CHAPTER 1
Amelia was looking outside the window of an old train heading to New York. It was raining and the rain drops kept tumbling down the glass. Those black clouds seemed so heavy that she wouldn't have marveled if at any moment they had just crumbled above the train. The wind was so strong she imagined it would have made the train set off until meeting those dark clouds. She was startled by the soft wailing of her baby sister lying next to her in Freya's arms, Amelia's elder sister.
"Hush, Sophie, we're here." Freya rocked her ten-month sister, but she started crying even more desperately
"What's wrong with her?" asked a very concerned Adric.
"I think she is cold, Ammie, could you hand me her wool blanket?"
"Yes, Freya." Amelia said sighed. She passed the little blanket, placing it on the crying baby. "Freya, can you hear it...?"
"Yes, she is not cold..."
In fact, little Sophie was not cold, she was begging for her mother, request none of her siblings could fulfill.
Sophie started to shout drawing the attention of the ticket inspector, who came near their seats and started questioning them:
"What's happening? You are disturbing the other passengers. Why is she crying? Where is your mum?"
Freya answered the first two questions but she couldn't reply the third one, it hurt too much.
"Where are your parents?"
None of them had the strength to answer that question and actually they didn't even know where their father was; their mother… well she was gone, they would never see her again. Their father said she had flown away, she was now traveling through the Universe, seeing the stars and witnessing their birth and their end. But the Doctor said that she would never die, she would always be in that special places where nobody could take her away: their hearts. But than also their father was taken away and three weeks after his departure they didn't know if he was still alive.
"Are you deaf, girl? I asked you a question."
Freya was starting weeping, but Adric stepped in, to cause his sister less pain.
"We are traveling alone, are going to our grandparents' , we'll stay with them."
"Right, try to shut up that little squirt."
He went away and Freya burst into tears, she missed her parents but mostly she missed her mother, she had a special bond with her and now they had lost her.
Amelia tried to comfort her big sister, stroking her arm up and down. The four of them were drifting into darkness, a foggy darkness where the unknown was suffocating them, there was nothing to hang on to, not anymore, they just had each other and they were holding on themselves as much as possible. They were clinging to the memory of their mother and father's love and the happiness their family got so dangerously used to, as it was the last breath they would have breathed.
"Freya, don't cry or we'll all start. Soon we will be with our mind-blowing grandparents!"
Adric had always been a good brother, mum used to say he had golden hearts, like his grandfather Rory. Well, Ammie was a mischievous pest like her mother, according to the Doctor.
"You're right, sorry."
The blonde girl smiled faintly, she had promised her mother to be a big girl and look after her siblings and she couldn't allow herself to cry in front of them.
"Can we play a game or something? I'm getting bored..." Ammie said looking from Adric to Freya.
The two siblings nodded and the three of them played the game their father taught them a long time ago, when they were still a family.
