With Phil's footsteps fast approaching, I did the only thing I could think of. I put the books back into the drawer and turned against the bookshelf to meet my date with fate. As it turns out, Phil was hiding more than just the banned books, because the bookshelf swung inward, offering me a place to escape. When I left Phil's office and stepped into his secret passageway, the magical dress faded off of my body, and I took that as a good sign. Maybe my magic had separation anxiety with the magic book.

Behind me, I heard the door open and Phil walked into his office. There was no audible gasp, so I hoped that the glimmering galaxy had faded once I left the room.

"You in here, Aria?" he called into the shed, but though the wall it sounded more like, "You...here...a?"

I closed my mouth to help silence my breathing, and I slowly started to walk down the corridor. Pressing on walls for doorways out, I was becoming increasingly worried I wasn't going to end up in the garden. From the way it looked, I was headed to the king's palace.

~o0o~

The corridor stretched on endlessly, all of the walls, below and above me included, was made out of a sandy colored stone. The passage was gradually getting darker, so I made sure to keep on hand on the wall at all times. I could feel the grains in the stone, the rough edges, the grout spots.

Finally, I almost stumbled when the brick I had put my hand on sunk deeper into the wall. And I knew this was where I would get out. 

Pushing the stone even deeper into the wall, I waited for a reaction from the wall. Maybe some type of door sliding or swinging in? I was about to move on when that portion of the wall started moving up.

I breathed a sigh of relief as I stepped into the much brighter area, blinking fast so my eyes would adjust to the sudden change in light. My eyelashes tickled my cheeks, and for the first time in a long time, I felt like giggling and skipping around. All because of the ticklish skin under my eyes.

"Who goes there?" called a voice from around the corner, effectively dowsing my childlike fantasies.

"Hello?" I whispered. I didn't want to seem too secretive, but I also didn't know if I would be punished for appearing so suddenly in such a foreign place.

"You're trespassing on the king's private property, and you've appeared out of nowhere. This calls for an audience with the king," the same voice said, coming around the corner to reveal that the voice belonged to a guard.

"Am I in serious trouble?" I questioned, knowing I wouldn't be able to get out of this.

He raised an eyebrow, and looked down at his gleaming guard badge. "Well, actually, I'm not sure. But you'll still need to come with me."

The guard seemed unsure, but he still had a baton at his side, so I nodded my head in assent. When he saw my nod, he took my arm and lead me across the emerald green lawn, and I saw a patch of wildflowers here and there. The garden gave off a welcoming feeling.

The palace, on the other hand, did not. Cold, gray, and high stone walls didn't help, instead making the palace seem colder. Guards lined all parts of the exterior wall, there to make sure invaders didn't get into the palace. 

The guard holding my arm nodded at another guard, and then proceeded to walk towards the huge doors, leading into the interior courtyard. The door opened and we walked in, and the guard didn't let me look at the courtyard long enough. It was a groomed and refined version of the garden I worked at with Phil. Oh... Phil! He would be in so much trouble because of my bending of the truth. Unless the passageway was there on purpose, and that's why Phil went into his shed early most nights, and asked me not to disturb him.

"This one was found on the grounds. Doesn't this call for an audience with the king?" I heard the guard saying to an attendant at the door. 

The attendant looked me over. "Why are you on the palace grounds?"

"I don't know."

She rolled her eyes as if this were a common response. "Sorry, Nick. She's just going to have to submit her name for the record."

The guard named Nick grunted in response. "Right, then. On with it."

"Aria Mae Everheart," I stated, realizing that I would get out of here far faster if I cooperated.

Nick escorted me out of the wall and turned to me a little ways down the path. 

"Now listen here," he said in a low voice, "I have work to do. If you would please escort yourself to the town square, it would be a big help. And I'm sorry about trying to get you arrested. Life is just really, really dull around here."

I nodded, accepting his apology. He held onto my shoulder a little too long, however, and it was becoming awkward. After I shrugged my shoulders, he let go of me and I started the two mile walk back to the town square, happy that with every step, I was putting distance between myself and that guard.

After an hour, I arrived in the square, breathless. I heard the four o'clock bells ring, and that meant my brother was out of his school. That meant a carriage home.

I navigated the quickly filling up town square, even though my feet were throbbing.

"Brayden!" I called, hoping he would hear me after I spotted my brother's head of chocolate brown hair.

He turned, scanning the crowd for the source of his name, but his gray eyes didn't spot me in the crowd. Because of that, I resorted to running. People complained as I accidentally ran into them, or pushed them aside, but there was no way I was walking another three miles home. 

Before Brayden could close the carriage door, he looked up and saw me running at the carriage at full speed.

"Aria?" he asked over the hum of voices.

"Coming!" I panted, stopping right next to the carriage with my hands on my knees. I really did think that they should add an athletics class at my school.

Motioning for Brayden to move over to the other seat, I climbed quickly into the carriage. 

"Why are you still in town this late? Did the internship at the gardens end early?" Brayden seemed overly concerned, as if he didn't want me to know something. And he was angling his body so I couldn't see the back right corner of the carriage. 

"Brayden," I asked, amused, "what are you hiding?"

His cheeks reddened and by the look on his face, he was flustered, "Well, you see, Aria-" 

"Aria?!" exclaimed a female voice from behind Brayden, and he moved away from covering a beautiful young woman, and my eyebrows shot straight into my hairline.

"How do you do?" I greeted, laughing internally at her angry expression.   

"How do I do?" she repeated, looking angry. "I didn't know Brayden had two of us."

"Two of what? I'm his sister," I told her, bursting into laughter at both her and my brother's faces. His girlfriend looked utterly embarrassed and my brother looked mortified that his girlfriend and I were interacting.

"Let's start over," I proposed, "hello, I'm Aria."

She stuck out her hand, and we shook, "and I'm Reece. Sorry about earlier, but every girl at school was trying to catch Brayden's attention. I was feeling threatened for a second."

"Oh, don't worry. I'm the outsider at school, I'm used to it," I laughed, and Reece and I talked the rest of the way to Brayden and I's house. I almost laughed multiple times at Brayden's face when he looked back and forth from Reece and I. 

"Well, it was nice meeting you. I'm sure Brayden wants to talk to you now," I told Reece as I hopped out of the carriage when it reached the house.

"Well, then. Goodbye, Aria," she smiled at me, and I smiled back.

I started walking to the door, after thanking the coachman, and walked in on my father and mother arguing.

"Our daughter is doing something that she loves! Why would you even ask me if I thought we should take it away?" that was my mother.

"Our daughter needs to start acting like a wife. You don't do internships! And the boys will be going to her school to pick a wife next week! She needs to seem perfect if she's to marry anyone good!" I glared through the door at my father, who was flying into a rage.

"Well that might be true, but our daughter is a human. Our human! So I would love it if you would actually treat her like one!" with that my mother stormed out of the room.

"Come out from behind that door you idiot girl!" my father yelled, and I obediently stepped into the house.

"Father-" I started.

"No, you don't get to 'father' me! You will start behaving like the ideal wife now! There will be no more reading, only cleaning. There will be no more questions, or gardening, and you will only speak when you are spoken to."

"Yes, fath-"

"I SAID NO TALKING UNLESS YOU HAVE BEEN ADDRESSED DIRECTLY! Now go to your room, and don't come out until you must help your mother with dinner. Understand me?"

"Yes, father," I whispered, and I felt a single tear trace a path down my face.

I walked through the mismatched living room, through the ceramic tiled kitchen, down the carpeted hallway, and into my bedroom.

I closed the door softly - so I wouldn't give my father yet another thing to yell at me about - and then I plopped down on top of my bed.

The floodgate had opened, so there wasn't anything stopping a flood of tears from streaming down my face. Internally, I was screaming. My father had put his foot down. I knew this would happen someday, but I hoped my father would at least wait. I honestly didn't know why he hated me so much. Every time I did something I thought he would be proud of, he reacted terribly. 

The tears weren't even from this emotional abuse scenario. I had held in the tears from all of my dad's verbal lashings, and now they were spilling over. I wondered if I would ever stop crying.

"Honey?" my door creaked open, revealing my mother on the other side of the threshold. 

"Go away," I blubbered into my pillow.

"Oh, darling. I heard what your father said, and it was horrible. Honey, I love you, especially because you're you, but he's right. If you don't become a perfect wife type, you'll be stuck with someone as bad as your father. I hate to say it, but the good ones only pick the perfect types."

I looked at my mother, trying to seem threatening, but failing miserably because of my puffy eyes and tear stained cheeks.

"Mother, I'm sorry, but I just don't think that sounds like me," I stated.

It sure wasn't me. Because I couldn't even imagine giving up my lifestyle for the chance of getting a decent husband. From the outside looking in, my father and mother had a perfect relationship. But that obviously wasn't true. 

I was going to create a better life out of magic. And that meant I needed to go back to the garden and get that book. That book was the only way I was ever going to get out of this town.

~o0o~

Word Count: 2022

Hello! This is the edited version of this chapter, and now it's over 2000 words! Yay! Have a wonderful day, as always!
~happyperson081