The Forever Tree Part Two

Here I sit, twenty four years old, on a throne that wasn't meant to be mine. I came here when I was fourteen, just a little slip of a girl. Thats when I wandered into the woods behind my home and met James. I don't think thats his real name, but you know how fearies are with their real names. Even a prince has to be on gaurd. We all have to be on gaurd here, someone is always trying to hurt someone. Especially here in the night court, where the creatures take pleasure in the torture of creatures like me.

I was never meant to be here you see, I came here from a human family. Not that I ever thought I could be human, talking to trees and such. For a long while I did think I was crazy. I had this tree who would tell me stories and feed me when my mother didn't buy food for the house. The Forever Tree was my best friend ten years ago. I sometimes wondered what happened to my friend, but who knows what James would say if I asked to leave him? Who knows what would happen if I just left? I might get myself into some sort of trouble beyond being married to the ruler of hundreds beasts who already hate me.

But who knows? Maybe they'll be happy to be rid of me. I'm sure of it, actually. James will presume me for dead and marry another. Whats the worst thing that could happen?

I was always doing that, talking myself into things. Thats what got me into this mess. The Forever Tree told me to stay away from them, told me to never eat the food and drink the wine. But what is a curious girl to do? I wondered into the woods a few weeks before my friend had told me not too for the last time. Thats where I met James, his eyes were a shade I had never seen and his face was unusually angular. He was beautiful, and I had already fallen for his spell.

Under it still might I add, but the fear of death in the court out grew the love I had for James. I was just a child, fourteen years old. Just fourteen. I never got to go to prom, or see my sister go into high school or talk to my best friend like I had wanted too.

By the time I had already made up my mind, I was going home.

That night I waited for James to come to the bedroom and lay on our bed. He looked concerned, like he knew I had been crying.

"What is the matter, my dearest?" he cooed.

"I want to go home." I sniffled.

"Why would you want to go there, when you are a princess here?"

I was a princess there, I thought. The Forever Tree's tiny princess. And I didn't listen and now I am traped here forever.

"I miss my family..."

"Am I not enough of a family for you?"

And what was I to say to that? No, James, even though you protect me and feed me and hold me while I sleep you are not enough for me. That would have panned out just great for me. Dead by morning for sure.

"I'm sorry..."

"It is alright my love, if you need more than just me we shall have a child."

"Thats not what I meant.."

"Then what could you have meant?"

"I want to go home to my family."

"You shall not. I'm finished talking about it. Good night Samantha"

And with that he rolled over and went to sleep. But he should have known better, no one can ever just say "I'm finished with this" and be done with it. Its never been that way with me. You can't just brush me off and not expect me to do something rash.

So that night, after James was fast alseep, I snuck out of our bedroom. Past the gaurds and through the corridors of my palace. When I got to the doors I stripped out of my royal clothes and glamoured on a pair of jeans and an old T-shirt my mother used to wear. I changed my long chestnut hair into a short red number, and made my skin grow white.

Funny thing about glamour though, if its not strong enough, the fae will see right through it. Then everyone would know who I was and that I was running away.

It wasn't far from the court, I was home in less than an hour. The house was still old and reeked of iron. Now that I wasn't used to it, the iron burned my nose and hurt my throat to breath. I looked around and into the windows where my mother used to sit. She wasn't there. She had to be there, where could she have gone? I went to the door around the other side of the house and I turned the door knob and I looked around. Some of our things were scattered around the house, but alot of it was gone. My mothers make-up, my sisters toys.

Of course by now the toys would have been long gone anyway. She was fourteen now. So I walked into her room and all that was left was some pixie sticks and an avenged sevenfold poster. I had missed it.

My room was just how I left it. It was cold, and my CDs still littered the floor with my french homework. I smiled as I crawled back into my old bed, I could see on my pillow case all the maskara that came off when I cryed on this bed, so many years ago.

They were gone, but I knew one thing had to be the same. The Forever Tree would still be at the side of my house.

But when I walked out where my best friend lived, the tree was gone. Burned to the ground and pieces of burnt bark littered the ground. I dropped to my knees. My family, my best friend, they were gone.

I layed there for a while, curled up in a ball I cried. I cried for hours. I wept until the sun rose in the east and it had to have been midday before I fell asleep there.

And someone must have found me there, someone who wasn't very fond of me, because I never woke up. Someone must have killed me on the spot. I never saw my James again. But I'm never really happy am I?

I wasn't happy with my life when I left my home to live with the faeries, I wasn't happy as a princess, and I wasn't happy when I returned home. I just lay in limbo, waiting for someone to rescue me. Waiting for life, waiting for death. Waiting for something besides this dreadful nothing-ness.

It makes me wonder who had to descover my body. Ten years later the daughter of the children who grew up here before her was finally home, dead and bloody in the grass.