Lady Of Shalott -Prequel- 1

Once upon a time, there was a young lady sitting at a chair. In front of her were a mirror and a large wooden weaver. In the mirror, every day, she saw shadows of all lengths and sizes reflected from a mirror in the tower behind her. Her mind was empty and all she felt was the touch of the weaving string and the soft, delicate texture of the worn, royal red chair she sat on.
And from there, she cared nothing in the world, apart from her weaver, her shadows, her mirror and her.
Sitting alone, in the tall dark tower was the Lady of Shalott.

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The Lady of Shalott could not sleep.
It wasn't that she didn't want to sleep –she wanted that very much; it was just that she couldn't. She wasn't allowed. Every day, light till dark, she sat at her weaver and weaved. She had a mirror above her weaver and through that, she saw shadows reflected off the big window behind her. Shadows, shadows, shadows. They were her nutrients, her entertainment, and the things that kept her alive.
Sometimes, she saw animals through her mirror. Squirrels, wild dogs, horses, but mostly, she saw people. There were little shepherd boys, old priests, and sometimes maids, beautiful village girls with long flowing hair, gliding down the pathway. They looked so free.
The Lady of Shalott could have wished that she was like them, but she didn't. All she thought about, day after night were shadows.
They fed her imagination and created her lifeline for her.
She didn't ever need to worry.
But finally, after what seemed like several lifetimes of shadows, she began to wonder. She looked into her mirror and wondered who she was and what she looked like. Even though she had a 'mirror' a mirror it was not. It only served one purpose- to show her the shadows.
She leaned back into her thick soft chair as her hands left the weaver, the shadows dimmed ever so slightly and so then the Lady of Shalott laid back in thought.
She had done this carelessly. Never before, had her hands ventured anywhere away from her weaver. It was like something she had to do. It was binding her. A curse? She did not know.
The Lady of Shalott gave a small gasp and silently scolded herself for being so careless.
Just as she was about to place them back on to continue weaving the magic thread, she caught on to a train of thought. She ever so suddenly remembered her life before her confinement to the tower.
"Shadows bore me, but this is something new!" she exclaimed, and so she closed her eyes and saw a different kind of shadow…
Once, there was a little girl. She was with her parents, laughing and smiling at a woodland park. She was quite small, with long golden hair that shone a reddish colour in the morning sun. They were calling to each other, having fun, like any typical family. The mother wearing a big floppy sun hat sat under the shadow of a large birch tree, the girl chased her father around the big wide open field.
They were laughing, and laughing and laughing, until, it seemed, the sun went down.
It darkened.
The scene changed.
The father was in a bed with pearly white sheets. It was a hospital, or so it seemed. The mother and the little girl stood round the bed. The mother looked as if she had been crying, and the little girl the same, sobbing into the crook of her mothers arm.
They said something, but the Lady of Shalott couldn't hear, nor did she want to. She knew fair and well what was happening.
It took a while, but the father finally stilled and stopped speaking.
A nurse entered, knelt down beside the father and spoke a few words to the mother. The mother ran out screaming, leaving the little girl alone, dumfounded, tear streaks down her face, sitting on the cold, cold floor of the hospital.
Then, quite suddenly, the picture changed.
The little girl was there again. But this time, she was only with her mother. They were standing at the archway of a beautiful elaborate mansion, waiting at a huge brass door.
Her mother stood by her side, with an empty expression on her face.
After what seemed like hours, there was a knock and they were let in.
They entered a spacious passageway. A deep red carpet spread across the lush wooden floor.
A maid stood beside the door and smiled pitifully at them, "Mrs Averay is it? And her little girl, Charlotte? Was it Charlotte?"
Janie. The Lady of Shalott thought suddenly. Her name is Janie.
"Janie." whispered the little girl.
"Janie." said the maid, smiling, "What a pretty name." She stared sadly at the two for a while, "My name is Margaret Taylor, but please call me Peggy." She smiled, "follow me, if you please."
The walked after the door, Janie looking around her, amazed, at the tall doors that appeared here and there, across the seemingly endless passageway. The mother simply walked, not acknowledging the presence of neither Janie nor the maid.
"Here," The maid said finally, stopping at a smaller wooden door, "Take a seat in there, and the Master will soon be with you!"
Janie smiled at the maid, "Thank you, Mrs Taylor."
"It's Peggy." She smiled back, "Call me if you need anything, Janie dear," and she was gone. Janie watched as she disappeared into another room bearing a large black door.
Janie walked into the large room, and saw a large stone room, with a worn red carpet. There was a big important looking door on one side, and just to the right of it were two smaller doors. In the middle of the room, there were two cosy blue sofas surrounding a small wooden coffee table. Her mother was sitting in one of them.
Janie strode over and lowered herself into the other one, facing her mother.
"Mummy?"
Her mother made no indication that she had heard her at all.
They sat in silence. Janie felt uneasy, sitting beside her pretty much non existent mother, with her sunken cheeks and sad, distant eyes; so different to how she had looked just a few months before. Her mother did not respond sometimes, just staring off into nothingness for hours on end.
Sometimes she would talk, and Janie could always see that it took much of her strength, but not once would she smile.
Finally, she could no longer stand it.
"Mummy, I'm going to look around, okay? Just to get something to eat, I'm a bit hungry; do you want anything?"
As expected, her mother did not reply, just looking up at Janie, her stare unfocused. Then her gaze dropped, and she continued looking at nowhere in particular.
Janie nodded, and walked to one of the small doors she spotted leading away from the waiting room.
She pushed it and found that it opened to a short flight of stairs leading upwards.
"Don't worry, mother, I'll be careful," she whispered, taking to the stairs.
At the top, she found a small, wooden door that seemed to be wearing away. It was much more different from the posh expensive doors she had seen in the building up to now and Janie slowly pushed it open dreading the worst.
It was a bedroom.
She could see that straight away. There was a huge bed to her left, with draping moth-eaten curtains. And, although the scruffiness and worn down wooden legs, it was still three times what she had at home for her mother and her to sleep in every night; and countless times more magnificent. The covers were pristine. It was as if no one had ever even touched it.
"What a waste for such a pretty bed." She sighed, "No one even sleeps in it anymore."
Shaking her head in disgust, she looked around. To her right, there was a large mirror hung directly opposite a window in the room. It had a beautiful thick frame which must have been made out of gold or something alike. The glass itself was tainted a soft silver, changing everything you saw through it a silky colour and texture. Next to the bed there was a set of drawers with the small window next to it. Janie made her way towards the window and peered out. The glass was grubby and she could only just make out the edges of a rooftop. She trailed her fingers across the dirty sill and stared at the big wooden drawers. She gently pulled on a handle, wanting to peek in to see what kind of things a rich person who slept in such a big room kept.
The drawer was stiff, and after much tugging, she had finally opened it. Success! She stood on tiptoes to look inside.
"Prince Levi doesn't use this room anymore."
Janie leapt back in sudden shock and the drawer fell to the round with a loud clatter, its contents spilling out onto the floor. Janie spun round, terrified, and saw a boy, sitting on a smaller drawer, next to what seemed like a wardrobe. The position which he sat, kept him perfectly concealed from people who weren't looking directly at him, which was probably why Janie hadn't seen him by then. But she had been too busy admiring the scenery either way. Janie silently scolded herself for being so foolish.
"He's not here, so you'll find no gold or money or whatever you're looking for." The boy drawled. He had a rich, posh accent and Janie looked at him closer. He had thick, jet black hair and was wearing a well-fitted black suit. He looked as if he came from a rich family. He had pale skin that contrasted his black hair made it look like ink on white paper. It looked so odd. His icy appearance struck her with a word that she could not place….
"I'm not after anything." replied Janie uneasily, glancing around. The boy may have called security, for all knew. And what would happen if security did catch her? Would they blame mother and take all their money? Would they turn them into the streets and leave them to die and -
"So that's why you were looking around in Levi's room, and searching in his drawers… it makes sense."
Janie could hear the cutting icy sarcasm dripping from his voice, she gulped. He bared his teeth much like a hungry wolf and… he reminded her of those horror books her mother used to adore back when she still had emotion on her face.
He reminded her of a bloodsucking beast, its bloodthirsty eyes always looking, seeking for poor unsuspecting victims to take.
A vampire?
"Please sir, don't call security, please, I didn't mean any harm, I didn't know… the door was unlocked so…"
"Sir, huh." The boy's fierce expression softened and he stepped down from the drawer and grinned, "It sounds stupid. Call me Michael. And I won't call security. If you humour me."
"Humour you?" Janie frowned; keeping her eyes pinpointed on his teeth… which would turn into fangs at any moment, "In what way?"
He shrugged, "What's your name?"
"Janie."
"Janie… Janie what?"
"Janie Averay."
The boy smiled and tilted his head thoughtfully, "That's your mother down in the antechamber, am I correct?"
"Antechamber?" Janie stared puzzled at the strange word, "What's that?"
The boy rolled his eyes, "An Antechamber is a vestibule which is a salle d'attente." Michael finished sharply. "That is your mother, right?"
Janie nodded.
He smiled and leaned back onto the wardrobe and stared at her. "I thought so." He had grey eyes, she noticed, a grey the colour of a thundering sky. They were captivating, dark, mysterious and huge.
"What?" He asked, raising an eyebrow.
Janie blushed, despite herself. "You've got pretty eyes."
Michael nodded and gave a small smile. "I get told that a lot."
There was silence for a while, and then Michael sighed. "I'm bored. Humour me, please." He smiled lazily. "My life has been pretty boring up to now to say the least. And I see you're no fan of my security?"
She shook her head and looked down nervously, "Do you know Prince Levi then?"
"Yes."
"Are you good friends?"
"Not really. Talking about Levi makes me uncomfortable. Let's change the subject."
"But you know royalty!" She looked up happily, "I wish to meet some royalty when I get my job here. That must be amazing!"
"It's not as good as everyone seems to think."
"Oh."
"Oh?"
"Are you a vampire, Michael?" It slipped before she could stop herself. She spluttered and stared fearfully up at him.
"Why do you ask?" He was grinning, but not in a threatening way.
"N-no reason."
"I could be." Smirk.
"So… what's your full name, Michael?" Janie asked quickly.
"Why do you want to know?"
"I told you mine."
"Ah." Michael grinned, sitting back down onto the drawer, "An eye for an eye, huh? I understand. I'll keep this promise in the future. But I'm afraid I have to keep a little secret from you this time, Janie. You don't really want to know my name."
Janie frowned, "Why?"
"No reason." He leaned his head against the drawer, "I won't really call security, you know. They wouldn't listen to me even if I did. The guards and I? We go way back. A pastime of pulling pranks and fake calls; they gave up on me a long time ago." He laughed.
"But why?" asked Janie.
Michael shrugged, "time to kill."
Janie smiled, "I guess that's a valid reason."
Michael smiled back. He stood up and walked to the grubby mirror. Turning around he faced the large mirror beside the door, and gazed deep into it.
He frowned. "You'd better go now, Janie. Lord Lafayette is coming back."
Surprised, Janie looked at him dazedly, "How would you know?"
He grinned and shrugged. Making his way back to the small drawers, he sat down and closed his big grey eyes. "Goodbye, Janie Averay. We'll meet again very soon."
"Soon?"
"You're getting a job here."
"I know."
"Lord Lafayette will appoint you as a maid."
"How do you know?"
"He will. Go now, Janie."
Janie stared, dumfounded at the strange boy and made her way past the big mirror, back through the door, and down the stairs, melancholy as if in a trance.
The maid, Peggy had already come to fetch her and her mother to go to meet the Lord Lafayette before she had come back to her senses.
But by then, she already had other worries on her mind. Like how to impress the Lord.
Ever since her father had died, her mother had worked for the laundrettes. But as of late, as her mother had become empty and constantly lost, and their income had been from minimal to none.
She needed this job at the King's estate.
Clenching her fists in an act of defiance, Janie followed Peggy through the wooden door with her mother in tow to meet the Lord Lafayette.