The Hidden Swann

Chapter 17 - In Which We Say Goodbye

Author's Note:

This will be the last chapter until August. I will be going away for five weeks starting this coming Friday. 

Please, please, please Comment/Vote/Fan. :D

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The year we came to Port Royale, I was only nine years old. I was used to London, were the clouds hung permanently overhead and the fog squeezed it way into every nook and cranny. I loved it there. The rain, the cold, the bright fires, the hot drinks and the warm fur coats.

However, I wasn’t particularly sad or angry that we were leaving the city that had always been our home. The first day we arrived, I thought I was in paradise. Father was too busy orchestrating the servants to notice Elizabeth and I. Our life-long nanny, Mrs. Pirren had disappeared to our new bedrooms to help the maids clean and dictate where all our belongings went.

Lizzie and I had taken off our shoes and stockings and run into the large garden at the back of the house. There were no flowers, only tall hedges, bushes and trees. Being used to the cobblestone streets of the city, we thought we had stepped into a fairy tale and where now in a magical land. For the first five minutes, we had only stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

We spent hours running around in the grass, playing hide-and-seek, and Fairies, a game that had us pretend to be fairies, flitting about.  

That day was also the first day that I ever climbed a tree. I had felt so strong, so powerful, being able to overcome an object at least five times my height.

As the sun began to set, we tired of our games and only sat on the grass watching the bluest sky we had ever seen. London had always been overcast and the sky was only viewable for a couple months of the year. Even then, it could never compare to the sky here.

The sounds of the servants milling about had stopped and we waited, expecting for someone to come out and call us in either for dinner, or for bed.

We were happily surprised that no one came out. For the next four hours, we continues playing and enjoying the garden.

That is until the time reached midnight. We heard the grandfather clock’s gongs from the garden and stared at eachother, socked and extatic. This was the first time that we had ever staid up so late.

Our happiness, however, did not last long. Two minutes later, the back doors of the mansion flew open and a frantic crowd emerged. Servants, Mrs. Pirren, and my father came barreling in the garden.

It turns out that they had been searching for us since sundown and had scoured the entire town of Port Royal before realizing that the garden at the back of the house had been left unsearched.

We were brought in to the house and sent directly to our rooms. We knew a punishment was coming our way but for a strange reason, Father left us alone for the next few days.

Those days where some of the hardest of my life in regards to patience. I have never been a patient person and it was torture for me to wait in silence for my father’s verdict. Waiting for a surprise is one thing; waiting for something bad to happen, is completely different.