I don’t uncover or open my eyes, fearing what I will see if I do. I know magic doesn’t exist. What the hell have my parents got involved in? Is this some sort of Halloween trick? They need to reconsider their timing. Halloween was two months ago, for god’s sake. It’s nearly Christmas! I pluck up the courage to tentatively part my index and middle fingers and peer out from between the gap. I can just about make out the figure of a man, standing next to my parents and surrounded by a swirl of black smoke.
“I thought you said she was obedient,” the man chastises my parents and then waves his hand in the air.
My hands start to lower from my face, but I’m not controlling them. I will my brain to replace them over my eyes, but they continue to lower themselves until they’re hanging useless down at my sides. My eyes then open wider of their own accord. Why can’t I control my body? What is happening to me? How is this even possible?
“She’s pretty. You’ve done well,” the man informs my parents with a malevolent smirk on his face, and I get to see him properly for the first time.
He’s much older than I am. I would say by a good thirty years although the gray flecks dotted throughout his hair could possibly be making him appear older than he actually is. He’s not attractive to me in any way. His nose is crooked at the tip, his eyes are small and beady, his body is thin, and he looks frail. I try to recollect if I’ve ever seen him before, but I can’t. He’s a stranger to me.
“Nyah, we’d like you to meet Malachi Hayes,” my father introduces us, and the politeness that’s been drilled into me has me giving him a smile in warm greeting, even though inside I’m in turmoil, terrified of this stranger.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Nyah.” The man’s words are spoken slowly and deliberately. Everything about him is calculating—it’s like he’s not real.
“And you, sir,” I reply and flinch back when he goes to take my hand.
“This will be a lot of fun.” He licks his lips, and the strawberries, I ate earlier in the kitchen, threaten to put in an appearance again when my stomach churns. He looks me up and down and returns his attention to my parents. “What has she been told?”
“Nothing. As you requested,” my mother responds this time.
“But she’s been prepared as I requested?”
My mother nods.
“Exactly as you specified.”
“Good.” Malachi reaches out and takes my hand. His palms are icy cold, and I try to pull my hand back, but he’s gripping it too tightly. “It’s time for us to leave.”
In another blinding flash of light and a swirl of smoke, I feel myself thrown forward. I don’t understand what’s happened until the spinning in my head clears, and I see my parents and I are no longer at our home but in the grand hall to an old Gothic style building. It’s dark and full of statues staring at me with beady eyes—they’re joined by antique pictures hung on the walls of people from years gone by.
“W-Where are we?” I stutter, not truly wanting an answer.
I’d prefer, instead, to wake up from whatever nightmare I’m in. My parents step aside, and I see a man, another stranger, standing in the center of the room. He’s dressed in a long black cloak and holds a book in his hand. I try to read the title on the cover but the shadows falling across it prevent me from doing so. It looks likes an ancient Bible, but something tells me there’s nothing holy about this book.
“Welcome to your new home, Nyah,” Malachi addresses me.
“My new home,” I repeat, sounding like I’m learning a foreign language for the first time. “Mother, Father, please tell me what’s happening?” I turn to my parents.
“It’ll be alright, Nyah. You’ve been preparing for this your entire life,” my father responds.
“Preparing for what?” I shout, my confusion turning into anger.
I wish someone would give me an honest answer about what’s happening here. Why am I being kept in the dark about everything?
“Your marriage to me.” Malachi grips my hand tighter and tries to lead me toward the man in the black cloak.
I dig my heels in and stare at him like he’s grown two heads. Maybe being kept in the dark was the better