Once Upon A [Stolen] Time - [Stolen] Series I

CHAPTER 2

"The curious are always in some danger.
If you are curious you might never come home."
Jeanette Winterson

MYRA
APRIL 2015

There are certain moments in your life when you start questioning your existence.

Who are you?

What's your aim in life?

Do you truly belong here?

Are you going to make a difference, wishing your name to be exalted, leaving a mark in history?

Will someone take your name in bygone stories, perhaps a part of a fable or a fairy tale?

Will you become a legend that passes on from generation to generation—in beautiful folklore, wrapped in entreats and twisted imaginations?

As a child, I fancied the idea of reading those stories again and again like a song on repeat mode, hoping one day that they would be entwined with my life and I'd find my way through those magical worlds, enchanting forests, unwrapping twisted tales and mysteries.

I didn't want to die as a nameless soul. I wanted to make a difference. Not that I desired to be a scientist to create something for the future, but rather become a legend. I wanted my name written somewhere in history books, so when I died, I remained like a shrouded mystery for future generations to ponder.

I wanted people to talk about me, think about me, and ask questions about me like a character in a book club—even after centuries had passed. How I wish to become a legend in some artist's remarkable painting, or a poet's muse, or a character driven by some writer's fantasy as his inspiration. How I wish I were born in a bygone era, lived like a real princess, courted by handsome princes and knights with valour and grace.

Yes, I was always attracted to the idea of princes, kings, dukes, and knights—anything regal. My friends in school had always told me that I lived in dreams and that imagining the life of a medieval noble residing in a castle was a preposterous idea.

Now, I live in a time of artificial intelligence and virtual reality, where love works on logic and calculations—where knights and princes don't court a woman to win her heart. Where the idea of a prince rescuing is just a fantasy novel or a movie, and honestly, rescue me from what? I wasn't locked up in any tower guarded by some dragon, so a prince would come one night to save me. I wasn't even living with a stepmother who treated me like Cinderella. I know the wish is absurd. I was deluding myself with stupid and impractical fantasies. I live a much better life than millions of people in this world, and I still want more. Have I gone insane? What am I hoping for?

Perhaps I didn't know myself. Raised with an obsession with Disney movies and bygone fairy tales, reading medieval literature, poetry, and history during my degree program, I fell in love with the past. The stories of knights—their chivalry, how noble they were, how they laid their hearts upon just a look at a beautiful maiden. Indeed, the princes and kings that existed before the sixteenth century had become my fantasies. In my fiction world, they were all gentlemen. I loved the idea of how they treated a woman as a lady—with respect and kindness. These days, blokes don't even bother holding a door for a girl.

Though I was now twenty-two, my fantasies of these castles had not withered. I still get excited when I discover and visit a new historical site, maybe an old church or tower—anything that was built before the nineteenth century. I'd snap up any new historical novel, taking me back to the Victorian Era. I'd watched every period drama and movie.

People who knew me closely would tease me that I had been so obsessed with the historical places that I should have lived in the past, and there was no place for me in this twenty-first century. They called me 'old school.' Maybe I was old school.