First chapter to an untitled story....let me know - Writers Forum

dbay2006 · 01-10-2008, 06:56 PM

Chapter 1

White is a color that when you see it appears slightly dull, just a simple, unnoticeable color in a world full of others more willing to show themselves as vibrant. The white of the ground began to blur together as if the forest and the school were one connected body. Grey Shores Academy, to be specific, sat in a secluded valley in Southern England. Though England is merely a rather large island in respect to all other islands, around our school there was no beach, and certainly no bright and shining sun. Around our school was the walls of steep rock, and miles of evergreen trees, each at least nine foot tall with branches larger in diameter than my waist. A winter paradise for some in the dreary month of December, but to us the students, the school symbolized the next year, solid with study and memorization.
My name is Jonathan Winkle, and I am a student at Grey Shores academy. That year was my first, and the last chance I had at not being labeled a delinquent. My parents were wealthy and sophisticated, and well, I was the son they never really wanted, and was treated more of a burden than a wanted member of the family. At that time I was fairly small, but I liked to think of myself as athletic, though I never thought to try out for any team sports.
Back in London, where I lived before being sent away I was known as being somewhat mischievous, which ultimately lead to my stay at Grey Shores. I had gotten into several fights at my school in London and became an embarrassment to my family. I don’t really mind that much, I never really felt at home there anyway.
“Open your textbooks and turn to page three -hundred forty two.” Mr. Farsey was our ever so dedicated English teacher. He began ever class the very same way, with a passage of Shakespeare, before he began his daily rant of how it applied to our lives. You know, things such as the struggle of love displayed in Romeo and Juliet and how it resembled every stress or storm that took place in our own lives, as if fourteen year old children cared enough to think about love. Or hamlet, and how the card of death was dealt so swiftly and how it effected the story. Death though was a theme that hit us hard, or, better still, I should I say that it would hit us hard.
I never found it easy to listen to Mr. Farsey, with his constant sniffing and all. He must have had allergies, or a continuous cold, because between his coughing and sneezing I could not focus. He just stood, hardly moving, at the front of the room and read aloud until a thought crossed his mind, and then he said it aloud as if speaking to a group of colleagues. Though, that is one thing that I appreciated him for, he never treated us as children, always as adults. Overall he was a very nice man, but his idea of fascinating literature was not in line with my own.
When I was very small my parents were not so well off. My mother and father had been married young and had me very young, and at first my father was a bookkeeper for a small bank in our ratty suburb of London. He worked very hard but we were a very close family and spent most of our time together. Every night my mother told me a story. They were stories that her mother had told her and so she told them to me, hoping to carry on the tradition. Every story was different but always about some sort of faerie, goblin, troll, or any other mythical creature you could think of.
One day, my father had been tending the books when he noticed a discrepancy in the trial of funds and pinpointed the problem onto one employee. That employee had been embezzling a large amount of money from the bank. The banker, being so appreciative of my father, gave him a promotion, and soon he worked his way into a partnership with the banker until finally becoming president upon the death of his former employer.
The bank had then become one of the most respected in England and required a lot of my parents time. Soon my parents were no longer concerned with family and had sent me to Grey Shores, to their relief, and did not miss me I am sure.
Before I realized what had happened, the bell tower had rung, and Mr. Farsey had ceased talking and began exiting with the rest of his students. I tied up my books, through them over my shoulder and made my way through the dark-stained oak doorways and into the hall. Grey Shores had been built in the eighteen-hundreds and still remained just as Celtic as the day that it had been erected. There were only about five main halls, each ten foot high with heavy beamed archways over head and housed thousands of cobwebs. The main school building was a large square structure and an even larger square building surrounded it, which is where we lived.
The thing I liked most about the Grey Shores Academy was that each student had his own room, though damp and musty they were, it was home, at least more than any other for me. Each room was also arched and filled with cobwebs, and more the size of a large closet. I had a bed, which creaked every time that I turned in the night and a structurally unsound desk, which I settled with my literature book from Mr. Farsey’s class.
It was perfect for such a solitary person as me, and I enjoyed it. Friends were not a very strong suit of mine, and the only subject that I failed at in life. Textbooks I could handle, but I did not want any part in connection with others. It had ended badly with my parents, and relationships scared me. There were other students that I talked to every day, but no friends, no one to rely on.

Several hours later, the bell tower rang and ended the days session of classes. During the evening all of the students dined together in one large room, along with the teachers for supervision. When we finished we were dismissed and were to tend to our studies, but many of the other students used most of the time to socialize. I, though, having more interest in the world outside of the academy, immersed myself in books, reading all about the world outside.
Alone in my room I had been reading for hours and lost track of the time. Outside the snow had been falling and if were not for the cold blackness of the forest surrounding the school would have been shining bright. The moon had fallen asleep and faded into the night, leaving the shadows of the evergreens more powerful than ever. Besides the bed and the desk, there was another creaky part of my room. As I sat on my bed, reading under the mellow oil lamp that hung in the middle of my room, the present silence was broken by the loud creak of my single window bursting open suddenly.
My heart pounded for a second or two until I calmed myself and worked up enough courage to step over to the window and close it. Just as I reached for the pane, an arm reached into my window and grabbed me quickly. “Don’t make a move or I will cut you.” Slowly, I back away from the window and in crawled a boy that appeared to be about the same age as me.
“You’re a child.”
“Yes, and what are you then?” The boy brushed the snow off his pants and looked at me sternly.
“Well I am a child to, but-”
“But nothing, now do not say one word. I’m here to get something to sell and I will be on my way.”
“You cannot just force your way in here and steal, that is wrong.”
“Yes it is wrong, but I have no other choice, now give me those pens and that coat over there.”
“And why should I just hand you my things?”
“Because I will cut you, now hand them over.”
He came closer to me and as he stepped further into the lamplight I could tell that he had been living off the streets for some time. His clothes were filthy with something sticky and also stained with mud. His face was just as dirty and he looked hungry, but where he had come from I do not know, because there were no cities, or even villages, within fifty miles of the academy. “You do not even have a knife, how are you going to cut me?”
“I just will, now hand them over.”
“No, I refuse. You will have to kill me first. I will not let you just force your way into my room and take my things.”
“Fine, you spoiled brat, keep your things, I do not want them anyway.” Angrily he swung around onto the window seal and started to dart out when I foolishly spoke out.
“Stop. Wait.” The boy turned and looked at me with a face of confusion and I continued. “You must be hungry, aren’t you?”
“I do not need your charity.”
“Good, because it is not charity, it is an offer of friendship.”
“Friendship? Why”
“Because I have none, just like you.”
“You do look pitiful sitting alone every night in here, just reading,” he said with a smirk.
“Have you been watching me?”
“I have been watching the school, yes. You I have been watching, mainly because you were a loner and was to be an easy target, but do not feel special, I was waiting for the perfect time to strike.”
“Nonetheless, would you like some of my food. I keep some the top drawer of my desk, you know, in case hunger creeps up on me in the middle of the night.”
“Silve Porskey,” he announced as he stuck out his grimy hand to greet me.
“Jonathan Winkle,” I said and grabbed his hand, giving as firm a handshake as I could, not wanting to appear weak.
“Nice to meet you John.”
“Likewise Silve.” I opened the drawer and pulled our a large cloth napkin. Inside was several small pastries that I had smuggled out of the dinner room inside my pockets.
“So tell me,” I started in after a couple minutes of chewing, “ where are you from Silve?”
“London.”
“Honestly? I am too. Well I was born there, but Grey Shores has been my home for two years now.”
“I don’t see how you can live here. There are no girls, and you are forced to stay. Are you never allowed outside of the walls of the school?”
“Very rarely. On occasion we take a trip into Chisdale, about an hour from here, to see a play at the town theatre. And of course we are sent home for a month every summer on holiday.”
“Every day is a holiday to me.” Silve never looked away from his apple turnover to speak, always nervously chewing.
“Yes I am sure, but what about your family? What about your home?”
“I have no family, and I live wherever I want, whenever I want.” He looked nervous now, I could infer that he did not want to disclose anything about himself to me so I did not want to press him too much. I did not know what he was capable of, and honestly, he scared me. “I am sorry Silve, you do not have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.”
“It’s ok, I promise. I’ve never really had anyone ask me questions about myself. Come to think of it, you are the first person I have talked to in quite a while.”
“Well I talk to a lot of people here, but never really say anything.”
“I guess you are right.” He paused to take another bite . “Are we friends Jonathan?”
His question abruptly halted my thoughts, and all that I could say was, “what?”
“Friends, you know, pals? Chums?”
“Sure. As long as you do not cut me then I am sure we will be just fine friends,” I said with a smile.
“Good.” He had finished his turnover, and the smile on his face showed a sense of accomplishment. Standing to his feet he stretched and started towards the window. “Thank you for the turnover Jon.”
“Where are you going now, it is freezing outside, and the snow is getting deeper.”
“It’s no problem for me. I am used to it, besides I can’t stay here.”
“You are right.” It was true, they would throw him out when they found him. The instructors here were not cold-hearted people, but they were heavily funded by many up-scale families, and were expected to uphold their status of credentials no matter the circumstances. “Wait,” I said. “Stay here tonight, at least to get out of the cold, and in the morning you can sneak back into the woods.”
“Really?”
“Really.”
I gathered some extra woolen blankets into a pile on the floor along with my extra pillow and doused the lamp. I crawled into my creaking bed and Silve curled up into a ball on the blankets and we fell fast asleep until morning.

We must have talked very late into the night, because dawn seemed to have come earlier than I expected. I had forgotten about Silve, and was stretching in order to wake myself, and then I remembered that I had to wake him in order for him to make his escape. I sprung up and out of bed to find that the blankets were still wadded up on the floor, but Silve was gone. I looked around the room, and hurried to the window. He had gone during the night and must have been in a hurry, because the window had been flung open and in spilled the cold, winter morning air of the forest. I smiled and closed the window. It would be time for class soon and I had to prepare.
It was another usual morning of breakfast, and then I returned to my room for my books. I half expected to see Silve, sitting in my desk chair, eating a pastry but he was not and I left for class.

Mr. Farsey began with a passage from Romeo and Juliet. My mind was set to discuss love, something I know nothing of, but he took a turn that caught us unaware, and by us I mean all thirty boys in my class. Instead of love, he discussed the bond of family and friends, another topic of which I know nothing about. “What perfect timing,” I thought. For five years I had had no friends, and the moment I find one is when Mr. Farsey chooses to discuss it.
Nonetheless I suffered through class and rejoiced at the sound of the bell tower. Once again I packed up my things and into the hallway I went. Next was lunch, then came algebra class, followed by science and then on to lunch. A little while after dinner, I was sitting in my room, waiting for Silve to pop into my window. I hate waiting. The anticipation eats at me and I become very anxious. It seemed as if I were waiting for an hour, though it was more than likely no more than fifteen or twenty minutes, before I heard Silve coming up the tree outside of my window. I ran over and opened the pane and let him in.
That night was the same as the last. We talked, laughed, and joked and discussed everything of the world outside. I had never had a true friend before, but I was beginning to grow accustomed to having him around.
He fascinated me with every story that he told of the world around us. He told me of how he lived in the woods, and at night eerie things crept out from under the shadows and stomped around the nettled forest floor. Every time he stomped around like a troll or goblin and pretended to terrorize the villagers, we would laugh until our sides hurt.
Something, though, about him never quite fit. It was always quite odd of him to try and tempt me into the forest every night, as if he wanted see something. He would always say “oh come now Jon, I want to show you something out there,” and he would point out of the window as if it were the portal to another world, not our own.
“Ok, I will make you a deal,” he said.
“Alright?”
“We can wait until dawn. That way it will be daylight, and we can be back before anyone notices that you are gone.”
“I don‘t know, Silve.”
“It will be alright, I promise.”
I gave in. He was right, we could be back by dawn and all would be fine. So like a fool, just as the sun was rising over the forest, we dressed ourselves warmly and headed off through the snow and into the woods.
“So what did you want to show me?”
“It’s not far. Just up ahead, Jon.”
“But, what is it that is so amazing, that we would be up at five o’clock, trampling around in the snow?”
“Just over that ridge,” he said and he stomped along in front of me. He was about ten paces ahead of me and crowned the top of the ridge before me. He stepped over and disappeared as I was approaching the top of the ridge myself. When I got to the top I looked down and saw no one. He was gone, and just ahead was a hole in the ground large enough to swallow a truck.
“Silve!?” I called out frantically. The forest just swallowed my voice and there was no echo, no reverberating sound. I fell on my knees at the edge of the crevice and yelled into it as it would help, but I soon gave up. If he did fall into the whole, then there was nothing that I could do for him, and class would be starting soon.
A few minutes later I found myself at the tall wooden doors leading into the academy and raced up the staircase towards my room. I was not running because of any urgency, but out of fear, as if my worst enemy were actually at heels, clawing and tearing at me. What it was that I was afraid of I do not know, but somehow felt as if I had begun something, and that something was relentless and evil.

citygirl · 01-10-2008, 07:43 PM

ok I will try to review this.... But before I do, could you please edit it and seperate the paragraphs? That would make it alot easier to read.....

I will visit this again.... cg