"How do you think he survived the fall?" she wondered aloud, looking up at the hole above. "If he did survive the fall, someone must have caught him. Or he fell on a softer ground-or someone looking up at the hole like you are doing now," Meredith, her chaperone and lady companion absently answered. Cressida rolled her eyes. "You're not even taking this matter seriously." "I'm not." "Why ever not?" "Because you're trying to waste our time talking about a myth." "No, I'm not," Cressida answered, closing her eyes and reveling at the heat of the sun above them. If there was anything she hated, it was the gloomy feel of the Town behind her. "We will be late. Your father will be looking for us." "Let them wait a little while longer," she murmured. "Your mother will have a faint if you do something strange today," Meredith said beside her. Cressida finally opened her eyes and turned to her companion, her heavy dress rustling as she shifted on the bench. "I am not planning to do something strange." Meredith merely looked at her as if she knew better. "I've known you all my life, Cressy. You don't have to say anything for me to realize you are planning something." When she didn't say a word, Meredith added, "Marrying the Lord of Easton is-" "-the worst idea of the lifetime, I know," Cressida cut in. Meredith shook her head with a faint smile. "If the Lord of Easton is an old man and ten times your size, yes it is. But he is not. He's merely a few years older than you and you've known each other-" "-and never liked each other all our lives. I know, this marriage will be horrifying."
Chapter 1 1
I. The Town
In a land not so far away, there lived a place that lived in the past.
The people there simply called it the Town because its founders never came up with a proper name. They were too much consumed with haste to build it and set the rules in motion. In every convention, in every meeting, they simply referred to it as The Town and it stuck up to this day.
Their rules were their law. And the people of The Town took their law quite seriously. If one would inspect them, they weren't even complicated at all. They were basic laws against crime one could easily find in any other towns.
But what sets The Town aside from the rest?
They refuse the use of anything more advanced than electricity in any way whatsoever and the children of the Town grew up knowing what other towns would call ancient or basic.
Oh, yes, they know about the other towns. They had heard stories. They believed the other towns owned carriages that didn't require a horse at all. They could talk and see one another even when the other person was not in the same vicinity as them. They could do things with the 'tip of their fingers' as what the teachers in the schools of the Town would say. The children thought it was magic.
The adults, on the other hand, saw it as threat. The leaders battled against each other whether or not to form alliances with the other towns, but they would always go back to what the founders believed: the Town was indestructible. In a sense, it was true.
The Town was not really a town. The other towns outside considered it a country, and a very strong one at that. And it spanned almost half of the entire continent in the west. The very few people who knew of the Town's existence would not dare distract the Town. No one dared think of invading it either. Its very presence was a threat to almost all other towns outside because they stood on it.
The Town was their very foundation, built deep underground with its own cities and streets and buildings. They destroy the Town, they fall with it. And everyone left them alone untouched, peaceful as ever, forever living the history that had long been forgotten by the other towns, unknown to the commoners aboveground and alien to the very few powerful who had knowledge of their existence.
The streets of the Town were made of stones, fitted perfectly for carriages to drive by and people to walk on. The houses, though with enough electricity to give light, were always on the side of dim. Businesses thrived. Livestock were kept on the other side of town as well as the farms with their own holes to provide sun to their crops. As a matter of fact, everything from irrigation to waste disposals had been thoroughly planned from the start by the founders themselves. The Town could stand on its own without help from the outside.
The people of the Town were generally content and happy with their lives. It was, after all, the only life they had known. But if there was one thing they would have liked to experience more, it was the sun. Yes, they knew of the sun. They could experience it from time to time and bask in its goodness in the many parks their founders had built. Such parks were built with perfect holes hundreds of feet above the ground, giving them natural light and ventilation. These holes were the only access to the other towns and they were surrounded by tall walls shaped like a funnel so no one from the outside could climb on them and see the Town below. And if ever one could manage to climb to the top, sliding down would be easy though the fall might lead to a sudden death. Climbing out, on the other hand, was impossible. Or everyone believed that to be so.
There were hundreds of such walls and only once had it been trespassed. That was almost a century ago and it never happened again. What became of the trespasser was never disclosed to the public though ideas that ranged from possible to insane circulated that the story soon became a myth and the trespasser was named Mr. Jones. Some stories said that Mr. Jones survived and married a woman from a higher class. Others said he was taken prisoner until he died. There was one that said Mr. Jones was amongst the first founders of the Town.
The story of Mr. Jones had never been taught in any subjects in the different schools in the Town, but it didn't stop the children, even those in adulthood, to speak of him as if he was part of history. The very same topic was being discussed by Lady Cressida and her companion.
"How do you think he survived the fall?" she wondered aloud, looking up at the hole above.
"If he did survive the fall, someone must have caught him. Or he fell on a softer ground-or someone looking up at the hole like you are doing now," Meredith, her chaperone and lady companion absently answered.
Cressida rolled her eyes. "You're not even taking this matter seriously."
"I'm not."
"Why ever not?"
"Because you're trying to waste our time talking about a myth."
"No, I'm not," Cressida answered, closing her eyes and reveling at the heat of the sun above them. If there was anything she hated, it was the gloomy feel of the Town behind her.
"We will be late. Your father will be looking for us."
"Let them wait a little while longer," she murmured.
"Your mother will have a faint if you do something strange today," Meredith said beside her.
Cressida finally opened her eyes and turned to her companion, her heavy dress rustling as she shifted on the bench. "I am not planning to do something strange."
Meredith merely looked at her as if she knew better. "I've known you all my life, Cressy. You don't have to say anything for me to realize you are planning something." When she didn't say a word, Meredith added, "Marrying the Lord of Easton is-"
"-the worst idea of the lifetime, I know," Cressida cut in.
Meredith shook her head with a faint smile. "If the Lord of Easton is an old man and ten times your size, yes it is. But he is not. He's merely a few years older than you and you've known each other-"
"-and never liked each other all our lives. I know, this marriage will be horrifying."
Her companion sighed and slowly stood up. "It's time to go, Cressy."
But Cressida did not move. She turned away from Meredith and looked up at the giant hole above her. She thought she saw something fly by, maybe a bird of some sort. Then her brows slowly moved to form a small frown above her eyes as an idea started to build inside her.
"Meredith, have you ever been to the parks near the woods?" she asked.
"No. Cressy, we have to go. It's about time."
"You don't even have a watch. How do you know it's time?" she asked with irritation but stood up all the same.
Meredith waited until she started walking and followed her toward the waiting carriage. As she took the careful steps away from the park, Cressida formulated the most stunning plan ever thought of anyone in the Town.
No wedding was going to happen in a month's time because Lady Cressida was going to disappear.
She'd fly her way out of the Town or die trying.
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