The Golden Bond

Chapter 33

Hours were passing by, so many I'd stopped counting them. The Sailor –how I called her now – left me in peace eventually. The first time that she laid her hands on me, I screamed like someone was about to cut me in half. The guards had to drag her away from me because, as I later found out, although they were allowed to make me feel terrible, no one could physically hurt me as I could use it against them later in court. That was my only consolation and it was keeping me sane – more or less. Everything else had gone terribly wrong, I couldn't eat at all and drank only very little, I was dirty and sleeping was out of question. I was ready to collapse from sheer exhaustion and God knows where William was. My desperation slowly began to turn to anger. I had no idea whether it was night or day as there were no windows in my cell. I assumed it would have been at least 48 hours since the moment they'd locked me in and it seemed as if I'd been there forever. What the hell was William doing for these two whole days? Walking around the Collosseum while I was stuck in this stinky cell thanks to his arch-rival? I loved William White, there was no longer any doubt about that. It wasn't just because of the strange golden bond. It was also due to the way he is – attractive, charismatic, smart and sometimes crazily funny as well as being an old school protective gentleman. On the other hand, his good qualities were outweighed by the Club which I was really starting to hate. Especially in this cell of mine, I became very much aware of the fact that my whole life had gone wrong after he'd entered it. As if fate had handed me a treasure then taken everything else away, everything that I knew and loved most.

I drove the thoughts of the Club away and focused on something more pleasant. I'd always done that when I needed to stay on top of things. Now my memories were my treasured guardians, standing silently next to me and embracing me with their invisible wings. I remembered my little shop in the shopping centre. Oh, how much I missed the smell of paper and hunching over my work desk every day. Yvette and I would go swimming at least once a week so that I wouldn't completely wreck my back. I thought about Wanda and how she would be handling it all. Bernard was taking care of the business side of things. I'd asked him to do that before I left, just in case I happened to stay longer. I'd also given him power of attorney. Anyway, I'd been gone for too long now. My customers said they came to my shop because I had my own special style. Now that was gone then perhaps the customers were gone too. This made me feel sad again, so I decided to turn my thoughts elsewhere – to the second most beautiful thing I enjoyed thinking about. My beloved grandparents. People often wondered how I managed to stand on my own two feet at such a young age but the thing is that I'd never really felt that young. I basically grew up just with adults and in a very creative environment. When I was born, my grandparents had already retired, but if you think they spent all day sitting in front of their telly, then think again.

Granddad was a romantic gentleman and artist. He had a gift with words and wrote beautiful poems. Grandma was always telling me that he had an unfinished novel hidden in a wardrobe somewhere. I hadn't found it even after they'd passed away though. Anyway, he wasn't a dreamer at all, on the contrary he used to make all sorts of tools and gadgets out of wood for grandma's magical little shop, where she sold compotes, jams, syrups and homemade cakes. She was famous for them throughout the county. Granddad had a strong manly charisma, but he was the quieter one of the two. Grandma was like the sun shining at high noon. She always had a smile spread across her face, even if tears had just dried on her cheeks. I was always admiring her strength and perseverance. She was the one who taught me how to sort through the orders and always make something special so my customers would return. Her homemade jams were like alchemy, when she was cooking them in giant pots, the whole place was filled with magical smells and bubbling sounds like in a fairy tale about witches. Her shop was a feast for all the senses – tastes for a sweet tooth, beautiful labels and wrappings like a gallery, scents more pleasant than in the most expensive perfumery, everywhere wood and linen fabrics were very pleasant to the touch and finally her wonderful melodic laughter which was a balsam for the ears. I spent my entire childhood there and when the time came to sell off the stock and close the shop, I felt really very depressed for the first time in my life. I knew that without grandma, the shop would never be filled with magic again. I might have learnt everything else she'd taught me, but I wasn't able to do her alchemy – those precise proportions of love she'd put into each of her goods. Both grandma and granddad had always taught me to do what I really enjoyed. So shortly after I'd closed the shop, a spontaneous decision was made. It was the best one of my life so far. I left school which I wasn't enjoying anyway, made use of some of the equipment from grandma's little shop and with the money that was left from the sale, opened my own shop. Sofia's wrapping service.