Nothing Sacred
Prologue:
Zelda sat on her bed with her suitcases around her in a carefully calculated array to make it look like she was going away for vacation. Her face was sad, thinking of the many memories this place held for her and her family. It was over, all those years of camping outside, pretending the house was haunted, and throwing parties for two were over. She had thought those memories could be guarded and protected against anything, but nothing was sacred anymore. She was distracted from her thoughts when a broad shouldered man walked into her room. The words 'Tom`s Van' were printed in red on his black tee shirt. "Miss, we need you to move."
She looked up at him and wiped away a few tears that had escaped her notice before. She had thought she was wearing the mask of being perfectly calm and relaxed, fine with the idea she was being torn from all she loved. "Did it ever occur to you that the children you move are in pain beyond your imagination?"
He sighed and rubbed the back of his head absentmindedly. "Miss, we are paid to do this." He looked at her with his eyebrows pressed into a frown. "Have you seen the place?" She shook her head and he smiled. "Well, wait until you do. You`ll love it."
She nodded slightly and stood up. "Leave with a bow and understand those things, those things held sacred, they mean nothing in the ocean of time, and nothing to people of heartless stature." That was good, she might put it in a book sometime, like all the similar thoughts that zipped through her mind. With a sigh she walked to the family car, a small station wagon, and sat in the back.
Her three year old sister, Kelly, climbed in and curled up on her lap like she always did when she had a nightmare. Zelda couldn`t help but think that this was a nightmare, one which she couldn`t wake up from. "Zelda I don`t wanna go. Sky lives here, and so does Raine. When will I ever see them again?"
Zelda sighed and stroked her sister`s light red hair. With her nose in a book constantly, she had been dubbed an outcast and a book worm. She had no friends and social skills eluded her. "Then you`re worse off than me Kelly, you have friends to miss. I`ll miss camping in the back yard in the rain and telling stories over a camp fire." That was when an idea dawned on her and made a smile trickle onto her lips. "Kelly, we have about twenty minutes before we go."
Kelly looked up and her brown eyes sparkled in excitement. Zelda was a wonderful story teller. "That`s enough time to tell a story!"
With a giggle they both hopped out of the back seat and dashed to the edge of the woods behind their house, just in front of the stream. Zelda waited until Kelly had settled before she began her story. "Once there were two families, the Rochester`s and the Henigton`s. They were enemies from their beginning but the feud. had gone on so long no one knew why. Finally, with no heir or family, Mr.Rochester was going to die, but as he lay in his death bed, he made a solemn promise. 'My family may be dead, but I swear now that the Henigton`s will not prevail!' With that, he took his last breath and died." Zelda began to tell Kelly the story written by Edger Allen Poe about a man`s obsession with a hoarse that eventually lead to his undoing. The names were changed since she couldn`t remember the original names.
Kelly began to giggle at the story and then she saw her mother standing behind Zelda. She had one hand on her hip and her eyebrows pressed together. "Griselda Jane Kempski! You know not to tell Kelly scarey stories! It gives her nightmare`s then everyone loses sleep!"
Zelda turned to face her mother with an insincere frown on her face. "Sorry mum, I just wanted to tell a story for old times sake before we got drug to the new place."
Her mother shook her head with a sigh. "Well we`re all set to go, hop in the car." Zelda and Kelly nodded then walked off to the car where they leaned on each other to get comfortable. It was a three hour drive to the new house.
As they drove to their new house, Zelda slept or listened to music on her walkman. Kelly slept with her head on Zelda`s shoulder. Zelda watched with a strict eye the moving truck in front of them. She made sure they didn`t take turns too fast otherwise all those things she held dear would be destroyed. Kelly stirred in her sleep making Zelda put a comforting hand on her arm. Kelly was a miracle child. When she was born she had a respiratory infection that could have killed her. She had been in the hospital for months. Zelda would go and watch after her for her mother when she was at work. When Kelly came out of the hospital she hadn`t bonded to her mother, but rather to Zelda. The two were considered inseparable despite the fact that Zelda was sixteen and Kelly only three. The first time Zelda went to school after Kelly came home from the hospital, the baby had cried all day and taken no comfort.
The car began to slow down and Zelda looked up. They were in a new state completely, but it was beautiful. She looked at the welcome sign as they passed it. "Welcome to New Jersey." She sighed and leaned back in her seat. They were moving to the better part of New York, on a small plot of land in farm contrary, right on the line of New York and New Jersey. Her father turned around as they stopped. "Hey kids, we`re here."
Zelda gave Kelly a slight shake and her eyes opened slowly. "We`re there?" Zelda looked out the window at her new house and she was taken aback. The moving man was right, it was beautiful. There was a thicket of trees behind the house and Zelda heard the rustling of a stream. The yard was huge, and it looked great for camping. The house was big with three floors. Kelly turned and put a small hand on her sister`s arm. "See, told ya it would be alright."
That night after Zelda and Kelly had found their camping things, they walked outside and set up camp while their parents celebrated the new house. As they sat around a small campfire, which their father had bought a permit for, Kelly begged Zelda to tell a story. Zelda smiled finally. "What kind of story?"
Kelly leaned forward with her brown eyes gleaming in mischief. "A scarey story!"
Zelda smiled as she settled into her sleeping bag. "I can sit down and tell you this one." She held up a small cup and took a sip of water. "Do you know what wine is?"
Kelly nodded. "Yeah, it`s the stuff mum and dad drink sometimes."
Zelda smiled. "Right, well in the story I am about to tell you, it is wine that kills a man. You see, in France there was a man named Fortunado, and he was a wine seller...." She told the story of "The Cask of Amantillado" and then looked at her sister who was biting her nails. Zelda supposed she had told quite a scarey and creepy story. "Now you had better go to sleep, I don`t want to be blamed when you`re tired tomorrow because you couldn`t sleep."
Kelly sighed and rolled onto her back and stared up at the stars. "Talk about something boring. That`ll put me to sleep."
Zelda smiled. Kelly knew nothing about the stars and things like that, so boring would be intellectual talk. "Alright, have I told you my universe theory?" Kelly shook her head slightly and so Zelda pointed to the stars. "You see, our known universe is the place where light has reached. That is all we know. What if we went to a star farther away though? I think there would be another known universe. So, my theory is that there is a new known universe for each star, which is the problem with infinity, every point is the center of the universe. That could mean that the universe is infinite. Technically speaking, our galaxy the milky way could very well be the center of it`s known universe, the way the crab nebula could be the center of it`s known universe. Also the north star and every other star in the universe could be the center of it`s own known universe."
Kelly smiled. Her sister read too much in her opinion, she should be out playing more. It was amazing that she still managed to be fun. "What `bout black holes?"
Zelda smiled, she knew she could put her to sleep with this one. This went more into philosophy than anything else. "Well, there is evidence of black holes, but it is entirely unknown if they exist. They could be but maybe they aren`t. It`s like the relationship between the sky and the ocean. The sky is blue because it reflects the ocean but the ocean is blue because it reflects the sky. That means that there has to be a mass of blue somewhere that has spread across the whole earth and so the sky reflects this mystery point and that in turn is reflected onto the ocean." When she looked at her sister, the child was sound asleep. Her theories had that effect.