PROLOGUE

Joy.

It was merely a word, but the feeling that word gave was pure heaven, believe me.

It was a rush of thrill, paired with such sensation that bubbled in your chest, ready to burst at any second.

It was that same feeling that coursed through my veins at the break of mother's words.

"You got in, Anna!" She called yet again, wanting to make sure I grasped those words right, but of course I did, I was just too busy trying to process the fact that I had been accepted into Bowers.

The Wilbur Bowers Academy.

It felt a dream, but that phone call mother had received uttered otherwise. It was all happening, with me being centered in it all.

I was being sent off to Bowers, the school I had always longed for. I still remember how years ago, mother had assured me that on my year of senior school I would take leave out the town's junior High, and if thence I got accepted into Bowers, she would try everything she could to make sure I attended there.

And here I was now, the news being divulged to my ears, that I was ready to begin my journey to one of the most prestigious academies in the country.

The voice of Mother had jolted me off the comfort of the couch, feet pushing forward to where she stood, with a phone pressed tight to her ears.

Let me tell you what joy was.

My heart is like a singing bird

Whose nest is in a water'd shoot;

My heart is like an apple-tree

Whose boughs are bent with thickset fruit

It all was summed up in those four lines of Christina Rossetti's poem.

Joy was that lingering feeling which did enough killing every sting that threatened to have your heart ache.

My own joy remained eminent. I felt it surrounding me. I felt it traveling all through the room, yet on the other end of the space was that figure whose soulless eyes onlooked my delight filled ones.

And at the sight of him, the smile faded off my lips, eyes watching that look held on his face.

That look that brought a hundred questions to heart.

"Do you hear, Honey? Anna got in!" Mother called out to him, but he barely took a move off that chair, he only pulled the cigarette held between his finger to his lips, puffing into the air, a cloud of smoke.

"You got in darling!" Mother came around me, arms wrapping around my form, while she went planting a light kiss on both sides of my cheeks, the glee filling that gaze of hers.

She had hurried off fetching a jug of juice from the refrigerator, her laughter drowning the silence in the area, while she scurried here to there, the tunes which emitted from her lips soon filling the room.

Meanwhile, those eyes belonging to the man I knew as father, stayed watching mine, dead, dull, they remained peering at me. And with no life whatsoever, he called;

"Congratulations"