Thank you all so much for joining me in this ride. It's been so much fun to write and as I reach the end I only get more and more enthusiastic to keep on going so I hope you feel the same.
Here goes nothing...
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PART ONE
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Chapter one
Colette's POV
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First I take a deep breath. I smell lemons with a twinge alcohol. And then the pain sets in. I cringe inwardly—my face and probably the rest of my body is too numb to feel—and I focus my strength, what little of it I have, on opening my eyes.
Pop.
My eyes are dry and burn of over relaxation. Who knew there was such a thing.
I slowly peel my left hand from the sheets and feel for my face. It’s there; it’s cold. I stare up into the glass ceiling. It looks to be a bronze color and partially reflects what I assume is myself.
My hair is lengthy and chocolaty and frays at the end. Even in the colored glass I can tell I’m pale—bleached would be more convenient.
There’s a small little sitting area lain out in front of my bed, a hospital bed I’ve registered, with a two chairs that face away from the bed, as if forcing the guests to be away from the isolated patients. Me.
Coldness crawls over my skin and sinks down into my bones. The hairs lining my arms rise to the occasion and I try to discover what other parts I have hidden beneath the covers.
First my abdomen comes alive, then my legs and soon after, painfully I should add, my feet. It burns and I can tell they’re slightly swollen from inactivity.
I, very articully, help myself up into a sitting position and wince continuously. There’s a back of a head I see now in one of the chairs that pointlessly face the wall and the man stands when he hears my rustling.
“Good day, Ms. Gardener. Glad to see you've finally risen." The man's eyebrows pull back when he smiles and the little folds of skin on his eyes wrinkle in appreciation.
The man slowly walks over to the window and shuts off the draft that rubs against my irritable skin and his shoes clack against the tiling. As his hands glide up to seal the door, his clean cut jacket flares out and shrivels around his shoulders. His shoes are loud to my deaf ears and my heart spikes with each step he takes.
“You’ve been out for quite a while, my dear.” I wonder who this man is. He doesn’t come rushing to my side like he’s been waiting for me to come back from pending death for days and he doesn’t seem like just a doctor. He seems like he’s a business man telling me I’m dead but for some reason I’ve been rejected.
Panic slowly pins each limb to the bed and my heart rate monitor finally whirrs to life and clicks faster.
“How-“ my tongue is swollen and my mouth is dry like it would be after running for miles. It creaks and scratches and I find myself coughing profusely. The man goes from confused to paniced and runs in the hallway to flag someone down.
A woman rushes in with a small shot glass filled with—is it chocolate milk?—whatever is supposed to save me from this disparity. She tilts my head back and the bitter, slimy concoction slivers it’s way through my throat without my consent.
I can feel my body tingling to life, starting from my face to my toes, and the irritation slowly dwindles away. I reposition myself making it a bit more comfortable and the swelling decreases everywhere I can feel it. I can actually form a coherent sentence now.
“How long have I been here?” My voice surprises me, whether it’s higher or lower than imagined, I don’t know. There’s a sharpness that urges me to say something else just so I can catch its delicacy again.
“And why am I tied to the bed?” I glance down to my right hand that’s been secured by a plastic strap to the bedside handle and scoot back into the wall, eyeing him curiously.
“You’ll have to forgive me, that was merely a precaution. We didn’t know how you’d wake up but you seem to be succeeding with flying colors as always,” he smiles profoundly which sets me off immediately.
I shouldn’t be here—wherever here is. Do I have a family? Or is he my family? There’s so many questions yet my head only serves to throb achingly.
“And to answer your previous question, you’ve been here no longer than two months. I’ll explain everything in due time but I have to get some things figured out first, and for that I need your cooperation. Can you provide that?” I shake my head numbly because I want to know things just as much as he does and this seems to be the only way.
“Good to know,” he taps his chin in appraisal and stares me down into the permashape bed. “I’ll have my assistant swing by for the next few days and check up on you. Tell me, do you remember anything?”
My eyebrows furrow at his obsurd question and I don’t know what to remember. My tongue grows thick and I can’t find any memories to describe or explain. I know all I need to know, how to brush my teeth and how to walk in a straight line, but I can’t remember anything that would be of use to my personality or even my past.
“Should I?”
The ends of his chapped lips flare up but it looks like it’s unintended. “No worries, we’ll get that fixed soon enough. For now just sit still and enjoy yourself. You’ve missed quite a lot and I’ll have to get you all caught up. But first, let me start out with this.”
In a dramatic fashion the man walks to the end of my bed and spreads his arms wide, the tail of his jacket dipping out once more and tightening where his biceps and triceps orchestrate glossy movements.
“Welcome to Mount Alba. Your now-and-forever home. And, if the kist I just gave you isn’t enough, I’ll have Eloise bring you up some food. That’s the way to a woman’s heart, right? Or is that a man’s?”
I give a small laugh and raise my eyebrows when he calls me a woman. Just from sitting in my own bones I feel too fragile for the upgraded name and I still can’t put my finger on who he is in my life if he’s acting so carefree around me. If anything—if the suit jacket and formal pants haven’t taught me anything—he seems like he should be stuck in an office building for hours a day, rather than coddling someone like me.
“Kist, you said?” He winks at me and I feel like I’ve just passed a test. Maybe he’s just been trying to see if I’m like I used to be? I wonder…
“It’s a plant that I cultivate into, usually, medicines for people just like you.” Does he mean patients in the hospital?
“Because of your promise of cooperation, I will give you a sliver of information in return. I’ll let you sit and simmer.” He steps over to the door and gives me a wary glance.
His presence feels like an unknown hair dwindling down my arm and irritating the skin as it goes. A sweat crosses over my forehead and I feel in worse a condition mentally than when I originally woke up.
"Well," he starts out, his voice now cold and concealing, his words are empty yet filled with a wicked humor. I’m confused by his drawn out apprehension and don’t catch on immediately to the scowl that falls across his lower face.
"Let's put it this way," he says as more of a command than a suggestion. "I will do everything in my power to keep things from going back to the way they were."
I chew on my lower lip when he swings the door open full force and flees into the sterile brown hallway. The door slows at it gets closer to the wall and finally clicks shut leaving me to keep my frantic mind calm, my eager heart steady and my trembling fingers to flex, unflex.
What have I gotten myself into?
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*This is the updated version*
There will be a sequel coming out in the EARLY winter of 2014 so be watching for it c:
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