Inside the Beast's Castle

Chapter 1--Red

One year.

I gasped and buried my face in my hands. Why do I have to be reminded? Why now?

Why at all?

The face--which I never saw in my dream, but was all too real to me-- surfaced to the top of my mind.

Green eyes. Tan hair. Permanent smile lines etched across the bottom of his face.

Joshua.

I could still hear his promise when he left.

"It'll only be one year, Zara. I'll be home before you know it."

That single year had morphed into a letter.

No good things come from letters.

In my case, it meant that my brother was gone.

One year.

One year since I was forced into the reality of being alone.

The days that we were together were still fresh in my memory. I could hear his laugh. I could hear his voice. I could see him as if he were standing in front of me.

But that was something that he wasn't going to do again.

Through unshed tears, I smiled, still sitting on my cot. Images of the baker's face when we "accidentally" made his display in his front window spell out some--well--some unkind words danced across my mind.

The threatening tear finally fell down my cheek. I pinched my leg hard, feeling the pain race up my thigh.

Stop whining, girl. If you start crying now, you will never stop.

Joshua told me before he left for the war to not mourn over him, to be strong. He knew as well as I did that it could only go poorly.

So, strong I was.

While my father went to the tavern and drowned himself in drink every morning, I was the one who had to work night hours at the pub to hold the money collectors. I was the one one who had to convince the king's knights that my miserable father was too sick to go to war.

And while the "too sick" part was true in ways, it still didn't satisfy the knights enough to never come back.

"Hey!"

I jumped, startled by the shout. The pallet below me crunched as I got up and went over to the thin, ragged curtain that covered the window. The white sheet that did little for privacy slipped between my fingers. I moved it about an inch away from the wall and peeked out.

Three boys, no older than eight, rushed out of the bread shop across the street in a ruckus. Th eldest of the three clutched a basket of rolls to his chest. The old baker was not far behind them, waving his years-old roller in the air like a war club.

I let the small curtain go, feeling a tiny grin flit across my face. The baker would eventually catch the boys like he always managed to do. He'd scold them so much that they would be to the point of begging forgiveness, then let them go with the food they had stolen.

Truth be told, the baker didn't mind the fuss. He, too, once had children. Children that, as soon as they were old enough, were carted off to war.

Children that were killed within one week of getting to the battlefield.