Elsa Of Half-Ville

Chapter 1

As darkness glooms and the misery sets in, it was a typical day in the life of Elsa. Yet that day was special, it was the day sanity became a lost memory over the horizon. That was the day that Elsa had uncovered Half-Ville’s most confidential secret…

Elsa was a natural born brunette, yet in summer she was a golden brown it was an unusual style but she was born like that. Her deep green eyes were mesmerising like the first time you saw snow and even her soft words carried like a sweet violin’s music, dancing throughout the theatre.

It all began on the 21st of December, the coldest month of the year. There she was lying on her bed staring at the ceiling wondering when better days will come. Her mind wandered into all sorts of areas like when school will begin, when she will see her friend Joshua. She got up from her bed and leaned on the bed post; which went as high as the roof. She wandered to her desk and began writing in her diary. ‘Dear diary today I thought of him again and I realise there is a whole other week until we will reunite, I miss all my friends at school.’ Her writing was interrupted by a bang on the window; it was a pigeon, a messenger one. She opens her white window, peering at the ever falling snow then shifted her attention to the grey bird on the window-sill. Elsa unties the gold trimmed note wrapped around the ankle of bird. Untying it wasn’t easy but comprehending what it said was more of a challenge. ‘Leave now for the mysteries will prevail.’ The pigeon flew off leaving her wondering what this was. Perhaps just a practical joke, but who would go to such lengths to do that? And what mystery, what were they saying? She promptley threw the note in her small bin and walked off. Elsa crept back into her bed and looked around her room. She looked at her painting of the seasons hanging on her wardrobe door, than she glanced at the left of her and looked at her birch wood desk that was overwhelmed by sratches and cracks, Elsa longed to get a new one. As nights pass and days grew long, her memory of the incident was vague.

*

She woke to the sound of an alarm that sounded like an old kettle blowing its top. She dropped her hand on it and the ringing ceased yet her head was pounding. She arose from her purple linen sheets her bed was warm and comfortable, getting out was a challenge, she stood up and her body went cold; it seemed like it was deprived from the warmth. ‘Who turned my alarm on?’ She managed to think over the constant pounding. She scanned her room; there her plaided green and white school dress was lying out on the end on her bed, neatly folded, like what her mother did when it was a school day. Elsa realised it was the 14th of January; the beginning of a new year. She quickly dressed in her clothes and placed her black and purple lined PJs under her pillow. She rushed down the light brown carpeted stairs as the memories flooded back, the good memories of going to see her friends at school. She called to her mum and sat on the black leather chair at the kitchen table. Her mum did not reply for no one was home. ‘Where could she be?’ She thought to herself. “Mum, it’s not funny anymore!” She yelled. It echoed throughout the house yet all that replied was silence. A shot of fear wailed through her body releasing a quick breath. She heard a scream yet it sounded familiar, it was her own. I guess by this stage she had no idea of what would happen next.

She continued around calling her mother’s name, her rampage throughout the house was all done in vain as nothing would help. She thought and thought then remembered the note, the dreadful note. ‘Leave now for the mysteries will prevail’ It repeated over and over in her head. Whilst in her frenzy she managed to look outside the window. It was gloomy as usual yet it was night, why would her alarm go off if it was dark? She scanned the street she looked at the park bench under the dim lights of a rusty old post, she looked further across and saw the midnight black trees calling her on as the wind wipped through them. It was all the same yet a figure in the distance struck her curiosity like a bolt of lightning striking a tower. There was a middle-aged man sitting in the middle of the road wimping.. He arose and glared at Elsa as she continued peering through the window. This man was strange. She saw an oncoming car; speeding through the street. She yelled at the man through the window to get up and go, yet he placed his head down and took the impact. She saw nothing until the car was gone. Yet the car was not the only one gone for the man had disappeared as well.