The rise of Priscilla

CHAPTER ONE

THE RISE OF PRISCILLA

Normal day for a normal girl - well almost. Normal is relative. For her, she was normal 

Priscilla Twain was as normal as a girl could get; her birth was textbook. Arriving exactly on her due date and keeping Mrs Twain in labour for only three hours. There was nothing strange about her childhood and she learnt just how parents are told a child should learn. Walking by 10 months and chatting away, she could read her own name by 2 and a half. 

College wasn't easy but it wasn't hard either. Priscilla sailed through her classes without making a remarkable stamp on the campus as intelligent or a rapscallion. It was an experience that left her feeling completely non-plussed about the stories of college life. No outrageous parties or drunken escapades for this girl. 

Once that was finished with she went to work. Office work seemed like the best option for her qualifications in English and IT. So after three interviews she got her job in a financial company in the middle of town. A small office with barely anyone there. Just what she wanted, not to many people for her to remember and not to many people to remember her. 

 She sits there at her desk doing the same things she did the day before, and the day before that, and the day before that. It is mind numbing and she wishes there was a way out but really this was it....life wasn't going to get any better for her now. At twenty six she just knew this. The thing is when people looked at her, they didn't see a normal girl what they saw was well in truth they just didn't see her. At times it was as if she standing just out of the line of sight of everyone she crossed paths with. Work was simple for Priscilla, she was a receptionist so she would enter the building at 8:30am sharp and be ready to work by 8:32, ear piece firmly in place and computer signed in. At this time it was Christmas so no one was calling in and there were only about five other people in the office. Everyone else were home for the holiday. Priscilla never went anywhere for holidays and was always happy to stay in work over Christmas. She had no family to return to, having lost both her parents a few years before. That was the beginning of the change for her, having both parents dead did not make you normal it made you very much not normal. Still she would not allow the matter to change her, a testament to her character perhaps? Or could it be to hide her own pain? 

 It had been a robbery gone wrong, that was what the police had told her. A man had entered their home, it may have been two men, in the dead of night and when her parents disturbed them. From what was said in court the couple had manoeuvred their home easily to find the man in the living room. They were both shot and killed. Priscilla had seen the bodies, it didn’t look like gun shots to her; but what did she know? She wasn’t a doctor. If she could have only been there, she didn’t understand how one man could destroy her life in such a cruel way. She did her crying, and sorted the funerals just as she was expected to do. She had to be normal she had to be. In a way the normal life of Priscilla Twain was normal only because she deemed it to be. She had created the ‘normality’ she had craved around her and so it had come to be.

Without a family to return to Priscilla couldn’t be bothered to celebrate Christmas. Yes her friends would invite her to their homes for dinner, yet she never went. Not wanting to impose on another family.  That is what bought her to the office on 28th of December. With the radio playing in the background Priscilla sat down to her work. Typing away on the screen when she heard a noise. Pushing it off she convinced herself it was just part of the song that was playing. It happened again a few minutes later….maybe it’s the computer making silly noises. 

Three hours later as she stood in the kitchen making a drink she heard it again. This time there was no way around it Priscilla was sure that she could hear a voice. A voice that was singing. It sounded like it was right beside her yet at the same time so far away. Almost as if she was hearing the voice inside her head from an old memory. The voice caught in her chest and made her shake with nerves. 

“Hi Pris.” One of her co-workers stepped into the kitchen, eyeing her sideways as she clutched onto her chest. Pris darted her eyes to the man and then back to the mug of tea on the counter. 

“Hi David.” Her voice came out with a wobble. 

“You okay?” David asked leaning on the counter beside her. 

“Ye...Yeah I’m fine thank you. Did you have a good holiday?” Pris changed the subject quickly. 

“Oh yeah it was lovely.” David’s face became animated as he spoke about Christmas day with his family. 

“The kids loved their new bikes, didn’t stop whizzing up and down the street all day. Finally had to pull them in when it started getting dark.” He was laughing and Priscilla smiled wide though she wasn’t honestly listening to a word he said to her. 

“That’s great. Well back to work.” Pris swiped her red hair behind her ear and turned out of the kitchen returning to her desk. Sitting down she turned the radio right off and just listened. The voice in her head was singing a tune that she was sure she knew, somewhere in the back of her mind a song from a child hood she doesn’t remember having. The grip on her chest was getting stronger and her legs wanted to move. 

‘No Pris stop it. You’re just being silly, get on with your work.’ She thought to herself. Shaking it off Priscilla returned to her daily jobs and spent the rest of the day ignoring the voice that drifted in and out of her consciousness. At 5:30 she signed off the computer and went home. Her flat was small and only had one bedroom. She didn’t see the point in having anything better. There was never anyone staying or visiting so she hadn’t bothered to get a table and chairs, opting to simply sit on the sofa in front of her TV with dinner on her lap. 

Crawling into her bed, one rather oversized king-sized bed with large duvet and extravagant sheets; her one and only indulgence. If there was one thing that Priscilla relished it was the feeling of being comfortable and falling asleep. Ever since she can remember Priscilla has been no happier anywhere else than in that moment just before you fall asleep. In the time where you lay between the two worlds and the beginning of your dreams seep into your waking sight. She would settle down in warmed pyjamas and snuggle the white sheets up over her shoulders. Blissful she would lose herself in her dreams, dreams of different worlds. A world that was stark in brightness and filled with love. So many happy faces smiling at her, welcoming her home and the fold of warm arms around her. Priscilla had always thought that perhaps this was her coming home to a life she had led before this one. Before she was wrought with adulthood and paying bills in a modern society. However on this night she didn’t dream of far off worlds, no, all that filled her mind was a voice that sung to her. Songs about coming home, songs of looking and finding. The voice of a golden shine that surrounded everything. Her mind broke from sleep and she lay in the darkness the song still playing in her head. 

“Why won’t you leave?” She called out into the void of the night. As if the song was replying to her Priscilla heard the call of her name, a desperate call, like a child lost in the street who wants only to be held by its mother. Sitting up Priscilla opened her eyes allowing them to adjust to the low light. 

“Why me?” She asked to the song in hope it would tell her a secret. 

“If I find you will you stop?” 

“The voice stopped for just a second and then seemed to jingle in her ears like the laughter of baby. Resigning herself to no sleep she slipped from the bed, duvet and sheets sliding to the floor behind her. Not that she cared to lift them back to the bed in her haste to dress. Throwing on the first things she pulled from her drawers and zipping a pair of knee high leather boots to her feet. - Flat ones obviously, she didn’t want to go wondering about England in heels in the middle of the night. �" Wrapping her purple woollen coat around her tightly, Priscilla stepped out of her front door, long hair whipped about in the wind so she pulled her hood up to cover it. Breathing heavily Priscilla closed her eyes and listened, the song mixed with the wind and a map forming in her mind. Once she was set on a route she was gone, down in to her car and turning on the engine. 

The drive wasn’t particularly long but in the dark of the night she felt like it took too long. Motorways of England are long stretches of road that nobody cares to be on during the day let alone when it’s harder to see. Still there were plenty of people on the road to make her journey just that little bit more irritating. The passing headlights seared in through her retinas. But the song would not falter and she followed it like a net pulling a fish from the sea. 

After an hour and forty minutes driving Priscilla found herself on the edge of a wood in Winchester. Her hands would not leave the steering wheel and she sat there taking in slow measured breaths as her knuckles turned white with the grip. 

“Come on Pris, just get it done. You wanted adventure didn’t you? Wanted to do something different with your life? Here’s the chance…What am I talking about? This is ridicules, utterly insane. I can’t just walk into a load of trees just because some voice in my head said so.” She was talking outload to herself hoping that somehow it would help her, change her mind in some way. When no answer came to her she turned off the engine and climbed out of the car. A new wave of cold wrapped around her as she watched her breath come out in puffs before her. She closed her eyes and sighed, steeling her resolve, before eventually stepping forward. 

Priscilla didn’t bother to watch where she was going, deciding that it would be better if she folded her arms over her chest and kept her head down so the wind couldn’t blow in her eyes. The voice inside her head seemed capable of directing her around any of the trees and over the discarded leaves and branches on the floor. There was a moment when she was about half way into the trees when she stopped completely still, everything was quiet, no creatures scuttling about, no birds in the canopy and no voice. For that moment Priscilla stood there a new fear entering her nerves. ‘Did I dream it all?’ She wondered looking around her. There didn’t appear to be anyone around, no movement she could see or any shadows that didn’t belong there. Still that fear was rising. 

The song came back new and refreshed, so much louder this time and calming her somewhat. The pull inside her was stronger and she moved much quicker this time. Nipping through the trees and around the bushes one branch that was hooked like a finger scrapped at her coat pulling a few of the threads out. She glanced down at the branch and her coat letting out a huff but never slowed her pace. Finally she made it to the centre of the woods. A great clearing in a perfect circle, the moonlight shone down in it, giving the succulent grass a golden glow. 

The song was so loud in that clearing. A chorus singing in a temple and echoing into her. Priscilla had never seen a place so beautiful; tiny violet flowers decorated the grass in sporadic clusters. It baffled her how no one else could hear the music of the voices that filled every part of her, it was so loud, surrounding her. Surely people who lived close by should be able to hear it, though it appeared they did not.  She stepped one foot forward and a gust of white dust sprung up around her; like a cloud of glitter fluttering about her feet. A feeling of complete ease fell on her. It was as if she was meant to be there; like every moment of her life had led her to standing in that place. 

Priscilla’s eyes were trained right in the centre of the clearing where the grass stopped growing, a small mound had risen up from the ground and atop it was growing a single purple tulip. Tulips had Priscilla’s favourite flower her whole life and especially the purple one. She loved how they would always grow in the spring and bloom for so long and then then when their season was over the plant would retreat back into the soil to hide and keep warm until spring rolled around again. A life that was reborn each year with the same beauty that never faltered.  Her mother’s garden had been filled with them when she was a child and Priscilla would spend hours simply sitting amongst them. The tulip was swaying, but not to the light breeze that brushed against the skin of her face. No it was swaying in time to the music, the ethereal song that had pulled Priscilla to the spot. With a slight lump in her throat she pushed herself forward, glittering dust bursting from the grass with each step, filling her nostrils with a most beautiful scent. Like firewood on a cold day. Fixed on the flower like it was a target, as she approached it. Cautiously she knelt down with one knee on the grass a mere inches away from the mound and the Tulip. 

A clinking of metal clicking into place stopped the music and Priscilla turned her head slightly. The hood she had lifted earlier was blocking her view of what was behind her. She glanced back at the flower to see it had stopped swaying and looked hardly as beautiful as before. The new presence behind felt so big she was sure an army had arrived to take her away. Was this place protected? Perhaps she should not have been there at all. 

“Turn around slowly!” A deep voice demanded behind her. Priscilla was sure she was about to be killed ‘of course I would be lured out to my death by a silly song’ she thought as she rose up to her full height. �" Which to be honest was no more that the average height of any woman in England �" Still there was something about that voice that made her want to obey, made her want to see his face. Very slowly she turned her body just enough that she could see the man behind her but her face was still covered. 

“Who are you?” He demanded holding a shotgun in his arms and pointing it at her. She met his eyes and saw the brown of them, darker than the sky above her. 

Priscilla lifted her hands to her hood, the man flinched slightly tightening his grip on the shotgun. 

“Slowly!” He demanded. 

She dropped the hood down so it fell on her back and her red hair fell down around her shoulders. 

“My name is Priscilla but people call me Pris.” She said far too quickly. 

“Pris? Great, now what are you doing here?” 

“Me? I am sorry I didn’t know it belonged to someone, I’ll go.” Pris went to move but he called out to her. 

“No wait. Tell me why you’re here? Did you hear it?” 

“The music? You heard it as well?” She knew she was frightened of him, still there was glint in his eyes that was making her speak to him. 

“Music? It isn’t music. You can hear it right? That scratching?” 

Pris narrowed her eyes at the man as he lowered his gun to his side. Chancing a glance back to the flower she could once again hear the sweat music flowing out from it. 

“I’ve heard it for about two days now, we had to work out where it was coming from.” He said moving further into the clearing. Pris noticed that the dust didn’t burst to life around his feet when he trampled the grass. 

“It’s a scratching to you?” 

He nodded. 

“I don’t hear scratching.” She said turning back to the flower. 

“I hear it like an animal scrapping at the side of a box, it’s inside my head. I tried ignoring it but it just got louder.” 

They looked at each other, Pris couldn’t understand why the beautiful music would sound like that to him. Still he had heard something so that meant there really was something there. She hadn’t been imagining the whole thing. 

“So what do we do now?” She asked, the sense coming from this man was one that she had never felt before, yes at first she had been frightened but now standing so close to him she felt save. It was like this man was more than just a man, he was safe and all she had ever wanted was to feel safe. 

“I don’t know, you were looking at something just now.” 

“Yes, the Tulip, it ….that is I think the music was coming from the Tulip.” 

“How can you say it is music?” It was his turn to narrow his eyes at her. 

“I don’t know, it’s beautiful and makes me feel…well it’s like coming home.” She replied. 

“Okay, well in that case, go take a look at it.” 

“Me?” 

He laughed, “Yeah you, I don’t want to go any closer to that thing, my head already feels like it’s going to explode from the noise.” 

Pris nodded, turned round and took in a deep breath. She nodded her head once and pushed herself forward back to the flower. She dropped down on to her knees. Fingers stretched out in front of her and touched one of the petals. Pris’ body went rigid and her mind was filling with memories. They couldn’t be her own yet they felt so familiar. Dreams perhaps? She saw a home, so white and delicate, the wall so intricately carved in ivory. She saw eyes, two green eyes that fell on her and a mouth that smiled so wide she couldn’t help but smile back. 

Her fingers fell away from the petal and Pris was once more in the clearing. Looking down at her fingers she felt the tingle of warmth seeping into her skin. 

“What was that?” The man behind her asked. 

“It’s all right. I am meant to be here, this is mine.” The flower bloomed wide and then began to twist in on itself until it slid back beneath the soil. Pris laid her hands flat on the dirt and she felt it, she felt the song filling her. The mound before her started to break away falling back, revealing the source of the flower. It wasn’t a bulb like a Tulip usually came from, but this was a small golden stone. Perfectly shaped in to a Tulip head. For a few seconds Pris just looked at it lying in the ground. 

“Pris?” 

“It’s Okay.” She looked back at him, “What’s your name?” 

“Scott, Scott DuRose.” 

She nodded and looked back at the golden Tulip. Reaching down she pulled it up, cradling it in to her two hands and bringing it close to her face. The gold on the Tulip began to move as if it was liquid, melting away. Pris watched as the gold dripped down on to her skin, like she was being painted on it moved across her palms. Her eyes drifted closed as the gold moved over her, covering her skin with its glow in swirls. 

“Scott, you should close your eyes!” 

“What?” 

“Close your eyes!” Scott turned away from her and put his arm over his eyes at the same time he felt a wave of heat push him forwards until he hit the ground. He stayed there held to the floor with grass itching his face until he heard the flapping of wings. Moving as best he could beneath the weight of the heat he turned his head and looked up. It was hard to see through the halo of light. Above the place where the Tulip had once stood; Pris was there. Her feet where three foot off the ground and two long golden wings spread out behind her, admitting the  light. As Scott watched she slowly drifted back to the ground her feet placing down gently and the golden glow that surrounded her faded away as the wings folded behind her back. 

The two stood looking at each other, Priscilla’s chest rising and falling with each heavy breath. 

“I am not human.” 

“Clearly not.” Scott swallowed then let a long breath. He knew what she was but he had never seen one before. No one had not for a very long time; not even his own family. 

Author's Note

This is a re-write of the one I uploaded yesterday, I will upload the chapter's as they are written

Reviews

[Inject Positivity]

Very well written, i read this one yesterday and i found myself dragging back here to read it again and also in the hope to find the next chapter....A very catchy work and i love your brief descriptions through out this first chapter.....Im eagerly looking forward to read your next chapter....Great start....Full ratings......

[amberelisabethbagley]

Wow Thank you so much, I am uploading the second chapter today!