AMITY

CHAPTER 1

June 19th 1912

With two bags less of what she had left with four years ago, Amity stood outside the palace again.

The long walls that had once kept her inside, the walls that had left her feeling dread and horror and feeling like a criminal now seemed to her now seemed to be welcoming her. But in a "knew-you'd-come-back" sort of way.

Like it and the palace it protected, were taunting and jeering at her. She knew better than to feel anything other than being grateful.

Grateful that her mother had replied to her letter and that the prison that she had wanted to escape was welcoming her back.

She carried the one tattered bag she had left and made for the gates. Slow but sure footsteps sounding so loud in her ears. At the gate the guard that stood there gave her more than the quick once over that he was supposed to. He looked her over and looked again. Intentionally stopping at parts that he knew would make her uncomfortable.

With strength that one could have only learnt from going through unmentionable things, she fought back the bile in her throat, took back the pass her mother had sent her and made it through the gate he nodded towards. The one for servants. Inside. She'd be safe inside.

The palace had not changed. At the front was the huge ancient building that resembled the regular castles kings and queens lived in. But then as you made your way through the open hall way through the ground floor of the castle to the back- that was where you saw why this place was a palace.

There were crooks and springs along each path that you took and they were always full and flowing with water.
On the far-left side of the back of the castle you could see stables for the royal horses and a huge field that the royals rode on and engaged in sports on.

After the field were the farms where the livestock were kept for the royal's meals and for the numerous occasions that took place in the palace. Then there were the elegant guest houses.

So many that you had to walk for minutes before you reached the cluster of servant houses and kitchens. Which was where she was headed.

She walked around the servants houses until she got to a house where a middle-aged woman sat in front of. The lady was bent over a sheet of herbs, separating good ones from the bad ones with so much calmness and patience that it made Amity's eyes well up.

"Mum" she gasped out.

And as her mother lifted her head from the work and looked at her with so much love, she could not stop the tears form flowing onto her cheeks.
She did not need to make her way to her as her mum was already in front of her before she could blink some of the tears away and just as she had all the times Amity had cried when she was younger, she pulled her into her arms and held her.

It was as if that action opened up a flood gate. All the tears she had not let out all those four years came out and wet the shoulder of her mother's old maiden dress.

Her mother whispered words to console her, she talked like the had not been apart from each other for three years and she rubbed Amity's curly hair over and over till the wails turned into sobs then until the sobs turned into hiccups and then as the hiccups turned into sniffles.

Calmly as she had always been her mother whispered into her ears "Oh my baby, my poor baby, you're home now." Rubbing her hands in her hair "You're safe now".

And at that moment, Amity felt the safest she had ever been in three years.

That night after the tears had subsided, Amity's mum had led her into their hut and had prepared things for Amity to take a bath she left Amity to go and make food for both of them but mainly for her daughter.