Chapter 19:

Michael took a deep breath, he needed to hide his identity. 

He had never minded being the messenger boy; it was fun going to the UpperWorld and delivering notes to the Willows’ mothers. 

But this was different.

Willow’s family would most definitely recognize him, or at least the mom. Hailey had warned him that Ara knew him, he didn’t know how she remembered but not Willow. But, apparently she did, so he couldn’t show up at their house for a note. 

Willow’s house was just as plain as any other house, nothing extraordinary about it, nothing that would make people’s eyes train to it. It was a plain off-white, plain windows with blue curtains and a single triangle for the roof. It was plain, something he had never thought of for Willow. 

Pulling his hood up as high over his face as possible, he tucked his blonde hair inside the hood, hoping most of it wasn’t visible and that they wouldn’t be able to tell his eye color. 

He slowly walked across the smooth rock pathway. The lawn was a perfect green and the patio was completely spotless, as if someone had done some yard work recently. 

His heart was beating faster by the time he was on the patio, he gripped the note between his fingers. 

Maybe I could just give it to Hailey to give to Willow’s mom, he thought to himself, feeling sweat build at his forehead, he wasn’t ready to see them. Wasn’t ready to talk them about that night. Wasn’t ready to tell them that he wasn’t able to live up to the promise he made. 

In that moment he imagined himself walking off the patio and just going back home and telling Willow he had given the note, but that would make him a liar. It enough that he had broken promises to take care of, but he didn’t want to add lies on top of all his other mistakes. 

Taking another deep breath and trying not to think too hard he walked up to the door and knocked sharply three times without thinking. By the time he pulled his hand back after knocking his heart was racing as if he had been running up a steep hill and he could feel sweat dripping down his back. 

Michael, he told himself. It is fine, they won’t recognize you. That would be impossible. 

But although his head was telling them that, he knew it wasn’t true. He knew they would recognize him if he took down the hood, if he showed himself. They would see the little boy who had made a foolish promise and then was too weak to fight for it, to sacrifice for it. The little boy who had seen his father be strangled in front of him, who had been the one who caused it, and the one who broke it. But saving his father was only saving one innocent life, it wasn’t saving the one life he had sworn to protect. The one life he didn’t want to give up, but had given up anyway. 

They would recognize that little boy. 

He was sure of it. 

The door knob started turning and he tried to get all the unnecessary thoughts out of his head, the unnecessary thoughts that were making more nervous than ever. 

A young woman answered the door, Willow’s mom, of course. You could tell almost immediately that it was her mother, she had the same black hair and thin face. Same body structure and long eyelashes, the one thing that set her apart from Willow (other than her age, of course) was the bright blue eyes between the long eyelashes. Willow had gotten her silver eyes from her father, yet, if you looked at her father, you could see no resemblance in the eye color at all. 

Maybe it was just the way Willow looked at everyone so trustingly and curiously. Maybe it was that Willow’s eyes were so much more innocent, didn’t have the mark of murder on them. 

“May I help you?” Willow’s mom, Anne, asked, looking at him curiously. 

Michael cleared his throat uncomfortably, “Note.” He said, holding the note forward, “From Willow.”

Anne looked down at the note and her eyes lit up as she grabbed the note, “I didn’t know Willows were allowed to send notes now.”

Michael nodded, hoping she would close the door soon so he could end this as soon as possible, “Yeah, they are.” 

That’s when a little girl popped up behind Anne. Seeing this little girl brought back a flashback, a flashback he didn’t want to see. The little girl was Willow’s little sister, Ara, the second oldest. She was about eight years old, the same age he and Willow were when they first saw each other. She was an almost replica of eight-year-old-Willow, same wild, tangled raven black hair, same wide gray eyes. Anybody who saw the both of them would know immediately they were little sisters. 

“Mom, who’s there—?” She stopped mid-sentence and looked up at Michael. Michael felt his stomach do a violent flip, Willow’s little sister remembered him, that was what Hailey had told him. That Ara remembered everything and remembered him. 

Remembered the little boy who made the promise and watched him as he broke it. 

Ara squinted her eyes at him and took a step forward, trying to see under his hood. Michael wanted to run, his legs wanted to pull away from this building, but it wasn’t happening, he couldn’t run off or they would suspect him even more. 

Anne put a hand on Ara’s head, “It is a note from Willow, honey.” She said, Ara didn’t look up, though, as Michael thought she would have. She looked at Michael, she stared at him, expecting him to fess up and admit that he was the Michael she knew. He didn’t do that though. 

Anne looked down at Ara, probably wondering why she wasn’t jumping up to look at the note, then looked up at Michael, “Thank you for bringing this note.” She said, glancing down at her daughter to see why her daughter was staring at him so. 

“You’re welcome,” he replied. Now can I get out of here? 

He turned around, but of course, with his luck, a breeze came, a strong breeze. They were in “The Windy City”, he had forgotten that. The breeze pulled his hood back half an inch, but it was back enough. 

“Mom!” Ara shrieked, jumping up. “It’s Michael Midnight!”

Anne tilted her head back to look at him, but it was too late, he was already in a dead run away from the house. He felt as the wind pulled his hood back all the way as he ran away from the house, looking behind him to see Ara running across the rock path. 

“Wait!” He heard her yell. “Wait, please!”

He didn’t wait, he continued running and when he looked back, he saw Ara had stopped, her hands still reaching out for him, her face a mask of sadness and disappointment. It gave him a jolt of guilt as he saw her hair whip back from her face because of the wind, but he couldn’t go back to her and explain himself. 

He just kept running forward, determined to never be the messenger boy for this family ever again. 

* * * * * * * * * *

                Willow woke the next morning to a bright light streaming into her room, making her squint her eyes in pain. At first, she thought it might be Alicia shining a flashlight into her eyes to wake her up, but then it hit her that Alicia would not have a flashlight here, and it took her a moment to realize that it was just the sun. 

The sun was brighter here than it had been in Chicago.

She stood up out and stretched out, bending backwards and hearing her back crack. She ran a hand quickly through her knotted hair before going into the bathroom and getting the brush the properly brush her hair out.  

As if by precise timing, she heard a knock on the door. 

“Come in,” Willow called, walking out of the bathroom, her bare feet sticking slightly to the wooden ground.

Chelsea was standing at the doorway, “Your first day starts now,” she said, looking as if she just woke up with her shoulder length hair standing up in odd places. Her hair was such a particular color, it was dark blonde, but if you looked closely, there highlights of white-blonde hair as if she had highlighted her hair like they do in the UpperWorld. It looked good on her, though, it made her hair almost look like a painting, a painting with very visible brush strokes. 

Chelsea closed the door silently behind her and Willow walked over to the closet. For some odd reason, she had no idea what she wanted to wear. She had never had this problem in the UpperWorld, her mom always bought her more clothes than she needed. 

There were a lot of clothes in this closet, but yet none of it was something Willow would wear. They were either super baggy bicker shorts or sweaters to super tight leggings and leather jackets. Willow was used to just jeans and a normal t-shirt, not super baggy or tight. After scavenging a little, she finally found a pair of jeans, they were too big around her waist and she had to fold them up twice to get them to not fall down, but they were better than the tight-hooker-looking black leggings. She found a shirt, it was tight to her skin and she put on her sweater from home on top of it, embarrassed to say she was embarrassed to wear a shirt that showed that much cleavage. 

She went outside and met up with Chelsea in the hallway, they walked down it, having small chats about how well they slept and the sort. 

"Chelsea, where are we going? Like, what are we going to do first?” Willow ask, breaking down the unbearable silence between them. 

Chelsea replied, laughing slightly, “Well, we aren’t going to starve you, are we? I don’t know what you guys do in the UpperWorld, but we eat breakfast in the morning.”

“Oh, yeah,” Willow had completely forgotten about food, the thought of it made her stomach rumble. This whole UnderWorld seemed so much like a dream, like she didn’t need to eat or drink because she would be waking up soon, on her couch with Candy Land sitting on the floor of the living room where Gretel left it. 

After a few more minutes of walking they finally arrived to the dining room. The dining room was, well, an oversized-fit-for-a-king dining room. The walls were lined with portraits and paintings, the table was waxed and shone brightly next to the plates and bowls which looked like they were made with porcelain. The floor had a rug on it, the rug had an image woven inside of it, but Willow couldn’t quite tell what it was. There was also a chandelier hanging from the top of the ceiling, it candles flickering and giving off an inviting vibe. 

The dining table was long, and stretched quite far into the room, fit to hold hundreds of people. But currently, there were only forty or so people sitting in the chairs making the room seem much larger. 

There was food spread out across the table; there was a large bowl of what looked like oatmeal with some kind of blue fruit sprinkled on top of it, there was bread and butter and jam, and a whole bunch of fruit laid across the table. 

Chelsea led Willow to her empty seat which was in front of Chris and diagonal from Michael. Alicia sat next to Chelsea.

It seemed everybody at the table already had their food on their plates, and Chelsea was already filling her plate up. 

“Take whatever you want,” she said, throwing an apple-looking-fruit at Willow. Willow had never been good at catching things, she missed it, but the guy behind her caught it for her and held it up to her with a smile. 

“Thanks,” she replied to him, taking the apple-looking-fruit and examining it, it looked like an apple, with the smooth, shiny red skin speckled with yellow and green miniature dots, but you couldn’t really be sure of what it was in this place. 

“It’s an apple,” the man said, seeming to have read her mind. 

“Oh,” Willow replied, feeling quite ridiculous. 

“I’m Colt, by the way,” he said, holding his hand out. 

Willow looked up at him for the first time, he seemed young, maybe eighteen or nineteen the least. His hair was dark, but it had streaks of almost white blonde in it here and there, a very odd combination. His eyes were a dark chocolate brown and his eyes were crinkled with laugh lines. He had just as much muscle as Michael and Chris had, but it seemed everybody in this room were very fit. 

“Willow,” Willow replied, wondering if she should give her last name or if that would sound ridiculous. 

“You have stunning eyes, you know that, right?” He said, leaning in and making her slightly uncomfortable. It was no big surprise, the comment about her eyes, she was used to it. It was like having pink hair and always having people comment on it; you got used to it. Her eyes were an unnatural gray, almost a silver color. She didn’t know where she got the silver eyes, even Ara’s eyes weren’t as bright as hers. Machire had gray eyes, but her mom had blue; maybe it was just a weird mishap. 

“You seem completely unimpressed that I have told you this,” Colt noted, smiling. “I am guessing you get that a lot.”

Willow nodded, “Quite a bit.” She said, smacking her lips together slightly and looking away from him. 

She heard Michael laugh and looked over at him, he was looking at Colt. 

“You see, Colt,” he said. “It only works when hot guys say it to her.”

Colt rolled his eyes, “I would like to see you try to impress her by commenting on her eyes.”

Michael looked over at her, “You have stunning eyes, and you know that, right?” He said, basically saying the same thing Colt had said except for adding that “and” which did make a difference. Although Willow wouldn’t admit, Michael had managed to do better than Colt…although she wasn’t sure why, though. 

Colt got up, “Well, Willow, I have to go, see you around.”

Willow smiled and returned his wave goodbye, feeling a little off about it. Although she had been commented on her eye color a lot before, she had never really been flirting with, she wasn’t entirely sure what “flirting” was, in all honesty. She knew it was a way for guys to get the attention of girls, but she wasn’t sure if that was what Colt was doing, maybe he just wanted to be friends….

“He needs to get his flirting skills working,” Chris said, shaking his head in mock shamming. “I am sorry you had to endure that horrible charmingness, in your stay here you’ll find that we Ganashes can very easily blow you off your feet.”

Willow laughed, and took a bite of her apple, “As if this fairy tale needed more, now I have a whole bunch of princes in shining armor.”

“I wouldn’t call them all princes,” Alicia teased. “To be a prince you have to have good manners!” She looked pointedly at Michael. 

Michael raised his hands in surrender, “I never made the claim that I would be the prince.” When he said that he made eye contact with Willow, as if he were trying to send her a message. 

But he looked away before she could begin to try to figure out what it was he was trying to get across.