The stars twinkled like brilliant crystals in the midnight black sky. It was a perfectly clear night, and the air was ominously still. The eerie creaking of the carriage and clicking of horses hooves were the only sounds to be heard. Two small children sat in the carriage which was speeding towards Obernewtyn and their fates. A stern looking woman sat slumped and asleep, uncaring of the fears that rattled these children's minds.
Ariel and Lena were twins. Their wide youth-full eyes were both blue and both had silver-blonde hair. Their faces were angelic and beautiful. They were the female and male versions of each other. They had been deemed uncanny and even unnatural by many in the Council. That may have been one of the reasons they were being sent here.
Ariel fidgeted with his patchy clothing, he kept sneaking quick glances at the sleeping woman who was to accompany the two twins. Lena sat with her skinny legs pulled up to her chest. She was watching the harsh landscape pass by.
A little while later, the carriage seemed to be slowing. Lena risked a peak out of the window and saw a tall and chilling looking building looming up ahead. Ariel leaned over his sister to take a look too. Lena shivered, something about that place made her feel cold inside.
The black carriage pulled to a halt outside the foreboding building. The woman was jolted into waking. She pushed the two children hurriedly out of the carriage and rapped her knuckles against the grand doors. Lena noticed the intricate design and had wondered how long it had taken to make doors of such splendor.
A strict and uncaring looking woman opened the door in a fluster. She was wearing a dressing gown and night shift underneath. She spoke in low tones to the woman who had come with them in the carriage before ushering the shivering children inside. The other woman was left outside.
"Names?" the woman said harshly.
"Ariel," Ariel said his voice timid and echoing, "This is my sister Lena." The woman nodded. She led through a series of passageways. They came to a passageway with many doors. She opened one and led them inside. She showed them where to find some clothes and told them to sleep.
Ariel and Lena, once changed, crawled into bed. There were five beds in all in the room, but theirs were the only two occupied. Lena's weariness seemed to finally catch up with her; she fell asleep almost before her head hit the pillow.
Lena woke with a start, her brother was shaking her. Her eyelids fluttered open but she still felt heavy with sleep. She got out of bed and dressed in some clothes that had seemingly been placed there that morning. Ariel beckoned her to the doorway. He was listening to someone speaking.
"When will he see them?" the woman said in a low voice.
"Not today, I should think," the other voice, a male one, said, "Put them to work and he'll see them when he wishes. Perhaps they will be what we need…"
The twins heard the sound of departing footsteps and rushed away from the door. The woman from last night barged into the room.
"You will be doing some work," she said sounding bored, "around Obernewtyn. Sometime soon you will have an appointment, nothing bad just a little …check up." Lena didn't like the way she had said that, there was almost a malicious glint in the woman's black eyes.
The twins were taken to eat a quick late breakfast of some surreptitious grey substance in the kitchens. Then, they were put to work scrubbing the stone floor of the spacious dining hall. People came and went doing errands and the twins watched silently.
Some people were interested in the odd newcomers. Others just preferred to do their jobs and ignore them. Lena and Ariel barely exchanged any words during the long and tiring day.
They had met few people, but seen many passing. Most of the people seemed to be quite young as they were. Most were no more than fourteen. There were a few adults in charge but most of the adults, Lena guessed, were too preoccupied with their strange experiments which she had heard so much about.
Of course, Lena was afraid to hear that the following day, she and Ariel would be meeting the Master of Obernewtyn. She had heard he concocted the twisted experiments on children. She was dreading the meeting with every fiber of her being.