The Fortress in the Clouds

SHE DIDN’T WANT to get married. Not when she had just turned sixteen, an age in which she felt was too young to be destroyed by a union with a much older and greasy rich man.

It had been years since she last saw the mysterious highlander boy. After the last time they had met when she was eight years old, he had mysteriously vanished, along with the fortress in the clouds. Every night, no matter how hard she searched for it, Naomi could not seem to be able to find the architectural masterpiece. After a while, she eventually gave up.

The fortress in the clouds was now nothing more than a piece of her imagination from a long-ago memory. It was no longer her reality. This was. Arranged marriage was.

Naomi did not even know how her fiancé looked like. She only knew that he was turning forty-two come late summer, adding yet another year to his growing collection. From the way in which her mother described him, she naturally assumed that Mister Lancaster was a greasy pot-bellied man with a slimy attitude. She had heard stories about him before when she was in the market, all told by other women who murmured about the way he had taken advantage of them.

Obviously, Naomi would not be his first wife and would definitely not be his last. The man seemed too disloyal to keep to just one woman, no matter his age. She hated that.

“I don’t want to get married,” Naomi cried, arguing with her mother again. This time, it was over dinner.

“You are not young anymore, Naomi. No longer a child. It is time you find yourself a good husband and bear some children.” Her mother had not even looked up from her dinner plate as she replied, casually piercing a piece of carrot with her fork.

“Mister Lancaster is two whole decades older than I am, Mother.” Naomi furrowed her eyebrows, her appetite suddenly lost.

“And your point is?”

“It is not right! Not when I will be his fifth wife, the oldest being forty years old. I have not even seen him yet I know that this man is a slimy and disgusting old man that—”

“Naomi!” The young girl was swiftly cut off by her mother when the older woman slammed her palm down on their wooden dining table.

Naomi jumped slightly in her seat in shock, leaning back against the rest as she widened her eyes in surprise. All of a sudden, she was a prey to yet another predator. She watched in horror as her mother stood from her seat, crossing the length of the table with long hurried strides before her long pointed nails carved themselves deeply into Naomi’s smooth cheeks.

Her mother gripped her face hard, the tips of her talons digging into Naomi’s skin as she latter gasped in pain. The look in her mother’s eyes was predatory, fierce, ruthless. Most of all, it was also heartless.

“You will be marrying Mister Lancaster and that is my final decision. He paid a hefty sum for you as his bride and I am just holding up my end of the bargain.”

Naomi wanted to ask if her mother was outright selling her daughter, her own flesh and blood. But she kept her mouth shut because she already knew the answer.

Of course she was. After all, how could the poor widow stand to look into the eyes of her daughter every single day for the rest of her miserable life if they only reminded her so much of what she’s lost?

Naomi had always been told that she resembled her beloved father. She just did not know that it would one day backfire on her to look like the man she so admired.

“Yes,” she gritted out, tears brimming in her eyes. “Whatever you say, mother.”