C Is For Carmiabell Locks

Chapter 1: The Black Apple

She was one of the luckiest dreamers —though she didn't see it that way— picture red dreamers; they couldn't just walk everywhere with fire. It was an assault on jelly and ice cream.

"Don't forget the trash bag," her mother shouted from the other end of the kitchen.

Almost forgot; taking out trash was another major reason she hated Mondays.

She hauled the giant black bag after throwing a bun twice the size of her mouth in it. She could almost promise it was going to choke her and she would fall and NOT TAKE OUT THE TRASH BAG NOR GO TO SCHOOL, but it didn't.

Instead, it galloped peacefully down her gullet.

Told you whoever made that meal schedule had something against her. If it was a Saturday meal she would be in a heimlich maneuver at the time. Anything to keep her home.

She unlatched the door, opening up to a busy neighborhood, where creatures nearly ran to get to their destinations on time.

Kitchen witches too did not sleep on their ears. They appeared with their carriages luring them with their floating brooms. Most were always atop the broom and would navigate it through physical touch but others were just too unique and would control their brooms via their mind.

She jostled into crowds, wading helplessly like a canoe in an angry riptide.

It had never been her forte jostling hard on people and apologizing —though most of the creatures that bumped into her spared the sorry word— therefore the scowls around her were no breaking news. They just showed that she was making progress, and only that way would they make way for her.

The last thing she wished for was to meet a goblin on her way, but who was her Monday luck?

Maybe it was just her, but goblins were experts in the field of entering into one's pocket, stealing only what was important, and leaving worthless stones in compensation for the weight.

Both hands hanging tight to the trash bag, she knew she was vulnerable to the filch.

She swerved left of the pathway, breaking hands between a vampire couple, heeding the movement of the green goblin.

His ears, like every other of his kind, were sharp-ended. Eyes dark brown. His nose was snub in contrast to most goblins but he still resembled creatures of his kind. The wrinkles on the sides of his eyes were clear even under the giant hat above his head.

Judging by the green crystal linked to a golden bracelet running round his wrist, she could tell that he was a green dreamer.

It wasn't the highest rank of dreams, but by show of it, he could have been well off.

He got past with the marching crowd, and on tapping her pockets, after placing the garbage bag down, her train fare was still intact and no stones in replacement for anything.

After what seemed like a suck of all her energy, she got to her destination.

A black garbage container stood in front of her waiting for her feeble muscles to lift the bag and join it to its friends.

At the end of the alley between the two buildings Carmiabell had stood, someone appeared.

"Carmiabell." Just by the tone she could tell that she would have the longest Monday morning in the history of Monday mornings.

"Phoebi." She faked a grin, and she was performing miserably.

If there were humans designed with whole rap albums in their mouths every drop that passed, she was the first one in line. Though ravishing in appearance, all she did was talk.

Her kitten hills echoed through the alley as she toddled closer uttering words Carmiabell did not bother listening to.

"Do you like it?" Suddenly, she was already next to her and she was staring at her necklace.

Its chain was golden; well curved from edge to edge and running down towards her chest calmly. Its pendant was that of a yellow gem, glittering even under the shadows of the looming buildings, that was rounded with a sliver of marching gold.

There was no doubt that she came from a wealthy background. Everything she put on pronounced it, including her gown.

It was embellished with plastic, golden flowers at the upper body that formed an admirable gallery about her chest. The complimenting white on the lower body and sleeves shined the beauty out of her. To seal it, she carried a whitish fan that disappeared between her white gloves once she closed it.

"Yeah, it looks amazing," she answered in slick, just to get her to help her in a little trash problem she had.

"Do you know how I go it?" She paused for a nick before she answered her own question, "it was my fourteenth birthday party and I was seated after eating cakes. Can you believe that my mom made those cakes? I was so blah blah blah blah-"

"Can you help me with this?" Carmiabell interjected but regretted in an instant. It was rude to cut someone off like that, wasn't it?

Phoebi hesitated.

To Carmiabell's dismay, she wasn't as arrogant as she expected her to be.

"Yeah, sure," she answered, clasping one end.

Phoebi wasn't one she could call her crony. Though she lived just a few blocks away, they merely talked. With no specific reason Carmiabell had no interest in conversing with her at school nor at home.

A grin of mirth crossed Carmiabell's lips as she held the other end.

Lifting it up, they synchronized in tossing it, when Carmiabell's eye caught something, something she did not believe was what she had just seen until she moved closer.

Atop a garbage bag stood what could only be defined as darkness.

If it was complete, it should have been heart shaped-but a little bulged on the outside- but since it was bitten some part of it was missing.

It was more black than the thickest fabric of darkness her eyes had ever met. Even in the inside, where a piece of its missing displayed, there was nothing but thicker darkness.

Its texture was, seemingly, soft and it shimmered merely.

Its stem, unlike itself, was golden with a leaf on its side; it was smaller than average but it mirrored a normal apple's leaf.

She could not believe it. A black apple.