Ayesha Dean the Seville Secret by Melati Lum

Author:Melati Lum
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9780994460530
Publisher: Melby Rose Publishing
Published: 2019-04-06T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 10 - JUAN

Surrounded by a sea of red flames, 18-year-old Juan saw a black crow swooping towards him and heard its piercing scream before he was jolted awake by the alarm ringing from his mobile phone. The mundane sound of Seville traffic in the busy street below his bedroom window slowly crept into his waking consciousness. He was having the same dream more and more often these days, and it was getting harder to escape the awful sense of foreboding that seemed to linger at every waking moment.

Glancing at his lanky frame in the small mirror above a simple chest of wooden drawers, the words of his master echoed in his head. Nobody will ever love you. I’m the closest thing to love that you’ll ever have. Do you think anyone could love a face like that? In his head, Juan remembered his master’s deep laugh as he posed the question, as if the answer didn’t need to be said. It was too evident. Looking in the mirror, Juan knew his master was correct, at least in this regard, as the young man lifted his hands to touch the long, puffy, jagged scar that ran across his face from his chin to his temple. Juan had always known he was not like the other people. The scar had been with him since he was a baby; he didn’t doubt it was a result of his mother’s neglect.

He was late this morning. The master would make him pay for it with extra chores, or perhaps something worse. Seven years ago, Juan was an orphan living on the streets and struggled to survive each day. His mother had died from alcohol poisoning and he never knew his father. Some months before his mother died, Juan remembered her dragging him roughly by the hand towards an old townhouse in the Barrio de Santa Cruz. A dark-haired man answered the door. Miguel, she had called him. “Please,” she had begged in her native tongue. “Let us stay with you, the boy is your son.” Juan remembered the man considering him then. He remembered Miguel looking at him deeply in the eyes until the young boy had shifted his feet with discomfort.

“Impossible,” the man had said. “You and I had something over fifteen years ago, this boy can’t be older than ten.”

“Please,” his mother had begged. “At least lend us some money for food.”

“I know where your money goes, and it doesn’t go to food,” Miguel had answered with a frown. “And by the looks of it, it doesn’t go to the boy either. You need to clean yourself up Manuela. Stop the drink.” He had sighed, then looked at the boy once more in his tattered clothes. “Wait here,” he said before closing the door on the beggars.

Juan remembered how he felt at that point, when the man had treated them like unwanted trash. He had come back to the door with some money, but had coupled that action with strong, hurtful words. “Don’t come back here again Manuela.

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