PART ONE:

ALL OUR STRANGE BEGINNINGS

I wish… I wish to live a life with no regrets…

A PAST LIFE

2005

Once, there was an orphanage on a hill.

The children there were unloved but kept clean and well-fed. They went to school during the week and people often visited on weekends, donating toys and books and time. The visitors were always wealthy, always dressed in fine suits and glittering jewellery. They always came with money and sometimes they came with cameras.

They never stayed long.

It was on one such Sunday that a boy who was not an orphan, was visiting the orphanage with his family. He had been forced into a tie and blazer and had been told that he was not allowed to play with the other children.

So, he sat on the courtyard steps and watched sullenly as the children of the orphanage ran around and played with their newly given footballs and skipping rope.

He was sitting and moping and generally cursing how bright the sun was, when a shadow blocked his view.

'Why don't you come and play?'

The boy glanced up to see a girl around his age or maybe a little younger - squinting down at him. She wore a red jumper and denim shorts; she had dirt on her nose and a book in her hand.

'I'm not allowed,' he replied gruffly.

She tilted her head to the side and looked over to where his parents and sister were standing. 'Why don't you stand with your family?'

'They don't like me very much,' he said simply.

'Why?' she asked immediately.

'I don't know, but I don't like them very much either.'

She frowned. 'You are lucky to have parents who want you.'

The boy said nothing. He wanted to say that sometimes family are crueller than strangers. That living in the same house doesn't always make a family, that sharing blood doesn't always mean sharing a bond. Yet, young as he was, he knew that this place... the orphanage on the hill... was the wrong place to say such words out loud.

'Are you always this silent?' the girl said.

'Do you always ask this many questions?'

She tilted her head to the side once more, she appeared to him to be almost like a bird. 'I think so,' and then without warning, she sat next to him on the steps.

For a moment they sat in silence and then she opened her book. 'Do you like stories?'

'No.'

She laughed, 'Come on now, you must like something!'

The boy was almost certain she was making fun of him now and his ears burned with embarrassment. He was used to being scolded and ignored, but he was not used to mockery.

'Tell you what,' the girl said leaning close to him, her voice a soft whisper, as though they were co-conspirators. 'I'm going to sit here and read from this book, and you're going to listen to every word and then when your family look over, they'll see how much fun you're having.'

The boy truly was puzzled now. 'Why?' he asked.

She shrugged, 'Because I'm bored, and you look lonely.'

And then, without waiting for any further questions or protests, the girl began to read.

It was a fairy tale. A story that the boy had heard many times before. It was the story of Jack and the Beanstalk... at first the boy wanted to roll his eyes and yet despite himself, despite having heard the tale many times over, the boy was enraptured with the girl's telling. There was a magic to her words, a warmth to the way she spoke so softly… as though the words were precious, like a spell that might be broken.

Around them the world continued to turn, and the playground remained just as noisy, but the boy and the girl didn't see or hear any of it.

They were trapped in a castle in the sky, awaiting the fall of a mighty giant.

When the story ended the girl closed the book and sighed happily. Silence stretched between them – comfortable and tinged with something else that the boy couldn't quite name. As though the taste of the tale still lingered between them.

The boy wanted to ask her to read another, but the words would not come.

The girl sighed happily. 'It's one of my favourites.'

Now, it was the boy's turn to ask a question. 'Why?'

She grinned at him, and he noticed that there was a slightly-too-large gap between her two front teeth. 'Because it proves that even the poorest of people can achieve great things.'

He frowned and considered that maybe she had misread the message behind the story. He thought it was about having the courage to risk everything - after all, it was only by giving away what little he had that Jack was able to reap the reward of gold. 

Lost in thought, the boy didn't notice the girl looking at him, her expression caught somewhere between curiosity and sadness. It was only when their eyes met that he realized he was still frowning. 

'Generally,' the girl said. 'I find that when this world gets too unbearable, there are other worlds to slip into.'

'Dani!'

The girl's gaze snapped away from him and to another boy running toward them. This boy was also about their age, when he reached them, he was panting and frowning.

'Dani, Miss is looking for you! She doesn't seem at all happy.'

The girl – Dani – placed her book on the step and stood up. 'Guess I've got to go, 'twas nice meeting you.'

Then without ceremony, she began to walk up the stairs away from him.

'Wait!' the boy called. 'Your book!'

Dani turned around and grinned toothily at him. 'Keep it, it's yours!'

Then she and the other boy disappeared into the grey-bricked building of the orphanage, her book of fairy tales remained sitting on the step.

Without thinking the boy took the little red book of fairy tales and tucked it inside his blazer, and when his parents finally took him home, he then buried the book under his pillow.

That night and many nights after, he would read and re-read the words until the stories became as familiar as old friends. Until those stories weren't quite enough to keep the rest of the world at bay.

Until he needed more.