Sanctuary

• Helen Wei, Grade 7
• Short Story
• 2008

I hastily treaded softly on the newly fallen rich crimson oak leaves; unable to stifle the foliage crunching like a horse eating carrots, under my feet. I no longer felt the need to be rich, nor the safety of my bodyguards, all surrounding me, everywhere I went, knowing my friends, my dislikes, my hiding places, basically my life! I wanted a life of adventure of love; at least this is what I dream of night after night. Father doesn’t seem to understand this “will of mine” and disapproves of my conversing with the gardeners and peasants.

So here I am, sitting in an oak tree by myself, at peace at last. Nobody can disturb me and nobody will find me because I am sitting on the tallest bough of this tree, and not a soul would believe that a mere girl of twelve could climb so high up.

From up here you can see Father’s grand château, with everyone swiftly moving about, trying to hide from the rain. But I love the rain; it’s so glorious and refreshing. The mere thought of rain brings me joy and comfort. My father would expect me to be out here in the rain, he knows me only too well.
I decide it will be best if I just stayed here. In this oak. Food seemed nothing compared to the Freedom that was mine as I was up here. I felt immortal, liberated, even sometimes as if I were God himself. Up here I could be anything I desired.

It was a depressing and solemn thought, but I reflected upon how my Life would end up if I returned to the castle. I would be forced to find a husband worthy of my rank, not drawn towards me by love but rather my status and my money. I know this as fact, because my beloved sister, at the petite age of fourteen, was required to become betrothed to a man she most extremely despised. The relationship ended with a cut on the throat by her own hand.

You would think that my father would most certainly allow me to marry a man of whom I loved, but to him, a sheer loss of someone (no matter their relationship to him), does not mean I am immune to such obligations.

I felt that if I went away, and wasted away in this tree, nobody would find me. Nobody would care. Nobody would try their hardest to search for me, through rain and heat. And on my funeral, my mother and father would pretend to cry, yet deep down, knew they were relieved with yet another failure of a daughter.

So no, if I were to stay here and disappear and waste away, nobody would care.

As I felt my being leave Reality, my eyesight abruptly turned blurry and when my vision cleared, I saw the embracing arms of the all-powerful God. And as I saw my parents grieve, I saw pure sorrow in their eyes.