Beginning

Dearest reader, I have a story to tell you. My narrating skills are not great, but I decided to share this tale. Hopefully, I'll try to remember the events in their correct order and won't keep anything hidden from you.
My name is Adriana, often called Ari for short. I am seventeen years old and I live in a small city of no significant importance. One day, a day as ordinary as any other, my life changed. Fate set up an opportunity and I grabbed it without hesitation.
That one boring day, when other people went to work and the birds flew higher in the sky than ever before, I met Death. And I followed her.
Oh, no, do not think that I died. I am still very much alive and ever so bold to say, that my life began only then and there. Everything before was just a gray mist of existence. But, everything in it's due time.

My hometown, as I said, is not an important one. Its name is not and will not ever be mentioned. You wouldn't know where to look for it anyway. And if by any chance you do know the place, I don't want to risk people coming here and asking about me.
As for myself I am perfectly not important as well. Or at least I used to be. Ordinary quiet high school girl. Number of close friends - one. Though sometimes the number grew by self-proclaimed friends when there was a test in class. Kids from my elementary school kept saying, that I am weird and never spoke to me. They have no idea that I became weird much later. After we all grew up.
My parents? They are long gone. Died in an accident, when I was still a baby. Maybe that turned me into the quiet girl. Never wanted to get anyone too close, afraid of loosing them and all that other stuff psychologists say. I always saw myself more like a clichsuperhero. I will sooner or later get awesome powers because my parents are dead and live a secret life of preventing car accidents at night. Yay for me!
Nevermind, that was not a good joke. Did I mention, that my sarcastic nature makes me quite a loveable person?

I live with my mother's sister - aunt Emma. She never got married. As she keeps saying, me and her cat Vilma are the only companions she will ever need. Probably because men always broke her heart when she was still young and beautiful. She used to be an actress in a small local theatre. Went to see the big world few times.
,,Those tours were the most beautiful and the most horrific moments of my life. Don't ever go to the big world. You will fall desperately in love with life. Then it will kick you, throw you on the ground and break your heart. But you keep loving it and end up as an old dry hag like me."
Auntie Emma keeps saying things like that when she feels sad. There are many stories and she likes to share them. About men and their love. About the theatre. About travelling. But mostly all of them end with her getting sad and sighing depressingly.
At a certain age I stopped asking about her old life. Instead, to cheer her up, I told her my own life stories. Of course they weren't anything special, just school news. But it seemed to make her happy.
It feels so long ago, yet, it has been only few months since things changed around here. During that time I have often wondered, why are we not talking about the boring stuff anymore. Maybe because my life finally got interesting, yet I cannot share that secret with her? Who knows.

But let's move the main story a little, shall we? One day, after school, I went to the local cemetery for a short parents visit. Mom and dad are not buried here, but it's a place as good as any, when the real graves are not available, right? Auntie was working late and I didn't feel like being home alone. Well, with Vilma, but she is not much of a company.
The day was cold, even though spring was in full bloom. Wind blew from the north, bringing chills down my spine. It felt like icy fingers touching me. Okay, not really, but I like to remember it as such. Poetic.
I sat down on a bench under the sad willow tree. It was the guardian of this place and everyone knew it was hundreds of years old. Long shadow covered me as I watched the willow leaves slowly dance to the wind's song. It felt so peaceful. I closed my eyes and tried to imagine my parents were here with me. Since I never knew them other than from auntie's stories, I was never able to truly love them and feel the sadness of an abandoned child. What I felt deep in my heart was emptiness. As if someone took a gigantic bite right from my soul.
Auntie Emma loved me dearly and I loved her back, but it was still not enough to fill up the hole that grew bigger with time. But here, under the willow tree, I felt the hole in me getting smaller. No, not really smaller, more like, less important. I imagined all the dead souls flying around the graveyard, never seen by a living person, playing with the willow leaves.
I often whispered to them silently, asked the wind to send greetings to my parents, flying around willow tree in a different city. I never got any response, but it felt like writing a letter when you are studying overseas.
I guess that is why kids always thought I was weird. They saw me talking with the wind. But by being different, I finally got to feel normal. Pretend was the only way to avoid falling into the hole in my own heart.

After a while, the song of the wind got mixed with a new sound. Footsteps. Slow, soft with a pause to catch a breath in between. I was not interested in the person. People come and go around here all the time. What caught my attention was the sound the footsteps made. How they perfectly fitted the willow tree and the invisible forces. As if the imaginary souls flying around me went to greet the person and invite him to their dance.
I got curious. It sounded like an old person, but I did not want to open my eyes. The magic of the moment would vanish in the normality of world.
Suddenly, the sounds stopped. All of them. As if someone turned my ears on mute. I could hear only my own breathing. It all lasted for eternity and yet only a heartbeat.

"Would you mind if I sat down for a moment?", the footsteps asked in a voice old as time. The spell was broken and the world started moving again. Birds, wind, trees, cars on the street. Everything went its' own way in one exact moment and felt like a boom in my head. But that voice, oh the voice, it was melody itself. And when I have finally opened my eyes....