Chapter 1

Four years later

The sun was just rising above the estates woodlands, and the young child stood at the peak of the hill, mesmerised by the colours. She was murmuring words to herself, the same ones as the normally does which made no sense, but I didn't mind. I would do anything for my Nic, including waking up at half four every morning, getting dressed for whatever the weather and driving half a mile to this point of the estate to watch the sun rise. It helped Nic's behaviour throughout the day and helped the preschool staff too, so I could barely refuse her the opportunity. She was only four; my little Nic, but she meant everything for me. I took her up here when she was a baby and refused to sleep, no matter what time of day it was, and just let her stare at the stars, or the clouds, and she settled down well enough. Firstly, I only took her here because it was far enough away from the estates main grounds that no one would be nosy and watch us from the windows, but its close enough to the teaching staff living quarters that, if we need shelter, we can run back into there. Now, it had become a resting place for both myself and Nic, who I was a full guardian for. Whatever her Savant gift was, it was clear as crystal that it involved the weather as she was mesmerised by every sunrise, every cloud and every drop of rain – and let's not even get her started with snow.

Like me, Nic will grow up under the care of the Blakeley Savant Academy, or as it's widely known the Blakely Academy for Gifted students. Whilst it was regarded "open for the public", no members came here if they weren't Savant's. Mainly because the tuition fees for Non-Savant's were in the thousands per six weeks, for not a good education. Well, that's what the brochures say. For Savant's, or anyone who can prove their genetic tree involves Savant's the fees are waived and for a small donation each month you get a brilliant education, with ages ranging from two straight through to eighteen. Well, it was extended now. I was the first pupil to complete a degree with Blakeley, and then go on and complete my PHD in childhood nursing and psychology. So now, they could go up to age twenty five. Thankfully for me, they offered me a job at Blakeley that I couldn't turn down – for Nic's sake more than myself.

The whole situation surrounding the two of us was weird; I was found on school grounds when I was four, with no note, no birth certificate, no hope and no identity. The staff took me on as a pupil without worrying if I was a Savant or not. They gave me a name, a place to live and an education. The staffing couple that took care of me, Aisha and Mark, treated me like their daughter but always argued over my name – Aisha wanted to call me Samantha after her Nan, and Mark wanted to call me Rose, the flowerbed of the agriculture students I was found near. So they compromised; calling me Samantha Rose – with Rose being my surname. So I grew up at Blakeley like any other of the three thousand multinational students. I had no family to go to when I finished my A-levels, though, so I talked to Head Mistress about continuing at Blakeley for a degree, and they found a course, got verified to hand out the degree in child nursing and psychology – a joint Bachelor's with honours – and I did all the work myself, working part time in the small hospital they had on base and in the paediatric ward once a week in Norfolk. When in my last year of my degree, I was called to the front entrance – normally a place that you enter but never leave from. It was always bad when you were called there.

As I got there, a woman was leaving – walking down the concrete stairs onto the gravel turning circle and climbed into a Jeep. I went to chase after her, wondering what she had done, but stopped immediately on the spot when I looked down. A car seat, with a baby inside. Immediately, I rushed over and found the baby girl was in no harm but was sleeping contently. There was a note though, explaining the girl was Nicole, and I was chosen to look after her. They had seen what Blakeley had done for me, and the baby's mother, and they wanted the same for the child. Head Mistress gave the baby special permission to stay with me in my small room, and gave me a special form of maternity leave to care for her. I was crap at first, but within a month or two with the help of my former parents, Aisha and Mark, I got hold of it.

Nic was in so many ways my own child, or like a sister to me. She was my first priority now, and I even cried for two hours straight when she went to the preschool on base for the first time three weeks ago – despite the fact my classroom was two floors above hers and I could be there within thirty seconds if they needed me.

'Sammmmmm,' the toddler said, not taking her eyes off the sun rise. I raised my eyebrow, looking up from the stack of essay papers I was marking. 'Sam!'

'Yes, Nic,' I sighed, shaking my head at my sister but grinning the entire time. Whatever she was doing, it helped her volatile behaviour so I didn't mind.

'Why have we got boys names?' She asked.

'We haven't got boys names – we have unisex names that are shortened versions of our real names,' I explained to her and she didn't reply. I hated the name Samantha, and not only that it was so long to spell out, so I took to the name of Sam. It suited my tom boy appearances and personality. Aisha was the one who came up with calling Nic, well, Nic. Nicole reminded her of her previous life where she had been dumped, like me, so Nic would be the bouncy baby who was Blakeley's first resident baby.

'The boys in my class say I have a boy's name,' Nic said.

'Then they're willies.' I said as Nic laughed at the word. 'Which boys are these?'

'Harrison and Payta,' She said, rocking herself as she continued to look up at the sun.

'I'll talk to your teacher,' I concluded, looking back at the piece of paper that was in front of me. The term so far had been stressful – especially when you have no teaching experience. Thankfully, my classes were small, ranging from my class of four seventeen to eighteen year olds, eighteen in the sixteen to seventeen class and twenty in my GCSE health and social class – but I had one topic to teach before I would pass the class on to the next teacher. I was content, and loved my students. There were only a few years between us, and many of us had been in social groups together or in the same dormitory blocks – we were more friends than students and teacher.

'It's going to be really sunny today,' I said to Nic and she nodded.

'Yes,' Nic said conclusively.

I continued reading the sheets of paper in front of me, marking in according to the criteria, but keeping an eye on the toddler in front of me. It was strange how much this little girl became a major part of my life – she was nothing to me. She was just left for me, but it could be anyone. Either way, I took her into my life and treated her like she was my own daughter and raised her. I fed her at all stupid hours, changed her, took her for walks and watched films with her; read her the same books seventeen times a day. In a weird way she was my daughter in the way that I treat her.

'Sam, look,' Nic whispered and I looked up at the sky, and my mouth dropped. The clear sky now had three clouds in them, and they were all spinning in a circle, leaving a small hole in the middle, straight above where Nic was standing.

'Nic, come here sweetie,' I said, trying to usher her away from the weird circle clouds. She came over to me, hugging me but the clouds followed her. 'Wait – are you controlling them,'

'The clouds are my friends,' Nic whispered to me.

'Of course they are,' I said, looking at the circling clouds. 'Should we go get you ready for nursery, then?' I asked her, putting my paperwork in my side satchel, before picking Nic up on my hip.

'Yeah!' The kid said, even though she didn't have an input, she knew the rules. We can do this every morning but when it was time to get ready we left without any hassle or protest. Nic turned back to me and the clouds that were circling above us dispersed into the sky, leaving no sign of where they were.

I knelt on the floor in front of Nic, tucking in her white school polo shirt into the trousers she opted to wear instead of the skirt, before passing her the Blakeley blazer that I got her a few weeks ago for her first school day – the blazer wasn't even compulsory until she was six.

'Sam, I don't like school,' Nic whispered to me, holding the hand of her toy rabbit.

'Why's that?' I asked her, sitting crossed legged on the floor to do the Velcro up on her trainers.

'People think I'm weird,' She said softly. 'Everyone has a Mummy and Daddy,' She said as rain started to hit the window.

'Hey, Nic, listen,' I said to her.

I never lied to her about her parents, and by never lied I mean I told her where she came from. I told her she was given to me by her parents to raise her at Blakeley. I told her a white lie, saying her parents knew me and trusted me and I was a full time nanny for her until she was eighteen where she can request parental knowledge. I explained this to her in children terms, and she appeared to understand – she was extremely intellectual for her age. But she didn't work out it was a lie.

Part of it was a lie – she was dropped off here by someone I assumed was her mother. But there was a letter in the car seat she was left in; addressed by name to me. Typed up but not on a computer, like it was on a type writer, the letter explained Nicole to me. She was never meant to happen, things got too far one night, and she decided to keep the baby without knowing what to happen to her. The mother knew the father, but the father had no idea the baby even existed and carried on his life like normal. The mother knew me from Blakeley; we went to school together for a few years before she left. She trusted me, and she trusted the academy to keep her daughter safe. The mother had three simple requests for me; to keep her daughter safe and out of harm's way, to be both parents that Nicole could never have and try everything I could to find Nicole's father and let him know that he was a father now.

The first two I took on with ease, the latter will forever be a struggle. There was simply a letter with "Nicole's father," written on the front, and I won't open that. In reality, I could be looking for a guy who had a one night stand, or even had sex with a female little under five years ago. When I phrase it like that, the reality seemed so little it was unperceivable.

'Nic, you listening love?' I asked the toddler and she nodded as she looked out the window. 'You don't need parents to be happy,' I gently told her, holding her wrists. 'I didn't have any parents either, I was exactly like you and look at me,'

'People laugh at me for talking to clouds,' Nic whispered.

'They're just jealous of your awesome gift,' I told her, winking and Nic nodded. I grabbed a tissue from my bag, using the corner of it to wipe away her tears. 'I'd love to be able to control the weather.'

'You can make people happy,'

Summing up, that was my gift. I was a human therapy dog. I projected out waves of calming or neutral emotion which made everyone relaxed or comfortable. Happy. I couldn't do it on myself and often found myself in a darker state to everyone around me happiness, which made me feel lacking even more. I didn't exactly have the best gift someone could ever ask for.

'Come on, let's get you to class,' I said, shrugging my backpack over my shoulder full of textbooks and workbooks, before handing Nic her Frozen backpack and she copied me. I offered her my hand and she took it as we walked out of my small studio room, locking the door behind us. It wasn't needed; Blakeley academy was 100% safe even from pity thefts and so on, but it just felt odd leaving the door open. But there was a darker stream running through Blakeley at the moment.

Students have been disappearing when returning to their home countries. I never heard of any of these disappearances when I was still a student, but when they signed me on a teacher and I went to all the board meetings they became an evident issue, and the details were unsettling.

As an academy, most students' board during the term and bugger off home during the term breaks; and as Blakeley was one of only three Savant academies over the globe, and with the highest recommendations and safety features, more foreign students boarded as well. At the end of term, we made sure all students who were going home would book their flights on the same day and we would take them via coach to their airports and see them go through security as we waited outside if there were any issues. Over the summer holidays all students apart from forty went back home and the remainder we kept for summer school, or rather them working in the local town and heading out with their friends from either their work or school themselves.

The only case I remember personally was one of Nakita; a lovely student who was quite shy and timid. She stayed on because her Dad was away on business. However, midsummer she suddenly booked a flight exclaiming her father was back and he would pick her up from the airport in Dubai and would send her back for the start of term. I helped her pack her bags, plan her outfit for travelling. I was known as the laid back teacher, the one that people would go to for help with contraceptives, or relationship advice, mainly because I was not much older than any of the other students themselves, and because I wasn't actually a teacher. I was more of all of their friends, so they trusted me. I took her to the airport in my own car. She never saw her Dad again, though. She signed in Heathrow, but never made it to Dubai. Somewhere between security and boarding gates, she had gone missing and never seen again.

I thought it was a tragic mistake, but only when reporting it to the Head Mistress; she pulled me in and filled me in with the details. Nakita wasn't the only one who disappeared when returning home to their parents. Over the last year, since the mass kidnapping of 24 savant girls, and the 18 confirmed murders and one assumed dead, five school-aged children from Blakeley have gone missing. We can't assume it was due to the same person but it seemed coincidental. They had all said they were going to go home for a period of time but went missing before their flight, never to be seen again. They had reported them to the police but only when Nakita went missing, the fifth one, they had to follow protocol and contact Maui.

Maui was well known within the Government, and within Savant circles. Maui was operating as a black operation within the British Government, under the same disclosure as both M.I.5 and M.I.6 but was for everything Savant related. About two hundred Savant's work there on all different operational basis and more often than not they would take some of our eighteen year old graduates on to train them up. I had admired everyone who had worked at Maui, located in Northern Guildford, and wished I could do the same but my gift was useless for all that detective hunting murderers stuff. When we contacted them, they said they'd look into it and get back in touch when they had sufficient evidence. Within the hour, they called back to Head Mistress, arranging a meeting to discuss it further and the plan of action for tomorrow morning before schooling hours. However, most of those coming up from Guildford for the meeting would arrive today, and take over the Southern barracks as some had children they were bringing with them. But knowing they were brining so many members over, and they were bringing family made by gut drop. What did they know that we don't that caused such a dramatic response?