• Chapter One

    “You know you’ll never get anywhere just beating the poor ship like that.” Oliver muttered to himself turning his already downcast eyes towards the sea as the ocean waves angrily lapped against his mahogany prison cell (more commonly known as a ship) But today, and all the many weeks that were to come of constant sailing, the ship was nothing more then a large bit of wood. A large bit of wood that was forcibly dragging him closer and closer to a destination he most certainly did not want to be.
    Actually more then not wanting to be there, he had considering feigning death (complete with being buried alive) to get out of the occasion he had received a spoken invitation for only months before.
    Charles Brenline’s wedding.
    It wasn’t as if he didn’t want to be there for his best friend of 17 years. No, Charles could have been adopted into his family and nobody would have noticed the difference. They were closer then brothers him and Oliver where. They had known each other since Charles had been 3 and Oliver 4, and became the dearest friends they are at the present at 12.
    No, Oliver wasn’t about to miss something so important to him. But Oliver couldn’t help but feel jealousy on an extreme level. The girl to whom he was currently engaged, Charles described to seem more like an angel then the countless woman Oliver had courted over the years.
    Charles described her to have long light blonde hair that reached to the middle of her back and curled in ringlets in some places and the rest of it hung in a natural straight way. She then had dark green eyes that Charles described to hold a childlike curiosity that fit her pale features perfectly. She was normal height, but Charles said she couldn’t weigh more then 95 pounds
    Truly he had no reason to be envious, even in the slightest way. Oliver had had every girl he had ever wanted, and had won them over with nearly no effort. Really it wasn’t that Oliver was…. Graceful, or charming, or debonair, actually he was the complete opposite of any of the previous. He was an eccentric and was most certainly offbeat from all the aristocrats in his stage in life of being a 20-year-old bachelor.
    But over shadowing all the less-then-redeeming factors he was handsome, almost unnaturally so, with long straight pure black hair that was cut in random places by himself out of boredom and had bangs that ran sideways across his forehead, and dark teal eyes. He had a very full mouth for a boy and had a more oval shaped face. Then beyond all of that, he had genetically good shape and was muscular almost without trying.
    And only to accent his appearance he was rich on an extreme level, much better off then anybody in London, where he lived.
    No he had no reason to be jealous at all, but he was. It was just that Charles was… Engaged! The combination of words with his friends name accenting it rather then his own made him want to scream and throw something across the room, hoping it would break a window in it’s wake.
    Oliver sighed trying to calm himself down. He looked down at the ship’s railing hoping he would find something interesting enough there to occupy his time.
    “Well hello there Mr. Line how are you today?” he spoke to one of the discolorations on the wood. He leaned his ear against the bar, “Hmm… Yeaa… Exa… K… I’m bored.”
    He righted himself and leaned his back against the ship looking out at the completely empty deck. It was particularly early, and all the rich folk were still in their beds trying to get as much rest as possible before they had to wake up and be fake again, leaving him alone to soak in his green faced envy.

    “No… It’s s to early…” came a most tired-sounding voice. The owner of which was speaking into none other then no one in particular. Really, there was no one to greet, as our Annette Bennett happened to be lying in her own empty bed, in her empty room. Both of which threw into sharp contrast the quiet of the room against the newly sounding growl of Annette’s stomach.
    “Noooo….”
    Annette pressed her face into her pillow trying to ignore the gnawing sensation that took place in the pit of her stomach. If her hunger hadn’t been near the edge of starvation she would have forced herself to fall back asleep, in attempt to gain back all the sleep the previous night had been completely void of.
    It wasn’t that she didn’t love him, she did. She loved him a lot actually. It was just something about him that the thought of marrying him absolutely terrified her. Thus the tossing and turning all night over the images that flooded her mind. Images of her standing as the centerpiece of an overly fancy wedding. Then her honeymoon, where she would have to force herself to act as if she felt some sort of passion towards the man. And finally, her holding an armful of little wavy auburn haired children with dimples and dark skin just like their father.
    And then on the arm that wasn’t full of squealing toddlers, there was the man who had help produce said offspring. Her fiancé Charles Brenline.
    He was a handsome man most certainly, though not unnaturally so. He was average, with a very sharp angular face and medium sized brown eyes to compliment his short dark auburn hair and tan skin.
    And on top of his appearance, he was nice, almost annoyingly so. Actually, it wasn’t almost, it was probably the most annoying thing poor Annette had ever had to bear in her 17 years of living. He hung on her every word like it was the last thing to be said before the world exploded into a millionandfive little tiny pieces. And considering he had no problem where money was concerned, he gave her everything she wanted, as well as some she truly, desperately didn’t. For example, the enormous diamond-carved-into-a-heart necklace that seemed to weave itself quite nicely into every cliché book she had ever read. But, alas, her Charles thought it to be the single most romantic act of money spending a man could do for his lady friend, hence her being forced to wear to every social event for the rest of her life.
    Really, though none of these mattered, so it was quite strange to her that her engagement to him was a looming terror of large proportions. Her Charles Brenline. She felt a bit ill as the grouping of words processed through her mind.
    Annette sighed deciding finally that she wasn’t going to fall asleep, and lying down here with her thoughts probably wasn’t the most beneficial to her heath. She pushed herself up from the bed, threw her feet over the edge of the mattress, and very gently set them on the wood paneled floor trying to ignore the freezing temperature it had reached over night. She traveled across her highly decorated room to reach the coat rack, not caring in the slightest whether it was completely indecent to go out in her nearly nonexistent night gown or not. Modesty was not her number one concern for many reasons, the main being that she was certain nobody would be awake at this hour.
    “I’m starved I’m starved I’m starved I’m starved…” sang Annette (in a most off-tune voice I might add) in attempt to keep herself awake. She dragged her feet along the way trying to keep her mind on something, anything that wasn’t the very thing that had kept her up all night.
    “Hmmm… Well… Let’s think about… How improper I’m being right now.”
    Annette smirked. Her impropriety seemed to be a fixture in London society. Well it had been upon her engagement to Charles… How could such a nice boy throw his life away like that? Why couldn’t it have been me? Oh! That Charles is signing away his existence with a marriage document to that… Witch. Then, her particular favorite and most commonly used, Why her?
    Even though Charles seemed to not hear all the nasty remarks thrown at her since that fateful day, she heard them loud and clear. Though instead of offending her, like she was certain they were meant to, they made her laugh. Why should anybody care who Charles chose for his bride? She would rather have been the talk of the town in any case, rather then the snot-nosed stuck up prissy little wenches that all social circles revered as goddesses in there own right. The thought made her positively sick.
    Only to better prove her point, Annette, once she reached the end of the long hall of bedrooms began singing at the top of her lungs the song. The one from before with only two words to describe her hunger.
    “Ah! Ah! Miss zou singa to loud! Quiet for eh me no?”
    Annette turned on her heel to face the older Italian man standing with cleaning supplies in one hand and a bucket of dirty water in the other. She studied him for a moment quite interested in her newfound companion. He had a very absent hairline, with only a ring around the base of his skull and three hairs reaching from the front of his head to the back. He wore the classic worker uniform that was at the moment splattered with bleach and various products to better the appearance of the luxury class ship. He had no wedding band on his hand at the moment but it was obvious there had been one there most recently. She came to the conclusion that the missing piece of jewelry meant one of four things.
    One, He had gotten a divorce within the past three days, which explained away the bags under his deep chocolate eyes. Two, it had fallen off while he was using the bucket of water, which would explain the metallic clinking noise. Three, he had sold it for money for food, which was fairly likely as he didn’t seem to have an overabundance of wealth. And four, he had been abducted by aliens and they had taken his ring to examine the complexities of human trinkets.
    She found the fourth one to be most likely.
    “Well good morning kind sir…” she held her hand out for him over exuberantly flashing a most superb smile of hers that stretched her dark pink lips from ear to ear.
    He blinked a couple of times not sure how to respond to the strange young girl that stood before him.
    Annette waited a couple of moments her hand still help aloft waiting for him to respond. Upon deciding that he had no intentions of doing so, she let her arm fall to her side. “Well fine then, be a meanie.”
    She said sticking her tongue out at him.
    “I….”
    She shook her head, “No, No… This is beyond repair mister. You’ve hurt me deep down.” She pressed her hand to her heart looking up at the sky in a very bad imitation of being deeply hurt, as she had said she was.
    “But missie I…”
    “What did I say?”
    “But…”
    “Nope…”
    “Come on now! Who are zou?? I don’t even know you!”
    “Well… Yea.”
    “Well then why are you talking to ehme?”
    “Because I want to.” She smiled, “Do you know where food is?”
    The old-mans mouth dropped open in complete amazement at what he was witnessing. Here is this girl, about 16 or 17 he guessed, talking to him like she had known him since the dark ages! Maybe she was mentally ill. He nodded inwardly, that was it… Even if he had no idea where the rich folk got their food, he needed some way to get rid of her. And her asking direction seemed a prime opportunity to send her away.
    “Eh… Go down those stairs and then right and to your left… Umm… Ehh… Down the hall, and there eez food. Jes… That eez where food eez for zou.”
    It was the directions to the ship apothecary; maybe they would have something there for her.
    “K… Thanks.”
    She didn’t spare him a second glance as she skipped off towards her destination hoping desperately they would have something at least slightly edible other then eggs.
    Not likely.
    “What is that supposed to mean?!?” Annette cried enraged as she climbed back up the stairs back to the deck from the unexpected visit to the local apothecary. She hadn’t taken very well to being told that they had been expecting her, and being presented a bottle of medication. They had told her to take a tablespoon every morning and every night, to calm her down, and keep her from the loony bin which the presenter of the remedy had so kindly told her was her next stop.
    “We’ve been expected you Annette! Oh, you’re just so crazy we can’t stand having you around! Ah!!”
    Annette continued storming across the deck ignoring the freezing air blowing past her. She only stopped her angry stomping as she ended up against the railing, where she stood folding her arms in front of her chest, where they lie flat against the word there. She looked down at her hand, where stood the sloshing liquid contained in a tiny bottle tied sealed with wax.
    She shook her head and hocked it out to the sea. She smiled hearing the tiny splashing noise it made; glad it was away from her, to rot at the bottom of the ocean.
    She drew her arm back, and let it rest at her side, her carefully fixed focus still not wavering from the rolling waves, leaving no room to notice the man standing beside her.
    “Aww… How kind of them. You know, I like better when they give it your girlfriend, so she can slip it into your breakfast each morn. It just makes you feel all tingly inside.”
    Annette immediately snapped out of her reverie upon hearing another voice besides her own. She turned to look beside her, surprised that he had been so close, without her noticing. Though strangely enough she didn’t feel in the slightest bit uncomfortable beside him.
    Maybe it was that he was the single most gorgeous man she had ever met in years of existence. Or maybe it was because he had insinuated they wanted him to take the same remedy as her. But whatever it was, she didn’t feel the need to move as much as if it had been somebody else standing there.
    “I think I’d like that better then being told they had been waiting for me.”
    He laughed, “I like it. Though, they didn’t really have to tell me that they had been waiting for me, I kind of figured it out when they handed me a bottle with my name printed ever-so-elegantly across the front.”
    Annette laughed, “Hmm… I think I like you mister. Tell me your name now.”
    Oliver smiled and cleared his throat, “A one Oliver Fischer Madame. And yourself?” He held his hand out for her to shake.
    She looked down at his hand then back up to his face, making the transition between the two for a few moments before stopping on his face.
    “Oliver Fischer? As in… Oliver Fischer, Charles’s best friend Oliver Fischer?”
    Oliver nodded, “Yupp… That would be me.”
    “Cool.” Annette nodded, “I’m Annette Bennett then.”
    She shook his hands with a smile, watching his eyes drop a little bit as she mentioned her name.


    Oliver didn’t have to look the girl over for longer then a moment to decide she wasn’t human. Angel, perhaps, but certainly not human; All she needed was a golden circle of light placed atop her perfect blonde ringlets. It wouldn’t have surprised him in the slightest if she in fact did. Tearing his eyes finally away from her face, he let his gaze drift upwards towards the top of her head to confirm his suspicions on the species of the wonderful creature.
    No… No halo. Then maybe she was a… A…. What did it matter anyway? As long as she wasn’t a hallucination of his (which was a very big possibility), he didn’t care if she was a devil sent from the deepest pits of Hades, he was going to find a way to introduce himself to her, no matter what personal risk that was to him.
    He sighed to himself about to step forward and make his appearance known, before she began storming up the stairs and onto the deck yelling something he didn’t understand. Well, in all truth what she was yelling was probably completely intelligible, it was just he didn’t care enough to find a part of his brain that wasn’t filed with her appearance to decipher the meaning.
    He continued to watch, as the wind blew past her, making the silk material of the robe she was wearing fall slowly down her very bony shoulder, the sleeve of her nightgown along with it. He bit his lip, hoping this action would keep him from blurting out a proposal and his vows all in the same sentence.
    “Crap…” Oliver muttered under his breath as she rapidly turned her rampage in the direction of the railing. She must have seen him with his mouth dropping to the floor and decided to come teach him some manners. Not that it was very polite of her to wear next-to-nothing out in public; she must notice the fainting men as she passes by.
    HE turned back towards the ocean, taking a lot of will to take his eyes off of her, watching the waves intently as if he was actually enjoying watching it. He then waited a few moments expecting to be whirled around and slapped in the face, though what happened in the next instant was much different then he had expected.
    She stood next to him a bottle of red liquid in a medicine bottle in her tightly clenched pale fingers. He turned only a fraction of inch so that he was facing her, trying not to excite himself to much over they’re closeness, as was apparent she didn’t even know that he was standing there.
    He needed to think of something else, find something to concentrate on, to gain his composure before her noticed he was standing there. He attempted to turn his stare seaward but upon not succeeding, he settled for the medication in her hand. He watching the almost jelly like sloshing around as the waves rolled the ship. Wasn’t that… Wasn’t that the medication he had been given only recently? Wasn’t’ that the medication he had been told would help him relax, and stay out of any more trouble. He studied it intently for a moment.
    That was it.
    This angel of a girl was holding in her hands a medication for crazy people. How? Oliver thought he was the only lunatic within a thirty-mile radius. No he couldn’t be right. Maybe she was holding it for somebody else? Yes, that must be it… Yup, she’s not crazy.
    He was particularly certain of his theory by the time the girl threw the bottle in the ocean, complexly killing his idea of why she had it.
    So it was hers then. In a way, that actually made him feel a little more certain he would like this girl, at least they would have hating the medication in common.
    “Aww… How kind of them. You know, I like better when they give it your girlfriend, so she can slip it into your breakfast each morn. It just makes you feel all tingly inside.”
    She looked over at him, looking truly horrified for a moment that she had been, and still was standing inches away from a man she had never met in her life. Though, to his complete delight, she seemed to relax after a moment’s inspection of him.
    “I think I’d like that better then being told they had been waiting for me.”
    He laughed, “I like it. Though, they didn’t really have to tell me that they had been waiting for me, I kind of figured it out when they handed me a bottle with my name printed ever-so-elegantly across the front.”
    He remembered the incident fondly, as well as the burning ceremony of it moments after it was placed in his care.
    The girl laughed an almost musical laugh, matching her voice. It wasn’t high like he had expected it to be, but it wasn’t the opposite extreme either, it was a normal voice. Well at least she had something he could call average.
    “Hmm… I think I like you mister. Tell me your name now.”
    Oliver’s heart skipped a beat at her words; she may as well have just proclaimed her undying love to him for all he knew.
    He cleared his throat, “A one Oliver Fischer Madame. And yourself?” he said in a very imperfect impression of the many stuck up rich people he encountered in his days.
    Her eyes opened a bit wider as she heard his name, “Oliver Fischer? As in… Oliver Fischer, Charles’s best friend Oliver Fischer?”
    Oliver nodded, “Yupp… That would be me.”
    “Cool.” The girl nodded, “I’m Annette Bennett then.”
    He blinked a couple times trying to register in his brain the words she had just spoken. Annette Bennett… Annette Bennett… No, why was it her? Why couldn’t she have said Rachel Smith, or… Or… Elizabeth Johnson… Anything but Annette Bennett. She could have been anybody, but Charles’s, his best friend’s, fiancé.
    His heart sank to the bottoms of his toes, all his hopes and dreams created in his mind in the past 5 minutes crashed around his ears with a most dramatic thud. She was taken, and by none other then the one person he cared about most. The one person he cared about enough to keep from taking her for his own.
    His eyes dropped to his hand, about to put it back against his side, and run as fast and as far as he could, in attempt to get away from this curse that was placed in front of him, in human form. But try as he might, he couldn’t bring himself to leave her, no matter how much he knew it would kill him in the end. Not to mention, his concentration was quite broken at the moment of his escape, in the form of Annette taking his hand finally.
    To a normal person, the simple gesture would have gone over fine. Not at all complete with the lightheadedness and trouble breathing he felt the moment her hand was in his. He sighed taking a deep breath, without being to obvious and shook her hand, like some part in his mind reminded him he was supposed to do.
    “I am oh so sorry darling. Engaged to Charles Brenline, now that there, is probably the cruelest form of torture that is at all possible.”
    Annette laughed, “Well that’s kind coming from his best friend.”
    “Isn’t it now?” Oliver laughed, inwardly hitting himself for still talking to her.
    “Yupp. K… I need food. Do you know where it is?”
    Oliver smirked and pointed behind him to a sign that read ‘L’Fleur de bella’ engraved in a gold plaque.
    “The finest in all of London ma’am. I’m you will just love being forced to like it just ‘cause everybody else does. Enjoy.” He beamed bowing for dramatic effect.
    “Whatever… It’s edible right?”
    Oliver raised an eyebrow looking as if he was in deep thought. “I’m not for sure.”
    Annette laughed, “Well if I die then I dub you Mr. Oliver Fischer Charles’s best friend planner of my funeral. Bye!” she waved and skipped off towards the restaurant.
    Oliver watched her leave, a very sick feeling swelling in the pit of his stomach as he watched her leave. Why did she have to talk to him? Then she only would have been a beautiful girl he had randomly seen passing by one day. But now he knew. He knew that she, if he would ever talk to her again, would be not only the one he would love forever, she would also be his best friend. Beating out even Charles who had known him since the beginning of time. But she was different, which is why he could never see her again. Ever.