Darkness

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I ran to the gothic structure that loomed over me, in the early light of the morning, hand out stretched-reaching, white gloves with lace trimming. I'd always thought it was abandoned but that was before. A carriage rumbled and rolled over the broken road behind me.

Christine said that it didn't use to be like this, that we used to be advanced, but that the Regime- our government- found advancement was too much trouble. That it caused to many problems, like war, pain, misery, not enough good-like it used to. So advancement was forbidden-outlawed-and now it was the 1800's forever. At least that's what Christine would say. Big, long dresses, with tight lacy sleeves, carriages with horses, and sickness with no cure except for what government allowed us to have.

I rapped the mettle knocker, once, twice, I let it fall a third time and stood, wrapping my arms across my chest. I tried not to shiver under my thin dress. Christine's frail, dying voice echoed inside my head, telling me to come here. I didn't want to, but there was no fighting her, no matter how little life was left in her. I could still see her, the bed covers pulled up to her chin, sickness taking the fire like light from her eyes, cold, pale, and weaker than I even thought possible. She'd always been the unmovable force of nature that had told me the truth and been there for me when even I had given up on myself. Everyone in the quarter-the poorest district in London, where we had lived, where there was never enough food, and never any heat. Where even the bodies lying in peace at the bottom of the Thames (the ones that had died the most gruesome of deaths) were better off than those living in the quarter- would call her 'Salete'. It means dirt in an old dead language that only a few people still know, French. Christine had taught me the words when I was six, ten years ago.

The door in front of me opened, revealing a petite blonde girl with light, violet eyes, like wild pansies, dressed in a black dress with a crisp white apron. I'd never seen eyes of such colour before, blue, brown, gray, or green like my own, but never before had I seen violet. I stood staring, forgetting my manors entirely.

"May I help you?" she asked a smirk playing across her lips as she drank in my shocked expression.

Snapping my mouth shut I locked eyes with her. Purple facing clover green. "I am here to see Master Henry." I breathed remembering the name that Charlotte had given me.

The girl's eyes narrowed. "On what account?"

"Madame Defarge sent me." It felt strange using Christine's last name, I'd never truly said it before this moment.

The girl's eyebrows shot up. Clearly Christine's name rang a bell. Slowly she backed into the entrance hall behind her, opening the door as she went. Glancing over my shoulder I stumbled inside catching myself on the large door frame. I heard the girl chuckle, "follow me." she hurried off down the corridor not even giving me a second glance, and disappeared around a corner.

The entry hall was huge; every surface was stone. Massive, cold and looming, one stone must have taken three men a piece to move, if not more. A long, crimson carpet trailed down the hall after the girl, like a stream of blood, or spilt wine. Hurrying after her, I couldn't help but gawk at everything in view, causing me to fall behind. Tapestries, and flags of the old world, portraits of old important looking people, cases full of valuables that I couldn't name, even if Christine had told me about such things, filled every nook and cranny and covered the walls, like the old museums in the history district. The hall ended at a set of stairs wrapping up and away to the next level.

The blonde girl continued bounding ahead like a gazelle. Smooth, and graceful, like a dancer- something I couldn't dream of being I was much too curvy for that, at least that's what Christine always said. But, oh the stairs! They were massive, and sweeping, made out of the same stone as the walls, but somehow rather than looking cold, and imposing, they were elegant, and magical, like they belonged in a fairy tale.