The sisters had put up candles to pray, making Tom kneel with the other kids in front of a crucifix; a dead god stared at him and Tom couldn't see past his cold, unfocused eyes. There was something very real about the figure, and it was not the fake blood coming from the wounds or the crown of thorns on his temples. Maybe it was only Tom's imagination.
Miss Cole didn't want him near the thin Christmas tree; the figurines of a mother, father, and newborn baby he was holding fell to the floor in a form of silent protest. He wished she could see past the tantrum, he wished she could understand he had just dropped their last chance at making him believe there was something good in the world for him.
"Don't be like that, Tom," Miss Cole began to say, putting a hand on Tom's head and trying to look into his eyes. "The little children want to set up the nativity sets."
Tom wanted to fight her; the words burned on his throat and his head began to pound with the same power that hindered him when it was not let out. Wasn't he a little child too? Why wasn't he as important as Amy or Ben or Harold?
He shook her hand off his head and stepped on the newborn figurine on his way out of the little play room, leaving the tree behind him, already knowing that year would be like the last and no gifts will be set out for him to be opened on Christmas day.
He went to his bedroom and sat on the bed and trying hard not to cry. Snow fell outside, and he almost wished he could be there, freezing under the snow, instead of being in the bare and boring bedroom that made him feel small and powerless.
The covers of his bed were not even warm, anyway, and when night fell and the cold winds blew, shaking the windows, he shivered and tried to forget the biting sensation on his skin. Time passed, and the night was almost over when he finally fell asleep without feeling the cold on his feet anymore; he didn't feel his feet at all, numb with either cold or magic.
The morning came too soon, and Tom didn't waste time dressing up for a breakfast that would consist of cold milk and hard bread. Orphans didn't get much those days, not with a war raging outside. Tom was one of the orphans who got even less, because as much as the sisters say everyone was equal in their god's eyes, the truth is they didn't like Tom and they gave him less and less to see if he died or ran away. It would be a sweeter fate, he guessed, because the thing about equality was that everyone's equal when they're dead. He read those words in passing, in a thick book with many characters, and the words stayed with him.
He turned up for breakfast anyway, because he wouldn't let the sisters win without fighting.
Everyone was already eating, and some of the children didn't even notice he got there. The kids who saw him tried to ignore him, evading his eyes as if he were a monster in their nightmares. It wasn't a bad idea, but Tom's talent hadn't progressed much and he could only see inside their minds and couldn't yet feed them images or thoughts. He wished he could do that already, to make them feel what he felt.
He sat on a lonely table, and the chandelier alive with the flame of five red candles weeped wax, the fire ending their lives. He smiled at his bread (there was porridge on the big table, but the sister only gave him bread and milk, and cold cheese), and it was suddenly bigger, as if the universe could see how hungry he was and tried to feed him so he could grow and get revenge to the people who hated him for being better.
Why couldn't they love him? The same people that claimed to love the snow hated him for being cold and unforgiving, and to his eyes, that was not fair. Nothing was fair.
The snow kept falling, and sometimes the soldiers that passed by the window waved to him, thinking he was one of the good children. He wasn't. He was a cursed child with no love, but he would be strong and brave, and maybe some day the world would be at his feet.