I ran through the meadow, dragging my fingers behind me through the warm, luscious grass that came up to my hip. I raised my tanned face to the sky, loving the way the sun fell across my face like a velvet curtain on stage. No more was I condemned to the depressing misery of my cottage or the abuse of my family. I was free and wild like the wind.

My laughter floated around me as I hummed in synchronisation with the fat, lazy bumble bees that hovered around the abundant flowers. Today, everything was perfect. The sky was blue and the sun was shining. The meadow stretched on in a never-ending place of refuge from the hurtful world and, to make it all better, I was wearing my favourite light-blue dress that had a white collar and a silver hem. The meadow was my favourite place in the world. I felt as if I was alone and everything was peaceful. I could be as loud or as quiet as I wanted to be or I could be as grumpy or happy as I wanted to be, but in the end of happiness and the start of harsh reality, no matter how long it took me to get there, I always had to return back home.

I squatted down in the shade of a willow tree that nested by a small brook, and contentedly watched as the shadows reached its long fingers into every corner of my hidey-hole. I never wanted to go home, but a few hours later, I decided I had to. As I got up and prepared to go home, I realised that the bumble bees and crickets and long gone back to their houses, and it was time I had returned to mine too. But I hadn't. I was later than I had ever been before. My father would be angry. Very angry and I would be punished, he always made sure of that. It was the same thing that happened every time. I would come home, breathless and exuberant, and he would be sitting at the kitchen table when I walked in the back door.
"Where have you been?" he would ask in that low, dangerous voice.
"In the meadow, and having a wonderful time too." I would say, hoping he would ask if he could come with too one day. But he never did. He would send me to my room without dinner, compare me to my older sister and then, to top it off, finish with a whisky or brandy. I loathed myself for making my family unhappy, and for a long time, I blamed myself for a lot of things while living in the shadow of my sister.

It was on this very day that I was taking the shortcut back home. I skipped to the outskirts of the meadow and twirled around amidst the canopy of twining bushes and trees. And then, suddenly, they were there. Right in front of me. All six of them.
"We've been looking for you," they said in their rasping voices. From that day forth, my life was never the same again.