Saving Four

 

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Chapter One

Alive. Full of cool, crisp air that fills lungs and seeks out the impurities of a heavy conscience to drag them out. Humidity becomes wind, rain becomes autumn leaves. Soft showers drown out the dust of summer and bring in the voices of children ready to learn. This was when Osen felt like she ruled the Earth. Her grades were at the top of her class, she was active in all of her organizations, and she was actually fit and… well, attractive. The weather was wonderful; not quite jacket worthy, but chilling.

           

“Ossie!”

“Hm?” She looked up, woken from her daydreaming by the piercing voice.

“Five minutes until summer.” The voice had come from her very best friend, Pearl. Pearl grinned at her, packing up her notebook and pencils into her dark blue backpack. “Uh, my mom said I can come see the movie tonight if you can bring me home.” She spoke quickly, which was natural for her.

“No problem. Your house is on the way home, anyways.”

Pearl nodded, keeping her focus on what she was doing.

“Did we have any math homework?”

“No, she told us just to study for the quiz and have any questions about the test ready for class.”

“Cool.” Osen finished packing up her own things and sat up in her desk. “So, seven, yeah? The movie starts at seven-thirty.”

“Yeah. We can get popcorn before we go in.”

“I’ll use it as a shield to block the screen.”

Pearl laughed. “Like you used your sweater last time.”

Osen hummed in agreement. “Didn’t work too well, though.”

The end-of-class bell rang and Osen grinned at Pearl. “See ya!”

“Bye Ossie!”

Osen shouldered her bag and set off to try and navigate the overcrowded hallway. Shouts of students calling to each other rang around her. She swerved around classroom doors that seemed to open just to block her path, just barely smashing into the people beside her. “Sorry. Sorry. Excuse me. Sorry.” It was always a mantra of apologies getting through the school. She finally stumbled through the door and let out a habitul sigh of relief, now beginning the walk home. 

"Ossie!"

Osen turned to see Pearl walking towards her across the school courtyard. She smiled. "Hey! Why're you here?"

"Turns out they cancelled practice because Ms. Galell isn't allowed to start summer practices until June." Pearl answered with a grin. 

"Awesome! Wanna walk home with me?" Osen asked, already knowing the answer. 

"Why not?" Pearl shrugged. 

They walked together off the school grounds and down the sidewalk, waving to car drivers as they crossed intersections. Meanwhile, they chatted about random things, like the plans for later that day and other ideas for what to do over the impending summer. It was when they were a few blocks from Pearl's house when things started getting a little fuzzy. Osen shook it off at first, thinking it was just dehydration or something. Then she started stumbling over little rocks.

She turned to Pearl. "Hey, are you feeling-"

"Dizzy?" Pearl interrupted her. "Yeah."

The world began a slow waltz around her vision, with the ground meeting the low-hanging branched of trees for a blurred kiss. Then the earth completely capsized. 

"Ossie?"

Osen heard Pearl's shaky voice as she fell to the concrete. Through her slowly blinking lids she saw Pearl fall beside her, struggling to push herself up and failing. The scene lethargically dissolved into black.

 

 

 

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Chapter Two

When Osen woke up, she was expecting blue sky, or perhaps her mother fussing over her, or a stranger trying to wake her and Pearl up. She was definitely not expecting a palace. She also wasn’t expecting a smooth, English-accented voice calling to her to wake up, but she supposed that was to be considered in a place as nice as this.

The floor was cool marble beneath her, but the ceiling- well, the ceiling was a whole other story. It looked to be hand painted clouds over shimmery gold that danced ornately in flowery spirals and twists to the tops of marble white pillars, which stretched to the floor in at measured points around the room. 

Floor to ceiling windows let in soft light through sheer, golden curtain, but kept out the view of whatever was outside.

Osen sat up leisurely and stared in awe at the pure rich feeling she got from being in the room. Her mouth hung slightly ajar until she heard a quiet cough.

“Ahem.” A man stood in an open doorway to her right, and he wore a well fitted suite with a black bow tie, and cough links shaped like… were those suns? “Took you long enough to wake up. Come along.”

“Who the hell are you?” She rubbed at her temples for a moment before pushing off the ground to her feet.

The man looked a bit insulted at her choice of words. “I’m a butler for heaven’s sake. Now, if you’ll come with me-“

“Where’s Pearl?” Osen glanced around the room, searching for her friend. “Where’ve you taken her?"

“Will you stop asking so many questions, please!” The butler huffed with a frown, straightening his coat in the process. “Your friend is fine. She’s getting dressed. And if you follow me and be quiet, I’ll take you to get ready as well.”

“Ready for wh-“

The butler gave her a deadly glare.

“Sorry. Coming.” She followed him out the door and into a hallway with similar decorations, but without the pillars. Instead there was the occasional pedestal with an opulent vase filled with different types of flowers in it.

 Doors appeared on either side of the hall. They were made of a dark wood, with brass handles that formed a smile design similar to a sideways bass clef in sheet music, with a curve on the end. Osen nearly ran into the butler when he suddenly stopped at the end of the hall. There were five doors here, six, if you included that one of them was double-doored. Two doors were on either side of the hall, and the doubles were at the very end. These first four doors were different than the others in the hall. One was a soft yellow, with simple, flowery designs in the panels. Another was more of a rusty scarlet color, with a glowing sun painted into corner with curling tendrils of light. The third was a brown similar to the other doors, but more… warm. Inviting. It had a single maple leaf painted at about eye level. The final door was simply white, with what looked like icicle patterns around the outside edges of the frame.

“Here we are.” The butler smiled. He stood at the maple leaf door. “Welcome home.”

Osen frowned, but decided not to question the poor man any further.

He turned the handle and pushed open the door, gesturing inside. “Go on. The ladies are waiting for you.”

Ladies? Osen thought. She shook her head and walked in through the door, drinking in the room as soon as she stepped inside. It was definitely not gaudy or expensive looking like the hall had been. The room was sort of dark, with a warm color scheme of browns and deep reds and emerald greens on occasion. A four poster bed sat in the middle of the room, and a wide book shelf stretched across the opposite wall. Beside the bed was a night stand with an alarm clock and a glasses case. Two doors were directly across from the hall door, which she assumed led to a bathroom and a closet. Finally, on the other side of the bed beside the two doors was a standing mirror, along with two chattering women with a wooden chair and a small table stacked with different kinds and colors of makeup. 

The butler nodded towards the two women. “They’ll bring you to dinner once you’re finished.” He saw the confused expression her face, and his own stern look softened. “They will take good care of you. We’ll explain all of this when you get to dinner.”

One of the women stopped talking and turned to see Osen and the butler in the doorway. “Ooh! You’re finally here! Yay!” The woman nearly squealed in happiness and hurried over to bring Osen inside.

“I never asked your name.” Osen finally spoke to the butler.

He smiled. “You can call me Mr. Reilly. And you?”

She nodded. “Osen.”

“Nice to meet you, Osen. I’ll be seeing you later tonight.” With that final statement, Mr. Reilly walked out the door of the bedroom and stepped through the double doors at the end of the hall.

“Ooh Martha isn’t this wonderful!” The woman beside Osen spoke with the widest grin on her face that she thought was humanly possible. “We finally get to meet her!”

“Yes, but don’t scare her, Kim. It is her first day.” The second woman replied, walking up to where ‘Kim’ and Osen stood. “Sorry dear,” She addressed Osen this time, “She gets a bit excited about new clients. What was your name again?”

“…Osen.”

“That’s a lovely name.” Martha smiled.

“Wonderful!” Kim chimed in.           

“So, Osen, Kim and I are here to be your clothes and makeup ‘artists’, you could call it. We’re just going to get you ready for whatever events you need to attend. Tonight’s dinner is meant to be sort of formal, so we’re just going to get you dressed nicely, made up, and measured so we know how to get your other clothes made.” Martha put a hand on her shoulder. “Come on. Let’s get you a dress.”

Martha and Kim pulled her over to the two doors across the room, and Kim opened the one on the left. What Osen saw astonished her. Gowns of all color and style hung from the racks in the walk-in closet. The colors were almost just like the colors of her room, with browns, reds, and greens, but in one corner there was also an assortment of dark blues and purples that seemed more… icy. She stared in awe at the dresses, reaching out and feeling the soft felt and slippery silk.

“And they’re yours.” Martha gave her a knowing smile. She had seen the look before.

“Why?” Osen squeaked, completely thrown off by this new discovery.

“You’ll find out at-"

“At the dinner. Yes. Okay.” Osen sighed.

Kim bounced up to the two of them, holding a few of the shorter dresses. “So I was thinking a brown for today. Something kind of simple.”

Martha nodded. “Sounds about right. We’ll do some warm tones in her makeup.”

“Mmhm. Light pinks on this one.” Kim started holding dresses up in front of Osen, seeing the patterns against her skin and hair. “Corset type, maybe?”

“Yes, yes, I like it. Show me where your hip bones are, Osen dear.”

Osen complied, putting her hands at the top of her hip bones.

“Of course. Thought so. They’ll bring out some curves. How about this one with the leaf patterns?” Martha nodded.

Kim gasped. “Ooh that one! I knew that one was going to be a good one. Here, try it on!”

In a flurry of different fabrics, the two women reached forward and began tugging Osen’s clothes off. In less time than it took to say ‘AHH stop why are you stripping me’, they had taken her school uniform and tennis shoes off and them with a soft felt, long-sleeved, brown dress patterned with leaves at the neck that reached an inch or two over her knees, and a pair of small black heels.

“Perfect!” Kim exclaimed, clapping delightedly. “I knew it, I knew it, I just knew it!”

“Now now, Kim, let’s wait until the fun part to get excited.”

“The fun part?” Osen muttered, still in a daze.

“But of course! Now we do your hair and make up.”

They pulled Osen out the door, shutting it behind them, and sat her down in the chair by the mirror.

“I love the messy bun look during the fall.” Martha noted with her hand on Osen’s shoulder, examining her in the mirror. “Brings out the cheekbones.”

“Did you do this to Pearl, too?” Osen asked, rubbing the stars out of her eyes.

“Oh, not us. Some other artists did.” Kim answered. She leaned down conspiratorially.  “I heard she protested so much that one of them had to pin her down while the other tried to get a bit of lip gloss on her.”

Osen couldn’t help busting out in a fit of giggles. “That’s her alright.” 

“Okay. Let’s get you looking good.” Martha looked pleased. She stood behind Osen, picked up and brush from the table, and began brushing through her hair, pulling it behind her shoulders.

Kim, meanwhile, knelt in front of her and started applying foundation and other types of whatever to her skin. Osen had no idea what most of it was, but she hoped she didn’t look like a pasty orange freak afterwards.

About half an hour of Martha and Kim babbling and fixing her appearance later, they stepped back, taking in their completed work.

“Goodness. You look wonderful.” Martha said to Osen.     

“Wonderful.” Kim repeated with a smirk. “I knew it.”

“Come on, let’s get you to dinner.”

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