Gaia
Chapter 1
	Under so many stars lay an open night sky. The Autumn night was quite calm, yet a little brisk. A whisper of wind stirred across the open grasslands surrounding an old and withered-looking castle. Up high, somewhere amongst the strange thatch and tile rooves a yellowish light shone out into the darkness. Within the glowing room, shadows of women busy at work played on the walls. The groans of pain and joy that eminated from the high room were heard by a worried-looking man who hastned his packing and without a word, fled the castle. 
Throughout the now-still night air a single cry was sounded. It was a cry of endless joy and was quickly followed by a second cry of love. The dark shadows of the busy women all at once became a blur of hasty motion. Eventually they slowed and dissapeared.

“She is beautiful, just like her mother,” The old woman sat on the side of a high bed. Her rustic clothes suited her sweaty brow and tired face. Her eyes spoke a different language to her tired body. She could not help staring at the newborn and mother. The beautiful baby had been born in her home. The babies’ mother lay weeping with joy on the bloodied bed, sweat trickled from her body onto a fine-lace bedcover. She protectively held her new family to her breast and crooned her in exhausted breath. 
The yellow light no longer shone out into the darkness. An exquisite curtain was drawn across the small leaded window.
Another elderly woman appeared from behind a heavy scarlet drape. She spoke to the other female in a hurried tone. “I will now call the ambulance, we have to get her to a hospital for registration and a good checkup. She is a few days early. And her mother is exhausted,” She looked adoringly at the child. “She is so beautiful, isn’t she?”

The ambulance screamed along the dark bitumen road, the new mother silent in the back, a tiny red-haired baby sleeping in absolute comfort in fresh snowy-white blanket. An uneven blip on a small blue-green screen accompanied the new mothers slow breathing. The strange blip became more erratic, then finally became an unending high pitch sound. The breathing stopped. Out of the white sheen of blankets two bright blue eyes calmly stared, uncomprehending.
•
	“I was born here seventeen years ago,” The bright-eyed girl stated, trying to remember- failing. She was not short, not tall. Her coppery hair cascaded over her shoulders, over her prussian blue dress. She was exquisite. From her so-blue eyes shone calmness, understanding. She had perfect lips, scarlet red like the drapes that hung on the walls. With a great sigh she added, “That was the night my mother died. My father dissapeared without trace and since I can remember, no-one had heard of him or seen anything. He was reported missing and never found. So here I am, orphaned in the world by misfortune.”
“Gaia, don’t fret it. There’s nothing that you can do now. Just live your life and forget it.” Another girl sat on a high-backed chair. She also wore a delicate dress of the finest silk red. In her fingers she held a glowing cigarette which she put to her lips and drew smoke from twice. As she blew the grey powder about the room, her eyes glanced about the mediæval looking adornments about her- the bolster bed on which Gaia lay, the strangly carved door, the dark night outside the window. Clouds moved slowly across the stary night. She also sighed, though not in regret, just boredom and tire.
Gaia lay silent, closed her eyes and was transported from the ancient room to another time, another place. The image of her mother edged into her mind. Photographs of the beautiful woman together with her tall husband. She almost seemed alive still-
The girl awoke from her daydream. A hazy trail of smoke rose lazily towards the high girdered roof.
“No, I suppose you’re right.” Gaia sighed once more. “Well Lisa, I s’pose we’d better get on downstairs. Mrs Mac’ll be starting to wonder where we got to. This is a fairly big place after all.”
Somewhere a bird cried out. There was hardly any noise, only a faint murmer from down below where Mrs MacDowell, the owner of the castle, was busy cooking their evening meal. Most of the other guests Mrs MacDowell had to stay did not wish to stay for the night. The strange, ancient castle seemed, somehow, too spooky for them. Lisa and Gaia had been invited by Mrs MacDowell to stay, and the polite girls could not refuse. 
Before leaving, the girls took another breif look around the room. It mostly seemed as rustic and odd as they had imagined a castle to look like, although it had electric lighting and a bedside digital clockradio. The high bookshelf was crammed with books by modern authors interspersed with miscellaneous decorative items. The curtained window was partly open. A brisk breeze wafted in.

Two weeks later, the duo had arrived back at their home in Australia where they lived in a small flat, somewhere in North Sydney. The night of their return, after a takeaway pizza and a rather messy car trip from the airport, the two girls sat lazily in front of a late-night movie on the television.
Lisa turned from the screen, the beanbag she lay on screeched and she said, yawning “So, Gaia, that was Scotland. I didn’t expect it to be, well, so cold, for one. Or that Mrs MacDowell actually delivered you all that time ago. She was so kind to let us stay for a week in that place,” She slowly blinked a few times, sleep plain on her face. “That place must be so old.”
“Yeah, it is. I’ll have to write to them and thank them for having us.” She paused, thinking. “I did find out one thing for sure, though. Dad is still around, somewhere.”
“What? I thought he would have died years ago.”
“So did I. But did you see how they all reacted when I asked them if they had heard from him since I was born. They all looked away quickly and mumbled away about him having died a long time ago. No, I know that he’s still alive.”
“Gaia, you aren’t going out to look for him, are you? That was years ago. In another country, for God’s sake. He would be long gone. It would be silly for you to go after him.” Lisa seemed to scold, like Gaia’s Aunt had done when she cared for her- before the car accident had hospitalised her for good. That, too, was a long time ago now, thought Gaia.
The duo fell silent, fell back into the strange black-and-white world of the silly film on the television. Gradually, unknowingly, sleep eased into their tired bodies, and long after the slowly-breathing pair had slipped off, the quiet TV also gave way to the evermoving static fuzz that indicated that it, too, was ‘asleep’.

Chapter 2
	“Ha, ha, ha. You’re piss’d aren’t’chu?” Slurred Gaia, the cold night around her and Lisa pushing, seeping into their small bodies like blood oozing from an open wound. Warm air gushed out of the bar in a great flood of heat as the door opened and a number of drunk teenagers surged out into the open air, Gaia and Lisa amongst the dazy throng. The roads leading away from the public bar were as dark and grim in the frigid air as the unmoved streetlights would allow. The winter