Captive of the Light - Lily Ramsay (ereader iphone txt) 📗

and collecting wild animals. He had been a sweet child. But she had never paid much attention to him; she never really paid much attention to anyone.
“Do you still not speak”, his voice came, invading her thoughts.
She continued to stare and then shrugged.
“Guess not” he concluded.
They stared each other for a moment longer before he said
“I don’t blame you know, no one really does, it’s just that they want someone to blame and you seem most vulnerable”
She nodded considering and stood up. “Thankyou” she murmured so quietly, Tom wasn’t even sure if he heard her right but before he could question her about it, with a flick of her head she turned away and began to walk towards the gates. Just as she was about to pass through she heard,
“you know, I like her hair better long”

****

As she made her way back home, Caro tried to figure out what had brought her to Pembrooke in the first place. She hadn’t been there for at least seven years.
The Middleton's had always believed it was her fault. Somehow they had found out that she cut and for some reason that meant that Lauren had ‘died’.
Back at her cottage Caro made herself a cup of tea and clambered upstairs to her bathroom, prepared to clean up the mess she had made earlier. Picking up her silk strands of hair and piling them in the bin, she thought of it as turning another page in her life, finishing another chapter. Each foster home was one; chapter two was living with her aunts. Number three was psychiatric ward, four, was living by herself, five was meeting Lauren, six was after Lauren disappeared, and seven was now opening up before her. Who knows what it would hold...

Lauren
I pushed up off the ground. I felt stiff but strangely enough, well rested. I stretched and forced myself up into a standing position. Pembrooke manor. That’s where I was. It hadn’t changed. Everything seemed the same except for the people inside. The last thing I had remembered was a pain shooting through my leg and cursing Caro for ever making me curious, and then all went black.
From looking inside it became obvious that I had been gone for a large space of time.
‘No!’ I thought angrily, ‘get a grip Lauren, that’s not possible’ and yet there in front of me was visible evidence of my family, in years ahead.
I needed to find Caro and fast; she would know what to do.
Quickly, I stretched my aching legs and set into a sprint out of the grounds. Heading toward town, I remembered all the back ways, in which Caro and I used to sneak to each other’s houses when we were meant to be in bed.
I tried to keep my head down while I raced through the town. If I was right and not going completely crazy, then I should be a lot older than I looked and I had probably been missing for months, years, who knows?
I earned a few looks and whispers as raced through but I think that I was too quick for my image to register. Later on they would find out, and all would be turned upside down. But for the moment my mission was to get to Caro’s house, I needed her to help me.
I was out of breath by the time I finally arrived. For however long I had been wherever I had been the house had not changed much. A few extra vines growing on the walls and a spot of mould here and there but nothing other than that. I wondered if Caro had changed, if she even remembered me. Well there was only one way to find out. I lifted my fist and hammered on the door...


2.
Caro

Caro glanced up in surprise when she heard a knock on her door. The last time anyone had visited her was when Lauren was still here and even then she never knocked, she just walked in or demanded to be let in.
She had just finished in the bathroom when the knock came and she wondered idly down her stairs toward the door, still carrying the bin in her hand. With curiosity mounting she opened the door, right into the face of her beloved Lauren...
She could not believe her eyes; there in front of her stood her fourteen year old friend. She had stains on her clothes and looked as wild as ever. Blond wavy hair blowing in the wind and deep caramel eyes searching her face for any sign of recognition.
“Caro” Lauren whimpered and with that Caro pulled her into her arms, holding her tight, never wanting to let go.

Lauren
The door flung open. I held my breath but there she was, my Caro. Her hair had been cut short and she still torn up wrists but she was my friend.
I couldn’t help it “Caro” I whimpered” and that was that for the second time since I’ve known her she engulfed me in a huge bear hug.
I didn’t want to let go, I was afraid I wouldn’t get her back, but we had to. We stepped back from each other and stared, catching up on the time we had been apart. I fingered her wrists and cropped hair and she stroked my cheek and crooned.
Eventually we stepped in from the doorway. I sat down silently at her table wanting to ask if she has spoken but not wanting to ruin the moment. She handed me a biscuit that she had once told me her aunt taught her recipe to. She looked so much older and in the end I asked, “How long?” she reached for her notebook and scribbled;
Too long... six years...and a week...
I gasped in horror and then gasped again as I realised she knew exactly what I’d been through. “You knew” I said more to myself than to her but nevertheless she nodded. We sat in silence for a little while and then when she took my plate to the sink and had her back to me I heard her first words she had ever spoken to me’
“Your family thinks that you’re dead, that you committed suicide or were murdered not sure which theory they’re up to now”
Before I could register this information I had to take in the sweetness of her voice. It was high pitched like a soprano but soft and gentle at the same time. I gaped at her in wonder before I realised the meaning of the words she had spoken,
“They think I’m dddead?” I stuttered. Caro rolled her eyes at me and wrote that with me gone for six years that that’s the conclusion one usually comes to. Good old Caro hadn’t changed a bit.
Caro explained to me in written word and by speaking just a little bit that at first they thought that it was suicide but then they didn’t find my body so they thought I had been kidnapped. That theory hung around for a while but then they thought that somebody had murdered me and for some reason they blamed her for it.
I was aghast, I mean I can’t say I expected any less but so many theories and none of them correct? It was a wonder and the only thing that was certain was that that manor was cursed. Caro had said so herself. She was still keeping something from me though, the same something that she had never old me when we were both fourteen.

Caro

Lauren was here and Caro couldn’t believe it. After all this time resigning herself to the fact the Lauren wasn’t coming back, she was right here sitting in her house eating her biscuits. Caro had spoken to Lauren, like actually spoken and although it had taken a lot to do the look of pleasure that had come across Laurens features had made it worth it.
But she knew that Lauren knew she wasn’t telling her something. Even though they had only known each other a few weeks before she went ‘missing’ but in that time they had formed a connection. Caro knew that in the end Lauren would ask and she got to the point where she figured she might as well just tell her herself. But not yet. So they sat there together, Lauren pondering what Caro had told her about her parents’ theories and Caro thinking about how dangerous the manor was becoming. It was no secret that it was cursed but more people were falling into the trap. Grace, Laurens little sister, what was she, nine? Well soon she would become curious about what happened to her sister and the secrets lurking in Pembrooke manor. No, Caro decided this must not go on.
Of course it was to be suspected, but Lauren brought up the subject of returning to
“I have to see my parents and Tom and Grace” she pleaded “I can’t let them keep thinking that I’m dead, it’s simply not fair”. While Caro agreed with that but she liked the idea of keeping Lauren all to herself.
“How are we going to do it though, I mean we can’t just turn up and say surprise!!!? I’m back!”
Caro nodded and agreement again and thought about what she did when it happened and she came back, she would write it out for Lauren tonight, and then see if maybe they could put it into action.
“I’m...going...bed” she choked out. Lauren looked up somewhat amused
“ok ‘night” smiled Lauren which earned her a scowl from Caro...well it was better than nothing.
Instead of going to sleep like she had told Lauren, she pulled out her notepad and began to write;
When I was thirteen years old and had been living with my father for a short space of time, I began to feel that I needed to return to my aunts’ house. One night, I snuck out and wandered over to Pembrooke manor. When I arrived there I had no idea what I was doing, I couldn’t remember the journey there or why I was here. Anyways, I unlocked the door with my spare key (the one I gave you on our first night) and went inside. It was eerily quiet. My aunts had just died over the space of the one year and nobody had come to anything about the house. I was the first one inside for months. I wondered up the stairs to the tower that had been my room too. I pushed the window open and looked out into the night air, unlike you, I had no one to apologise to. So I merely breathed in the night air and tiptoed out of the room.
I think I knew that from that night on everything was going to change, I just didn’t realise how drastically. Unlike you I hadn’t been up the difficult route to the attic so I found out how tricky it really was on that night. Anyway, when I finally made it to the attic I was amazed at how far it was, I mean you would think that it was a simple corridor and narrow staircase that took you straight up but no, nothing is normal at Pembrooke manor.
You would have thought that the amount of difficulty and jittery feelings would have been enough to make me turn back but no, I was more determined than ever. I truly felt that there was something that I need to uncover hidden beneath the depths of Pembrooke. I believe I first got the feelin