Chapter 1
And So It Begins
Seto's faint reflection stared back at him soullessly in the dirty window of Mr Hargreaves black Beatle.
"I…I'm so sorry, children." said the official at the head of the car. "Your mother was a wonderful one to you, you know."
"I know perfectly well." snapped Seto.
"Now, now, let's not get snappy, you have each other now, and, despite the circumstances, you will lead very happy adult lives!"
Seto remembered his mother well. The family was happy. Him, Mokuba, his brother, Mum and Dad, the loving couple. Or, so it seemed at the time. Mum was having an affair with a man at work. He was strange. They did not know his name, appearance, anything. It all started when they were happiest. Seto was 7 and his brother, 2. Mum had revealed the truth about her affair with this man and ordered a divorce. Dad was broken. His lights were shattered, unfixable, destroyed. He had taken them in for 2 years and escaped to a peaceful isolated cottage. There, he wept every night for 2 years, endlessly. Seto was torn between comforting his dad, or Mokuba, who was only 2. He decided to ignore everything, assuming it would go by the next night, but it never did. It seemed nothing would happen as a result, but it did.
Seto was in class, the teacher droning on about civil wars, when all Seto did was stare into the depressed sky, drained of all jollity. He broke from his daydream when the phone on the teacher's desk rang. The teacher picked it up quickly, keen to get on with the lesson.
"Hello, Mrs Haywood speaking. Yes. Yes there is a Seto in our class." Seto looked up spontaneously. "Yes. Oh. I see. Yes, yes, I'll send him straight away……thank you…" Mrs Haywood put the phone down at snail's pace compared to picking it up initially. "Seto, you must wait outside the school gates. There, a man called Alistair will pick you up." Seto knew Alistair well. His name was Alistair Hargreaves, the same man now driving Seto in his Beatle towards who-knows-what.
At the time, Seto was driven to the local mall, where an ambulance was established in the midday rain. Seto could see a trailer, carrying a body, exit. Mokuba was standing opposite Seto, also watching the trailer with his very young eyes. Mokuba noticed Seto, and hurried to him, and started crying.
"Seto…..daddy gone, DADDY GONE!" he wailed.
Seto did not take notice. He simply stared at the trailer with his own eyes. There was his former father, now dead. He wasn't coming back.
By the next 5 minutes, the Beatle stopped outside a grey concrete building with pictures of the sun beaming happily slapped onto the concealed windows. The pictures portrayed happiness, yet Seto knew only too well that inside was a mediocre cloud of depression hanging over the sullen heads of the orphans within. Mr Hargreaves led the children out of the car and onto the path leading to the door.
"Welcome to Wicker House, your new home."