Stained Glass Souls (Wattys 2014, Collector's Dream Award Winner)

Charliegh: Indie & Ice Cream

"And above all, watch with glittering eyes the whole world around you because the greatest secrets are always hidden in the most unlikely places. Those who don't believe in magic will never find it." ~ Roald Dahl

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For all those wondering, a phrase contained in the chapter below is not, in fact, a Harry Potter reference. It is completely coincidental; it would be impossible for me to reference something I have never read.

Thank you for reading, and for your support of this novel!

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(Charliegh: unedited)

He was a great.

She was lying on her back, facing the ceiling. The painted plaster sky hovered over her head, colors dim and faded with the passage of time. Everything smelled like hazelnut: the floor, the sheets, the carpet. Even the icy air coming through her open window could not wash away that scent. The smell of him.

Her sister's boyfriend.

She could still hear the thumping and bumping and scraping. She could see, etched in her mind, the expression of Faith's face when she had met Charliegh's eyes. They had been filled with an emotion so powerful it deserved its own category.

There wasn't even a word for it: it was anger, fear, guilt, lust, joy. It was made of broken crayons and paint splatters and spilled glitter. It was everything. Charliegh hated it. That happiness was permeating the apartment. Every night, she could hear them. She wanted to pound on the walls and scream. Stop! Stop! This isn't right! Nothing is right!

He was a great.

She pinched herself. How could she have said that? She was just standing there, trying to ignore how rundown and world weary Price looked these days, and she brought up He Who Should Not Be Named. The pain from that thought was unbearable. Her heart was throbbing.

Ever since That Day, something had been missing. The part that made the throbbing stop, the piece that repelled the pain. Now the pain seemed to linger. It took up residence in her room and her fingertips, in every curvature of her body, nestling into the hollows, blurring through her mind like a slideshow of memories. It was a dull, steady throb.

As much as she hated it, it was something safe and familiar. She didn't know what would happen if it ever left. She would probably break, a china figurine smashing to the floor, thrown the smithereens. Nothing left but painted colors and porcelain pieces.

And the hazelnut. The smell was always around. At first, she had thought it was her new air freshener. Maybe, somehow, whoever concocted the scent of Wonderland thought it smelled like hazelnuts.

When she had plugged it in, she was kind of surprised. It was a letdown. Wonderland should smell like glue, dust, dark magic. The thing you loved most and the thing that made your heart ache. It should smell like good, bad, black, white. Shades of grey.

But, because it said Wonderland, and because it had a picture of Alice on the cover, she braved with the awful scent for months. When it ran out of oil, the smell remained. Charliegh had scrubbed the floor and walls of her room down before she realized that it wasn't the freshener – it was boy who practically lived in the room beside hers.