The Legend Of Solemates

The Legend Of Solemates Prologue

Prologue

I woke up knowing something was going to happen today.

I just didn't know what.

Yet.

It was the fifth of January, the first day of the new semester, and it was my last semester as a junior in high school. I'd just turned seventeen two days ago, and since seven was my lucky number, I thought for sure that this was going to be...a lucky year. That was besides the fact that story of a certain legend my grandfather had told me was supposed to come true very soon, if he was right. But I was too old now to believe in silly stories like that anymore. But I did believe in luck, however, and I felt lucky today.

I would come to find out, that I was both right and also wrong. The only thing important enough for you to know right now is that the lucky thing that would happen to me was enough to make me forgive all the unlucky things that also would come forth in my seventeenth year of life. And also, that my grandfather was much wiser than I ever gave him credit for while he was living. 

When I turned seven years old, my beloved grandfather told me a secret. He told me of a legend so great, that I could tell no one, not my best friend Dani, and not my family. It was called the Legend of Solemates.

He told me that, once upon a time, long, long ago, before there was ever such a thing as girls wearing Converse, his great grandmother Lucy met a man named Dominic and they fell madly, deeply, and passionately in love. But Dominic's parents didn't approve, and they planned to take him away secretly so Lucy would never find out. But Dominic overheard their plan, and he developed his own. The night he was to be taken away was the night of Lucy's seventeenth birthday party, and Dominic would be attending with his parents. He knew his parents planned to call him away during it and steal him away with them near the middle of the party. So he made a plan to run away together with Lucy.

The night of the party soon came, and before it began, Dominic surprised Lucy with a special birthday gift. It was a pair of Converse, with a key engraved on the top of the sole, and they matched his own, key engraving and all. He said that the key was a representation of the love that they shared. He told her that the purpose of them was that they were a replacement for her heels, because they couldn't possibly run away together with her lagging behind barefoot or still wearing her party heels. He also gave her a necklace that was a key shaped to be just like the engraving on the bottom of their shoes. He told her to meet them at their special willow tree, and that if she didn't show within ten minutes of his arrival, he would take that to mean that she had changed her mind, and he would go back to his parents, never to return. Lucy assured him that this could never happen, but there was still doubt in Dominic's eyes.

And, as he feared, tragedy occurred.

When the time came that Dominic was called away, there was a surprise. In a twist of fate unknown to Dominic, Lucy was taken captive by one of his father's henchmen, and was locked in a closet. Apparently Dominic's plan had been overheard also, unfortunately. As his parents tried to drive away with him, Dominic put his plan into action, and he distracted his parents for a moment so he could leap out the car. He should have realized something was up, because no one tried to follow him. They just stopped the car, and waited. So Dominic ran to their meeting place, only to find it empty. He waited the ten minutes, heck, he stayed there for twice that waiting for her. As he heard the clock strike the late hour telling him it was double the time since she should have arrived, he left. He walked back to his parents' vehicle, and left with them without a word. Lucy was left heartbroken already, and she knew he was gone when they finally let her out of the closet. But she decided to check anyway, and she ran, still wearing the Converse, all the way to their meeting place. Of course, he was nowhere to be found, and she broke down, falling to the ground in a helpless sitting position. And as she cried, her loving tears fell directly to her shoes, and it is said to be that her tears of lost love gave the shoes the magic needed to find one's other half.

Then my grandfather handed me a pair of shoes, Converse, and a key necklace, just like in the story.

I told him, "Grandpa, these aren't any different from any other Converse! These can't possibly be the same ones from the story!"

And he simply smiled at me and turned the way-too-big-for-my-seven-year-old-feet shoes over in his hand to show me the soles of the shoes.

"I don't see anything-wait is that the key?" I asked him, pointing at a depiction of a skeleton key that looked almost engraved in the bottom of the toe of the shoe. I guessed it was put on the toe so it wouldn't be worn off.

"Yes, that is the key, Ari." He told me. "In ten years, you will be turning seventeen, and when you do, you will meet a boy who has these same pair of shoes, though they will probably be a much bigger size." He chuckled. "On the bottom of his shoes there will be a key depiction just like on yours. That's how you will know that boy is your Solemate."

"My Solemate?" I questioned him. "What is that?"

"Hmm, well, how to explain this?....Ah, he's your prince charming, like in the fairy tales. He'll marry you someday. And as long as you never take this necklace off," He said as he fastened it around my neck, "He'll find you.

My face brightened, I, as a seven year old, already loved this legend.

Until now, it was one of the few things in my childhood that were mine, something that I could hold onto. But it was also something that made me the way I was, which was different. Special.

I had always known I was special, since I had always been told that. That I was meant for greater things than the average human came upon in his or her lifetime. When I came home from school one day back in the kindergarten days crying that no one wanted to play with me, my mom told me they just didn't understand me, because I was special.

That was the first time I was called special.

It would not be the last time.

And I was always so sure, from then til now, that it was the bad kind of special. I was also sure that the Legend of Solemates was just another fairy tale I grew up with.

Until now.

Until him.