Poisoned Rose

Chapter 1: Horses might actually be unicorns

Chapter 1

The little metal black wolf hung from the silver chain.

It was attached to the review mirror of my sunshine yellow Camero and swung back and forth as the car smoothly sailed down the curving road. Hills dotted in thick trees, the calm salty waters and the crystal blue sky was the only scenery for miles around. I was heading to a small town on the coast of California. It was a self-sufficient town, which ran on its own accord, free from the menacing world of real society: Ridge Black Valley. Of course, there I was leaving New York and the only reality that was most fit for me to exist in to one that I had no knowledge of knowing how to fit into. The only thing I really knew about Ridge Black Valley were the facts stated in my dead sister’s letter and the one’s I had searched for over the internet.      

Apparently, it was a quiet, well reserved, and prosperous town where the weather was inconsequentially summery and warm. My twin sister, Bacardi Rose, fled towards this town when she left me to grow up alone in the hands of a mother who’d prefer to pay more attention to the world of labels and status. And now? I was on a search for truth and ultimately, closure on a girl that I had once cherished dearly.     

Her ghostly words had called out to me in a pained letter, begging my heart to withdraw from the comforts that New York provided me with to discover a different world I never thought existed. It wounded me to think of that letter that I had received on the eve of my twenty-first birthday. I hadn’t even graced my pretentious birthday party my mother had thrown in my honour. Instead I had chosen to sit on the Oriental rug that covered the floor in my room of the glamorous apartment building based in the heart of Upper East Side that I called home.   

I could remember my overflowing tears run down my soft rosy cheeks, tipping over to mark the letter that I had held in my hand. The words of that letter ran through my thoughts as I drove past large Tuscan Mansions lining the coast: If I have any space in your heart for redemption, please...

I was nearing closer to Ridge Black Valley. My heart squeezed a little tighter in anticipation.

I was nearly there. I could see it in the horizon.

I was anxious, more curious as fascination fired through my veins, to meet the world my sister had escaped to and one where she had called home, still uncertain of the fate that lay beyond, but I was determined to know it with Bacardi’s haunting words replaying in my mind every minute: You are his truth and I am his lie…    

It was a beautifully sweet town: I had to admit. Each building I passed had architectural character worth admiring. The people I drove past were chatty and familiar with one another and the beach was a bonus to the entire town.

I braked on the Camero, nosing in front of a large white box. A fairly modern two-bedroom residence that overlooked the blue waters and gave me easy access to the town and the University I would soon be attending. I peered at it, stepping out of the car. A sad smile had found its way on my lips. The house was unoccupied since its construction and had been up for purchase when I had discovered it on a property website. The fresh newness of it had made me fall in love with it and knowing that I had bought it with my hard-earned money from working as a model for Elite Model Management over the summer. It all made me feel like a proud owner. 

It took me one trip to get all my things inside.

I hadn’t brought much. With my early inheritance from wealthy dead grandparents and a trust fund set up my obnoxious parents, I was financially secure since the age of sixteen. It was also coincidentally the time my rebellious sister had divorced my parents and ran away. After a few hours of setting up my things and relaxing into my new environment, I flopped down on the soft and cosy airbed that I had vigorously pumped up since I didn’t have a bed in my new home whilst reading Bacardi’s last letter as I twisted the silver chain with the tiny black wolf hanging off it around my fingers nervously before I officially begun a new life in Ridge Black Valley.