Prologue
A tall man dressed completely in black walked down an empty hallway, carrying nothing but a small wooden box engraved with a small sign of a horse rearing in a meadow with the setting sun behind it's majestic figure. The man turned to a seemingly plain wall, but feeling it with his hand in an area around middle height, he pushed aside a small sliding panel, revealing the same sign that was engraved on the box. Laying his hand flat on the sign, he pushed. There was a small click, then a portion of the wall swung inwards painfully slowly, and the man walked through it into a spacious room.
The room looked as if someone had attempted, and failed, to make the room look more homely. There were several chairs, and a large bench sitting in a circle in the center of the room with a small table in the middle with a vase of wilted, dying flowers on it.
"You're late, Demond." A voice said amiably, and a young man with blonde hair who looked to be around twenty stepped out of the shadowy corner. "Gabriel." The man named Demond acknowledged curtly, his lip curling slightly. "Where are the others?"
"Irene and Connor couldn't make it, and Ginevra should be here any moment."
"And Faye?" Gabriel's expression tightened. "She - left the sanctuary." He said shortly. Before Demond could deign to reply, there was a click, and the door in the wall opened. "Ginevra." Gabriel nodded to the woman who had just entered. "We were just about to start."
"Well, it's a good thing you waited." Ginevra replied, her face drawn tiredly. "We can't destroy it."
"We can't?" For the first time that night, Demond looked startled. "Read this." Ginevra slammed several papers on the table. Demond picked them up, his eyes skimming the words. Finally he thrust the pile towards Gabriel, who in turn read it. There was a dead silence until he set the pages down in front of him. "We have to hide it somewhere." Ginevra said after a few seconds, her voice quickening, and she impatiently brushed her deep chocolate brown ringlets back from her face. "If we left it here, in the safe-"
"And risk someone finding it?" Demond interrupted. "We've used this place too much already; someone might have noticed."
"Where then?" Ginevra replied, a hint of a challenge in her voice.
"I know an orphanage where we could hide it." Gabriel spoke up unexpectedly; he had remained silent, and even now seemed to be half talking to himself. "The children there don't snoop, and I know the owner. She'll keep the key and, if I know her, she'll guard it with her life without asking questions." Demond looked doubtful, but finally he replied,
"Fine." When Gabriel shot a questioning glance at Ginevra, she nodded. "But we will tell no one of this, not even Irene or Connor, agreed?" Demond nodded promptly, but Gabriel pursed his lips, obviously unhappy with the agreement.
"What if there's some time in the future that it's needed?" He said mildly, but he had become slightly tenser.
"We can't risk someone finding it." Ginevra's voice was final. Rising from her chair, she announced, "We should place it immediately." Then left through the same door she'd entered through. Demond followed, but Gabriel hadn't moved from where he was sitting. When the door closed, his eyes pressed shut, and he looked as if battling two different thoughts. He sat there, tense as a strung wire, for several minutes. Finally he stood abruptly, snatching up a pencil and a paper, then drew something quickly, his movements jerky and hurried as if afraid he would be found before finished. Finally he threw the pencil back to where it had been previously and stuffed the paper into his pocket. Taking a deep breath he pushed the door open and stepped out.
The door closed behind him with a resounding click.
One
Bianca lay by the side of the lake, staring across the rippling water that reflected the bright, twinkling stars. She turned at the soft sound of footsteps. "Bianca," Cheyenne whispered, as if afraid that speaking loudly would cause a tidal wave. "You're not supposed to be outside; Ms. Hawkley is terribly angry." Bianca sighed and got up. "Alright," she agreed, "I'll go in. You run and tell Ms. Hawkley that I'll be right in, OK?" Her younger sister nodded eagerly, then ran back towards the orphanage. The dreary white paint that covered the building had long ago started peeling, and only a few windows actually had glass in them; the rest were boarded up with shutters that were hardly ever opened, leaving the inside of the building as dismal as the outside. Bianca walked slowly after her sister, not at all eager to reach the orphanage. As she walked through the splintering wooden doorway, she was confronted by a middle-aged woman with large, perfectly round spectacles that made her eyes look enormous, and a large mount of poofy, orange hair that sat atop her head like a beehive. "Bianca Drew." She said stormily, looking close to exploding. "What do you think you were doing, outside, in the middle of the night?" As Bianca could nearly see the thunder clouds brewing over the headmistress's mass of hair, she decided not to point out that 9:30 pm wasn't exactly the middle of the night.
"I wasn't tired, and thought I'd have a walk by the lake." Bianca could see that her answer hadn't pleased the headmistress in the slightest.
"You were supposed to be in bed, asleep, nearly two hours ago, young lady." Bianca could see one of Ms. Hawkley's infamous lectures coming on, so she said quickly, "I really am terribly sorry, and I promise I won't do it again." Ms. Hawkley took a deep breath, then said sternly, "All right. Now get to bed." Bianca hurried off before she could be allotted porridge duty; the dreary job of dishing out porridge - if you could call it that - to each and every resident of the orphanage, or, as it was called secretly by the children, the prison cell.
Tiptoeing past dozens of blank, white doors, Bianca finally came to the room that she shared with all the other girls in the orphanage. She opened the door quickly, so as not to drag out the loud screech from the hinges, and hurried over to her bed. She slipped her nightgown over her head, and was just about crawl into her bed, when she heard a voice behind her.
"Bianca?" Someone asked. Turning, Bianca saw Cheyenne. "Chey, what are you doing up so late?" Bianca asked, concerned. "Bianca," her sister asked again, "how long are we going to be in the orphanage?" Bianca crouched down to look the five-year-old in the face.
"I don't know, Chey." She replied gently. "Just until we find a new Mum and Dad, OK?" Cheyenne nodded, shivering. "Here, now let's get you back to bed or you'll catch your death of a cold." Bianca steered her sister over to her bed, then tucked her in.
"Bi," Cheyenne yawned, using her pet name for Bianca, "was Ms. Hawkley frightful?"
"Not at all," Bianca replied, smiling. "I didn't even get porridge duty." Cheyenne smiled, but was already asleep. Bianca tiptoed back to her bed and crawled under the covers, but wasn't asleep until hours later.
The next morning, the whole orphanage was woken by the daily ringing of the cowbell. With their fair share of grumbling and groaning, all the girls quickly dressed and went down the stairs for breakfast. Bianca sat next to Cheyenne at the cracked wooden table after grabbing her porridge, which looked even worse than normal. it was filled with lumps, and was an ashy grey color. Cheyenne took a small bite, but she made a face as she swallowed, and when Ms. Hawkley's dog came around, she lowered her bowl and let him finish it. Bianca ate all of hers, but it was tasteless and dry, and the milk in it seemed as if it had sat in the sun too long. "Chey," she said to her sister, "Would you like my orange?" all the children were allowed one small, paltry slice of fruit each morning. Cheyenne nodded eagerly, and with a quick prayer (Bianca made sure she didn't forget it) dug in, tearing about the fruit viciously. soon after, it was time for chores, as Saturday was cleaning day. Bianca was assigned to scrub down the walls in the girls' dormitory with three other girls, and Cheyenne was sent organizing the food store. Cleaning day was the day that the whole orphanage regarded with dread, as it usually took nearly the whole day, and as most of the children were cleaning, the food was even more tasteless that usual, and there was less of it. Bianca grabbed her cloth and dunked it in the soapy water, firmly resolving to finish early.
Two hours later, Bianca collapsed on her bed, exhausted. Of course, Ms Hawkley chose just then to enter the room. "Bianca Drew!" she exclaimed sharply. "Why aren't you working?"
"I just finished wiping down the walls," Bianca explained, "and I was just taking a quick break."
"Well, now you've had your 'quick break', follow me and I'll show you what to do next." Bianca followed the headmistress down the hall and into the parlour, where a young boy about Bianca's age was sitting. He rose when they entered the room. "Bianca, this is Edmund. He has just arrived at the orphanage, and I expect you to show him around." Ms. Hawkley glared at Bianca with her no-nonsense look. Bianca thrust out her hand to Edmund. "Hello." She said. Edmund shook her outstretched hand, then followed her out of the room. "In here is the dining room," Bianca told him, walking into the large room. "This is where we have breakfast, dinner, and tea." When Edmund looked at her curiously, she blushed and replied. "Sorry. I mean supper. I'm from England, you see, and, well, I've never really adjusted to whales." She gave him an apologetic grin, then continued her tour of the orphanage. "This is the back door that leads out to the alley." Bianca pointed to a black door in the hallway, then added, as she was sure that Ms. Hawkley had intended for her to explain the rules as well, "no one is allowed to go out of it, except if you're taking out the trash." Edmund nodded. Bianca showed him around the rest of the orphanage, then stated, "I'd better get back to cleaning; you can go get settled into your dormitory if you'd like." She hesitated, then added, "oh yes, there's one thing I forgot to show you."
She stepped down the hallway, pushed aside a large dresser, then pointed to a small door that was formerly hidden. "No one except Ms. Hawkley knows what's through that door," Bianca informed Edmund, "and it's always locked. If you ever find that it isn't, don't even think of going through it. The last student that did -" Bianca shuddered. "Well, let's just say that it wasn't good." Edmund asked curiously, "Have you ever tried getting through?" Bianca looked at him for a moment, before replying slowly, "yes - but only once, when I first came here three years ago." She hesitated for a moment, before asking Edmund, "what - what happened to your parents?" If Edmund heard her, he didn't let on. "Well, thanks for showing me around; I should probably go back to my dormitory now." He walked down the stairs, leaving Bianca puzzled about whether he'd heard her or not.
Just then, Cheyenne came up behind Bianca. "Ms. Hawk said that you should go and help with dinner." She announced, and Bianca smiled. Her younger sister had nicknamed the headmistress 'Ms. Hawk', and the rest of the girls had picked it up enthusiastically. "All right." Bianca said. "Are you still organizing food?" Cheyenne nodded, making a face. "It was fine for the first hour, but then Mary spilt jam all over herself, and it got all over the cans as well, and then Ellie tried to wash them but the labels came off..." Bianca laughed and replied, "Well, you tell Ellie from me that even paper doesn't stand a chance against her, OK?" Ellie was a girl with dark skin and black hair, and was one of the fiercest children at the orphanage, nearly always doing chores with a fierce attitude that normally resulted in catastrophe; but all of the younger girls followed her lead, no matter how much trouble she got in. "I'll tell her." Cheyenne replied, then pranced off to the storage room. Bianca then descended the stairs that led to the kitchen, but when she stepped on the second stair, it collapsed and her foot fell through the hole. Biting her lip, Bianca wrenched her ankle out, but when she did so, she brushed against something that crackled like an old piece of parchment when she touched it. Curious, she reached into the floorboard, and her fingers touched a roll of paper. Drawing it out of the hole, Bianca was about to unroll it when she heard footsteps and tucked it into her pocket, running down the staircase. She reached the kitchen and doubled over, breathless. Once she had caught her breath she straightened up and walked over to help with the food.
That night, exhausted after a full day of cleaning, Bianca crawled into bed, but was startled by a sharp crackle when she accidentally kicked her pile of clothes. Remembering the parchment, she took it out of her clothes pocket, and stuck it underneath her mattress, promising herself that she'd read it in the morning.
