eh..possible novel somewhere down the road

i was thinking of expanding this into my second novel but, i don't know, i don't have much ideas for it. For the skeleton...something like a reverse Alice In Wonderland

Prologue

 

                The sun rose; both bright and bleak. Bright to the ones who were outside these cemented walls and bleak for the ones inside them.

                She awoke with a pain in her withered hip. Probably from the fight last night, she thought as she cracked and bent to sit up on her own. The jacket she wore made this difficult. The “Love Jacket” the nurses called it, since you hugged yourself real tight when it was put on you. She’d been wearing it for three weeks straight; a new record at the ward. But she still smiled when she accomplished sitting up in bed. She looked at the small window in her room, at the sun that was now shining and making little shadows on the cold floor.

                A few light taps came from behind the door.  A square shouldered but sweet looking lady appeared as the solid door opened and she spoke behind the bars that still barricaded the nurse from entering the room. “Miss Gypsy, it’s time for you take your—”

                “I know, I know,” she said sitting balancing her butt on the thin bed.  “Come in dear and give them to me.”

                “You seem to be in a rather nice mood today. After the tussle you got in with the guards last night over your nightly pills I was afraid you’d be in a foul mood this morning.” The nurse opened the bars like a gate with her own key and closed and locked them again behind her. She carried a small clear plastic cup and in it was an assortment of brightly colored pill tablets.

                “Oh, no fighting for me today. Nope. Today will be a good day for me. Today is the day. Today really is the day. Today—”   

                “Yes, yes, I know,” the nurse interrupted her babbles. “Now open, please.” She tilted the plastic cup to Gypsy’s mouth, which she opened, and the nurse spilled all the tablets into her mouth. She swallowed. “You always say that.”

Ch. 1

                “Rosie! Rosie Bell! Stop biting your nails. You’ll make them bleed,” Mother scolded you.

                You looked up at your mother and stared for a moment, fingers still in your mouth, and you slowly put your arm back at your side. Indeed, to Mother’s unawares, your nails were already bleeding. You felt the red ooze seep out of the tiny little veins behind your broken nails and you felt it coat your fingertips. But you hid them from Mother; she was already tempted to take the back of her hand to your small round face. You were confident she wouldn’t though. Slapping a child was mostly frowned upon these days, and to a five year old at that.

                Mother wanted your hand to hold since the crowd was starting to get thicker, but to give her your hand meant she would most likely see the blood from your nails and you couldn’t have that. The sting of her flat palm pushing across your face would be left to bubble your skin away. And the spit from Mother’s words would burn like acid on your cheeks. But her hand was still out, waiting for you to take it with yours.

                “Give me your hand, Rosie,” Mother said after a moment. “We need to cross the street.”

                You looked ahead and sure enough, the little white lit man was shining across the street, indicating you could walk across the hardened black sea. But the fear of Mother’s rage she’d surely have after seeing the blood froze you.

                “Rosie?”

                “No!” You screeched. And you darted away from Mother in the opposite direction, tears of fear beginning to streak your face.

                “Rosie!” You heard your Mother call after you. But you pressed your feet down harder on the pavement, one after the other.

The heels of your feet began to dig into the ground, making it harder for you to run. But the fear of Mother fueled you and soon you were flying. Your feet barely brushed the ground and it wasn’t even necessary. The pavement turned into clouds from the sky and buoyed you up and away. But the skies weren’t that beautiful blue you’d always imagined. Actually, they weren’t much different than the world you were once running in. All except this feeling you had. This must be the skies welcoming me, you thought. You smiled to yourself as you kept bouncing along, remembering how you had escaped from Mother. And you realized, you could use this fear, this fuel, to help you. To help with what, you still weren’t sure. But you had that feeling in your stomach and the clouds tried to tell you something. Of course, they were speaking the language of the clouds, and you could not understand what they were trying to say. But the feelings they had given you was telling you that something was coming.

                The clouds began to deteriorate and they brought you back down into the city pavements, now far away from your mother. You landed on a corner that was overly crowded with busy grownups. Not one looked down at you. The street sign you looked up at read Times Square. This meant nothing to you, but all the lights, even in the daylight, fascinated you. The tall buildings with the moving pictures, people up across a buildings face, talking, moving, laughing, crying. And the sounds, they were moving too. They moved down the street with the cars, honks were carried by the air and into your ears. You had never heard anything like this. The people rushed by you without even a glance. And how would they even see you? You were so tiny that you could pretty much only say hello to knees and thighs, which never answered you back. You twirled and twirled to get everything into one sight, one state of appearance, but you couldn’t. So overwhelming; everything went black.

*****

                “Hello? Hello?” The blackness began to speak. “Can you hear me?”

                The black that once hugged you and paralyzed began to slowly let go. Your eyelids were the first to break free and they banished the blackness away. In its place, was a face. The face looked down at you with gentleness in its young eyes. The eyes were a warm hazel and they embraced the small and pointy nose in between. Even with the young skin overlapping everything, you could see in your daze how strong the curtained jaw line was.

                “Good. You’re awake.” The face spoke as the blackness did. The voice of the black made you afraid. And now that the black has left you mobile, you try to sit up from your back and kick your knees away. But you struggle. “Oh, no, no. I won’t hurt you.” The face promises. Despite the uneasiness you feel, you stop struggling and believe the voice. It is high like a girl’s but a lot of throat stirs behind it, convincing you it is a boy. “Do you know your name?”

                You think a good long time. “Yes…. But I wish I didn’t.” Your voice sounds strange, tired.

                “Why do not want to know your name?” The face curled up in small confusion. The skin on his forehead creased and the eyebrows furrowed together and his eyes squinted in the outer corners at the same moment his lips turned to a harder line. All in all, making him look rather cute.

                His face made you smile and laugh lightly as you answered, “My name is Rosie. But I don’t want to remember my name because I do not like it.” Your voice began to warm a little more, but it still sounded foreign.

                The boy’s face relaxed after you answered and he tilted it to the side. “Rosie…. What would you like to be called then?”

                “I don’t know.” You’d never been asked that question before. Usually when you would bring it up with your mother she’d yell at you how your late father picked that name for you and you’d be keeping it. You never thought of a second name though.

                “Well, until we can figure out another name for you we’ll call you Rosie. All right?”

                “ ‘Kay. What’s your name?”

                “Jackson. Jackson Brown.”

                “Jackson.” You let the name roll around in your brain to find a place. “I don’t want to go back to Mother.” The memory of running away from her became fresh in your mind when you glanced down at your now scabbed over nail beds.

                “You should have something to drink,” Jackson said. “You’ve been asleep for a whole day.”

                That explained why your voice felt so odd. You’d never gone that long without giving your throat a gift. “Oh, yes. It must be angry with me by now.”

                Jackson’s face curled again. “Your throat is angry with you?”

                “Of course. Wouldn’t you be too if no one gave you a drink?”

                He squinted harder as he thought about your logic. Then his face relaxed and he rose from above you to his feet. “I guess so.” He walked across the wooden floor to the sink.

                Now you could see everything in sight. You were in a room, in a house no doubt, with very warm colors around. A small fire was going to the far right of you, which was strange since it was a summer night. But the size of the dancing flames was small to match the size of the house. There were pictures hanging on the walls, but they were too far away to see what smiling prisoners were framed and hanging. You lay on a couch, a rather soft one at that, and a knitted blanket was draped over your legs and waist. Jackson arrived with a clear glass cup filled with the same color but it was liquid. He handed the glass to you and you gripped it tight. You presented your throat with its belated gift and it snatched the liquid greedily, taking it all in one session.

                You could feel the power of Jackson’s eyes beaming down on your face. “Would you like some more?” He asked after the glass was robbed.

                “No,” I replied. “I don’t want my throat to spoil.” You handed him the cup and he took it.

                “Right.” He set the cup down on a table that neighbored the couch I now sat up on. “You’re kind of strange, Rosie,” he told you. You thought nothing of this comment. You got it all the time with Mother and when Father was alive and with everyone else you talked to. It had become a second hello. But you loved hearing it because you knew no one else got this special hello like you. It was yours and you cherished it. “Mama will know what to do when she gets home.”

                “Mama?” You looked back up at Jackson’s handsome face. “Who’s Mama?”

                “My mother.”

                The air closed in on you. “No. I can’t see Mother. No, no, no, no…” You began to babble.

                Jackson sat back on the couch hurriedly and put his palms on your shaking shoulders. The pressure of his hands sent soothing sensation through your body, calming you down and bringing your ramblings to a halt. “Not your mother, Rosie. Mine.” You looked up at him and more tension released.

                “You have one too?”     

                “Of course I do.” He thought the question comical almost. “Everyone does one way or another.” But this was news to you. You thought Mother was one of a kind, a very stern and yelling kind. Now the whole theory you were brought to this world and to Mother and Father five years ago to be punished and perhaps to be fixed was questioned deeply. But you decide to save that for another time; the right time.

                “Okay. I’ll wait. What is your mother like?”

                As Jackson stopped and thought of what to say you noticed a small smile grow and tried to spread of his lips. But it was too weak to dominate the red skin. “Mama is very nice. She’s taken in so many cats that she said were strays. Papa got so mad once. But Mama knows a lot about taking care of sick people. Like when I’m sick, I know I’ll be all right ‘cause Mama knows just what to do.”

                “You make her sound great.”

                “She is. She’s the one that let you sleep here.”

                Something washed over you when you heard this. You weren’t sure what it was because you had never felt it before. But eventually you’d come to realize it was disappointment. “Really? I thought you brought me here?”

                “I did. I saw you fall on the street yesterday. But you wouldn’t wake up when I came beside you and talked to you. Mama taught me that if someone falls and doesn’t wake up but is still breathing you have to make sure nothing is broken and if there’s nothing, they can be moved. And nothing was broken in you so I picked you up and carried you home. And when I told Mama that I found and brought you here, she was still working. She said to lie you down and wait for her to come home. Which should be in a few minutes.”

                It was strange to hear this story, which seemed to be starring you, but you didn’t remember any of it. You figured that the blackness would have wanted to keep you forever and would have if Jackson hadn’t brought you to his home. “Thank you,” you said pitifully.

 

Author's Note

Ignore grammar, most def. Any suggestions?