Hello! This is my first TID Fanfiction. I plan to do several more, but this is what I am starting with. Now, please, bear with me. This is just a prologue. And it's about how Tessa lost her family, and what happened to the Herondale family. It's kinda sad and depressing, but... I feel it's necessary to set up the story. Don't fret! I will make it a lot more happy and humorous in the future, but now it needs to be sad. And... One more thing... See, I'm considering Jessamine being shipped with a certain James Carstairs. Yay or nay? I feel like Jem deserves someone, and I practically worship Wessa. So... Yeah. Please tell me what you think in the reviews. Anyway, I wanted to say that reviews are what keep me going. So please review!
Btw, since I ran out of characters in the summary thing, I'm putting the summary right here.
Summary:
Tessa is 7 when her parents are murdered. She is sent to live with her aunt Harriet with her brother, Nate. When she is 16, Nate is overseas in London trying to make money. When her aunt is murdered and Nate goes missing at the same time, Tessa is sent to an Orphanage in London called the Branwell Institute for Young Children. There, she meets Will, Cecily, Jem, Jessamine, and other people. She continues searching for her brother, but she begins to unravel a deep dark plot that will plunge her and her new friends into a journey that will shake up the world as they know it. Much Wessa, Grabrily, Sideon, Chenry, MAYBE Carlace.
Prologue
Tessa's P.O.V.
Little snippets of time. That was all she could remember. The little snippets of time before her life was destroyed. When she had been seven, and Nathaniel had been nine. The day their parents had died. The children were playing at their neighbors house. The neighbors, Tessa recalled, were a nice, newlywed couple. Anna and John Smith. They took the kids into their house immediately, no questions asked. Their parents had only said that they were going to talk to a man.
She remembered a bright red ball. Nate caught it, and tossed it back to Tessa. She had laughed. She threw it back, but it hit him square in the chest. He burst into tears, and Tessa, confused by the sudden display of emotion, burst into tears as well. It wasn't long before Anna and John had to come over to soothe the upset children.
Hours later, dusk had fallen, bathing the milky walls with it's dying light. Worried voices- the neighbors in the other room, confusion. A car pulling up in the driveway. She remembered Anna running to the window, drawing back the thin curtains with haste, only to gasp, horror plain as the moon rising above them upon her face. She had fallen backwards, only to be caught by John. He, too, glanced outside, and his skin took on a shade of white that 7 year old Tessa deemed too close to the milk she had been drinking to her liking.
She was still young, but she remembered how scared she had been. She had stood upon Nate's shoulders, peering through the thin white curtains, but all she saw was a car. She could not read, or else she would have read the words 'Police' on the side of the vehicle. As it was, deep down inside, she dimly sensed that something was wrong.
She didn't remember much after that. She recalled a man getting out of the car to talk to Anna and John, she recalled asking Nate if this was the man Mommy and Daddy went to talk to. She recalled Anna bursting into tears, burying her head into John's shaking arms. He held her, comforting her, and then everyone looked at the to children standing off to the side, right next to each other. The boy holding his little hat, the girl clutching her older brother's arm in terror. They were so innocent, so young. No one wanted to break the news to them.
In the end, the officer told them. Tessa remembered how her heart broke into two pieces that day. One for her father, one for her mother. Zero for herself. Anna and John had moved away, and the children had been sent to live with their Aunt Harriet. The woman was kind, but strict. She forced many chores upon Tessa, while letting her brother develop bad habits. But Tessa knew that her aunt loved her, she just had a hard time expressing it. You had to know her very well before she would let down her rough exterior. Nate was the only exception. He was the apple of her eyes, and she endlessly doted on him. Many nights had Tessa stayed up with her aunt, waiting for Nate to come home under the influence of alcohol after gambling away all their money. She had seen the emotions dancing ferociously in her aunts eyes, she had seen the war they raged in the poor woman's mind. Pity, regret, and sadness. A great deal of sadness. She knew that Aunt Harriet pretended to be rough, but she was a delicate and fragile person.
Years passed, and soon 18 year old Nathaniel was in London, pursuing a job that would give them the money they needed to continue scraping by. Frail old Aunt Harriet had sold the house, and the two woman were living in an apartment. Tessa worked several jobs a day, but it never made much of a difference. Aunt Harriet was doing poorly, and had been coughing lately. Tessa knew that her aunt needed to see a doctor, but she barely had enough money to pay the rent. She continuously wrote to Nate, begging him to return home, but he ignored their plight, and stopped writing completely, only delivering the occasional pay check. And then it happened. After a long shift, Tessa had come home and collapsed straight in bed. In the morning, she was awoken by a knocking on her door.
Aunt Harriet had been murdered. She was found near the back of the apartment complex, body half-hidden inside a dumpster. There was a bullet buried deep inside her head. Tessa had cried endlessly, and the police, unsure of what they were to do, awkwardly comforted her. Since she was still a minor, they had to take her back to the station, and let her decide what she wanted to do.
At the station, she worked it out that she would stay with her brother, in London. She would receive a free plane ticket, and she would attend school there. That's when the phone call came. Late last night, around the same time Aunt Harriet died, Nate had gone missing.
Life was a blur after that. The police asked her about the Orphanage she would like to attend, and she began hyperventilating. The police calmed her down, and they gave her food and sent her home. They patrolled around the apartment all night long. In the morning, Tessa could think clearly, and she examined the different options. Finally, she found one that seemed like it might work. It was called the Branwell Institute for Young Children. It was twenty minutes away from Nathaniel's work place. She could investigate there, and when she found Nate, she would live with him. She would have to keep her investigations a secret. It was the only way her long shot of a plan would work. She had made her decision, and the police purchased her a plane ticket.
Tessa sighed, leaning against the window of the plane. I wish Nate was here with me. She felt the tears coming to her eyes, but she held them back. I am strong, she thought. I can make this work. I can bring Nate back to me. And with her resolve in place, the un fallen tears dried in their ducts, and she stared out her window at the water 80,000 miles or so below her. They looked as if they had been cremated there, baked by the sun. Waves are like resolves. At the beginning, they are nothing. Then they get bigger and stronger, growing in size, until the person feels they are at they're strongest, and then they collapse, bringing with them dreams of greatness. It's like an ocean of crushed dreams. My resolve- it's a friggin' tsunami. I will destroy the world to find Nathaniel, and I am way too stubborn to let him slip through my watery grasp. I will not die. And with that thought stuck firmly in her mind, the poor girl finally succumbed to sleep.
Cecily's P.O.V.
Dead. Ella was dead. It still seemed so foreign to her, even though two weeks had passed. She remembered it so vividly. Ella, Will, and I were playing Hide and go Seek. I ran inside to get water, and when I came out, Ella was lying dead upon the ground, Will sitting next to her still-warm corpse, talking to her and holding her hand as if she could still hear him.
"Ella, come back to me." He was like the China dolls in my room, fragile and delicate. And he was about to shatter. "Ella..." His voice cracked. I took in the scene, and began screaming at the top of my lungs. Will turned around instantly, took in the sight of me screaming, and looked back at Ella, before he started screaming, too. Seconds later, our parents ran out of the house. Mam started screaming as well, and Pa got this look in his eyes. He looked like he was about the go on an insane rampage. My screaming faltered, and I glanced at Will. We made eye contact, and I will never forget what I saw. Grief, sadness, anger, and regret. All at once. Zeroing in, fighting a raging war inside his mind. He shattered. I fell to the ground, weeping uncontrollably. I knew that nothing would be the same ever again.
Later, Mam took me into my room and closed the door, giving us privacy. I refused to face her. Instead, I took two swift steps up to my shelf, and examined the three China dolls sitting atop of it. They were beautiful. The first one had jet black hair, and her eyes were so dark they were almost purple. I ran a finger over her smooth porcelain skin. I had named this one Ella. I looked at the second one, the boy. His hair was the color of Raven feathers, and he had pansy blue eyes opened wide upon his face. This one was William. I took a deep breath. I knew what I had to do. I swiped my hand across the shelf, causing William and Ella to come crashing to the floor. They shattered.
I heard an intake of breath behind me. I knew it was Mam. She wanted to talk to me, but she was afraid to disturb the spell I had come under. I picked up the third and final doll. She, too, had pansy blue eyes. Her hair was the color of squid ink, collected from below the surface of the Welsh water. I named this one Cecily. I glanced at the damage of the other two dolls. William had a large hole in the side of his head, as well as severe damage to the rest of him. Ella had a large hole where her heart should have been, also suffering extreme damage. I knew that my other siblings had shattered. Ella was shattered by death, and Will was shattered by trauma. I did not think he would grow out of it. But what about me? Would I ever recover? Maybe. When the years passed by, and the hurt faded to a dull ache. I knew I could recover. Slowly, carefully, I set the doll back on the shelf. Only then did I turn around.
Ever since that day, Will told us that he had dared Ella to climb to the top of a tree. He said that when she got to the top, she leaned to far forward and fell. I know this is not the truth, but he will not tell me. And I won't ever ask. A month passed, and Will and I found ourselves face to face with our parents, who announced they were sending us to boarding school... In London. To say that we were upset was an understatement. Will accepted it. He was packed later that night. But I fought tooth and claw. It was like seeing us reminded them too much of Ella. Our family shut down and closed off, surrounding their hearts with barbed wire. And no one would let me in.
Then we went to boarding school. Half a year later, they got the news that their parents had died, supposedly of alcohol abuse. They were placed in the care of the Branwell Institute for Young Children. Years had passed, and they made friends. Cecily had healed. Will acted as if he were okay, but Cecily knew that deep down he was just as broken as he was on the day of Ella's death. And now she was 15, and Will was 17.
Well... Sad, right? I promise it will get better! The characters are formed through the experiences they have and the choices they make! It builds character! Please don't throw a tomato at me! But if you do decide the tomato is necessary, does it have to be rotten? Because I don't like rotten tomatoes. I prefer them ripe. And now I'm rambling. Sorry, I'm a really awkward person. Anyway, please review!