9 The Switch- Part2- Lily

Lily was not in the state of mind to see and appreciate the beauty of the nature around her.

She was deeply immersed in her thoughts and her personal fears. Her mind was like a pot on a stove approaching a boil or an explosion.

When she finished the soup dinner with her friends, she left. She left the cottage, her mother and friends behind and entered the woods nearby.

For her it was like escaping this tight atmosphere that seemed a bit suffocating to her. She knew they wanted to help, and was very touched by their emotions and worry.

However she also knew her dreams were shattered and she had to live with that for the rest of her life.

She wasn't looking to walk for her own entertainment. She just wanted to escape the eyes of her concerned friends and Oliver.

She wanted to look for an answer to one question. If her destiny was not in the palace then why did that old lady mention the name of the palace at the moment she grabbed her hands?

That brief and weird meeting with the old lady left a deep impact on her. For a second before all this happened she seemed so convinced she would take that job.

And now after all this she didn't know what to believe. Her heart was smashed like glass, beyond repair.

Yet she was here looking for answers, hoping she might find anything that would help her survive what left of years in her life.

Why fate did that old lady tell her about that day? She kept asking herself that question without an answer.

If she didn't meet someone like this lady then she might have totally different reaction now to what happened.

She might even not care for anything like this.

Even though she tried to get into the palace today, she was thrown away!

Lily had nothing to do with it. She just wanted to go into the palace and work as a maid.

She had the conviction that she was destined to have a good life. In which she lived a love story and enjoys a pleasant, noble love.

And the words of that old lady just rooted that conviction deeply into her soul that she could swear to sniff the amazing perfumes of the palace even before entering it.

And now she couldn't erase such perfume from her mind no matter how hard she tried.

That was very painful to her, something she would rather prefer not to experience at all.

Lily knew she needed an explanation. But she didn't know who that old lady was. Working at the palace was now just a childish dream, except for that old lady's vague words to her.

Without intending so, these words just became a prophecy after that old lady said them. So Lily had to talk to that old lady again, had to find her at all costs.

But first she had to know where that old lady lived in the woods. Finding that small cabin in the woods was hard.

If it was really fate then she would find it. Yet that task was not easy at all on her.

The last time she met that lady Lily was lost in the woods. She lost her way home and she couldn't remember even how she reached there in the first place.

So she didn't know how to get to the old lady's cabin. Despite she had a good knowledge of the forest, she never saw that old cottage before.

It was like that cabin alongside its own owner showed up on his own out of nowhere last time.

She tried to remember, but she was unable to remember anything that could help her find that area. She tried so hard to remember, but nothing she remembered could help!

"One moment!"

Lily said it so loudly that she even stopped walking!

"I remember there was a well, a well near that house."

Even though the moon lit up the sky things around seemed more dim than it should be. The trees were dense.

Those entanglements made the forest look a bit monstrous and dark. And it was hard to see clearly through all this.

Lily was turning every few steps around herself. It looked like she was afraid of something!

Anyone should be afraid of the unknown, from a place he couldn't see full. The moon was at that moment her enemy.

It wasn't working, or it was just her weak perception due to her extreme anxiety.

For her the moon seemed to make an alliance with trees to provoke more terror and help her to lose her way and not reach the cabin at all.

"Maybe the nocturnal animals will come out to hunt," Lily muttered to herself while holding her breath.

She seemed terrified of that thought that she couldn't keep walking steadily anymore without checking the surrounding more than once every second.

She didn't know what might be out there to be afraid of. The situation was not comfortable for her the night. Especially with such conflicted emotions and crushed dreams.

She used to walk in the forest at night with her friends. Not like now where she was totally alone, abandoned by all or she was the one to abandon them.

She was scared, yet she never stopped looking.

At one point it felt ridiculous. Because she was trying to meet an unknown lady who said vague and non-credential words about her future.

"That doesn't make sense. And here I am trying to find that fairy old lady that my hallucination just made up," she mockingly said to herself while checking everything around.

The hour was already too late. She had been in the woods for more than she needed to be.

The familiar paths she knew on the back of her heart disappeared in front of her. The forest became entangled and more terrifying.

Lily walked in circles around herself a few times without even realizing it.

When she knew she was lost, she became more scared and feeling more foolish.

"That imaginary lady could wait to the morning, right?" she blamed herself for taking such a risky trip in such a time. "I should have waited… I shouldn't have ventured here by myself."

She was trying to console herself by these words, trying to invoke the sense of logic at this distressed moment.

Even if she wanted to go back now she couldn't. She lost her way out and couldn't even go back to her village.

And she couldn't find the way to the old lady's cabin. After a long moment of irritable thinking and stressful weighing of her current situation, she decided to keep looking for the lady.

As she was already lost, then at least she shared one similarity with the time she met that old lady before. She might be able to find her yet again, or so she prayed.

And yet she was scared. And that felt so bad.

It was such a rare moment of frustration and despair, adding up to her previous disappointment and loss.

"This day won't become any worse, right?" she sarcastically said to herself while trying to find a clear path between the bushes around.

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