Nothing about the house felt like home.
It was just a giant white mansion with large, glass doors and floor to ceiling glass windows that looked too extravagant and too big, considering the fact that I would be living in it alone for the majority of the time.
Well, excluding Mr. Edward and the rest of the staff.
I resisted the urge to look around as we walked through the foyer and got into the elevator.
I refused to be excited to be back in my childhood home. I was angry, and I wanted to hold on to my anger. I would look around and maybe ask Mr. Edward for a tour later when I was less angry, maybe.
The elevator doors opened on the third landing of the house, and I followed behind Mr. Edward as he walked toward the last room on the floor and unlocked the double doors.
He held a wing of the door open for me, and I gave him a small, thankful smile before I walked in. For some reason, I had expected the room to be covered in dust, considering the fact that it had been twelve years since we were last here.
But it was spotless.
Not a single speck of dust or cobweb in sight. It was apparent that cleaners had been called in. I could even still catch the whiff of a citrus scented soap in the air.
"I'll let you settle in, Miss Jade," Mr. Edward spoke behind me, and I nodded absentmindedly as he pulled the door shut and left.
My gaze remained wandering, all over the room and the memories I expected to leap at me. I had spent the first six years of my life here, and yet I remembered nothing of it.
This was our home. The only place that was an actual home out of all the places we'd lived in because Mom and Dad had bought this house together after they got married.
According to the stories they used to tell me, they had bought such a big house and decided to call it 'The Eadwald mansion' because they had planned to have many kids, and also have the rest of our extended family live with us if they wanted.
Mom didn't really have any family, as she grew up in an orphanage, and Dad's family had welcomed her with open arms and treated like their own when her and Dad started dating, so she'd considered them her family.
And according to Mom, my grandparents had moved into this house with us after my birth, along with a few other aunts, uncles, nephews and cousins.
She claimed it was the most beautiful moment of her life, because all the people she loved were together with us in one place. Well, until one of hers and Dad's oppositions set the house on fire and almost killed us all.
Mom said she had barely managed to get me out of the house, and somehow Dad had made it out too. But the rest of the family hadn't. They'd all died in the fire, and we've been on the run ever since.
You know what part of the entire story makes zero sense? Well, apart from the fact that I somehow remember absolutely nothing from that time. It's the fact that there are no police records of the fire.
No investigations were launched, and my parents don't seem too interested in apprehending these so called "oppositions" that continue to make our lives miserable.
Any sane person would know none of it adds up. None of their stories made complete sense. I just didn't understand why they had to lie.
They'd told me our entire family had died in a fire, what else could be worse than that? Worse enough to make them think they had to lie to me?
And I would try to investigate the house for clues and whatnot, but it's been over a decade and the house was apparently remodeled after the fire. Any evidence would be long destroyed.
I let out a heavy sigh and shook my head clear of all the stressful, tangled thoughts as I walked into the room that was to be mine. I wondered if it was the same room I had when we lived here twelve years ago.
The view from the floor-to-ceiling windows was breathtaking. The sun had fully set and said its final goodbyes, and its absence set the sky awash in hues of star-filled darkness.
I could see almost the entire skyline of the town from here, although most of it was blocked by the woods and tall oak trees that surrounded us, and also secluded us away from the other neighboring houses.
The woods spread so far, it was probably at least over two acres wide, and that was excluding the rest of the grounds.
I just hoped there weren't wild animals roaming about in there as I picked up a remote control sitting on a table beside the windows. I guessed it was for the blinds, and realized I was right when I clicked on the big blue button and the blinds began to roll down.
I sighed and turned back around to look at the room properly.
The walls were a pale shade of lavender—my favourite colour of paint to work with. My luggage had been brought up, and my suitcases stood arranged in front of a row of closets that had been installed along the length of the wall opposite.
My piano and canvases were to arrive in a few days by cargo, and I could already make out a spot for them by the other end of the wall-length windows.
A lounge/reading area with comfy looking sofa's and a dark-wood coffee table stood in another room that was separated from the main bedroom by a glass screen door. I could see shelves with rows and rows of books arranged all around the room.
A pit of excitement lit up in my stomach after spotting the bookshelves in the lounge, and I made a mental note to check them out as soon as I was settled.
Another door stood along the other end of the wall and I assumed that would be the bathroom.
Right in the center of the main bedroom, stood a huge, neatly made bed, and I wished for nothing more than to jump into it and go straight to sleep.
But for some reason, I grabbed the remote control instead and opened the blinds again, then opened the glass doors that led to the terrace.
Cold breeze licked at my face, and I wrapped my arms around my body as I walked out unto the terrace with glass balustrades that overlooked the grounds.
The house really was beautiful, I couldn't deny, but a part of me had been really hoping that I would remember something from my childhood. The face of my grandparents at least. But I remembered nothing.
My parents hated talking too much about anything related to our family, which I understood, because what happened to them was terrible but I still needed to know.
There were no photos either. According to them, everything had been lost in the fire.
I closed my eyes and let the cold, London evening, autumn breeze run its fingers over my face and through my air, and—
My eyes snapped open.
I had felt a strange breeze, colder than the cold autumn breezes, wash over me, like a pair of ice-cold eyes raking over my body. But when I looked around there was nothing.
Silence reigned, only interrupted by the hooting of an owl that was probably sitting in one of the oak trees in the woods, and the croaking of the night creepers in the woods. But asides that, nothing.
I frowned and hurried back inside, making sure to lock the balcony doors properly before closing the blinds, and then deciding to go soak myself in a hot bath. It was probably nothing. Just a whiff of cold wind.
Mr. Edward had brought me dinner while I was in the shower, and a note that apologized on my parents behalf was attached. The note also contained a bit of information on the school I'd been enrolled in against my will.
And the last thing I did after eating, before passing out in the huge bed, was to search up 'Bloodstone Academy' on google.
I didn't notice the thick, leather-bound photobook that was peaking out underneath the vanity table. It hadn't been there before, but I didn't even notice its newly found presence either.
The google search on the school didn't yield much information, except a few pictures of a school building that looked ancient and haunted, and I let out a sigh as I closed the tab, opened spotify and clicked on my anti-nightmare playlist.
I then put my head-phones on and allowed my mind drift off into a maladaptive daydream where I was running through a field of sunflowers with my parents laughing and running after me.
Until I eventually fell asleep and awoke into a nightmare where I was running through a cave filled with hot, molten lava, and my parents were fire-breathing demons chasing me through the lava.