Chapter 1

Three cards were flipped to show their faces to the world. The three of clubs, queen of spades, and the seven of spades were displayed to the gaggle of girls crowding around the small, collapsible table. One girl, who looked to be eight years old, scrutinized the three playing cards with her sharp gaze, her short indigo hair framing her downturned face. She looked up to the young teen wringing her hands nervously, but her eyes had a spark of curiosity and swirls of doubt. The girl was just like the rest of the previous orphans who asked for the first time if they were to be adopted the coming week. It seemed getting the indigo haired girl's prediction had become a rite of passage for the new orphans. The others were either there to get their own turn, to watch, or waiting in the wings to support the girl who had asked for the prediction.

"Yes, you will be leaving us this week with a separated woman, but only if you can overcome the obstacle dwelling within yourself." The girl finished, and answered none of the questions from the group of girls as she left the table in the expansive green lawn to go back inside the large orphanage with the deck of cards in her hand. Just outside the porch, she stopped to look at the clear, blue sky. "It's going to rain soon."

Minutes later, the group of teenaged girls that had been crowding around the cheap table and enjoying the nice weather rushed to get out of the pouring rain.

"Um, excuse me? I'm new here, and I was wondering," a boy asked timidly to the indigo haired girl who was reading a book. She looked up at him with an inquisitive face. "Is this chair taken?" He asked softly, the dining room the two were in quieting dramatically didn't help his confidence. The girl shook her head, and returned to her book. The boy sat down with his plate of food and looked at the protective cover lying on the table in a folded heap on the girl's empty plate, "Shakespeare? That's a bit above our grade. My name's Jeff, by the way. What's yours?"

The girl had looked up from her book again, and gave Jeff a considering look. The dining room had gone back to its normal volume levels, though some of the other kids seemed to glance back at them with a few gestures while they talked to their friends. "Truth," she said after a moment.

"Nice to meet you. So, what's the book about?" Truth just smiled impishly, mimed zipping her lips, and handed the book over to her new friend to find out himself before taking a big bite of the lasagna from Jeff's plate.

Jeff learned many things about his first friend at the orphanage. Truth Palmer rarely spoke, but made up for the lack of communication with bold body language. Fortunately, he could understand what the girl was trying to express; unfortunately, no one else could, and he was used as a translator and buffer between Truth and the rest of the world. He would get so frustrated at the feeling of being the messenger that he refused to speak with anyone for days at a time with explosive tantrums, and yet… he was satisfied that he was the only one that could understand her.

Truth was also very stubborn and rebellious. She refused to do any of the assignments in class, and replied to the teacher's questions with an indifferent shrug. But Jeff could sometimes see her eyes and the wall of restraint behind them, like she was preventing herself from answering a question she knew she could answer. Why would she do that? He knew she was smart the moment they met. She took her punishment with a blank face and straight back, like she knew she was doing the right thing. But how could doing so be right? Jeff didn't understand, and asked her about it one day during lunch. She didn't say anything, and continued to eat the food on her tray. But she murmured "It's for the best" to him before she left. Her phrase only confused him more, but he let the topic go a few days later when someone mentioned that Truth had always done this.

Jeff had also learned of her fortune-telling with doubt when he first heard about Truth's pastime. He had confessed his doubts to the girl in question just before she shuffled the cards. The girl with indigo hair looked affronted before raising her nose at him with a sniff; her posture practically screamed at him, "I'll prove it to you!" Jeff gave an amused chuckle at that.

Truth shuffled the cards while saying quietly, "King of clubs, seven of spades, queen of clubs." Three cards were taken from the top of the deck, and there they were, just as Jeff had heard from Truth's mouth. "In two days," Truth said to the boy who had asked her for his fortune. "You will leave us with a couple that can't have their own child because of a car accident, but you will only leave with them if you will show yourself to them as who you are and not someone else."

Two days later, the boy was adopted, and the husband and wife were just as she described. Many of the people who doubted her had changed their belief by the end of that day, including himself.

"I'm going to be leaving you today. I'm sorry." Truth stated to Jeff, but didn't look away from the blue sky. A cloud passed overhead, covering them in a temporary shadow. It was one year exactly from the day they met that one crowded night. "A man and woman will come to take me away soon to help me."

"It must be true if you say it." There wasn't a hint of sarcasm in Jeff's statement. "Will we see each other again?"

There was a pause, as if Truth was contemplating what she was to say, which was probably the truth. "Yes. Many years into the future, on this day. The year before the world changes." Truth stood up after that to let him think on what she had said, brushed the grass that stuck to her back when she was lying on the ground, and walked inside calmly.

Half an hour later, Jeff was still lying on the grass in the front lawn. He noticed a bald man in a wheelchair leaving the orphanage with Truth, a woman with beautiful dark skin and silver hair waited at the orphanage's gate. She was holding Truth's bag. He felt betrayed somehow, like she was leaving him to fend for himself in a den of lions.

Then a paper whipped onto his face with a curl of the wind. He pulled the paper off and recognized the loopy scroll of Truth's handwriting.

'Jeff Smithen of Storybook Orphanage, Illinois will be adopted exactly twenty hours after Truth Palmer to a good family that will give him the love and care he has yearned for.'

By the time he had finished reading the prediction Truth had left for him, guilt had flooded his chest, and looked for Truth and the handicapped man. They were nowhere to be seen, even when he sprinted to the fence to look at the street on the other side.

He clenched the fist that held the note, the prediction of meeting her years later forgotten in his mind.

((A/N: I've had this plot bunny in my head for a while, and decided to upload it here. I was trying to write it from a child's perspective, just so you know. Let me know what you think about what I have so far -Heck! You could review what your theories are! ... That rhyme was not on purpose... Or was it?))