chap 1 - Rough Beginnings

The silent night air was especially frigid. The rain was making the cold brutal as Sal trudged his way through the streets. He could barely keep warm as he wraped his cloak closer around himself. Walking down the dirt street toward Gale’s house as he had done so many times before, eagerness gnawed at him from the pit of his stomach. He looked around him at the development of houses wondering if any of them would notice when he was gone.

He crossed the intersecting roads and passed through the split in the hedge. He’d come here so many times that this rift in the mansion’s hedge wall had become the front gate for him. Of the mansions that dotted their small town hers was the largest. He had never known a house to be more fear striking than the one Gale and her father lived in. The house was colored a night sky blue with a porch that looked like someplace demons dwelled. Intricate carvings of demons and serpents stood watch from every door and window frame, the front porch, and the four corners of the roof. It was almost unbelievable that something so simple could look so…evil. Though creepy as it was, it was not the scariest part about their house. The gargoyle statues that dotted the yard struck him as the most realistic statues he had ever seen. They came so close to life-like that he had fear of one coming to life and mauling him. He stopped and looked up at one of them.

“ I still don’t believe your stone.”

He waited for a reply staring at it as hard as he could. He finally gave up waiting and decided that he had best hurry. The maids would soon be running about the house going about their business. He had left close to sun brake and didn’t have much time. He proceeded around the back and walked until he came upon an open window. Gale often read late into the night in their study and usually ended up falling asleep with her nose in the books. She had this affiliation for books that he would never understand. She tried on occasion to try and explain it to him without success. She even tried to get him to read one of them. It was a day Sal never wished to relive.

He knew it was the study because she always had the window open, even now while they were in the middle of a frostless winter.

If her father were around he would have tossed him off the property, personally. He didn’t like Sal very much, to say the least.

He gazed inside, carefully. As usual she was at her desk. She had laid her head down in her arms and fallen asleep with her book still open in her lap. Her light brown hair lay in disarray across her face and slinked lengthily down her back. She was wearing a pink long-sleeved, button-up sweater over her spaghetti-strap spring dress. The pink one with white flowers decorating it, she really liked that one. She always wore dresses whether it was a hot summer day or the dead of winter. She looked quite cute even though she had a rather large string of drool seeping from the corner of her mouth.

Gale wasn’t much like other girls. Engrossed in that state everyone calls teenage she was a beautiful girl of sixteen. She still maintained most of her childish attitude and youthful vigor not befitting the definition she had gained in her body. Since last year her father had started trying to usher her into marriage. He arranged a few meetings with the other wealthy families in hopes she would take a liking to their family and maybe one of their sons. He had about as much luck with that as the people who were trying to make gold from plain stone.

Gale expressed her feelings about being wed very strongly. She has a rather sharp tongue, a gift if you will, but one that her father had repeatedly, yet unsuccessfully, tried to rid her of. It was a rather funny sight to watch. After the third or fourth meeting her father gave up. Gale’s one and only love was the books with which she fell to sleep with every night and no one on this earth could change that.

“ Gale,” he called lowly. “Pssst, Gale.”

She didn’t even stir. Sal watched for a second more in hopes she would wake. No luck. He looked around him and found a tiny rock no bigger than his little fingernail.

“Gale, wake up you log!”

He picked it up and tossed it into the room. Smack! It hit her right in the cheek. She woke with a jump and quickly turned about the room. Though her eyes were open she was obviously still sleeping because she didn’t even notice him standing at the window. She finally noticed the small rock and immediately looked to the window for her answer.

“ Sal,” she said wiping the sleep from her eyes.

“ Yeah it’s me,” he looked at her weird and pointed to her face. “You got a little something on your face.”

She put her hand to her cheek. Feeling the wet spot she blushed and quickly wiped her face dry. After a second she turned in her chair so she was facing the window.

“ What are you doing here,” she asked. “ You know my father doesn’t like it when you come to visit me.” She giggled to herself. 

That much was true, but Gale knew as much as he did that her old man hadn’t caught him since he was small. He had accidentally stumbled into one of the traps her father had set out to catch the rabbits eating his garden. Gale still wouldn’t let it go. Most times, it was hard to tell when she was making fun of him. Her rhetorical question was sorely noted and she continued.

“How is your search going?”

At this Sal could only give a huge smile and turn his head looking for something interesting on the ground.

“It’s going,” came his answer. Gale almost immediately spotted the lie. She gave a sharp gasp.

“ Sal, you found it,” she exclaimed.

“ Shhhh, you wanna wake that relic of a father of yours. I swear that man has ears in the walls.”

Gale leaned in her chair, a gesture that told him she was greatly interested in his answer.

“ Have you really found a way out, Sal,” she said, her voice lowered to a sharp whisper.

“ I can’t really say but I’ve found a door in the mountain. It has to be at least three centuries old. There are carvings that I can’t completely read all around it. I noticed words here and there that suggest a passage through the mountain. I’ve never found anything like this and I have a really strong feeling that it’s a way through the mountains.”

Gale looked him straight in the eye with the most serious face he had ever seen her use. She seemed to be deciding something.

“ Wait,” she said. Gale was quiet for a moment. She was still mauling something over in her head. Suddenly she stood and walked toward the door. “Stay there, I’ll be right back.”

Before he could say anything she was down the hallway and racing up the steps. What could she possibly be doing? Sal wanted to be out of there as fast as he could, but what could he do but wait. He slumped down against the house and wondered about what she could possibly be doing.

Sal looked up toward the sky. The rain had stopped and the clouds were breaking. The horizon was already turning orange with the morning sun. For a moment Sal thought about what he was leaving behind. It wasn’t much, few people acknowledged he existed and even those people only dealt with him when they had to.

Gale had been the only person in the whole village who ever treated him like he was a real person and not trash on the side of the road. When they were kids they were both lonely. Sal was an orphan treated like yesterdays trash. Everywhere he went parents ushered their kids away when he came near, nobody wanted anything to do with him. But Gale, She had it even harder than he did, if you can believe it. Though he was alone he could go anywhere he pleased, but Gale had no such freedom.

Her father was as strict then as he was now, maybe even more so being that she was young and rebellious. He kept her locked away in their house learning proper etiquette and the sort, letting her outside to play for only an hour everyday. Even then she was kept under a close eye and not allowed to venture beyond the grounds. She defied her father when he told her not to have anything to do with him. She usually got in trouble, but she didn’t care. When he asked her why she would do that for him she said, “ You’re my only friend and I don’t want to lose you”. He cried that day. Not only did he have a friend, he had somebody who cared about him.

Suddenly, yelling from inside the house woke him from the bittersweet memory. Brought to full attention he stood and chanced a look through the open window. He could hear footsteps racing down the stairs and the all too familiar sound of Gale’s father yelling.

“Young Lady, you come back here this instance! I will not tolerate this insubordination! Gale? Gale! Come back here or so help me!!”

Sal was suddenly confused. What could Gale possibly be doing to anger her father so? His question was answered as Gale came racing around the corner and into the room with a small bag him her hand. Short of breath she called ahead of her.

“ Don’t just stand there, Sal. Get moving!”

Hesitating a moment Sal wondered what she was thinking. But upon the sight of her father rounding the corner, he thought it best to save that question for latter. Gale leapt the windowsill into the yard and kept running. Sal stared after her and then glanced back at her father. For a brief moment Sal saw the love and concern the old man had for his daughter. Then his eyes fell on him and his face hardened into a mask of hate and disgust. Sal spun around and ran after Gale. Over his shoulder he could hear Gale’s father yell as he sped away as fast as he could.

“ You filthy good for nothing! I should have known you were behind this!”

Coming to the window, which he was beyond being able to jump in his old age, he stopped and called after Sal at the top of his lungs.

“ You dirt sucking maggot! Come back, here! When I get my hands on you I’ll wring you and chop you into little pieces. Do you hear me, you…” 

Her father’s voice faded as they raced down the damp streets. There was no doubt that going back now would be the end of him. The door was Sal’s only hope of escaping the fate that awaited him for, as Gale’s father would no doubt put it, kidnapping his daughter.

They ran four blocks and turned the corner, finally stopping against a fence to catch their breath. Both of them were bent over and gasping for air. Gale spoke first, her words coming in short bursts.

“ Well, that wasn’t…what I was planning…but it doesn’t matter. By sun fall…we’ll be over those mountains…and out of here.”

“ Yeah? What if we’re not?” Sal took a few stressed breaths, and then continued. “What do we do then, Gale? We don’t know that for sure. What were you thinking? If we go back your father will have me strung up by my neck in the center of town, or so he shouted at me. I fear to think of what he’ll do to you.”

Gale stared at him for a moment as he watched the words sink in. She flopped herself down against the fence and leaned her head back, her gaze thoughtful.  For a few minutes neither of them said a word, and then Gale spoke.

“ If this door isn’t the way out then we can live in the woods. We never come back. All we need is each other. That’s all we ever had, anyway. Just you and me, what do you say?”

Gale looked him in the eyes, holding him there. She was serious about this. It wasn’t the same joke she used to make about them running off together and never coming back. She was truly serious. Sal lowered his head, staring at the ground and for a moment Gale thought he would reject her. Then he gazed up at her shaking his head, a huge smile splitting his face.

“I think your crazy if you’d want to spend the rest of your life with me out there in those ruddy woods, but, what the heck, I’ve got nothing better to do.”

Gale just scoffed and looked away. With that said Sal stood and taking her hand in his helped her to her feet. As Sal lifted Gale she laid both hands on his chest and leaned all her weight into him. She brought her face within inches of his.

“ If we don’t come back I feel it only fair to warn you that I want children.”

Like a blow to the gut, Sal was so shocked by her words that he didn’t even feel Gale shove him. Lying on his back Sal suddenly found himself staring at the sky from the rain soaked dirt. Slowly he realized what had happened and bolted into a sitting position. Bemusement and anger showed clearly in his face.

“ I can’t believe after all these years your still pulling those!”

Gale posed her hands on her hips and gave Sal a wry smile.

“ I can’t believe after all these years your still falling for them! Literally it seems.”

Climbing to his feet Sal could feel his clothe heavy with mud. He turned in a circle trying to get a better look at the mess on his back. Gale could only giggle as she saw the mud covered Sal struggling to wipe what he could from his cloak and trousers.

“ Now, look what your silly tricks have done. I’m covered in mud!”

“ It looks like an improvement to me.”

“ An improvement, eh,” Sal said picking up a lump of mud in his hand. “ Then you won’t mind if I try to improve your look as well. We are going to be spending the rest of our lives together, after all.”

Gale gave a gasp barely ducking the mud ball Sal had heaved at her and began running down the road toward the woods giggling and laughing.

“ Oh, no you don’t,” he called scooping up another ball of mud and began running after her.

Reviews

[BBP]

I like the this story very much. It leaves you guessing what is going on and lets you know there is an undertone of something mythical or magical but doesn't give anything away. Interested in reading more...