I Am Bree - Book 1

Chapter 1 - A Brief Introduction

 I was born the fourth daughter to a struggling merchant in western Falea whose daughters were each considered more beautiful than the last. Until my birth. I never seemed to notice the vast differences between myself and my sisters in my younger years. They were aloof and often cruel, but to me, who had known nothing different, this was normal.

By the time I reached the age of ten, though, I was beginning to notice something strange about my treatment compared with theirs. I tore a curtain and was not only severely punished but also made to sit inside for an entire week—the most torturous punishment in existence in my mind; my sisters tore a piece of fine embroidery or an expensive dress and were petted and coddled and told that father would pay to fix the thing.

After that, my only consolation was my father who was equally alone and sad. It was he who instilled in me my love for nature and the outdoors. It was in these places that he seemed more full of life, and sometimes, if I was lucky, his face might lose its tinge of gray and take on the look of a much younger man. It was he who showed me the royal menagerie first, and I shall never forget the times we had there. Our favorite creatures were the fauns. Their dull troubled faces reminded me of myself and my father and drew me closer to them.

Unlike most humans, however, I knew that they weren't always unhappy. At night, when no audience was in sight, they found their true selves again, and spreading their arms, they danced with one another, each step freeing them from their shackles a little more. The first time I saw them do it set my heart soaring, and I began to dream of the day when I could rise up on my own and break free of my mother and sisters' clawing hands.

Father was always a busy man. He was constantly surrounded by paperwork and bills, and I couldn't remember a time when I was awake that he wasn't holed off somewhere working. Working for our king as dutifully as he knew how, and for that reason, I resented the monarchy with every fiber of my being. It was a curiosity to me how such a loyal man as Father had gone unrecognized by the crown, and I dreamed of the day I might have the chance to speak my mind to the 'royal' king.

Those early days of my childhood, he was hardly present in my life, and each night, I would see the light glowing beneath his study door late into the night as he pushed away his exhaustion and looked over important documents that must be sent out with the early morning post. That day, though, was different, and perhaps because of the difference, it is still imprinted on the pages of my memory as though it happened yesterday.

I was only nine, and a more clumsy nine-year-old I dare you to find. I suppose I cannot blame my mother for believing I had broken her new pen. I had admired it from afar for days but hadn't dared touch it for fear of harming it in some manner. She brought it to my attention in a fit of rage, blaming me and my carelessness for running the family into bankruptcy and ruin. As further punishment, I had been banned from going outside for a month and would be forced to sit in the boot closet for an hour a day, using the dim light to patch the servant's clothes.

I could tell it was him coming through the door by the way he walked—a sort of distinctive skid-thump because of an injury he had received in his younger years when he'd spent his days adventuring and exploring rather than surrounded by stacks of paper—,and I longed to abandon my work and run to him, but I dared not for fear of the beating my mother would give me if I left my work too early. Suddenly, his footsteps halted a few feet beyond the door, and he seemed to hesitate for a moment before I heard him turn about, and then the door of the closet swung open. I hardly dared to breathe, hoping beyond hope that he had come for me instead of his riding boots.

"Bree?" He stooped down and his steel-gray eyes met mine. They were more sorrowful than usual. I gazed up at him and began to sob out the whole story, begging his forgiveness for bankrupting the family because of my shortcomings. He drew me into his arms and kissed me, whispering over and over how much he loved me until my tears had ceased.