A Castle Made Of Dreams

PAIGE WAS THE first to break the silence. She laughed, short, sharp, and holding nothing but mock and maybe a tinge of concern.

“Home?” She asked, the smile on her lips intensely faker than it was the last second. “You are home, Wallace. This is your home. Our home.”

Since the banquet hall was eerily quiet, with none who dared to breathe, Paige’s words echoed down the wide walls. Every pair of eyes had left their plates, all turned to stare and gawk at Wallace and Paige’s exchange. When Wallace glanced at each gaze, he could tell they were all filled with flabbergast, almost as if those children were stunned that such crude words could even leave the lips of their precious and revered storyteller.

However, Wallace wasn’t backing down. Since he had already started the fire, he couldn’t control the burn. It had gotten too big, too wild, too out of control. Even if he piped down now and said he was joking and not to make a big deal out of it, he knew that Paige wouldn’t let him drop the matter just like that.

“No, Paige. This isn’t home. Not to me, at least. My parents, my friends, my job, none of that are here. Home is where they are.”

Slam.

Paige banged both palms against the smooth tabletop, sending the various silverware cluttering noisily as they jumped from the shock. The young girl was on her feet, her short red hair curtaining her equally crimson face as she looked down, refusing to meet anyone’s eyes.

Wallace could tell that she was trembling. After all, her fair arms shook as they supported her weight, her shoulders heaving up and down in heavy breaths. She was seething, madly boiling with what could be rage or confusion. Her pads of her fingers pressed against the wood of the table, almost as if wishing to gouge themselves in. After a few lingering seconds, her nails started to scratch as her fingers curled inwards into a fist.

In truth, Wallace felt a little turmoiled himself. He hadn’t meant for those words to come out as they did.

It almost seemed as though he was implying—

“So you’re implying that we aren’t your friends?”

‘Now you’ve done it, Wallace. Way to go,’ the poor boy thought to himself.

Paige stilled faced the table’s surface, her eyes shielded by the fine ruby strands of her hair. However, her lips, tinted pink but dripping scarlet with blood, could be seen parted. She breathed out a ragged laugh that was brimming with sarcasm, a dry heave that didn’t match her jovial image.

The Paige that was portrayed before everyone right now seemed like the devil from nightmares. She looked almost like how Wallace had once envisioned her to be— a malicious villain that whisked children from streets and into their demise.

“So,” she dragged the word, peeping out from the gaps of her hair. Her head was tilted, causing the strands of her hair to part where her high nose bridge was, covering one eye while the other section laid on her cheekbones to reveal the other. “Telling stories here in the orphanage is different from telling stories in a rundown pub since it doesn’t count as a real job even though it feeds you, clothes you, and shelters you. And even though everybody here thinks of you like family, they’re nothing but nameless strangers in your eyes. Is that what you’re trying to say, Wallace Danehard?”

Wallace gulped, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. When his lips parted, ready to spit out arguments, he found the words clogged in his throat, his voice refusing to lend a helping hand.

‘No!’ He screamed in his head. ‘That’s not what I meant!’

“If that’s the case, then leave,” Paige spat out. He had never seen her so poisonous, never heard her words so deadly and painful. It seemed to him like he was sentenced to death by a thousand cuts. Each word that left Paige’s lips, each word that he himself had incited, was agonizing to hear. “Get out! Leave Neverland, then. See if I care!”

“Paige...” Juliet started, taking a step forward in an attempt to break up the fight. However, before she could even get close, Paige shoved out her hands, pushing everybody that dared to approach.

She waited for a second, eyes lingering on Wallace almost as if she was silently begging him to take his words back so that everything could return to the way it was before. However, once spoken, words could never be rescinded. The damage was done.

Even if Wallace wanted to speak, he found himself at a loss for words. He merely gaped at Paige, lips parting and closing like a fish out of water, watching helplessly as she scoffed in disbelief. She shook her head once in disappointment before dashing out of the banquet hall, running at full speed with a hand held to her face.

Wallace thought he saw hints of tears but he couldn’t understand why.

Why would Paige cry for him?