Something soft and cold landed on my nose. My warm breath quickly turned it to liquid causing it to drip down the side of my face.
I woke up to a sight of drifting snow slipping in from my still unfixed window overhead. I laid there, with my head trying to register everything after being disturbed from my sleep.
Where am I and how did I end up here? I always tend to wake up forgotten where I am but that question slowly fades away when my mind finally piece itself together.
I am in bed with my eyes staring blankly up at the ceiling with snow falling on to my face sending shivers down my body. I didn't feel cold, I had my electric blanket on high since this storage had no sort of heating.
My right hand was numb for not being under the blanket for the whole night. When my fingers were warm enough to start working, I found myself clutching on to my phone that I collected it last night from Mr Chevalier with a fine phone strap dangling from the edge. It was a pretty one with a tiny hourglass, chain and charm designed by Yume. I remembered Nicholas pressing it to my hands as a gift he'd asked Yume to customize but that was ages.
It was finally Saturday, my most intense week of my life past in a fraction of a second. The exam period was over and I wouldn’t be surprised waking up in my school uniform without getting change from yesterday.
I kicked the covers off and staggered to the showers. When I went in, it was empty and majority of the servants were already up working or either gone home for the weekends and be back on Monday mornings. If it wasn’t for the princess’ plead I probably would be thrown in jail for theft and spend my exams in prison instead of working during the week days while studying. I was thankful for that and how she loved me to stay with her most of the time when I wasn’t doing the washing or sweep the floors.
Hot water massaged my shoulders. It felt good with everything washing off my shoulders and I was confident that I had breeze past my exams with ease. Although the things at Corsica were a little different from the things that were taught in Australia, I was able to adapt and catch up with the subjects without any troubles. My plan was to enter a university in Europe then transfer back to Australia so I could study and manage mum and dad’s company.
There were only one third of the terminales applying for university. Nicholas was definite that he was aiming for Oxford but I never mentioned to him about my plans because I’m sure he’ll either oppose or follow me around the world. I didn’t want that, he was far too good to study in Australia and he is totally a Harvard or Oxford material.
Yume didn’t take the exams neither did her twin because they were only in their first year of being a terminales and still have one more year to go. She said that when it was her time to come, she wanted to work for her father’s company while she gave the option of freedom to her younger brother so he could achieve the dream of being a mangaka and an animation producer.
Ivan had different ideas, he wanted to take a Gap year and travel around the world before considering if he wanted to enter college or help out his dad’s record label. As for Leo and Andrew, there are at their final year of première and was given a choice to continue to terminale or drop out. They chose to continue because they said they didn’t know what else to do if they choose to drop out.
My phone was ringing by the time I walked back into my room. I lunged and wedge it between my ear and shoulder.
"Hello?" I quickly looked at the caller ID and was a private number.
"Hey," a lazy sexy voice made my heart stop.
"Nick?" My voice hit the ceiling.
"Happy birthday, birthday girl,"
"Wait, what day is today?" I looked around for my school diary. "Shit, I totally forgot. Thanks."
"GG Sophie" he laughed at the other end of the phone.
"Anyways, how did you guess it was my birthday?" I wanted to know because I was sure that people only knew Sophie Keusch's birthday.
"Passport," he replied quickly. "Can you come out? I'm at the airport and I'll wait for you in the
Central Garden in an hour or so don't be late,"
"Wait!" Nicholas hung up before I could give him a definite reply so that I couldn’t refuse.
That guy! How could I possible hate him anymore? But my problem is where is exactly is the Central Garden? Nicholas sure knows his way around Genova. All I need to do now is turn on my maps app and get my bearings but before I go anywhere I remembered that there was something else I had to do today. Well sadly, I didn’t exactly seemed to listen at the night before when I was to busy collecting my devices. Oh well, it'll come back to me when I don't think that hard and when it comes back I'll try doing something about it because right now I have a place to go and a guy to meet.
My whole world was covered with pure white snow as I stepped out the gates of the chateaux. The snow continued falling around me and gently kissing my skin. I shivered. The temperature was way below zero, tree tops were coated with snow and the great drive way that lead up to the chateaux was thick with snow. It was rare to witness snow buried Genova and snow only occur rarely twice every quinquennial. Hot winds from the south tends to blow our way most of the time but maybe because of global warming, it's a marvelous experience to see snow.
The wind whipped between my legs and at my face, threatening to tug off the grey wooly barrette I was wearing. I could've dressed smarter in thick puffy parkas instead if a dark red toggle coat with fur on the inside and mainly on the interior of the hood. My choice of clothing was acceptable, under my jumper and a nice pair of jeans were a layer of thermal underwear enough to keep me warm for the day, even the strappy grey snow boots that Lucie had sneaked into my room while I was asleep was doing its job perfectly. I was set and ready to go but walking on shin high snow was never easy. Pulling a leg after a leg and taking big awkward steps was tiresome. It will take me double the time on a normal day to go down the driveway.
"Good afternoon Miss Harrison. Going out for a walk?" I flipped my head around and saw the gate keepers shovelling the snow off the drive way.
I wasn't used to the guards and servants of the house addressing as my real family name. It was always my stolen name or miss. But that moment I thought it was Nicholas who calling out for me.
"Ah, good afternoon, is it that late already?" I tilted my head in greetings.
"It is already noon and there's still a long way to remove all the horrid snow off the drive way," the gatekeeper replied.
"If only we had a snow plow then we don't need to worry about not getting it done by the evening," the other gatekeeper complained.
"Excuse me, where is the prince going today during the evening?"
The first gatekeeper who called out to me jammed his shovel forcibly into the snow and propped his hands then head onto the handle.
"Didn't you hear little miss? The whole Genova is stopping for one hour to see the princess be crowned for the next monarch!" He sounded excited.
That then triggers my mind. The crown prince and his daughter’s war had finally settled down, though Sophie haven’t or most likely wouldn’t forgive him. She only accepted the crown for the welfare of child and again for the sake of her poor mother. She’s about twenty five, a young mother whose husband already pasted away and couldn’t bear to leave her child to someone else’s care while she earn her living.
“Well Missy, if you’re thinking of going down, I could lend you a toboggan,”
It was a fast and scary ride. No matter how many times I pull the reins, it didn’t slow down and lurched each time I yanked the rope then went speeding again. I hate acceleration that’s beyond my control, especially the empty feeling as the icy cold wind pushes me back, giving me the nasty beating.
When going down a curve, my toboggan didn’t know how to slow down and almost went into the tree. Thank goodness, I had my arm just in time to push me away and then down I go again, on the steep driveway, a scream lodged uncomfortably on the top of my throat. I was so glad it was over when the reins were finally functionally probably at the bottom, sending snow into the children’s faces.
They squealed in delight and began scooping hand full of snow and rolling them into snow balls hauling at me. Their parents were either at the bus stops waiting patiently or parents left them unattended and hid in their toasty warm houses. The children were neighbors judging the way they were calling to each other in a familiar way.
A snowball knocked my beret off. Mass of red hair tumbled all over my face. The kids stopped and admired the unique hair colour. I guessed that they never saw such red hair in their lives since the majority of the people here had different natural shades of brown but nowhere near as red as mine, not that I’ve came across any yet.
I scooped up a snowball and threw it at a little boy’s shoulder. He stopped gapping and bent down one to throw it back at me. His companions caught him off guard and hit him in the back of the head. He leaped and whirled around fling his snowball at the girl who he assumes threw it at him. They giggled as some of the snow slipped through their openings in their heavy clothing. Move snowballs sent flying towards my direction. I couldn’t help but join in the fun.
It soon ended when a bus with snow chains on each four wheels came to view at the turn. The children quickly ran off the road and to their mothers. I got out of the way as well and decided to join the queue in front of the bus stop.
The girl in front of me were somewhere around my age or younger. She was reading a novel in French, large white headphones rested around her neck blasting out music.
“Excusez-moi,” I said. “Do you happen to know if that bus goes to the Central Garden?”
“Oui, just one stop before mine, should I tell you when to get off?” She replied kindly.
“Merci, please do,”
I got off at the end of a main road and waved the girl goodbye. The bus waited for the traffic to clear then pulled away. There weren’t many vehicles on the road. It was too risky to drive on the frozen road, mainly brave taxi drivers and other form of public transport hit the road, aiming for higher pays.
It was roughly half an hour drive from the little town at the bottom of the cliff where the Chateaux was built in a similar fashion as the old broken down fortress in the south of Genova. On my way here, the bus drove through the commercial district where Ivan and I pretended to be a couple to trick his father. It also passed the rows of olden days buildings where Nicholas and I strolled by with the tiny glimpse of the fortress at the back.
The name Central Garden suited it’s perfectly. Well, technically it isn’t really a garden but a patch smaller than a soccer field in the centre of a junction connecting Genova’s four main highways as a roundabout. A statue of someone venerable was set in the centre of the circular garden with seasonal plants planted around the statue and the national flag flying beside it.
There were only two crossing to get to the garden and if I wanted to go there I had to walk a long way till I get to a crossing. Though it might be a little troublesome, it’s worth awhile to go take a look because there were colourful tents set up for a flea market and many people were already standing on the edging waiting to get to the roundabout.
I began walking to the nearest crossing, teenagers and families brushed past me. Then in the sea of people, I noticed a showy Mercedes-Benz pulled up in the corner of the road I had gotten off the bus. An awfully familiar grey suit appeared out of the car. My eyes squinted as I tried to make out the wearer’s face. His face happened to turn and immediately I caught his features. I wanted to acknowledge him but he didn’t seem to notice me and strangely enough, he looked leery to side to side before pulling down his bowler hat and ducked into an alley way.
Something was going on. At first I thought Mr Chevalier was preparing the crowing ceremony but what is he doing back there? Then Lucie’s words floated back into my head, her assumptions about George Chevalier. Maybe the eleven candidate deaths were linked to Mr Chevalier, but that’s really hard to believe because he looked like the type who loves his job and boss.
The red man switched to green. Pedestrians moved forward and bumped into me. I went along with them then in split second I changed my direction. My intuition was going against what I knew about Mr Chevalier and the more I thought of it, the stranger his actions were. I remembered his face when he saw Sophie Keusch again after few years later, he didn’t seemed surprised but rather touchy. Also at that time when I was given mercy from imprisonment, he sounded like he was cursing me to death.
I slipped through the alley where I last saw him suspiciously looking around making sure he wasn’t being followed. It was a one way alley and turning on the left. I crept along the sides, rodents tottered from holes and buried into the waste. Stray animals zipped past me as they felt my approach. Their sudden actions made me startled me and luckily I was away from human population to hear my girly yelp.
Suddenly I heard couple of faint sneezes nearby. I listened carefully and traced down the string of sneezes and curses. I froze when I saw two thugs patrolling the area and quickly darted out of site keeping tabs of their actions. One of the thugs continued sneezing, cursed and kept wiping his nose with the back of his hand. His partner hit him hard in the back of his hard telling him to keep quiet and be cautious.
After few more minutes past the thug’s sneezes didn’t die down. The partner was fed up and grabbed him by the shoulders like good mates and swerved him around heading towards my way.
Scared, that I would be caught spying on them, I froze again, my hands clenched tightly on my chest, heart bashed against my rib cage.
“Hang on a second, the drug store is at the other end,” they were Genovian-French.
Finally they were gone. I slipped out of my hiding spot and checked the lane if there were any more thugs keeping unauthorized out of sight. It made me curious why the two thugs before were so keen walking up and down but in the end they weren’t really good at doing their job looking out for trespassers.
The back of an old Christian stood few metres away from me. The windows were broken, covered with newspaper to stop the wind, rain and snow going in. The dumpster stood under one window and filled with black bags of garbage and debris stuck out of the snow. Then there was a rotting wooden door that looked like it needed to be replaced along with the broken windows.
The door was slightly opened, leaving a few centimetres or so, enough to see what was inside the old abandoned church that nobody bothered to tear it down. I moved closer to the door, voices rumbled inside and immediately I picked up Mr Chevalier’s speaking over the rest. Then I saw him and quite of few faces that I remembered from somewhere.
“How do we trust you?” one spoke.
“Minister Lombardi, we agreed to this or do you doubt our plans?” Mr Chevalier replied looking down at him as if he was a cockroach.
“No, of course not, the problem is what happens if this operation fails? We will surely be caught and be removed from the government,” Lombardi said.
“We will not,” Mr Chevalier snapped. “I planned for this day to come since the day I stepped into this world. The house of Cavallero will seek it’s revenge and name of Moreau will dissolve to a distance memory,”
“What of the Australian girl? Will we eliminate her as well?” another minster I’d remember from the Summer Fete asked.
“The girl had a lucky escape last time but right now our main focus are the prince, his daughter and the infant,”
They were all speaking so fast now in foreign languages that no longer made any sense to me and were way beyond my understanding. They used words, phrases that I never learnt in school and let alone heard off. I could only speak a little French and Italian, sentences that are used daily such as asking the cost of something and where the restrooms were. But right now, I found out that the theft was set up against me and they were plotting against the royal family.
Quickly, I wiggled out my phone out of pocket. I clicked the record button and focused the camera at Mr Chevalier, the person who seem be the mastermind of the whole thing. I made sure they were too busy to notice the girl outside spying on them and taped them so I could replay the whole thing later. It was the only way I could carefully listen to what they were saying and hopefully report to the prince if I had to.
Suddenly the room quiet down a little, heads turned around. I edged closer to the door to so what they were looking out.
“Chassuer, I see you’ve finally wanted to show your face,” Mr Chevalier said with apprehension.
I couldn’t see who he was talking to and was Chassuer really the name of the whoever Mr Chevalier was talking to because he sounded like a nickname and it literally meant “hunter” in French.
“Why wouldn’t I? I would be stupid if I don’t take the deal,”
“Then shall we go on with the business Chassuer?” Mr Chevalier didn’t give time for the mystery person to reply. “The crowning ceremony will begin in the a few hours’ time. Your main target is Princess Sophie and remember you have only one shot around five-twenty five, don’t let us down and I have a hundred – ”
The door creaked, breaking everyone’s attention from the assassin and towards the door where I knelt. Shit. I must have not been careful and leaned to close to the door. My brain was dead as I prayed that they thought it was just the wind.
“Hey you! What are you doing there?”
I turned around. The two thugs were already back from the drug store and the one with the cold seemed better than before. They dropped the grocery bag and moved slowly towards me, trying to estimate my next moves.
Inside, the rebels, traitors and ministers that walked in the dark side were stirred up. Shoes slapped the floorboards and got louder and louder as it reached to the exit. I didn’t have to think and quickly I scoped two hands full of snow then chucked it them. I saw my chance and ran.
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Gosh this really need to proof read again!