ARK
by
Vicky T. Manalo
PERKS/MVManalo Copyright. Cover Photobo
Available to buy at Smashwords
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In the olden times, a land far far away, magic is the only thing that exists in the place. Mothers, fathers, children and babies have special abilities that differentiates them from each other. In playtime, some children would try to hide and someone would look for him/her. But it's never easy for just like two children will decide to hide inside an worn wooden cupboard, since there's still space one child , a girl so clever can still reappear in an instant inside their hiding place. And the girls will just smile all together for they are able to hide in a place where they can't be found. That's what they thought.
There is a castle that stood in the middle of Tinsel Town. The most powerful magicians in the world who called themselves, Mr. & Mrs. Benette. They are said to be the great sorcerers in their time but no one has ever seen their faces nor talked with them up close, that made their huge home and veranda haunted for all the children and travelers that visit Tinsel once in a while by horse or by donkey. In cold or winter season, Benette Home seems to change in color and as if it matches whatever the weather is at the moment. For snow, it's purple, for red, summer, for green, spring and autumn, brown. There are other seasons added on these, a time when we experience rains or fall of ice blocks and sweet & sour gummy patch candies. Those are what makes Tinsel's season the best season ever. Every child would wait early mornings to ready their pitchers, hatchets, pails and blankets to wait for the fall of sweet & sour gummy patches and eat them all the weekend while with friends or families at home, at play, on a vacation or in school.
Tinsel Town is one of the towns that has been here for hundreds of years but hasn't had technologies or scientific breakthroughs until one day, Mr. Ark, a scientist who is known to be a beginner in teleportation invented time travel and being at a place at one time that can be in another at the second time. He has a daughter named Elise and she is the cutest. Mr. & Mrs. Benette had been fond of children but they weren't blessed with one, so they would pay for impoverish family or people to hand them their child in exchange for payment and properties. Mr. & Mrs. Benette is known to own many lands and businesses in Tinsel that everyone knows them. Even Mr. Ark. Benedict Ark lost his wife from childbirth, but he never blamed his daughter for it, since Amanda, the most beautiful maiden sorcerer in the land loved him and their daughter so much that she gave her life and magic just to save her. Benedict though saddened by the loss, continued to care and love Elise that he even helped her practice her powers and abilities which are the most powerful when combined together. Elise can travel through time and can converse with anyone like the animals or trees and anything without life.
So, whenever she wakes up in the morning, the broom would already be sweeping their floors, the chairs will ready the table while Benedict is cooking for their breakfast. The cow would provide for fresh milk that will be handed over by a monkey on a glass bottle which are already piled up at the stables near the Ark Family home which is a two story wooden shack but decent and simple, enough for a scientist and powerful child sorcerer that time. Benedict who Elise would sometimes call Ben and not dad, would only laugh at the comical acts of the herd of animals including the chickens that lay eggs for Elise's egg and the wooden flour mixer that would mix itself up to ready the dough for Elise's bread, is definitely the most hilarious one to beat.