Behind her eyes

Out in the distance across the foggy courtyard came the clear sound of a little girl singing, she was singing about hope, a song so beautiful that the flower petals sagged and the trees swayed as her soft voice glided past them. This little girl is trapped, she lingers in a cage at the old stone castle, just waiting to be set free, she no longer has a mother or father only the gatekeeper to pass her morsels of food and tell her to be quiet in the fear of waking the cult of men banished from the town that was thought to be hiding in the woods behind the castle until they sees their chance for accomplishment at making the castle theirs.
The little girl named Lola was taken from her parents when she was a tiny baby at just one year old, for she was unique and she scared the town with displays of what she was capable of at such a young age. Lola was capable of such force against what she thought was wrong that she was deemed not safe to be allowed to live around the rest of the town.
She was a Magus.

You wouldn’t think it when you looked at her, a relatively small girl, just gone seven years old! A fair-haired child who has grown up in a cage that seems much too small, her bright blue eyes shining in the moon light with only her fragile looking shadow for company, only occasionally would a stranger pass by from the town and remark how much little Lola looked like her mother without the slightest bit of sympathy before walking past as though they had not seen how she was forced to live.
However strange as it may seem, Lola loved the thought of her looking like the mother she never knew, it made her feel normal for once.

Sometimes, when the gatekeeper had “forgotten” to feed her, she tried to teach herself things that she knew other people would be incapable of, her favourite game during these times was trying to make things hover to her with disastrous consequences of loud bangs and crashes where the targeted objects would hurtle the wrong way into a wall causing the gatekeeper to teach her the meaning of silence with a beating or two.

Lola’s mother Edna, a short, plump woman with blonde hair and ripped clothes that were covered in stains, walks by her tiny daughters cage a few days a week for reasons unknown to anyone but herself, each time she leaves in tears at the sight of her only child growing weaker and with the guilt of knowing it is her fault.
With a malicious smile the gatekeeper throws food in Lola’s face to show Edna what she chose to put her child through as Lola licks up every little bit she can knowing she probably wont get fed again for a long time.
Time ticks by slowly as her cage swings from the old gallows roughly five feet above the ground, complete silence apart from an odd sound of rustling close by, could it be someone coming to free her? The thought building inside her with immense hope, while praying to the Gods harder then ever before that it could be true? No, just a passing fox in a desperate search for scraps, that was attracted to the now fading scent of the “food” she had earlier that day.

Alone and cold, little Lola’s mind wanders through the years of her existence from as early as she could remember, picturing her last two birthdays made her head hurt, for it was difficult to tell the difference between a so called “joyous” day and any other ordinary day where she was forgotten, a lost soul trapped amongst the damp, rotting castle walls. "A little company would be nice.". Was the thought that constantly crept to the front of her child sized but intelligent mind, maybe one day.



In the village.

Life around Merrystone was great; there was plenty of food, shelter and even a school! Although this town was built hundreds of years before Lola was born, when she was taken from the village the air changed into something dull and desperate.
If you were to walk around Merrystone and ask of the baby who was abandoned you would surly receive a hundred different versions of what happened that night seven years ago. Of course no one knew for sure what had happened but the rumours that Lola was a devil’s child and evil spread quick enough causing an uproar from them women stating that their children were not safe with “that thing” lurking about and ordered she be taken away. Naturally caging her was the first choice of the towns “fair” King; surely it was the right choice?

Edna’s house was far from luxurious, the worst house in Merrystone the locals would say. Broken windows, overgrown shrubs and rotting brick did not achieve the standards of appearance that the town desired, although the town itself was nothing special with its cobbled paths and narrow streets, the locals always wanted their crooked house to look as best as possible.
”She must be insane,” echoed around their little village whenever someone happened to pass Edna’s home if it could be called that. Filthy inside and out with a foul smell leaking from every crack in the crumbling walls.
Edna emerged from her home and turned to look at it with great pleasure, she gazed upon its ugly exterior with immense pride as though she lived in a mansion and not a shabby, broken down house. Turning rapidly on her heel again she set off silently down the wonky, cobbled pathway towards the castle where the man who caged her daughter would be sleeping peacefully…
”The guards will never know it was us, do it for Lola, do it for us!”Giving her head a vigorous shake the voice encouraging her disappeared, leaving her alone crouched and shivering in a corner just outside the castles magnificent gates. Glancing round quickly told her that no one was in sight.
” Where was that bone chilling yet somehow soothing voice coming from?”

With thoughts racing and new ideas forming before her eyes only to vanish just as quickly, what she wanted seemed impossible, coming to the conclusion she could never manage to get her only child back the voice that she craved to hear returned once more to push her into action,
”Get her! Get our baby back, she needs her mother, I can her hear call to you in the night…listen and you will hear her too”
As that mysterious voice changed into her child’s voice screaming “MUMMY! Im scared” Banging her head against her knees as she remained crouched, wishing and pleading with a God she didn’t believe in to make the voice stop.