Page 132 of Valpar

“You should comfort Valpar, not me. I don’t want him to be upset.”

Fairy Godmother blew a raspberry. “Are you kidding? The dufus is fine. He wouldn’t like me, anyway. He would want me to be here with you. You are such a selfless little thing, aren’t you?” She hummed and placed her cheek on top of my head.

I didn’t reply—all I could feel was the deep, heaviness of depression overtaking me.

I disliked this place, and I now remembered why I wanted to have my memories erased.

You’re such a waste of space.

He wouldn’t have left if you didn’t come along.

No one will ever love you.

Such a klutz, can’t you do anything right?

This place, this hellhole I used to call home, was my torture chamber for years. Words hurt more than my stomach shrinking, the sleepless nights and the nightmares that came. I was scared of everything, with no one to hold me in the night and no one to tell me everything was okay.

School was my only reprieve. I got a free lunch for those who needed it, but the cruel children who saw me as nothing more than poor trash still tormented me. All I wanted to do was make friends and enjoy the sunshine. Instead, from a young age I was dubbed the ‘weird one,’ when I was so fascinated with dandelions, watching the birds, making flowered crowns and lying in the grass.

She’s so weird.

I heard her mom never wanted her.

Do you see the way she dresses?

That girl tries to fit in, it’s just pathetic.

I always wore tattered and oversized clothes. They were nothing like what the other kids wore, even though Theresa did her best to sneak me clothes in the basement window. The woman upstairs would take them for herself when she saw me wear them.

When summer arrived, I found myself trapped in the stifling basement. I couldn’t escape unless I took the risk of slipping out through a small window, while my mother was comatose from drugs or drowning in her own hangover.

Survival was a constant struggle in this suffocating prison.

I was a depressed, lonely outsider that just craved human contact.

I never fully understood why my mother didn’t love me. She loved her drugs more, and spent every bit of money of those welfare checks on it. That woman wouldn’t let me go, either. I remembered her sister, my aunt, try to take me away so many times, to save me.

Theresa was the only one that saw me, tried to save me, but that woman who birthed me wanted that check for her minute of a high.

Not to protect her daughter.

I worked to the bone some nights, cleaning, doing her laundry, cooking. That woman would even make me come upstairs for her parties and make food for the people she would bring over.

I closed my eyes, and felt the tears run down my cheeks when I remembered one night the people started throwing bottles on the floor. Someone ordered me to clean up the shattered glass and as I was doing so, I somehow fell forward, and glass buried deep into my skin.

I didn’t have any way to keep the infection out, no way to clean it. It healed horribly and left nasty scars.

I pulled up the black t-shirt I was wearing and looked down. The tiny scars were there, in the dream. Now that I was awakefrom the magic that Uncle Osirus and the sorceress put on me, would they be there when I woke up?

What would Valpar think of me now? Would he still think of me as his little fairy? All those haunting memories were here now. The darkness was here to stay. I didn’t have one ounce of happiness in my childhood. I could feel the fog surrounding me, suffocating me.

You’re worthless.

My Fairy Godmother’s touch calmed my racing heart. It was her magic. I could feel it flowing through my body. I could feel the rush come in like a giant wave off the shores of the Golden Light Kingdom. The warm waters made it up my ankles and to my knees until it reached up my neck.

“Shh,” she cooed. “Shh,” she whispered, “You are loved now.” Her fingers threaded through my dark hair. “Think of the wonderful memories you have made in your new life, what has become of you in Bergarian.”

I hummed, my hands balling into fists. I concentrated on warm waters, the light sources wrapping around me.

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