Slipper
an excerpt

I stretch and look around groggily. This is much too early for me, Celestynn, age seven, to wake up. Why am I awake again? Oh, yes. Someone is knocking on the door. With that realization, I give a small shriek and hopped out of my bed, pulling a robe on before sprinting to the door and opening it.
“Yes?” I say breathlessly, looking up at the imposing man towering above me. He looks like he is in the royal army. He hands me a scroll. I examine it carefully, running my hands over the thick, creamy parchment before breaking the seal.
It was then I learned that the only father I had ever had, my stepfather Cadin, had died.
I looked up at the messenger, not wanting to believe it, thinking he must be playing some cruel joke. I shake my head slowly, but I see him nodding.
Tears begin to well up in my eyes, then down my face, then onto the beautiful scroll. I hated it now.
The messenger’s face was hard, presumably from witnessing years of such reactions. He turned stiffly, crisply, and walked away with the knowledge that, in delivering this letter, he had ruined my idyllic life.
In this way, I became the first to know about my stepfather’s death, and the last to stop mourning. Whether it was the traumatic experience of being the recipient of the scroll or the fact that Cadin and I had such a strong bond from years of reading together, I didn’t know at that time, nor did I care. But I did know two things.
First, my stepfather was dead.
And second, everything was going to change…but not for the better.