You call this fate?

Chapter 1

Normal days are funny things. You do not know if they are for real, or just some shimmering haze on the horizon taunting you to come closer, to let your guard down, before tripping you over the edge with a well-placed kick to the kidney that you saw coming from miles off but still had no power to stop.

Unfortunately, my life was a minefield of such illusions.

"Get to the dishes, girl!"

I jumped, almost toppling if not for my desperate fingers latching onto the counter. The plate in my hands landed in the sink with a splash. Soapy water splattered my front. "I am at the dishes, Fred!"

Fredrick Bosley, the revered owner of the Ugly Swan, roared with laughter. Without even looking, I could imagine his gigantic belly wobbling with the force of his mirth, the gallons of beer inside sloshing as though in a keg, his walrus-moustache quivering.

"I know!" Tabletop knickknacks clattered as I heard him trip. "But did you see yourself jump?"

"Must have been really funny," I muttered.

"It was, it was..."

I ground my teeth and hung my head, waiting for more, tightening my hold on the edges of the sink to keep from throwing something at him. When no further insult came forth, I turned to look over my shoulder.

The kitchen in the Ugly Swan was a dark and dismal affair, with only a lone bulb hanging from the ceiling to light up the place. One glance at the hole-in-the-wall doorway told me the place was empty. The door hung from rusty hinges, having given up opening and closing years ago.

The cook, a ratty woman of about a hundred and sixty—who liked to regale me with tales of her many questionable conquests, one of them an alleged pirate—had retired already, as more and more people showed up with the advancing night searching for liquid courage from the bar rather than solid nourishment concocted by her trembling hands.

I sighed in relief and turned back to my work. Fishing out the plate, I started scrubbing its worn flower pattern again. It would be no use trying to clean the wetness on my top-front. From the way I leaned against the dilapidated steel sink, I was as wet as one could get. Besides, if I had deemed it worthwhile to try and dry off, the dish cloth I had at hand for that purpose had been last washed approximately a hundred and ten years ago and was slightly dirty.

Looking at the soapy suds floating in the sink like lonely islands, my hands stilled on their own accord. As thoughtless actions are wont to cause, the rhythmic turn of the brush had my thoughts wandering. I was used to this kind of behavior from Fred. From the first day of work at the Ugly Swan, a month ago, he'd been at it, assuming it his supreme right to hound me since he'd been kind enough to give a young cripple—an illegal immigrant by the looks of her—a job. It'd been going on long enough to develop silence and apparent disinterest into second nature.

But sometimes...

Sometimes I just couldn't believe this was happening to me. I wasn't supposed to be here. I used to be a nice girl. I used to have a bright future before me. And then...

My eyes turned misty. I steeled my jaw against the threat of tears. After all these years, it was a mystery that I could still cry. There were some nights when I couldn't, my body refusing to squeeze a single tear out. My body would go numb, my mind silent, and there seemed no reason to get up in the morning. Eternal sleep sounded very appealing.

Yet still, every time, the next day found me waking to its enchanting and deceitful promise of a new beginning. There were no new beginnings, I knew. There were only continuations of past chapters. And whoever said otherwise was a bloody liar.