After Forever Read online

  After Forever

  An Indie Author Anthology of Modern Fairytales

  Compiled By:

  Krystal George

  Featuring Stories From:

  Krystal George

  Heather Kirchhoff

  Kate Marie Robbins

  S. Cu ‘Anam Policar

  Kim Stevens

  Cindy Bartolotta

  Twinkle (Sugandha) Varshney

  Amanda Alberson

  Illustrated by: Cheryl Casey Ramirez

  www.CCRBookCoverDesigns.com

  Each story was edited by its individual author and formatted by Krystal George

  For all of the Readers – This is a compilation of stories written for you…

  Thank you for all of your dedication and continued support of what we do!

  Table of Contents:

  Come Wake Me Up Krystal George

  Beastly Heather Kirchhoff

  Cinder Kate Marie Robbins

  Puss in the Bone of Riches S Cu ‘Anam Policar

  Day and Night Kim Stevens

  Destiny Cindy Bartolotta

  Trapped Twinkle (Sugandha) Varshney

  Cinder and Ella Amanda Alberson

  Seeing Red Krystal George

  Come Wake Me Up

  Krystal George

  ©2014 by Krystal George

  “You’re late.”

  I cringed at the disgust in the voice and smiled sheepishly. “I’m sorry. I missed the bus and had to wait for the next one.”

  “You do realize why you are here, don’t you Aurora?”

  “Rory,” I corrected her before she glared at me from beneath wire framed glasses. “I-I mean, y-yes of course I do.”

  She consulted the clipboard that was in her hands. “This isn’t some after school program that you signed up for, Aurora,” she emphasized, “you were ordered by the courts to be here and I expect you to be here on time.”

  I gulped. “Yes ma’am.”

  I looked around the brightly lit corridor and squinted my eyes against the blare of florescent lights. I hated places like this. Even though it wasn’t a hospital, the stench of old bodies and weak bladders was pungent.

  Assisted living… this was my punishment.

  “Now I’m just going to have you do some cleaning. After a few days we may work up to something more suitable.”

  She spun on her heel and I hurried to keep up with her. “Yes ma’am,” I answered again.

  She stopped so suddenly that I almost ran right into her rigid back. “You can call me Miss Merriweather.”

  “Yes ma’am,” she narrowed her eyes and I gulped again, “I mean, yes Miss Merriweather.”

  She began walking again and I practically had to run after her. I was short as it was, so following her tall statuesque figure was not an easy task. We came to a small janitor’s closet at the end of the hall. There were little carts full of cleaning supplies squeezed in there. I jumped when a small plump figure emerged from behind one of them.

  “I’ll go ahead and leave you with Mallie then. She’ll get your supplies and show you the rounds.”

  I nodded.

  The plump woman waited until Miss Merriweather walked away and then let out a deep breath. “That woman unsettles me,” she admitted sheepishly before holding out her hand for me to shake.

  I smiled, unsure if it would be rude to agree with her or rude not to. “I’m Aurora Woods, but everybody calls me Rory.”

  She shook my hand and then wiped hers on her torn blue jeans. “You can call me Mallie.”

  “That’s an unusual name,” I commented, “is it short for something?”

  She smiled and although it was friendly, it still sent shivers up my spine. “Yes.” No other explanation, just the short answer.

  I watched as she squeezed her way through the carts and out into the hallway pulling one with her. The smell of bleach was so strong that my eyes began to water. Rags spilled from a bucket with steaming water and the handle of a mop tipped forward and knocked me on the head.

  “You’ll get use to the cart.” She grabbed the mop handle and secured it back upright in its holder. “So, what are you in for?”

  “Um…” I began, but suddenly found myself at a loss of words. It was so stupid really, but the judge hadn’t thought so. “I, uh…” I stuttered.

  She held up a hand stopping me. “Never mind. I don’t want to know.”

  Holding back a fresh wave of tears, I nodded. I had done what I had needed to do… and I was being punished for it. It wasn’t fair and still there was nothing I could do about it.

  Mallie walked down the hall and opened a door. The smell of stale coffee and urine assaulted us. There was an elderly man sitting in a rocking chair. That, his bed and a small dresser were the only pieces of furniture in the entire room. It was depressing, really. With him sitting and staring at the wall as if he were seeing images that only he could see. There was a blank expression on his face and I had the overwhelming urge to soothe him somehow.

  “This is Mr. Butler. He’s been with us for a few years now.” She threw a blanket over his lap and tucked it into the sides of his chair. “He doesn’t talk much.”

  I nodded. She handed me the mop and the bucket of soapy water and instructed me to mop his floor. It was like the white tiles you would find at a hospital and images of my mother crept into my mind. Seeing her huddled beneath the crisp white sheets with tubes in her arms had been heartbreaking. It wasn’t a memory I liked to dwell on, so I pushed it aside and set about fiercely cleaning the floors. When I was done, Mallie nodded her approval.

  We continued like this down the hallway. While I mopped the floors, she threw the trash, washed the windows and dusted what sparse furniture was there. We were productive, but with each new door that was opened and each new set of eyes I saw staring blankly out through the wrinkled flesh encasing them, a sadness began to engulf me. How sad it must be to live out your life in a place like this. It made me wonder about their families. What kind of monster would put these people away and forget about them?

  After a few hours my back was sore, my feet ached, and I was pretty sure a blister was beginning to form on two of my fingers. It was just about then that I noticed the door. All by itself in a small alcove off of the main hall was a beautiful carved wooden door. I was mesmerized by the intricacy of the detailed art work and stood staring at it for several moments.

  “This is our last stop,” Mallie said. “Then you’re done for the day.”

  I nodded, still curious about the out of place grandeur of the door, but ready to get this day over with. I still had another month of days just like this one to follow and I was eager to get home. I went to turn the doorknob, but it was locked.

  “Oh crap! I forgot to get the key from Miss Merriweather,” she said, slapping the side of her head. “I’ll be right back.”

  Nodding again, I watched her walk away in silence. What was so important that it needed such an elaborate door? And why did it need to be locked? Almost as if it had a will of its own, my hand reached out to try the knob again. With a soft click the knob turned and the door open without me even touching it. My breath caught.

  I pushed the door open hesitantly. It was dark in the room, but I could tell right away that it was different from the rest of them. It looked like something out of a fairytale. The furniture was ornate and old fashioned, but even my untrained eye could tell that it was expensive.

  “Hello?” I called tentatively. “I’m just here to clean your room.”

  I was answered with the steady beeping of medical equipment. There was a soft glow of lights coming from the screen and I gasped when I saw that there were tubes hooked up to it, connecting it to the body on the massive wooden bed. My mom’s sickened pa
llor swam back before my eyes, and I struggled to push away the image once more. When I did, I was shocked by what I saw.

  He was young. I was guessing close to my own seventeen years, and he was totally hot. But that wasn’t what shocked me. It was the instant recognition that had my throat tighten with emotion. Golden blond hair fell across his forehead and even the dimmed light couldn’t camouflage the tanned perfection of his skin. His eyes were closed, but I knew that they were the same golden hue as honey. My hand reached out as if to touch him, but I drew it back, embarrassed by my reaction.

  “I see you’ve found Phillip.”

  I jumped at the voice and turned an embarrassed face towards Miss Merriweather. “I’m sorry, I thought I was supposed to be cleaning and I… um…” I shrugged and backed away from the bed, not sure what to say.

  To my surprise, she smiled. “You are. Mallie had asked me to unlock the door for you while she took care of something, but it looks as though it didn’t need to be unlocked after all.”

  I chewed on my lower lip, unsure if I should admit that the door had been locked at first. But what would she think? That I opened it myself by picking the lock? The truth – that it opened on its own? But then she’d think I was crazy. Doors didn’t just unlock themselves.

  “I thought that this was an old age home,” I blurted out after a few moments of awkward silence.

  She laughed softly and it softened her entire face, making her look both younger and friendlier somehow. “Phillip is a special case. He’s been here for a few months now.” I could feel her eyes on me while I studied him. A few months… that’s when… “He’s in a coma.” She said, interrupting my thoughts.

  “That’s so sad,” I told her, meaning it. “What happened to him?”

  Her expression hardened again. “I think that you should stick to what you came here to do.” When I stared at her blankly her mouth slid into a thin tight-lipped smile. “Clean,” she said before turning and leaving me to stare after her.

  After a few lost moments I looked back toward the bed and sighed. Maybe I was losing my mind. The stress of the past few months had been wearing on me… maybe I had finally cracked… gone mental… checked out of reality.

  “Get a grip, Rory, just get this crap done and get out of here.” I said out loud.

  A louder beep from the machine had me jumping again. I looked at the monitor, but I had no idea what I was looking at. The figure on the bed, Philip, didn’t move or make a sound. He looked so peaceful, but I couldn’t help feeling sorry for him… feeling… NO! I didn’t know him and I had no feelings for him. I shook my head to clear it and returned to the task at hand.

  “I knew that you’d come.”

  “Am I that predictable?” I asked him, smiling.

  It was the same place. Almost like a castle, the stone walls shimmered in the moonlight. He was sitting on the edge of a fountain in the middle of a luscious garden. The moon muted the colors of the flowers that surrounded us and I wondered what they would look like in the sunlight. There was a magic in their beauty, but in the sun… they would be intoxicating.

  “No, not predictable, but a guy can hope, right?” He held out his hands to me and I went to him. His skin felt warm against mine and we twined the fingers of both hands together.

  I laughed. “I’m sure you have plenty of girls to occupy your time.”

  He shrugged. “Maybe. But you’re the one I want.”

  I blushed and was thankful for the dark night, hoping that the moon didn’t show my embarrassment. It wasn’t that I didn’t want him to think of me in that way, it was just that I wasn’t used to it. The guys at my school didn’t look at me that way. They saw my tattered book bag, naked face, and charity clothes and then kept looking past me.

  “You deserve better than me,” I whispered with my head hanging low and my eyes focused on my beat up tennis shoes. “I’m practically a criminal.”

  “Do you believe in fairytales?”

  I looked up at him then. “What do you mean?” I asked, not sure where this conversation was heading.

  “Peter Pan – was he a criminal when he was stealing from the rich to give to the poor?”

  I laughed softly. “Depends on who you’re asking.”

  He put his hand under my chin and lifted my face to his. “I’m asking you.”

  “He was a hero.” I answered.

  His lips drew closer to mine and I could feel the warmth of his breath. My heart sped up as I waited in anticipation. He had never kissed me before. “You’re a hero,” he said. Then he kissed me and it was the most perfect moment – rivaling any fairytale I had ever read.

  “But why do you have to go Rory?”

  I sighed and ruffled Artie’s already messy hair. “You know why. It’s only for a few more weeks. Then I’ll be done.”

  He grabbed hold of Bella’s hand and the two of them walked in my friend Marcie’s house. She smiled sympathetically in my direction before pushing her thick glasses back up her nose. “They’ll get over it.”

  I smiled and shrugged, “sometimes I’m not so sure.”

  She put her arm around my shoulders and walked me down the sidewalk toward the bus. “They’re kids, they will forget all about this.”

  “I hope that you’re right.”

  “I’m always right.”

  I laughed and then waved before turning and walking toward the bus stop.

  It had been a few weeks since I had started my community service at the assisted living home. During those weeks, the dreams had begun to come every night. Before then, they had just sporadic. Now, with each passing moment the desperation in my interactions with Phillip was becoming a living entity. One that I was pretty certain was a sure sign of losing my mind. I was falling in love with a dream… with an idea… with the hope that there was some truth in it all.

  The bus pulled to a stop a few minutes after I got there and I slipped wearily into a seat towards the back. The dreams had definitely cut into my rest. There were circles beginning to form under my eyes, I couldn’t stop yawning, and my brain pretty much felt like someone had turned it to mush. I was lucky that Miss Merriweather had kept me strictly as part of the clean-up crew. I wouldn’t have been able to handle anything else. Especially once I added school and my siblings on top of everything else.

  It’s funny, because even though I was tired and felt like my thoughts were dredging through my swampy brain, when I was with Phillip it was the only time I truly felt… alive. It was the only time I could really be me and not have to worry about anything else. There was a freedom in that and I couldn’t help feeling grateful for the illusion.

  Shaking myself from my thoughts and trying not to fall asleep, I picked up a discarded newspaper that someone had left behind. I didn’t have to look long before a headline caught my attention. It was a story about a family that had gone missing. There was no trace of them and the authorities had no leads, but a reward was being offered for anyone who had information.

  “Sad, isn’t it?”

  I hadn’t even noticed the ladies sitting behind me, looking over my shoulder.

  “It seems like such a waste for such a wealthy family to just disappear.”

  “I bet that they disappeared because they were wealthy.”

  “Now Florine, money isn’t evil, it’s what is done with it that can be evil.”

  One of the ladies tsked. “That’s your opinion Fawn.”

  “I’m sorry, did you two want to look at this?” I asked them.

  Two sets of friendly eyes twinkled back at me. “Oh no, dear,” the one I thought was Fawn said. “You are going to need that.”

  I raised my eyebrows. “I think I’m okay.”

  The other one, Florine, shook her head and sat back in her seat, “I think that there is probably something in there that you can use.” She looked over at the other lady and put the tip of her index finger against her lips. “Try page thirteen.”

  Fawn shivered. “What a terribly unlucky number
.”

  “Oh poppycock! Luck has to do with the person, not the number.” Florine looked at me then and smile sweetly. “I think that luck has finally found you.”

  The bus began to slow to a stop and I stood up, anxious to get away. It wasn’t that they scared me or anything like that. They seemed harmless and sweet enough. It’s just that the whole situation seemed peculiar.

  “Well this is my stop.” I held out the paper again. “Are you sure you don’t want this?”

  They nodded at the same time. “Take it,” Fawn said, “somewhere in there is bound to be a happy ending.”

  I folded it and put it in my shoulder bag. “I don’t believe in happy endings.”

  Before they could say anything, I turned and hurried down the steps to the pavement. When I looked back up at the bus, their faces were staring down at me with amused expressions. I waved lamely toward them and their eyes sparkled in the afternoon sunlight for just a moment before the bus pulled away and drove off.

  “Well that was strange.” I said out loud.

  It was just a few blocks to the assisted living facility and I hurried toward it, eager to get the work done… and if I was honest with myself, I was eager to see Phillip too. It was hard to separate the Phillip in my dreams with the flesh and blood stranger lying in that bed. I wanted it to be real, but I knew that it was all my imagination; that some glitch in my brain had created the illusion that I actually had someone as amazing as he was who really cared about me.

  The reality was that no one really cared about me. At least not in the way I needed them to. With my mom still sick and my brother and sister counting on me to take care of them, I hadn’t always made the best choices. If I had, I wouldn’t be hurrying toward an afternoon full of bedpans and soapy mop water. It was my job to take care of things now, not fantasize about someone else taking care of me.

  My strengthened resolve lasted until I walked through the doors of the assisted living place. It was quiet; eerily quiet. There were no nurses bustling about, no patrons staring blanking out from wheelchairs, no staff… no one. I looked up at the clock and saw that I was about ten minutes early… but still. This was creepy.