My name is Veronica Margaret Raimunde.

Well… actually my name is only Raimunde, but it would have been wonderful to have such a long name. I think everyone should be free to choose their own. I, for example, would have had more than three. There it is again… speaking in the past, as if it were just a simple memory. Other people always correct me. For them, it is stressful. To me it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. It’s just a small flaw.

The weather is really cold. The sky is painted a deep blue, and trees surround the old house we have just moved into. There is one I especially like: the one that reaches the window of my room. It is a large pine tree without leaves. I can spend hours admiring its dry branches.

Sometimes I like to imagine they are dark veins stretching toward the sky, standing out among the stars while I climb them and become capable of reaching the moon.

My parents, on the other hand, do not like this place at all. Or at least that is how it seems. I always see them discouraged, as if they were carrying something heavy and dark that they do not want to talk about. Every morning they leave to work in a nearby city and do not return until the night has already fallen. I spend all that time alone. I do not complain, really. On the contrary, solitude gives me the freedom to get into mischief. Because, although it may not seem like it, I am a little troublemaker. Nothing serious, of course. Just childish antics.

My routine, on the other hand, is quite boring, so it is not worth talking too much about it. I take classes at home; I have never attended a school. The truth is that it does not affect me. I am curious and I like to talk, ask questions, discover things.

But there is something strange. Even though we have been living here for a month, my room is still almost empty. All my things remain inside their boxes. It was my father’s decision. Sometimes I try to take out a book, but he puts it back immediately, cursing, as if that were a mistake… or as if I were not even there.

Honestly, I do not understand what is happening. Since we arrived, the atmosphere has felt strange. When I complain about the cold, the boredom, or the boxes, they do not respond. They simply ignore me. They look at me as if I were not there.

As if the wind carried my words away.

And that… that scares me.