The Quiet Before the Storm
That night was the night I watched myself die. Full of music--rhythms and melodies carrying masked faces from one end of the polished dance floor to the other--it was a beautiful night. Ladies in their finest dresses and men in elegant suits, all swirling about. A masquerade ball transported from the 19th century in honor of our--my step sister and I--twenty first birthday. That night was planned to perfection; we had set out to create the illusion of magic bewitching our guests into a perfect fairy tale. We hardly knew that there was a real magic present in our perfect illusion, a magic that we couldn't control.
Perched against a porcelain column near the wall with my step sister, who had successfully hidden her the cast of her broken leg beneath the shimmering pomegranate layers of her dress, I swayed to the music, murmuring our guesses at the identities of our masked guests. I could tell that behind the sequins and feathers carefully set over my sister's eyes, she was day dreaming--a vision of herself, twirling about some handsome gentleman's arm. She was always the romantic one--the princess--between the two of us, while I was content in the shadows, alone and unaffected.
Moonlight cascaded through the large windows, mixing with candle light to give that soft romantic aura to our party. Guests nodded their polite hellos as they danced pass us, unable to recognize the hostesses, and sauntered away into the music. I wondered how long it would take for people to find us out, secretly dreading the moment I would have to join the band on stage, take the microphone, and shed my mask. If I had known anything about the turmoil that would soon erupt, perhaps I wouldn't have been so hasty to cast away my moment in the spotlight--my chance to be a princess, if only for a moment. But, unfortunately, I was young and naive, traits that are apparently dangerous in my family.
