𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐢𝐝𝐠𝐞 𝐎𝐟 𝐅𝐢𝐫𝐞

𝟒. 𝐂𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐭𝐚𝐤𝐞𝐫 𝐎𝐟 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐏𝐚𝐬𝐭

The next morning Alice woke up full of excitement and energy. She stood in front of the window hopping from one foot to the other like a little girl and she was not ashamed one bit. She was deliriously happy, giddy even. On the contrary, I woke up feeling uneasy, my mind was traveling back, thinking about the events of the previous day. The large pleasant meadow, the shady trees that leaned over the hill and of course the mysterious, rude man.

As I approached Alice, for a moment I stood there in silence, looking out of our room's window where I saw the fire. I couldn't of been asleep, I was sure I hadn't dreamt that, it was true. The Bridge was on fire yesterday. How...I just stared blankly at the bridge, with wide, horrific eyes. Frightened, my shoulders shook in fear as I saw the fire again, it was coming towards us.

It wasn't until I took another look at the bridge and I immediately noticed that the fire wasn't there anymore. Thousands of thoughts were racing through my mind. I felt immediately the need to move almost rapidly, I started pacing up and down in the room. If my limbs were moving my anxiety was leaving slowly, or at least, I could ignore it for a while. It was only inside the walls of this house that I felt safe but, was this about to change now?

A sudden memory hit me like a thousand bricks, last night's dream. I remembered a lady, an old lady and a book. The only clear image that I had in my mind was the lady's cold stare. The lady's stare wasn't intentionally cold, her face somehow lacked the mobility others had. Her stare was as uncomfortable as a chorus-girl corset. There was no life behind those eyes. Every move she made betrayed her intentions and none of them would be noble.

"We need to finish cleaning this house, another three hours will be wasted today," Alice pouted. "I had different plans for us."

"You are thinking what I am thinking right?"

"Exploration-Cleaning day," we yelled together in excitement.

We would explore and clean our aunt's house at the same time. We were pretty sure that it would be full of mysteries. As kids, we used to come here and tried to discover all the 'dark' secrets that were hidden inside these walls that stood firmly against each other.

I immediately remembered my aunt. The sorrow seemed to diminish everyone physically, including me. We couldn't afford losing our aunt but in the end we did and it was the hardest thing that we had to go through. My eyes turned watery and red as the hurtful moments of her funeral were brought back to my mind. Tears streamed down in my face as I rushed in the bathroom so that Alice wouldn't see me.

That trick wasn't working on her anymore, it worked when I was a teenager but now we were all grown up, ready to even start our own families and lives. I guess I was growing up. As a child I needed protection more than I could to protect others, I guess that was the natural way of things, to need guidance until I could walk on my own. For a while I did walk on my own, striking my own path but it was lonely. I was lonely.

I reluctantly opened the door and came out of the bathroom, Alice was sitting by the chair, waiting for me, quickly rising from it, she came towards me and embraced me in a big tight hug.

"It's okay Victoria, we are all still devastated by her death," she murmured bitterly, her lips quavering, as tears welled up in her eyes. She managed to compose herself and she suddenly smiled at me hugging me again. In that moment the arms squeezed a fraction tighter and I breathed more slowly, my body melting into my sister's as every muscle lost its tension.

"Let's go and explore the house, we can't waste any more time. Time is money as my boss says," she smiled at me and caressed softly my arm.

On our way downstairs the first thing that caught my eye was the big library that we were never allowed to go in as kids. I pulled Alice by the hand and dragged her in, it was big, bigger than I expected it to be. There was a big wooden desk, four chairs and a fireplace.