Chapter One
Wammy's House
1991
Age Seven
The air was filled with the scent of rotting leaves that decayed on the ever-wet English soil. The leaves didn't even crunch the way they should in autumn, but rather gave way to squelching as they sunk into the mud beneath. My uncle held my hand loosely, his own palms sticky with sweat despite the cold unusual to early October. I focused on my breath that came out in clouds then quickly dissipated in the brisk breeze.
A tolling in the near distance caught my attention, and the bells in a tall clock tower seemed to ring my fate; whether it be doom or perhaps something better. We stood in front of a rusting iron gate, and I noticed a tarnished bronze sign to the right that said "Wammy's House." A large cross rose above the roof of the said "house" in the background and I felt slightly relieved. If God couldn't protect me I don't know who could.
"Come my dear," Uncle Peter squeezed my hand and I told myself to not try to pull away. My uncle had been so kind this last month; taking care of me despite the danger in which my presence put him. I should have known I couldn't stay with him forever, but I couldn't help feeling like he was abandoning me.
Uncle Peter lifted the hatch on the gate and pushed it open. Was this to be a heavenly paradise? It didn't squeak the way I expected, but rather swung open nearly soundlessly, only causing a slight rustling in the leaves it displaced.
We walked toward the building that looked more like a simplified house of Parliament than anything else with an ornate clock tower and tall windows and the cross, but other than that was rather devoid of ornamentation. The main doors must have been a rather modern addition, made of what appeared to be steel, flat and uninviting. Uncle opened the door and warmth drew me in. The cold that seemed to have settled in my body began to melt.
The inside of Wammy's house was rather pleasant- deep red carpeting, rich wood paneling on the walls, children running up and down the large staircase centered before the entrance, or playing in the corners where floor lamps chased away the shadows. A little girl perhaps two years younger than me with red hair swinging behind her as one long braid came up and handed me a piece of paper. I noticed wisps of her curly hair stuck up around her head like a halo. She grinned then ran through a doorway on the right. I looked at the paper which was a drawing of my uncle and me standing outside the gate. I turned and saw a window that would have given her this view, but was amazed at one, the speed with which she would have had to have drawn the picture since we had stood there for only a few minutes; and second at the skill the little girl of only five years or so possessed. The picture reminded me of a Rembrandt sketch exhibit my father had taken me to earlier that year.
Suddenly I realized that although the kids appeared normal on the outset, upon closer look the activities they were engaged in were rather unusual. There were kids working on giant, 1000-piece puzzles depicting pictures of the Taj Mahal, or taking apart hand-held game consoles and putting them back together again as opposed to playing with them properly, or reading books bigger than themselves and actually reading them, not coloring in them or something a normal four-year old would be doing with a book without pictures.
The red-haired girl came out of the other doorway with an old, grey-haired man with small round spectacles perched on the tip of his nose.
"This must be Kae…" he said, his voice strong despite the other evidences of age and frailty.
"I am Roger," he held out his hand with wrinkles that told of the years he had lived like the rings in a tree.
In the length of time it took me to study his hand, Roger decided I was not going to shake it and slipped it into his pocket.
"Let's see…how do you like spiders?" He pulled out a thick piece of glass that encased a large furry spider. I made a small hiss and moved behind my uncle, memories of small legs scurrying over my face and being unable to move or make so much as a whimper. Roger frowned down at me, his thick eyebrows bent in dislike over eyes clouded by cataracts.
"I guess not. Well if you would please follow me so we can finish up some business."
We were lead into Roger's office which looked much like the entrance except for a large wooden desk and several bookshelves crammed mostly with books on insects. More pieces of glass like the one with the spider were scattered oddly about the room, each containing a different sort of insect. While my uncle sat at the desk to fill out paperwork I edged over to a glass case that displayed dozens of butterflies pinned down to the white background. I shuddered, imagining myself struggling as a butterfly against the pins, my wings tearing painfully. A hand on my shoulder brought me out of the nightmare and my uncle knelt down to look at me in the face.
"This will be a very good place for you. You are a brilliant little girl and you will be able to learn a lot here. Roger will take care of you; you will be safe. I'm counting on you, understand?" I nodded, not really understanding; counting on me for what? Uncle Peter hugged me close, and I slowly raised my arms to return it. Suddenly tears stung my eyes and I didn't want to let go. I clung to my uncle's jacket, while he looked at me with tears of his own, but he gently pried my fingers off and left the room. I ran to the window which was fogged from heat and moisture but I could still see his shape hunched against the wind and rain as he went through the gate.
Roger cleared his throat from his desk. I tore my gaze away from the window and turned to him.
"Cass, show her to her accommodations, please."
The little red-haired girl, who I had forgotten about but appeared to have stayed in the room this entire time, beckoned to me to follow her. Still smiling, she bounced out of the room and up the stairs, her braid swinging behind her. I followed a few steps behind, carrying my small satchel that contained nothing but a few changes of clothes, a small Bible, a postcard of the Rembrandt exhibit from the art museum, and a toothbrush. Cass took me into a large room lined one each side with half a dozen long wooden tables. More children sat at the benches, some enjoying a snack from the kitchens that were on one side, some reading and others just talking. One boy about my age with dark hair and caramel-colored eyes sat with a large plate of chocolate chip cookies in front of him. Cass dragged me over to him.
"Did you make those?" she asked. He gazed up at her and held out a cookie in reply. She took it and bit into it, melted chocolate oozing out onto her chin. The boy flicked his eyes over to me and held out a cookie. I took it and nibbled. It was still warm and so delicious.
"This is Ren," Cass spoke as bits of crumb flew from her mouth, "He likes to cook. Pretty good at it I'd say. Ren, this is Kae. She's new."
The taste of salt didn't mix well with the sweetness as tears streamed down my face. I had never had such a good cookie. My mother never baked nor bought cookies and when Uncle Peter tried he ended up burning them. I hated that I was so moved by a damn cookie, but I couldn't help it.
"Oh, now she's crying. What's wrong?" Cass seemed uncomfortable with my reaction, her strained smile the wrong expression with the compassion she was trying to display.
"It's just so good," this time cookie sprayed from my own mouth. The boy just continued to stare at me, then held out another cookie.
"Thank you…" Cass led me away through another doorway on the other side of the room. I looked back at the boy who was still gazing after us.
We went up another flight of steps to a long hallway with at least a dozen doors on either side. Down to the third door on the left was to be my room. Cass produced a thick marker and struggled to reach up to the name plate to the right of the door. Only several inches taller than her, I could reach the plate and took the pen from her.
"Just write your name." I carefully did as she said, directly under her own name. Cass opened the door and jumped onto the bed to the left.
"We're sharing a room," she said. "This is my side, that's yours." She flapped her hand in the direction of my right to the bed and desk on that side. The furniture was simple, but well-built and the sheets that had been freshly washed were soft and warm. The only other piece of furniture in the room besides the two beds and desks was a large wardrobe framed on either side by two windows.
"Oh, I'll have to move some of my stuff from your side." Cass hopped off of her bed and shuffled around in the wardrobe as she pushed aside wrinkled clothes and art supplies. Paintbrushes scattered across the floor as well as tubes of paint, pencils and the like. Her desk was covered in similar paraphernalia.
Within minutes, I had neatly hung up my few articles of clothing in the space Cass had cleared for me, placed my Bible on the desk and hung up the postcard above my bed with a bit of tape Cass had. I sat on my bed, and Cass lay staring up the ceiling quietly for a few moments. Unable to bear the silence, she flipped onto her side.
"So what do you do?"
"…Do?"
"Yeah, like I do art, Ren cooks as well as writes and many other things- he's really smart-some say he's almost as good as L. Some kids are good at scien-"
"L?" I interrupted her.
"Oh yeah, you don't know. L is the smartest one here. He's only twelve or so and has already solved over twenty of the most elusive unsolved cases in the world-murder, kidnappings, assassinations- he figures them all out." Cass laughed at this point," In fact he's so good that nobody knows who he really is nor what he looks like, not even us! Yet, we can feel him pulling the strings somehow."
"I suppose…I'm good at math," I said, "and solving problems."
"Hmmm…" Cass seemed disappointed.
"Oh, and I play piano, well I've just started learning, but everyone-well, just my uncle really- says I'm really good. A genius almost."
"Really? We have a piano in the parlor. I wanna hear you play!" We hurried down the stairs into the parlor, which was another rich, warm room with a big fireplace, large armchairs, and shelves of books. A grand piano stood off to one side. It was far nicer than the one at my uncle's house which had been old and out of tune. My mother had once started taking me to piano lessons and my teacher, a rather pleasant elderly lady that smelled like rotting peaches, was amazed at how quickly I learned. Within weeks, she was pressing my mother to allow her to enter me into competitions, telling her I could be a star. My mother dragged me away, screaming about having to get me away from the heathen woman that was trying to corrupt me. Although it was at least a year after that time, when I opened a music book at my uncle's piano, I could still read the notes. My uncle played a few songs for me, rather clumsily, but the skill was still there. I played the same songs after him, memorized just from hearing and watching. I spent hours every day playing the music, getting better and better each day until I had memorized all the music he had. Now I sat at this beautiful shining piano in Wammy's House and began to play Ravel's "Alborada del gracioso". Children began to gather around, including Ren who still had the plate of cookies in his hand, although now rather depleted. As I played through the song-which was rather long- the children stood around quietly, only the occasional sniffle from the runny nose, or munch on a cookie. At the end, they all clapped and Ren handed me another cookie.
I must have been in shock until that day, because after that I fell into a deep depression. It was the first time I felt truly faced by my horrid past and didn't know how to deal with it. Even when Cass was able to drag me out of bed, I would hardly eat anything besides muffins-which were delicious-would hardly do anything except play piano or sleep in a big armchair. I didn't talk to anyone, and when Roger called me into his office to talk about my future at Wammy's House I stood mutely until he grew exasperated and sent me away. They probably would have looked to get rid of me if I didn't show so much promise through my piano.
I had been like this over a week when one morning in the cafeteria, after I had already consumed my muffin, Ren came over and sat beside me.
"I make the muffins," he said the first words I had ever heard from him since coming.
"They're really good," I replied. He smiled and held out another for me.
"I made this one special," he said, "'with light and love to chase away the monsters that are hurting you.' That's what my mother used to say when she'd bake something for me after I'd come home beat up by bullies." I looked at his eyes.
"What happened to her…your mom?"
"The bullies killed her. And my dad too." His eyes were wide and glassy as he said this, but he blinked slowly a few times and seemed to overcome the emotion.
"Who were the bullies?" Ren shook his head and looked down at his hands with long, thin fingers. Either he didn't know or he didn't want to say. "What about your mom?" He asked instead, still staring down.
"My mother was my own bully." I told him flatly, "She wanted to kill me."
"Why?! Your own mother?" He looked up, startled.
But I would hold onto my own secrets for a little while longer too…