• The Orphan Home

Posted: **Mon Nov 03, 2008 3:18 pm**

_____Hi, everyone. I just wanted to let everyone know that I’m okay. I had a flash of insight again and thought I better find a place that takes in homeless children without any of the questions that Ethan would have called “awkward.”
_____I still miss him.
_____The place I saw in my mind was large, had multiple storeys, and two wings jutting out of its sides in an enormous half circle that closed in the back yard. The house itself was painted impeccably white, its slanted shingles grey. It was situated on a big, flat hill, if that makes sense. Maybe “level” or “plateaued” hill would be a better description? The lawn was short as a buzz cut and, beneath the golden caps that tinged the heads of each blade, extremely green.
_____The woman that met me at the front door looked young and was very polite, her long, tawny dress covered by an apron that covered her chest, too. She said her name was Mrs. Gossamer, and she had pale skin and flax-colored hair. She invited me in for a cup of tea and some biscuits and to look around. I wasn’t hungry or thirsty, so we sat facing each other at a doily-covered table, the tea set leaking steam out of the nozzle holes and the heat rising off the biscuits like incense, undrunk and uneaten. But she talked readily and answered all my questions about the house.
_____“Who are they?” I gestured to an extremely lifelike row of porcelain dolls lined up along the stairwell wall, tallest to shortest. Unlike ordinary porcelain though, their cheeks and faces didn’t shine, as though covered in the finest layer of dust an artist could render. Their eyes were amber, their hair well-trimmed and the same color as Mrs. Gossamer’s. They were dressed in clothes that reminded me of an old-fashioned photo Ethan had shown me once, where the colors were dark brown and dusty, sepia I think it’s called?
_____“Oh, those are my darlings,” Mrs. Gossamer stood, taking the tallest boy’s hand and squeezing it, kissing him on the cheek; she repeated these actions as she went down the line, taking hands, bending the arms a bit, and kissing their cheeks. “This is Ashby, poor dear gets so lonely,” she spoke of the tallest boy; “And this is Bastion, he can be a little tart; Eleanor here loves to cook, don’t you Eleanor? Here is Francis, but we call him Fran; Gertrude can be a bitter pill, can’t you dear? And Hannibal fancies himself a marvelous psychiatrist; Ingrid needs to be spanked often, don’t you, you naughty thing?”
_____She had paused at Ingrid, taking the porcelain girl by the nose with two knuckles of her hand and twisted the head playfully.
_____Is it normal for an adult to play with dolls?
_____I sensed something different about Ashby, and paused in front of him. He looked my age, I think. They were all really pale; maybe Mrs. Gossamer patterned them after herself. And they were . . . dusty. There was no other word for it. It looked like their skin, their eyes, their clothes—everything—was covered in the finest layer of dust humans could see without any help, and that illusion didn’t break on close scrutiny; like the sun shining on a wooden desk that needs to be polished up by a rag. On a whim, I wiped Ashby’s cheek with my hand. The dust seemed trapped by a layer of glass and wouldn’t wipe away.
_____Ashby’s head curved downward, his amber eyes finding mine. “Hello,” he said, the smile on his lips unnatural.
_____I dropped my hand quickly after that, remembering Ethan talking about a person’s “personal space.” But Ashby’s left arm—bent earlier by Mrs. Gossamer—took my hand.
_____“Go on,” Mrs. Gossamer cackled gleefully, breathing down the back of my neck. “Say hello.”
_____P.S. This all happened a bit ago. Halloween was weirder.

Posted: **Mon Nov 17, 2008 4:03 pm**

_____Hi, guys. Sorry about my silence. They’ve been working really hard at trying to stop the boys with the red hoodies.

_____The children surrounded me with the same speed of sharks moving after chum; chum, do you like that word? Ethan taught me about that phrase, and he used it a lot on lawyers. Anyhow, the description seemed appropriate and fit the mood, even though it didn’t help me not miss him. Their strange, amber eyes blinked lazily in the washed out dust motes swirling around the parlor by the stairs, a bizarre hunger illuminating their eyes almost as much as the pooling light above us.
_____“What are you doing here?” one asked—Bastion, I think. The others’ questions came just as quickly, almost as frantic as the churning water of a girl unaccustomed to swimming trying to paddle her way to the top. I had difficulty telling which question from which person.
_____“Who are you?”
_____“What’s your name?”
_____“Are you staying with us?”
_____“How old are you?”
_____“Why are you dressed so funny?”
_____“Did you bleach your hair?”
_____“I . . . I . . .” my thoughts had dispersed wider than the rockborn ripples in a calm lake. Somehow, I maneuvered through the children and started my retreat, heading back to the door. They crowded me eagerly, moving in and eating up the space I gave to them, the press of their six bodies forcing me into a corner near the door. Mrs. Gossamer paused at their backs, a head taller than all of them and a strange, wide smile on her face. She seemed to be enjoying my stress a little too much.
_____“This is hardly funny, Mrs. Gossamer,” I said. “Please tell them to stop.”
_____Her smile faded a little. “I suppose you are right. Children,” she clapped her hands shrilly. “Please come here.”
_____The porcelain children followed the order without pausing to think about it, retreating to stand in front of her as though posing for a family photo. The one known as Ashby—the tallest, lonely one—was in the corner opposite of me, watching. His fiery eye color put in my mind the image of a predator or something.
_____“I think I better go now,” I said and skirted to the door. But the knob wouldn’t twist.
_____“Please stay with us,” Ashby said mournfully from the other side of the room, holding his hand out as though to beckon me toward him. “You don’t know how lonely it is without . . . others to talk to.”
_____Mrs. Gossamer stared at him hard, almost as if she wanted to censure him or something. But as soon as she saw me looking at her, she quickly twisted back around and nodded cheerfully, her smile returning.
_____“Well, I guess I could stay for a bit . . .” I said hesitantly, wondering when the knob would let me turn it again. “Though I’ll have to leave sometimes. I’m trying to find my friend, you see.”
_____“We love friends,” Francis—Fran smacked his lips and tongue in a way that made me think peanut butter was stuck to the roof of his mouth. “Don’t we?”
_____There was another sharp look from Mrs. Gossamer. Though it might have been my imagination, because she was looking at me and nodding, and smiling.
_____“You can leave whenever you like,” Mrs. Gossamer said around her smiling teeth. “But we’ll feed you and give you a place to rest if you want one.”
_____I nodded and thanked her. The door knob could twist again, and I left. I was still trying to find Ethan.
_____I still miss him.
_____P.S. I’m sorry this is taking so long. But it won’t make much sense if I don’t.

Posted: **Fri Dec 26, 2008 2:41 pm**

_____There was something different about that place. I wasn’t sure if it was the people there or the actual Home, but there was something that set it apart from the rest of the block, the rest of the city. The children were friendly and impeccably polite, and they dressed well—a bit old fashioned, but very immaculate and very well, and they always came home before dark.
_____As the days folded under the horizon, I began to stay with the Gossamers’ for longer and longer periods of time. They urged me to eat and sleep with them—they even had a bed made all up for me—but I was never hungry there and the nights always only brought restlessness with it; I couldn’t sleep for more than a few hours before I was up and leaving to wander the streets at night.
_____Because who could sleep with them running around after dark? The maybe terlins? Yet sleep I did; when not with the Gossamers, on the street corners and under lights. No one ever bothered me. At the time, I couldn’t understand it. There was a perfectly good place that was willing to take me in for the entire night and offer me food and shelter, and yet I never ate there and never slept there for longer than a few hours, either. Bastion called it rude and arrogant; Ashby called it street smarts. In those ways I liked Ashby a lot; he was my age I think, and he liked to walk around the Home grounds when I visited.
_____But it was that night that everyone’s so fond of here—Halloween night, that really got me pondering about him and his relationship with the Home and everyone else that stayed there. Everyone but Ashby and Mrs. Gossamer continually urged me to stay there. While Ashby encouraged me to be independent and to stay no longer than I felt comfortable there, Mrs. Gossamer told me to do what I pleased.
_____Ashby had gone out for a walk with me. The Gossamers’ weren’t allowed to go trick or treating; Halloween was a family thing for them. The other kids pleaded for him and me to join in the festivities at the Home, but he had gotten permission from Mrs. Gossamer to show me the grounds some more. She nodded sadly, as though she wanted us both to stay, but gave us permission.
_____The grounds were big and green, lovely in the silvery moonlight. Ashby took me to the farthest corner of the grounds, where a trail led up a large, natural boulder topped with trees, nearly as tall as the fence that hugged the perimeter of the Home. He sat beside me on a branch and talked with me.
_____“Clarity,” he began soberly. “Are . . . are you . . .happy here with us . . . with me?”
_____“Of course I am,” I took his hand and squeezed it.
_____“I wish you weren’t,” he said back, his amber eyes looking into mine and glittering with an intense light. “It would be so much easier.”
_____I thought that was an odd thing to say. I asked him why.
_____“Because,” he wrestled with his words like he would with his brothers: roughly. “Because I don’t want you to—to . . . have to . . .” he couldn’t finish, and his hand left mine to grip his hair in anguish.
_____“Have to what? Are you all right, Ashby?”
_____But he nodded his head, looking displeased with himself. “Come on,” he took my hand and pulled me off the tree branch, leading me back down and around toward the front of the home. He stood me by the gate and took me by the shoulders, one in each hand. “Clarity, will you do something for me?”
_____“Okay,” I said. “What can I do for you?”
_____“Bring someone you know here, but not in the gate. Do it when I tell you. Have him look at this place and at us. You’ll know the type of person I’m talking about.”
_____I nodded. I wouldn’t have known what kind of person to find a few months ago, when I had just met Ethan. But now, the inklings I had of the world around us were beginning to make sense to me, if only just.
_____“May the ‘he’ be a ‘she’ instead, Ashby?” I asked. I already knew who I’d like to ask to come help me with his request.
_____“Certainly,” the single word that dropped out of his mouth was harsher than I would have expected. He released me and twisted his whole body around, glaring at something out of my line of vision.
_____Thwad. Thwad. Thwad. It was the sound of leather striking cement, and striking it hard.
_____“Do you want to play?” a voice asked.
_____“No,” Ashby and I said together.
_____I turned around, seeing the red hoodied boy in front of the gates, pressed up and smirking; and I didn’t like it. Anger like before slashed through my heart, bleeding through my body. When I fisted my hands at my sides, I realized they were glowing again; smoldering like hot coals held in a fire’s grasp.
_____“Get out of here, filthy one,” Ashby commanded. “You’re all alone here, little boy. You’re the only one strong enough to get so close. She could destroy you. I could destroy you. Run while you still can.
_____The red hoodied boy that might be a terlin shook his head negatively around the bars of the gate, his hood pressing against the sides of his head with each pendulum swing. “No. Your mistress invited me here, remember?”
_____He tossed the basketball at the gate with the gentleness of a tap; the gate swung silently inward, and the boy stepped through. He caught the ball and kept dribbling it without breaking meter.
_____Ashby lowered his shoulders and chin as though in defeat; but he raised his head soon enough. “Clarity, please leave here. Gamor and my family need to . . . talk.
_____‘Gamor’ hissed at the mention of the name. “Careful, porcelain puss,” he warned, shaking his chin once up at the sky overhead. “The Time is soon at hand. Then we will be the chosen ones. You’re already short one. Think you can stop us?”
_____Ashby saw me, waiting and hesitant just outside the gates. “Clarity, please do what I told you. You’ll be safe enough. None of them can hurt you tonight.”
_____ “Now, little girl. Run along and hide. We have . . . festivities to plan,” Gamor sneered, bouncing the ball in my direction. The ball banged hard against the gates, and they clanged shut in front of my face. “Happy Halloween!”
_____They started walking toward the house. Only when my hands dimmed did I turn around and run to find her.

Posted: **Mon Dec 29, 2008 2:38 pm**

_____Hi, guys. I thought about calling her to see if she was ready to tell her part of the story, but I still have a bit more to tell. Hopefully, she’ll be feeling good enough to talk, then.
_____After I had talked to her about a week later, she asked me to take her around the property very slowly. I held her hand and was really careful leading her around the fence; she asked me to stop at each corner and at various places. At those times she would pause and think and frown. And then she would ask that we continue. Her frown made me wonder, and I didn’t like it. I liked it better when she smiled. But when I asked her about it, she just smiled and patted my hand, and told me that she was just thinking.
_____When we got to the hillock looking over the Home, she paused for a really long time and had the biggest frown yet. I was starting to get nervous. I didn’t think it would take this long to look at the Home; look the way Ashby wanted me to look at it, that is. Bastion didn’t like me, and I don’t know what he would do if he saw me with someone they didn’t know. But I thought it might be dangerous, so I was hoping she would hurry so I could get her back home. What with the baby and all, I was kind of starting to regret asking her to come. If I had known it would take so long, I wouldn’t have asked her to come.
_____And when she clutched her head and fainted, I really wish I hadn’t asked her to come. I caught her around the waist and slowly moved us both to the ground.
_____“Miss Eilonwy, are you okay?” I asked her, trying to help but not knowing how.
_____She nodded and held her tummy with both hands. She was cold and shook a lot. It took her several tries, but she was able to talk soon.
_____“Clarity . . .” she panted hard. “Please help me up?”
_____Very carefully, I helped her stand. “I’m sorry I asked you to come,” I said. “I’ll take you back home and get somebody else.”
_____She shook her head gently. “No, I’m fine; and I already know what Ashby told you to find out. It’s . . . Clarity, you have to stay away from here.”
_____“Will you tell me what Ashby wanted me to look for?”
_____Miss Eilonwy nodded, took a very deep breath, and began.

Posted: **Tue Dec 30, 2008 7:35 pm**

When Clarity led me to the top of the steep hill, I immediately felt a change in the air—as though my abilities were based on sight—and suddenly my probing senses were overwhelmed with unguarded data. I wasn’t aware of Clarity anymore; all my attention was focused on the House and what I Saw therein.

It was as if I was watching a . . . meeting from an aerial view. The woman—I presumed she was “Mrs. Gossamer”—sat in the middle of a circle made by the pale-faced children she claimed as her own. The young . . . boy in the hooded, red sweater stood and faced all of them. I expected Mrs. Gossamer to object to his bouncing the basketball on such an expensive carpet, but she didn’t.

“The cycle is almost complete,” Mrs. Gossamer spoke. “However, my circle is lacking.”

Gamor looked bored, continuing to bounce the ball, continuing to stare at the woman. “That isn’t my concern. Your circle could be a scare for all I care. All we want is the cycle’s turning point.”

“Ahh, but in order for the authority to pass to you and yours, my circle must be fulfilled.”

A slight frown creased along the sneer of Gamor’s face. “Have you . . . chosen the eighth?”

“I have,” Mrs. Gossamer nodded, turning to smile at Ashby, who’s face bruised to a shade of embarrassment. “But we have a problem.”

“It’s the white-haired girl,” Gamor leaned forward, an eager, sinister light filling his cavernous eyes. He held the ball in his hands and laughed. “Isn’t it? That would be a fun twist. Does she sense what you’re about?”

“She . . . stays away more than I’d like,” Mrs. Gossamer acceded reluctantly. “She has a . . . remarkable resistance to the influence of the home. Almost as if It doesn’t touch her.”

“Let Us handle her,” Gamor droned. “She’s been here enough your ritual will work.”

“But not long enough for guaranteed success,” Mrs. Gossamer pointed out sharply. “And the Raeywen is nearly upon us. Give her to me by then, and I will hand the Keys over to you.”

The vision began to dim as Gamor backed away, dribbling the ball once more. The doors behind him opened of their own accord, bright light searing through the darkness as he backed into it. His shadow left a spear of darkness across the carpet, and within the bright gash of blurry light, his silhouette did the same. The vision faded, and blindness had reclaimed me by the time I heard his words echoing inside a canyon.

“Her soul is yours . . . but leave her flesh for Us.”

The Orphan Home

The Orphan Home

We’ve been working hard at stopping the boys with hoodies .

A Halloween Stroll . . . and I Did It

Our Look at the House

What I Saw