Queenie sighed and watched the raindrops on the cracked window pane, seeing them collect on the rotting ledge at the bottom. Her gaze wandered to the wall, which had dark, speckled patches of damp that would rub off and stain her clothes if she brushed her arm against it. Sanctuary Children's Home Detroit was falling apart. It was underfunded, and none of the staff did any more than their wage required, which was to make sure the children didn't kill each other. This meant the building was dirty, food was cheap, education was poor and the children learned to look out for themselves. Weak or timid boys and girls would not last long.

Queenie spent most of her time alone. She had no interest in the other children, who still ran to the door every time mail came through in hope it might be from family. No-one sent mail for Queenie. She had long come to terms with the fact that no-one cared about her. This meant she didn't have any friends. She was fat, sullen, and worst of all, got perfect grades, which made her a popular target for teasing, but her tormentors soon gave up once they realised they wouldn't get a rise out of her.

The distorted doorbell rang, forcing Queenie out of her sulk. The new kid gets here today, she remembered. She hoped it would be a quiet one, not another one of those idiots who thought they owned the place.

She heard a distant voice from the front door, "welcome to Sanctuary, Daniel." Christa gave the same false welcome to every kid when they arrived at the children's home. "We hope you'll settle right in here. This is your home now, and we are your family." Of course, she didn't really mean this. Christa was the manager, and only pretended to care about the children when more important people were present. The rest of the time, she was pretty much uninvolved, earning the nickname "Miss Hannigan". Queenie could also hear quiet sobs. Another pussy, fantastic.

The footsteps of Christa and the new child got louder, until they emerged into the living room where Queenie was sitting. He was a small boy, about eight years old by Queenie's reckoning, wearing a dark blue T-shirt and a checked hoodie with jeans and trainers and a red baseball cap.

"This is Queenie. She's been here a long time, so she can tell you anything you need to know if you ask her," Christa said in her fake caring voice. "Say hi, Queenie."

"Hi," Queenie glanced up at him. His dark eyes met hers, wide as a deer's, his soul reaching out to hers. He was about to cry again. He's gonna get torn apart in this place, Queenie thought. She toyed with the idea of taking the boy under her wing, but she didn't particularly want him on her hands. She looked down again, burying her guilt in the pages of her book as Daniel was ushered to the next room, sniffling.

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The earring was round and smooth. Queenie lay on her bed, tracing the pattern that was engraved into the wood. It was a complicated pattern. It looked a little like a plus sign, but with other symbols surrounding it, like leaves, curlicues, crude stars and smaller plus signs. Queenie didn't know what the pattern meant or where it was from; she pored over countless books about various tribes and cults, trying to find even a scrap of information about the earring or the mysterious mother who had abandoned her as a baby in 1999. The earring was all Queenie knew of her.

She felt her bed shift, and hastily stuffed the earring back into her drawer.

"Hey," Daniel said in a timid voice. "Umm...do you want to play cards with me?" He was blushing now, and wrung his hands as he waited for her response.

"Why don't you play with some of the boys?"

"I asked them, but they didn't want to play with me," Daniel tried to blink back tears. He was clearly bewhildered, stressed and scared. Queenie sighed.

"Alright then," she sat up and faced him. "What are we playing?"

"Blackjack? You ever played it?"

Queenie shook her head.

"Well, you have to try and get rid of all your cards first," he explained as he dealt the cards, "you start with eight cards, and we take turns putting a card down on the facing up pile, but you can only put down a card if it's the same suit or the same number as the the one on the top of the pile."

"What if I don't have a card I can put down?" Queenie asked.

"Then you have to pick one up off the facing down pile," he was smiling now, grateful that she hadn't brushed him off yet, "that makes the game harder."

"Okay, is that it?"

"No. If someone puts down a black jack, the next person has to pick up five cards unless they put down a red jack, then they're safe. If someone puts down a two, the next person picks up two cards. And if someone puts down an eight, the next person misses a go. Do you get it?"

They played four games, and each won two. Queenie was slightly put off by the boy's childishness, but grateful for the company. This was better than spending her evenings alone, like she normally did. For some reason, his innocent smile and long eyelashes made Queenie smile. I hope he doesn't get hurt in this place.

"Daniel," she asked.

"Yeah," he looked at her with wide eyes.

"Why is it called Blackjack?"

He thought for a moment. "I don't know."

"They could have called it 'Pick Up Two' or 'Miss a Go' or something. The black jacks are only a small bit of the game."

"It's weird, isn't it? Why are the black jacks more important than all the other cards? How come they get the game named after them? And some of the cards don't mean anything, they're just...ignored."

Queenie silent for a while as she thought about that idea, "like us."

"But we won't ignore each other, will we?" Daniel pleaded, "we're friends, right?" He blushed as he realised the forwardness of his question.

"Yeah, friends."

"You know, now we're friends, you can call me Danny of you like."

"Okay. Night, Danny."

Queenie slept slightly happier that night. It was strange to have a friend, someone to care about, and to care about her. It made her feel like everything would be slightly better. He was like a ray of hope. A light in her otherwise grey world.

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Queenie ran her thumb over the earring as she remembered that night playing cards with Danny. The texture of the smooth wood was a comfort, the only constance in her tumultuous life. It had been with her always: at the children's home where she gchesrew up, at the house she'd squatted in whlie she was working at Chubbie's. She'd squeezed it in her fist when she'd lied to Cordelia about her age, afraid that she would send her back to the children's home if she admitted she was only thirteen years old.

That was a year ago now, and she had proved to Cordelia that she was independent enough to be there despite her young age. That morning, she'd visited Cornrow City, Marie Laveau's hair salon. Being with the Voodoo queen was the closest Queenie had ever felt to belonging somewhere. The girls at Robichaux's were her sisters; she would risk her life for them, but they'd had it easy growing up. As much as she tried to get over it, she still saw them as self-obsessed and privileged. The Voodoo witches were different; they knew hardship as well as she did.

The salon was pretty much the same as it had been left on the day of the massacre. The blood had been cleared, and the bodies removed, but the place was littered with broken furniture and tangled wigs. Queenie's stomach twisted; she hadn't lived with the Voodoo witches for long, but they had been a refuge she'd needed when the academy became too much.

The thing she really missed was the Voodoo queen herself. While she was tough and ruthless, Marie had consoled her and nurtured her powers, and Queenie had felt a bond grow between them, a bond she didn't fully understand, but seemed to fill a hole in her heart. Queenie visited the salon every day, looking for magical trinkets, Voodoo spells, cultural ornaments, or anything that could help her find out about her heritage, her past and the enigmatic Voodoo queen. Yesterday she had found nothing new, but she returned anyway, sure that something of great importance still eluded her.

Today, she had come prepared. The previous evening, while leafing through one of the Voodoo books she had brought back to Miss Robichaux's, Queenie had found an ancient dowsing method. It was apparently used for finding information that would aid a person in their given path. Queenie wasn't sure she believed in a "given path" or "destiny", but it couldn't hurt to try the method. Like a lot of Voodoo magic, it involved blood sacrifice, so she had sterilised and pocketed a small ritual knife. Queenie cleared her mind as best she could, and drew the blade lightly across her right palm. "San an ap mennen wout la ' sou chemen bay m'yo." The Haitian spell would enchant the blood, causing it to run hot and fast in the direction the information the dowser needed, cooling and clotting if the dowser moved further away. She held her hand face-up and waited for the blood to rise.

As the spell began to work, she felt a painful heat in her hand, and blood spurted from her palm, flowing in the direction of Marie Laveau's throne room. Queenie followed, choking on a scream as the heat became unbearable. It will only stop when I find what I'm looking for. By now, it was gushing from her hand and she started to feel faint. Frantically, she staggered around the room, waving her hand over everything to no avail in hope the blood would stop.

Queenie collapsed on the steps, her right hand falling under the throne and resting on a simple wooden box with a golden clasp. As if a tap inside it had been turned off, the hand suddenly stopped bleeding.