low hum of wind at the window alerted her and she remembered breakfast, her stomach agreeing with a faint grumble, though the notion of porridge unwelcoming. Scuttling away from the bathroom and to a four-poster bed cloaked in black velvet, Maya threw on her clothes for the day; a low waisted skirt of tweed and a white blouse, her mother’s brooch, her only possession left to her daughter not in the form of land or livestock, a simple and elegant thing, an African feline of emerald and silver, to rival her eyes, agile and gracefully alert, leaping over a canvas of cotton savannah. Slipping into buckled shoes, piano fingers secured the clasps and placed a white cardigan over her slender shoulders. Promptly at 9 am, entering a sea of haphazardly strewn clothes, her aunt opened the high windows out of reach, added height from shoes an advantage. A misty fog, wispy and white, had her glow, ethereal; a mother of pearl. Maya guessed this came from age and the radiance of her aunt’s skin.

Bethany smiled gently, picking up an ornate comb as her niece watched her adoringly, and gently passed it through Maya’s hair, each golden strand glossy and soft after given it’s own special treatment. When finished, hair tied into a delicate ponytail, the fuss over breakfast began.

“But aunt, It’s too hot for porridge!” came the futile cry of Maya from the upper landing. “It’s the middle of autumn!”
“And soon it will be winter; today’s fog is a forecast,” Replied the voice of Bethany, silken and sweet as honey wine, not persuaded, preparing a bowl of Maya’s undesired breakfast, alongside a glass of fresh milk. Silent tantrum raging inside the child as she purposely made a ruckus descending the stairs, wrinkled nose and strained eyebrows observed the bowl, a spoon lazily stirring the contents.
“I could feed it to Dover if you don’t stop looking at it like that; he’s very fond of porridge,”
A soft mumble of complaint erupted from Maya as she forced down the ocean of grey cooking, content on making retch faces and contortions at Dover whenever her aunt turned away.
Leaves of iron fell through a phantom of time, their anarchy of colour painting the stone steps on which he crouched. The Requiem for Churchill’s England embodied by a lone warrior; a soldier of respect named Lieutenant Blanchard Richards. His perpetual battle not in the Middle East, but at home in Cornwall. His endless infatuation with Ms Foster an ache, already succumbed, helpless and wanting. Weary heart covered in clovers, tired body and feet, prevented him from standing up, but soon sheer will won. Large and tanned, his fingers enclosed the handle, and he knocked. Once…Twice…Thrice…
Heart skipping a beat at the footsteps echoing behind the giant doors, shadows and fog stood grounded, silent like stone gargoyles, monumental. His face contorted, surprise, bewilderment, betrayal, rage, sorrow; a pantomime of feelings engulfing him, as his cerulean gaze met the emerald of the nine-year-old child, her cherry lips familiar, eyes a piercing gaze he had known long ago, before the conflict, before the rage of Fascism spread the globe.
“We have a visitor! Hurry, hurry! A man at the door!”
He laughed softly and nodded at the child, truthful words too ironic; a man at the door.

***************

oooooh I love it! and I love the reaction to the poridge! tyhats so classic!!!

Yeh! Finally read it! Stupid school keeping me away from your loverly stories ^_^ yay! Cornwall England! I love England!! And I love this story so far, I like the little girl Maya, she's awesome, and I totally get her distaste for porridge hehe.

What can I say about your writing, my angel, but GOODNESS GRACIOUS MARY AGNES! You are truly a poet and a novelist. The way you embibe such energy into your descriptions, such soul into it that makes you think you've known something your whole life yet still new enough tyo prickle your skin, you are indeed an artiste.

Chapter 2 is coming......................

:heartbeat: Pat