Once Upon A [Stolen] Time (Stolen Series Book 1)

by Ahsan, Samreen

  “Will you be okay, honey?” Mom asked me with motherly concern.

  Steve walked toward us. “I promise to take care of your daughter, Mrs. Farrow. Don’t worry...she is as precious to me as she is to you.” That sounded like a romantic oath but I knew it wasn’t. He cared for me, and moreover he wanted his game concept to work and apparently I was his concept.

  “Here we are...finally,” Steve dropped his knapsack on the bed and collapsed on the plush white double bed. I looked around the room and settled myself on the couch.

  We had landed an hour ago in Casablanca after a flight from London of almost four hours. Steve had booked business class seats so we were not tired at all. In fact we were all charged up. Julia joined us at the airport before we left, and now she had just checked into her room next to ours. The hotel was magnificent with its traditional architecture, but I was more drawn to the craziness of the city: the Atlantic coast, fertile land, giant palm trees, tropical weather, and how it had preserved its history for so many years.

  “Where do I sleep?” I asked Steve. Tyler had already gone for a quick shower.

  “It’s up to you, baby!” He craned his neck and looked at me. “We have only two rooms. You wanna stay with Julia, go ahead, or if you stay with us, we will have fun and watch movies.” He winked at me.

  “I don’t want to ruin your fun.” I pursed my lips. “I don’t think Tyler would like me to invade your privacy.” I looked around the room. “I should probably bother Julia, then.” I got up from the couch and collected my trolley.

  Steve got up from the bed and beckoned me by moving his finger. “Come here.”

  I dropped the handle of my trolley bag and walked toward him.

  “Sit.” He patted the mattress. I did what he asked. “You know we are friends, right?” I nodded quietly. “We never discussed Edward. Wanna talk about him and share?” He smiled at me.

  I looked at him for a while. “What do you want to know?”

  “Anything! What was he like?”

  “He looked just like King David.” I took a deep breath. “Same eyes, same face, a trimmed beard like him, dark blond hair down to his shoulders...exactly how David looked. But I wonder why he resembled David so strongly? He was descended from Andrew, wasn’t he?”

  “True,” he agreed. “I’m not asking about his looks. Tell me something I don’t know.” I blushed and he noticed my face turning red. “When you spoke to him, your body was completely different…unlike it usually is. I had a feeling he turned you on. I’m sure he must have fallen for your beauty.”

  “You think I’m beautiful?”

  “Hey...I’m gay, but it doesn’t mean I don’t have the vision to appreciate the beauty in a woman.” He looked at my face. “So tell me, how was he?”

  I smiled and tried to contain myself as much as I could. “He was amazing, Steve.” I looked at my open palm. “I felt his touch, saw the need for me in his eyes, like he had been waiting for me for so long.” I took a deep breath. “He asked me what he looked like, as if he had never seen himself.”

  “He hadn’t, I guess. Remember, Julia told us that they were all cursed and all they saw was a black hideous beast instead of a reflection. Perhaps he spent his entire life wanting to know what he looked like.”

  My heart and soul had taken a perverse turn after looking into Edward’s eyes and seeing his need for me. I never knew I had a dark side in me until it had started lusting for Edward. Since seeing him, I had not been able to get him out of my mind.

  “But when I called him David, he was devastatingly disappointed.” I shook my head. “His eyes were so eloquent, Steve. His soul was pouring out from his eyes. He was depressed that I called him by someone else’s name.”

  Steve was listening to me intently.

  “Maybe he left because I didn’t say his name. Our first meeting shouldn’t have happened like that.” I was as depressed as I had caused Edward to be, by calling him the wrong name.

  “You should remember that your first meeting with him was pretty unconventional, Myra.” He was reading my expressions. “I see he’s touched you, but I don’t want you to fall for him.” He placed his hands over mine in my lap. “He is history—just don’t forget that.”

  I choked on this sudden and bitter truth. I knew Edward was history, but somehow, those greedy eyes, which were only meant to desire me, had entrapped me. I had no strength to tell my friend that I had already been enslaved by Edward’s covetous eyes and his body, which I knew for sure was meant only for me. He gave me the feeling that I was the very first woman in his life who had touched him—the only woman he’d ever craved.

  “When are we going to that bookstore?” I changed the subject.

  “Tomorrow morning after breakfast,” he replied immediately. “Do you want to eat dinner?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “They fed us a lot on the flight. I think I should go and check in with Julia.”

  “Or you could sleep in the TV room. There’s a futon there.”

  “Are you sure? Tyler wouldn’t mind?” I asked.

  “Why would I mind?” Tyler had just stepped into the room. He was wearing pajamas and had a towel around his neck, showing his sculpted arms and toned chest like he just came out of a Shaun T workout session. Although they were both genuinely interested in each other, I still felt awkward with the two good-looking men I’d just met two days ago. “We’re here because of you, Myra—not on some couples’ retreat.”

  I smiled at Tyler’s honesty and decided to crash with these boys, so I headed to the washroom to change my clothes. I needed to sleep, and wait for the next day to see what it would bring for me.

  The anticipation was killing me already.

  After breakfast in the hotel lobby, we took the long drive to the Marak bookstore. It was located in the Sahara desert between Casablanca and Marrakech. Our driver dropped us right in front of the store. There was nothing else visible nearby.

  We all walked silently into the store and gaped like children stepping into a fairy tale. The store looked fairly small from the outside, but inside it was a huge store with a glass dome. The dome had been visible from the outside, but what amazed us was how deep the store was. There were a multitude of levels, with spiral staircases going down from every corner. Piles of books with thousands and thousands of multicolored covers created a literary rainbow. I looked down from one of the stairways and felt lightheaded from the vertigo. It looked like a deep well filled with books instead of water, and we were standing on the top level.

  "Is it a store or a library?" Tyler exclaimed. It was a genuine question.

  An old man with a long white beard was dusting off a bookshelf nearby. He was wearing local dress—a white robe.

  "May I help you?" His English sounded a bit different, with his Arabic accent. Although he had his back to us, it seemed he knew we were there.

  "Is this a library?" I asked, looking around.

  "It is library and bookstore both. You want to borrow the book or buy it…it's up to you. For borrowing, you'll have to pay something in advance in case of damage." He turned around and placed his eyeglasses on the bridge of his nose to focus on us. I was sure he was ninety-plus, and his vision was probably blurred. And I didn't see anyone else helping him. His glasses were tied to a silver chain around his neck so he wouldn't lose them.

  "My goodness." Julia sounded shocked. "This man looks the same age as he did twenty-two years ago. I thought he must have died by now."

  He walked toward us and looked at Julia first. "Ah…I remember you..." He looked her over from head to toe. "You came ten years ago." His black eyes bore into Julia. His olive skin was filled with wrinkles oozing past centuries.

  "Twenty-two years, Mr. Bakr." Julia replied, but she still looked shell-shocked.

  "Hmm," he acknowledged. “Time flies…” He looked at me, ignoring Steve and Tyler. Maybe he was fonder of female customers. “Ha! You’re here.” His gaze looked deeply into me. “The armored eyes,” he sai
d sarcastically. We all looked at each other askance at what Bakr was saying. Perhaps he was just babbling due to his old age. He turned around and started dusting the other shelves. “He waited for you all his life…” It was more like talking to himself, but I held my breath at what he’d just said.

  “Who?” I almost whispered.

  He craned his neck and looked at me, glasses perched on the bridge of his nose. “You know who.”

  I glanced at Steve, who was also shocked. I didn’t have the guts to ask the old man again. I knew he was talking about Edward.

  “Take the stairs down to the third level...turn right...there is a small room at the corner, painted in deep blue. The book is kept on the table.” He said all this while still dusting with keen interest. Julia was watching me in astonishment too. Steve grabbed my hand and followed the old man’s instructions.

  When we reached the stairs, the old man called out, “Wait.” We all halted in our tracks. He walked slowly and clumsily as an old man would be expected to, but I was still surprised he didn’t need a cane to support him. “If they look at you, try not to talk. Okay?” He examined me from head to toe. His sharp gaze was making me nervous.

  “Who are you?” I asked before he could say anything more. I had a feeling he already knew me. How? That I wanted to find out. “How do you know me or...him?”

  He chuckled. “Such an impatient lady.” He turned around. “Make sure you don’t talk.” He paused. “He will drag you into his world and remember, my child…there is no turning back.”

  No turning back? What did that mean?

  “What a creepy old man,” Tyler asserted. “I don’t feel good about this place. Let’s forget the damn book and work on our game.” He looked at Steve. “That was your original purpose. Where are you getting stuck in all this shit?”

  Steve ignored him and looked at me. “You want to open the book?”

  I stared at him for a while. I didn’t know what to say. The old man had already confused and scared me. The way Bakr talked about the book, it seemed like he knew I would be able to read something in it. And why did he tell me not to talk? You don’t talk when you’re reading. And talk to whom?

  I nodded silently and we took the stairs down. The spiral staircase was very narrow and built of metal. The treads were metal openwork, so it made me a bit dizzy, looking down into the deepest library I had ever seen. It was five levels below the ground—with thousands of shelves lined up—the most unusual library one could ever visit.

  Our shoes clinked on the metal all the way down to the third level. We reached the deep blue room where an old round table made of dark wood, with four chairs around it. Fortunately there were only four of us, so we took our seats. The wooden chairs creaked due to their old age, and it seemed like no one had ever used them. The book covered the entire tabletop—it was almost three feet long. I had never seen anything like it. It was made of dull gold paper with the text written in red ink.

  I read the text. The border of the book was similar to the frame of the haunted mirror in the chapel, with the same text written in cursive writing, in the same gold color. It was more like an embossed text, and one would able to see it with light reflecting on it. I looked at my friends, who were waiting for me to open the book.

  “Do the honors.” Steve gestured toward the book.

  I flipped the cover and found hundreds of papyrus pages glued and bound together. I had never seen anything like it. I had always seen paintings and single sheets on papyrus, but having it formed into a book was quite astonishing. Julia was right. The book was empty. Each page was bordered in the same way as the mirror, the text embossed with the same color.

  Steve traced the border and looked at Julia. “Why is this repeated everywhere?”

  She shrugged her shoulders. “I wish I knew.” She paused and looked at me. “Can you see anything?”

  “No.” I shook my head. “How can I, if you guys don’t see it?” Just then I placed my hand on the first page. The golden text that was embossed on the border glowed and started leaving its place, forming a whirlwind of letters. I jerked back in my chair, startled at seeing the flying letters forming a world in front of my eyes.

  “What happened?” Steve placed his hand on mine. They all looked so normal, as if they didn’t notice anything happening.

  My breath started getting shallow—I was having a hard time pulling myself together. “The words….” I was tongue-tied.

  “Yes, the words?” Steve repeated, but he watched me with concern.

  “They are moving...they are making…” I was again at a loss for words, and staring at the whirlwind, which transformed into a window that had the same frame as the haunted mirror. The only difference was—it was a three-foot-high holographic window.

  “Moving?” Julia poked me. “What do you see, Myra?”

  I was unable to contain myself. Steve got up from his chair and stood behind me, holding me firmly by my shoulders. “Myra? What do you see?”

  The window opened in front of me like a movie—everything appeared clear and full of life in front of my eyes.

  “What do you see?” Steve repeated.

  I held my breath tightly. Words clotted again at the back of my throat. “I see everything, Steve...I see everything.”

  At that moment, I realized I did belong to the Hue family. How? I didn’t know.

  And after that moment, my world was never the same again.

  “Seduction is always more singular

  and sublime than sex and

  it commands the higher price.”

  Jean Baudrillard

  CHAPTER 10

  EDWARD

  MAY 1415

  It had been a month since Veronica left this world. In the Hues’ reign, there was no room for tears. I was not given a chance to arrange a funeral, say goodbye to her or offer her eulogy. No eulogy or words could verbalize what I felt for my beloved sister, but she knew. In death, she took away my tears, my smiles, my heartbeats—everything that made me human. I was a monster now, lurking in the darkness—one who would not hesitate to kill anyone.

  Her body was buried deep under our deserted black courtyard. It was unfortunate that my sister wished all her life to hold a flower in her hand, and her grave could not even have this blessing. It was made of dry sand—the sun never shone on her grave—nor did it ever feel rain. Her journey of death would be as hollow as her life had been.

  I was not even allowed to bury her outside the cursed boundaries, but despite the month that had passed, I didn’t have the courage to visit her grave, sit beside her or apologize.

  I’d gone to visit Emma the next day, but the child refused to see me at all. She’d completely exiled me from her innocent childhood. Her pain from her irreparable loss was even worse than mine. I was the man who made her an orphan. I deserved her hatred, and would spend the rest of my life burning in the hell Emma created for me.

  After that day, I had turned away from my niece and never returned to her aunt’s house to bring her back. I didn’t want to see those eyes again, that asked me if I killed her mother. She knew I took her mother’s life. She had no one to look forward to seeing. Veronica and I were the people she loved most, and both of us were buried in Veronica’s grave.

  Yes, I died the day Veronica died, and buried my heart underneath the black desert of our courtyard.

  It didn’t matter now.

  Nothing mattered now.

  There were only two hopes left for me after her death—my two lifelines to breath. One was Emma, who cast me away with her loathing. The other hope that had burned in me after Veronica’s death died the moment she said King David’s name.

  What was I hoping? That Veronica’s death would end the curse and bring love into my life? I had killed my own sister and turned away from her daughter. I broke the promise I made the day she died. I promised to keep Emma with me and protect her, give her love of the father she never had, but all I did was to send food and money to her aunt’s house ev
ery day to lessen the grief and guilt for taking away her mother. Deep inside, this beast was a coward, who had no courage to confront a child.

  I had now turned into a massive wall of stone, barricaded so high that no one would ever find any possible way to trespass. Day by day, King Stefan toughened me with his callous training, and day by day, I kept placing bricks around me to become unreachable. Nothing passed through me now, nothing burned in me now. My heart had been buried in my sister’s grave, my soul left me that day and would now probably be rotting in purgatory, and my body had become too numb to feel anything.

  I had now come to terms with Stefan’s way of dealing with people. I guess he was right—it wouldn’t hurt much if you just stopped hearing people’s cries.

  I had learned all possible ways of torturing people, but I had stopped punishing myself in return. Pain for pain—the reason I had once given my sister for why I tortured myself didn’t exist for me now, because I had stopped feeling their pain. Nothing touched my heart now.

  Day by day, I strengthened myself by torturing men and never hearing their pleas. I was just like King Stefan now, ready to take his throne and become his proud heir. The only thing I still refrained from doing was torturing a woman. If there was a female prisoner kept in my tower, the only punishment I could give was to starve her for a few days and send her back to her home. I didn’t touch any woman, never desired or sought any kind of pleasure. The only woman that I had desired my entire life, the woman who invaded my body just with a single touch and sent jolts through me, was apparently a beautiful witch, trapped in Satan’s mirror.

  I had shut down my feelings for that grey-eyed woman, and the very last urge to meet her. She was never mine. After that night, she never came back into my dreams.

  But still, if I ever got time of my own—her armored eyes bore into my soul. She was reading me, watching me with unknown feelings. I didn’t know if she hated me for what I’d done, or still had some feelings for me. Though she was carved in the mirror, her gaze followed me everywhere. I didn’t know how she did that. Perhaps she was Satan’s daughter, and that gave her enough power to sneak into anyone’s world. But I had stopped reciprocating her feelings. I never looked up to talk to her anymore, because I knew she had mistaken me for King David. She was in her own delusion, and I had no urge to fix that problem. If she had decided to stay in the mirror and desire David then she could remain like that forever. Her place in my heart was no more, because I had no heart. I was made completely of stone. The walls around me were too high for anyone to breach and invade me.