Alecia Montgomery- Tate

It was suppose to be the beginning of something beautiful, is that not what marriage was suppose to represent, a brand new beginning? Yes it was but what that beginning would be was the dreaded part.

I alighted from the carriage with the aid of my husband Daniel. My eyes feasted on my surroundings and I was a bit taken back by the lack of curiosity and the dreamlike appearance of all that laid before me, and the way nature had taken the forest and just wrap it around the town it was as if it was holding something within its depths.

Lord if only I had known then what it was I would be getting myself into I would have ran like a thief who is being pursued and never look back. I was a fool to let myself be carried away by the thought of freedom, to get my release from a home where I was overshadowed and deem useless because I was still a spinster. How ironic it turned out to be that I was thinking myself free when this place would become my prison, this place was to be my hell.

I must admit I was fascinated by the pomp and fair of the bustling town, the people all milling about as they made their way from one place to the next soughting what they were busy seeking. To me a country girl who only visited the town when my mother and father saw it fit to go there for whatever means was required only those means were few and far between, and even then I was not greeted with such opulence as what I saw before me.

These buildings were not clapdoard and whitewashed nor did the men and women who were milling about any less than refined gents and ladies. It all seemed like a staged affair and I found myself looking for a flaw, something to show reality and we all know reality was not perfect.

As much as I sought this I was so busy caught up in the excitement of having my new found freedom that I so craved back then when I was simply Alicia Montgomery that I did not see or rather feel the aura of gloom and unrealistic nature that clung about the atmosphere or how the town seem like a set made for a movie with extras that seem to play the same role over and over for every new unsuspecting gullible that walk or rode through the entry way of Drakesville which also bore the name Misty Cresent.

I was busy watching everyone and everything looking for that one thing that would drive away the apprehension that well up little by little with each step that I took with my husband that I bumped into a pristine and well coiffured lady that seem so mechanical my apology died on my lips. I felt a chill crept up my gloved hand and sent pickles of goose bumbs on my flesh that seem to increase inspite of the warmth of the afternoon.

I looked back to my husband as I tried to fathom this peculiarity that surround us, he seemed to be unaffected by it and very much unphased, after all this was his life. He came from here but unlike everything else he seemed the only one life like. It was like everyone else was a mere shell.

Why did he not greet anyone or tip his hat to any of the many people passing by? Where were the curious stares or the nosy women, even the children who were present seemed staid and aloof.

I swallowed my worries and clenced all the doubts that I should have had two months ago when I met Daniel, the sweet charismatic, well mannered and dressed gentleman that swept me off my feet inspite of being twenty five years my senior. I was now a day married to him and miles and miles away from my world so I best avoid all the things that set me on edge and make my new life suitable.

I could not wait to visit the school where Daniel told me I could assist with the teaching until it was my time to become a mother. When that time came my responsibilities here would all changed.

Once again I wished I had knew the depth of all that awaited me or what I had bargained my life for.

My life with Daniel at the Inn had turned into a routine affair and soon my concerns started to escalated. I was never taken to the school, I never met the so called visitors that came to the Inn and who never spent more than a night and was never seen again.

My husband never even touch me either not once had he ever tried to consummate our marriage but he spoke of how happy he would be when I bore my child. He was not the only one that was happy either it turned out the only two other persons here that seemed to share any sense of human behaviour that had it's own share of creepy but only with a darkness unlike the robots that I see from my window day in day out milling the streets of the town.

These two persons turned out to be an old woman by the name of Scarlet Ruin and an albino that had the face of a cherub but the old mangled body of an aged ravished man.

I was at my wits end and getting impatient and very much miserable by the structure of my life when on the first day of the new moon waxing thin I was told by my husband that it was time for us to visit the place of my purpose.

I was so excited as I thought I was going to be taken to the school yard to finally do the one thing that I loved. My eyes had danced with joy and all my miserable agitation fled and my graceful features were once again a mask of delight.

I was no longer concerned with nothing. I did not question the bizarity about me, I was no longer filled with reasons as to why I was not yet bed by Daniel, or why I was cooped away from civilization or if there was even a civilization. My wish to break free from the confines of the Inn was finally coming through.

I did not know why I forgot that I should be careful what I wished for.

I felt apprehension and fear as we pulled up infront of a beautiful house, so pristine it seem like a creation from a dream. There was something about it that pulled at all the fears that I have surpressed and it scared me as much as it had me in awe.

I look to Daniel but he never turned to provide the answers to the questions that burned in my eyes. I figured because he knew they were waiting for me inside.

I felt my feet tremble as we walk up to the porch my eyes taking my surrounding as my mind sought for any form of life like birds that should be basking in the bird baths, butterflies that should be fluttering about the pristine garden, other humans but nothing but a house that stood like a regal creature of impending doom despite its beauty.

My eyes rush to Daniel again but the feel of a presense watching me cause me to find were the compelling aura was and there it stood in the hall before me ready to be my capture and my true reason for being at Drakesville.

"Who are you?" I heard myself asking walking up to it as I stared wide eyed at the mayhem it personified.

"You can call me restoration."