FATE BREAKER
CHAPTER ONE
TWO BATS IN A BELFRY
Lucy wasn't concerned with making friends.
She wasn't staying here long.
Grandma just needed to get better first; she always got better eventually.
She was sure they'd help her at the hospital…strange as it was. Each floor appeared to house people with all sorts of outlandish maladies, and all the doctors were dressed in ridiculously blinding lime-green scrubs with highly impractical trailing hems and sleeves. She'd been camped out in the visitor's lounge for a full day, eating biscuits from a tray which—oddly enough—appeared to never be empty, before her uncle came for her. Actually, he was more of a second cousin once removed, but Uncle was less of a mouthful, and it suited him better, Lucy thought. They'd only see each other on designated holidays, but he was a decent man, if a little dour and down on his luck. He always brought her nice, thick books to read, and always on such diverse, interesting subjects, so she was always happy when he came for a visit. She couldn't stay with him though, because the tenement he lived in didn't allow children. Or pets, for that matter, her uncle informed her gloomily. She also understood that staying with any other members of their extended family wouldn't work out either. And besides, she'd never met any of them…
"Trust me," Uncle mumbled darkly to her when she'd mentioned this, "you don't want to…"
And that was the end of that conversation.
On that ominous note, he'd led her by the hand to the looming brick building on Vauxhall Road. It had a barred gate made up of wrought iron pikes out front, above which an antiquated sign proclaimed the facility as none other than Wool's Orphanage. On either side, the gate was lined by thick pillars and a tall brick wall topped by dangerously sharp turrets that made Lucy unsure if it was there to keep people in or out, and concluded that in either case, it would surely accomplish the task. The screechy gate led them into a small, paved courtyard which looked to have seen better days. The mortar beneath their feet was crumbled and decaying, making way for crabgrass to sneak up between the discolored bricks. They had to duck underneath a clothesline some of the older residents were tending to with cheerless faces; they didn't even look up at the newcomers as they passed. And before Lucy was led into the building proper, she took one last look at the towering structure, noticing some of the square panes in the lofty front windows had been shattered. Crows circled around the belfry, and she wouldn't be surprised if there were bats nesting up there too…
Something about the place was unsettlingly familiar.
She ruminated on that, sitting on her trunk outside the Head Matron's office while she and her uncle conversed within. As they made arrangements, Lucy noted that while the outside of the building was rather downtrodden, while still rather shabby, the inside was fastidiously clean. The walls bore no adornments—not even educational posters, or horrendous macaroni art as one might expect in a children's establishment. In contrast to her expectations, the place was rather joyless and austere…efficient—but only just.
She didn't want to stay here.
All her books were back at Grandma's house—she hadn't the room for them in her trunk, and her uncle had advised her to bring only the bare essentials. She'd even had to leave Puff, her stuffed dragon behind. Uncle said it might scare the other children, which Lucy thought was ridiculous. It only moved when you weren't looking directly at it…though she still wasn't entirely sure about that. Things were a little…different at Grandma's house. Sometimes things moved around without anyone around to move them. She was pretty sure it was haunted, but she liked it anyway. It had charm, and character, and it always smelled like the cinnamon apple tarts Grandma liked to bake—like home.
Grandma couldn't get better soon enough in Lucy's opinion.
"Now then, young lady…" The Head Matron bustled out of her office with a strained smile for Lucy. She didn't seem unkind at least, which was the important thing, she noted. "You've been very patient and well behaved. That's always something we like to see here at Wool's. I'm sure you'll get along just fine." Another strained smile and she asked, "Would you like to say goodbye to your cousin before we get you settled in?"
She looked to her uncle—cousin, rather—and quickly moved to hug him around the middle. He floundered a little at the unexpected gesture, looking as if he didn't know what to do with her at first before moving to hug her back. His long, old fashioned overcoat smelled like good books, antiques, and myrrh.
"I'll miss you," she said truthfully, looking up to his handsome face, which was almost always understated and obscured by his longish dark hair. "Will you come back to visit?"
"You know I have work… And my employer is always in a foul temper…" he answered ruefully. Then he added, "…But I will try my best." He patted her head of dark, kinky curls a little uncertainly, then sighed with a truly pained look on his pale, grim features. "This won't be forever, Lucinda."
"Just until Grandma is well again, right?"
"Yes…" he agreed, a little too softly, not meeting her eyes. "That's right…"
"Right then." The matron—Mrs. Cole, Lucy read off the placard outside her office with another pang of déjà vu—gestured towards the main hall. "I'll just show you out, Mr. Black. And then we'll get you sorted, dear." She aimed another one of those strained smiles at Lucy, and she heard the woman murmur as an addendum under her breath, "I'm sure we'll find room somewhere…"
"She'll be alright here?" her uncle asked for reassurance as Mrs. Cole led him away, sending a nervous glance back at Lucy, who was beginning to feel more and more abandoned by the moment. "Do I need to…drop off anything? Food? Clothes? Her favorite books?"
"That won't be necessary," she heard Mrs. Cole's clipped voice echoing and trailing off back down the hall as they turned the corner, and Lucy got her last glimpse of her uncle's worn coattails disappearing around it. "Though charity is always accepted and appreciated here at Wool's…"
Lucy stood there in the hallway.
Alone.
Her chest felt hot and tight, almost as if she were about to cry.
But Lucy's large, sleepy eyes remained dry as ever.
Uncertainty washed over her like a malignant wave and, more than ever, she just wanted to go home and hide under her covers. It hadn't really mattered when it was just her and her grandma—the old woman just seemed to understand, and Lucy was afforded a good deal of independence—but the reality that she was just ten years old was sinking in and it left behind a feeling of infuriating helplessness. She wasn't used to having to rely on others and being looked after; Lucy was usually the one doing the looking after. And though she knew she was just going to have to bear with it until her grandma got better—and she would get better—it still made her feel insane to be uprooted and subject to this situation at all.
She hated it, and she was livid.
The anxious feeling wouldn't go away either, and she learned why when, feeling another's eyes boring into her, she looked up. And there, on the upper landing—leaning against the railing, studying her with cool, indifferent features—Lucy spotted a boy. He looked to be around her age, with hair just as dark and skin just as fair. His features were rather idealic in a generic stock photo sort of way, unlike Lucy's, who hadn't quite grown into her prominent, too-large-for-her-face eyes or her strong jaw just yet. The boy's presence was startling, and Lucy wondered just how long he'd been standing there, watching her…
A little awkwardly, she raised her hand in a slow, uncertain wave, and greeted, "Hello…"
The boy made no move to reciprocate, merely giving her another long, assessing look before pushing away from the railing and stalking off without a word.
Lucy frowned and thought, 'Well, that was just weird…'
She was generally unsure of children in her age group to begin with, but Lucy was fairly certain they didn't act like that. Not the well-adjusted ones anyway… Of course, there'd always be oddballs here and there; Lucy herself was a testament to that fact all on her own. But something about the boy gave her a terribly ominous feeling—the same feeling that had been hanging over the orphanage, and her head, like a miasmic cloud ever since she'd set eyes on it, only worse now. Now, her mind was heading back to places she rarely allowed it to wander…to memories shrouded in shadows and uncertainty. Did they even exist at all? Or were they simply the made-up imaginings of an extremely unique and gifted child? No…they were far too detailed for that.
One does not simply fabricate an entire lifetime of memories.
Grandma understood that.
She always did.
Lucy's heart ached at the thought of her.
Outside, she heard the distant rumbling of thunder heralding the coming of what promised to be a truly impressive storm. She laughed a little to herself, thinking she hadn't seen her unfortunate uncle carrying an umbrella. That poor man truly had the worst luck she'd ever had the misfortune to witness in another human being. It was almost supernatural, she noted to herself, and couldn't quite find it in her to blame him for leaving her. He was young, and had a difficult enough life, after all, from what she understood. Not to mention he didn't know the first thing about taking care of a ten-year-old girl—which rankled, once again; Lucy didn't want to be taken care of… And yet…
'He'll be back,' she thought, nodding to herself reassuringly. 'He said so.'
'He said he'd try…' reminded her more critical voice, tinged with the cobwebs of her shadow-memories.
"He'll be back," she repeated aloud, habitually blocking out the sound of that voice.
Mrs. Cole returned with yet another of her strained smiles, low heels clicking brusquely upon the black and white tile floor. She simply appeared relieved not to have returned to a child screaming and crying about their abandonment—for which Lucy had put in a good effort, but still hadn't been able to summon any tears yet. Perhaps they'd come later, when she shook off the numb shock of it all. She suddenly remembered a time her mother had brought her to school for the first time—only, she looked nothing like the mother in grandma's photos. It seemed as if she'd turned her back for one moment, occupied with something the other children were doing, and then her mother was gone. She'd never forget the raw, visceral feeling of pure panic that had overwhelmed her when she learned she'd been left behind. There'd been plenty of screaming and crying back then.
But then Lucy remembered that she'd never been to school with other children.
Grandma taught her from home.
…
Sometimes it was hard to tell one set of childhood memories from another.
"Come along then, dear," Mrs. Cole said gently, as if any harshness in her voice might set Lucy off. As if anticipating some sort of meltdown, the woman ushered her along quickly, much like she was getting ready to plant a bomb and then run away with fingers buried in her ears, frantically escaping the blast.
Lucy was left to hurry after her, dragging her bulky trunk awkwardly behind. It slammed into each step on the way up, making an awful amount of noise. Consequently, there were more than a few curious faces peeking out of various doorways as they passed. No one smiled, Lucy noted, and she began to wonder if it was banned at Wool's… Mrs. Cole opened door after door, muttering to herself after she found each room occupied to capacity.
"No…no… Not here either…" the woman murmured distractedly, mentioning, "Some of the older girls are on their way out, but Emmaline won't turn eighteen for a few months, and Helga still hasn't found work yet…"
As she became more and more flustered, Lucy was just about to offer to stay in the belfry with the bats. She wouldn't mind, really. It was warm for a London summer, and she actually liked bats. She liked all sorts of animals, actually, and would've loved to have a pet, but her grandma had weak lungs, and was allergic to anything with fur or feathers, which didn't leave a very large selection…
"Oh, but…" Mrs. Cole paused in her muttering, thinking hard about something. "But no, no… Couldn't possibly… Although, I suppose it would be innocent enough…perhaps…just for now…" She glanced at Lucy with a sigh and a shake of her head, then she turned on her heel. "Not to worry. Come, come, we'll find a place for you yet…"
Lucy saw they were now headed for what was clearly the boys' dormitories.
"It's temporary," the woman claimed in a wavery voice, and Lucy wasn't certain who she was trying to reassure most with that statement. She merely noted that things must be really overcrowded if the matron felt she had to resort to this.
But Mrs. Cole started to mutter to herself nervously once again when, as before, each room she checked looked to be full. This went on until they stood before a door at the very end of the hall, and Mrs. Cole's muttering sputtered into an eerie silence. She appeared to be having an internal battle with herself, folding and unfolding her hands in anxious motions as she eyed the door, as if afraid to knock. Her eyes darted to Lucy almost apologetically, looking to gather up her strength as she finally came to a decision, and she abruptly flagged down an older boy passing through the hall.
"Barnaby, I need you to bring up a bed and a set of linen from storage, please…" She eyed Lucy's lace-collared dress, and added, "And a uniform as well, if you would."
The brown-haired boy eyed Lucy curiously, shooting a rather alarmed look at the closed door that set off red flags in Lucy's mind, but he nodded his head in respect to the matron and hurried off before she could say anything. Feeling a bit lost, Lucy looked to the woman with a frown.
"Mrs. Cole…?" she asked, unsure how to phrase what she wanted to know.
"Just a moment, dear." She gave Lucy another tight smile, explaining, "Tom can be a bit, er…funny—" She paused then, as if 'funny' was nowhere near the word she'd been looking for, and rephrased, "—odd. When it comes to…meeting new friends." Another awkward beat went by, and she said, "I'll just let him know of the new arrangement, then…"
She knocked on the door and stepped inside, shutting it again behind her before Lucy could catch a glimpse of the occupant. Their voices were muffled, but she could hear a clear objection from one, and an impatient response from the other. It went on like this for a while, and Lucy sighed dejectedly, setting her trunk down again and sitting upon it like she'd done outside of Mrs. Cole's office. Thoughts of home accosted her once more, and she even thought her eyes might have gotten a little moist. Still no tears yet though.
Eventually, the boy, Barnaby, returned, hauling a light, metal bedframe under one arm and a thin, springless mattress under the other.
"Mrs. Cole still in there?" he asked her curtly.
Lucy nodded.
There was a slight sneer upon the boy's lips but he merely shrugged and set the frame down, with the mattress and linens haphazardly. Next, he tossed her what she thought was a gray sack at first, but it turned out to be a shapeless button-up dress with a white collar and undershirt. She assumed this was to be her new uniform then and sighed again.
"You'll wanna be careful 'round him."
Lucy looked up from the sad looking dress and eyed the boy carefully.
"Sorry…who?"
"Him." He pointed sharply at the room Mrs. Cole had gone into. "He's mad, that one. A freak, really."
Lucy frowned.
She'd heard kids in her neighborhood call her grandma 'mad' before. Sometimes they came and threw rocks at their windows, which always made Lucy furious. Once they'd even broken the glass, at which point she had charged out of the house despite her grandma's protests and proceeded to return fire. The word 'freak' was tossed around liberally after that, and Lucy wasn't allowed to play with the other children in the neighborhood anymore…
Frowning even deeper, Lucy pointed out, "That's not a very nice thing to say…"
"Don't say I didn't warn you," he replied with a careless shrug and walked off. "Supper is at five." With a bit of a nasty smirk over his shoulder, he left her with, "If you even last that long… The last one to bunk with him was sent to the hospital."
This was far from reassuring, and clearly said for that sole purpose. On top of everything else, it only served to make her day that much worse. Lucy's frown turned into a scowl as she eyed the unkind boy's back, reminded of those cruel neighborhood kids. The thought of them sent a sharp burst of fury through her veins.
She hoped that he tripped on something.
Funny enough, almost in perfect timing with her less than charitable thoughts, Barnaby stumbled as he rounded the corner, having stubbed his toe on it rather painfully. It was a bit petty, she knew, but she still sniggered quietly to herself as he bit out various curses, hopping on one foot.
'Maybe karma does exist,' she mused impishly with a much-improved mood.
It gave her the motivation to slip into the nearby lavatory and change into the sack-dress. She was just folding her much nicer one up into her trunk when Mrs. Cole finally emerged from the bedroom.
"Oh good," she said when she observed Lucy's new—or not-so-new—clothes. She took in the bed with a nod and smiled what looked to be her first real smile of the evening. "Everything looks tickety-boo… Let's just move this in here, shall we? Heave-ho!"
After what Barnaby and Mrs. Cole had said about her new roommate, somehow Lucy wasn't surprised to see the boy from the landing glowering at her from the other side of the tiny room. She found she couldn't really blame him for the discontent. After all, she didn't want to share a room with him either—or anyone really. What she wanted was to go home…
But we don't always get what we want, Lucy knew.
Her bed was shoved into the corner on the other side of the room, with only a blocky chair beneath the cracked window to separate it from the other. The only other piece of furniture in the room was a shabby wardrobe facing the foot of the boy's bed, and then there was Lucy's trunk at the foot of hers. It was all done rather quickly, and Mrs. Cole gestured at the folded mattress and linens.
"Tom, I'll trust you can help your new friend get settled in?" she said sharply to the frowning boy.
With a cursory look at Lucy, he flatly refuted, "She's not my friend."
'That's okay,' Lucy thought, unoffended.
She wasn't concerned with making friends.
"I don't give a pin!" Mrs. Cole had clearly reached the limit of her patience for the day. "Don't make me revoke your library privileges—you put that book down right now, young man, and help her! I expect you to show her how things work around here, get her acclimated for the next couple of days—and just—" her exasperation was palpable when, nearly pleading, she implored him, "—be nice. For once?" Before he could say anything in his defense, she turned on her heel and swept out of the room, but before shutting the door, she jabbed her finger at him and said, "I mean it!"
Tom looked almost shocked by this outburst—perhaps Mrs. Cole was usually a pushover, Lucy speculated—and scowled at the door when she shut it firmly behind her. He then turned that scowl on her, and Lucy was instantly uncomfortable. He slapped his book down on the chair, irritation clear in his movements as he went to help her with the bed.
Not wanting to impose or start a conflict, Lucy quickly waved him off.
"Don't get up on my account. I'm not an invalid. I can do it myself."
With an aggravated shrug, he returned to his own bed, propping his long legs up and cracking the book back open. The title read Tales of Twilight and the Unseen by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Lucy honestly couldn't blame him for being aggravated. She hated it when she was interrupted from a good book too. And with that, she went about getting her bed sorted in silence, trying to ignore the dirty looks he sent her over the top of his book. The very fact that she was breathing seemed to annoy him, but once again, Lucy was not concerned with making friends.
Once she had everything sorted out, she went over and popped open her trunk, digging through it until she emerged with her latest knitting project. Though her books had been left behind at her uncle's behest, she had managed to sneak in several balls of yarn and her needles. If not particularly interesting like a good book, it was soothing, and would at least kill time. The constant patterns of knits, pearls and stitch counting also kept her thoughts from drifting, or troublesome memories from interfering… It helped her to ignore the dirty looks as well.
For a while, there was just the merciful quiet, with only the sound of a page turning every now and then, and the soft clickity-clack of Lucy's needles to occupy it. With the rain pounding on the window outside and the encroaching thunder that came along with it, contrasting with the near silence in the room, it was almost nice. If Lucy concentrated on the familiar motions of her hands and the soft yarn twined through her fingers, she could almost pretend that she was at home. There was only one thing missing, and at that thought she set her knitting down to get one last thing out of her trunk.
Folded into the very bottom was a thick quilt. It was an intricate tapestry of squares in muted tones of purples and blues on one side, with patterns of stars and moons that shimmered and shined; they almost appeared to move if one looked at them in a certain light. On the other side, it was lined with wonderfully soft fleece, which she wrapped around herself like a shawl before heading back to the lumpy bed and crossing her legs beneath her. She felt better now that the ever-present chill in the building was no longer biting into her. The quilt still held that cinnamon apple tart scent of home, and it was as if the fleece had sucked up some of the warmth that came from the oven and was pumping it into her skin—like magic.
She almost got the urge to sigh and lie down to sleep the rest of the day away but didn't think she could manage to let her guard down that much with a stranger in the room. She wondered if he felt the same way, and if that was why he seemed so unhappy with the new arrangement. It would make sense, she reflected as she picked up her knitting again, easing her hands back into the practiced motions and click-clacking away. It was quiet in the room still, though the thunderstorm outside was starting to pick up. She was just wondering if Uncle had managed to find a nice awning somewhere to duck under when the silence was finally broken.
And not by her, surprisingly enough.
"What are you making?"
It came out more as a demand than a question.
Lucy looked across at her neighbor curiously, then down at her creation, and held it up for his perusal.
"It's a sock," she explained simply.
Tom blinked at it as if he'd never beheld a sock in his life.
"It has stripes…" he pointed out the multi-colored purple and green streaks as if they were the most fascinating thing he'd seen all day. Who knows? In this place that appeared to lack all color, it just might be.
"Yes," she agreed, for lack of anything better to add to his astute observation.
There was a beat of silence and he asked, "Did you make that as well?" He gestured to the quilt wrapped around her.
Lucy shook her head.
"My grandma did." She hesitated a little before adding, "She's a lot better at this sort of thing than I am…"
Another beat, and he wanted to know, "What's wrong with her?"
Lucy frowned at him, wondering just how long he'd been eavesdropping on the stairs earlier.
"Nothing," she said quickly. "She's just a little sick, that's all. She'll be better soon, and then I'll be out of your hair. Don't worry."
Tom eyed her as if she were dull witted and shook his head.
"They were lying to you."
She furrowed her brow at him.
"What are you on about?"
"I can always tell when someone is lying. Little trick of mine," he answered, looking to lose interest in the conversation, returning to paging through his book. His eyes flicked over at her one last time though, and he stated in no uncertain terms, "No-one is coming back for you."
Frowning deeper with a dawning sense of hopelessness, Lucy whispered, "Don't say that."
"What?" he huffed bitterly. "The truth?"
Consternation gathering, she pointed out, "You're saying it to try and hurt me… And I don't know why."
He scoffed at her and shook his head.
"If I really wanted to hurt you, I wouldn't have to try…and you'd be screaming," he said in an ominously pleasant voice. A warning if she'd ever heard one. He reminded her a little of a rattlesnake, all coiled up and shaking his tail at her.
Tread carefully, it said.
"…You're not a very nice boy, are you?" she quietly deduced, continuing, even as he narrowed his eyes at her, "You seem very unhappy." Softly, she added, "I'm sorry… I don't like being here anymore than you do."
"You don't know anything," he hissed, his eyes flashing. "You're just a spoiled little rich girl."
"Hah!" She couldn't help but laugh aloud at that statement. "You're very mistaken. Me? I'm poor as a church mouse. It's the rest of my family that's rich. And they want nothing to do with me."
Eyeing her fully now with his book on his lap, he wondered, "Why? What's wrong with you?"
She shrugged, giving him a flat look. "Clearly, I'm spoiled, and I don't know anything, according to you…"
"Tell me," he insisted, and Lucy was beginning to suspect she wasn't the only spoiled person in this room.
"I don't know, alright?" She threw her knitting down in front of her irately. "The only thing I do know is that it started with my great grandma. She was disowned for marrying the wrong person. A curse on her, and all her descendants, blah, blah, blah…"
"What kind of curse?"
"The curse of Black Luck, apparently. It got my grandparents, and my mum, and my dad…" Lucy muttered. "Uncle Marius got the full blast of it, I think—poor sod…"
"That man who lied to you?" Tom asked, frowning.
"He didn't lie," Lucy snarled. "He'll be back—you'll see."
"It'll hurt less if you just accept it." Tom shook his head at her, returning to his book. "No-one is coming back for you. You're stuck here. Like me."
"You expect me to believe you want to spare me pain?" Lucy scoffed, eyeing him accusingly. "Forgive me if I have some difficulty with that, as you seem so delighted in causing it."
"You're safe, as long as you don't annoy me," he told her, carelessly turning another page.
"Oh, yes, my Lord," she muttered sarcastically, seizing her knitting again in hopes of calming herself, "thank you, my Lord, I am but an insect beneath your shoe, my Lord…"
It was then she caught his lips curling into a smile for the first time that evening.
He might not have been mad, Lucy assessed quietly, but she suspected there were certainly a few screws loose somewhere…
TBC...
Fun Fact: My adopted cousin is a sociopath.
I only realized this recently.
She came to stay with my side of the family a few years ago after her adopted parents kicked her out. I had no idea at the time, but I've since learned this was a completely reasonable decision on their part. I've always been a lonely kid, and she was only a few years older than I was, so I was actually pretty happy she was coming to stay with us. I thought we could be friends. And in the beginning, we were. Or so it seemed. It was all sunshine and roses. And this is usually the case with sociopaths. They tell you everything you want to hear. They know how to push just the right buttons to get the response they want from you.
However, unlike dear Tom, Michelle turned out to be a very low functioning sociopath. After a while, it became very easy to see through her act. Back then, I had no name or label for what she was—I only knew that she was not who she presented herself as. Her actions did not match her words. She was fake in every way. She used people, and then discarded them. And to the very end, even when it was clear that I was no longer buying her bullshit and she was packing her bags once again, she still did not relinquish her mask. She had dedication; that, I will freely admit.
Does anyone notice the orphan correlation? J. K. Rowling obviously did, seeing as she's made great strides with her Lumos Foundation. She's helping reunite children in orphanages with their families. Granted, Michelle was a product of the American Foster Care System, but I digress... Though the few weeks she spent in my home were chaotic and disruptive to put it lightly, I'm glad I got to meet her. Hopefully, through her pale example, I might be able to do Tom some justice.
I hope you all enjoy this story.
