In the summer months, when my sisters are home and my father's face shines with pride, proud of what he had created, I learned to disappear.
I couldn't bear how the glow faded, how dull his eyes looked my way when I said something.
Our laws are different when only the two of us inhabit Highland.
He can tolerate me, even appreciate me, when I am not in the shadow of my sisters but in my own light.
I know the laws like the back of my hand and am wise enough not to go against them.
Besides, the summer is one of my favoriete times of the year to spend in "my" woods.
It never goes unnoticed by my sisters though. Sure, there are days when they too, forget about me.
But as sisters you have a different bond.
I think it's clear that I'm a little different from my sisters.
Although I wouldn't like to admit it myself, it's undeniable in our appearance alone.
While their hair is almost golden in the sun, mine is a warm chocolate brown.
Our features are very identical though.
When it is summer and I wear a hat, so only my sun lighted curls peak out underneath, the maids confuse even me with my sisters.
We have the same cheekbones, jawline, chin and nose. Each of us a little unique but all of us alike.
Most of us have green eyes. Except Els and Amber, the two oldest, they have blue eyes.
I have the darkest skin of all of us, warm and golden. Probably because I am out with the sun the most.
I think what differs me most is my relationship with our mother.
Sometimes I hate her, for making me her scape goat for leaving us.
Sometimes I feel guilty and I just want her to forgive me for killing her.
But most of the time I don't think about her. I have sky.
I didn't consciously replace my mother with sky. But I do think I miss her less because I have sky.
However I am no different in my relationship with our father. I'm just as driven to make him proud as everyone else. I just seem less successful at it.
I didn't grow up unhappy. I am loved too much by the trees and the forest for that. The sky is always looking over my shoulder and I'm sure sky steps in when something is about to go really wrong, like a parent does.
*****************
Then the year comes where I turn twenty. And after I finish my books and pass the exam my father wrote for me, I ride to uni to take the entrance exam so that I can start after the summer.
I'm kicking Hermes' belly with my heels.
'Come on. faster.' I say it more to myself than to the horse.
Animals, but horses in particular, don't like me.
I would have preferred the carriage, but father had disapproved of it and trusted me only with Hermes.
'It will be faster anyway', he had said.
A day's drive away from Highland is the house of a sister of our mother.
Aunt Breghof lives there and I was allowed to sleep there last night.
It's actually not very proper for a girl of my age to take such a trip alone.
That is why my father drove to the entrance exam with all my sister.
But because they've made the trip so many times and usually all travel together and because it didn't suit him because of a business deal, I'm doing the trip alone.
"Hooo," I say to Hermes as we pass through the city gate at around five o'clock.
In a walking pace we trudge together to the tax collector.
I dismount.
'Name' the balding man does not look up and makes notes in a book.
'Highland' I answer.
'Visiting reason' he continues in the same emotionless tone.
'I am going to take the entrance exam for biology'.
It catches his attention for a moment and he gives me a grim look.
'That's forty copper coins then.'
I take the coins out of my pouch and am glad he continues in the same indifferent tone.
I grew up in the highland bubble. I'm very aware of it, jet it still shocks me that he is repulsed by me going to the university. I know most people are against educating women. Higher education that is.
The fact that women can read and write is quite handy, but that's all they need to know.
It is the reason that only women have to take the entrance exam.
I get up on the horse again and continue riding.
I know how to find my way quickly.
It's a gigantic building. Walls higher than the city wall.
It is the largest university in the world as far as I know.
It houses tens of thousands of students, an entire city has been built over the years, just to house them. And now about half of the inhabitants are students.
All students that attend the university live behind the gates of the university. Gates that are locked at sunset to relieve the city's original residents as much as possible.
I drive past the high metal gate, and admire how white the building behind it is.
How green the grass that surrounds it is and how the bronze statues gleam in the sun.
I can smell my future here.
With a satisfied look I turn around and ride to the hostel that Els, my sister, recommended.
Hermes seems relieved when I leave him alone with the stable boy. Stubborn horse.
I decide to order a plate of food and eat it up in my room.
I am unmarried and alone, it is not proper to stay overnight somewhere where I don't know anyone.
So it is best I keep my head low.
I go to bed early, tomorrow I need all my energy for the entrance exam, besides, there is not much to do in the small hostel room.
Tomorrow will be amazing, I will finally get to see the inside of Hemsburgs university.
And get a taste of what is to come.
I almost giggle and then fall asleep excited.