Please excuse any typos/misspelling from the previous chapter, and undoubtedly in this one too!

Reviews would be greatly appreciated.

Mm, yes, the first chapter was super short, sorry. *Sheepish Grin*

!ALERT!

I reposted this chapter, as something went wrong in the technological void beyond my computer, and a part of the chapter was posted twice. My deepest apologies for this inconvenience.

Sage

The incessant tinkling of the morning bell pulled the girls from their refreshing world of dreams and back into the real, often painfully harsh world they lived in during their waking hours.

Christy sat up quickly, startled by the noise, but immediately regretted her hasty movement when her muscles constricted. Groaning, she rubbed her sore back. The pallet they had slept on the night before was much less than desirable for a bed. The cold stone floor was more inviting than the splintery wood pallet pocked with nail heads, she reflected.

She glanced at Anne. The younger girl's large gray eyes were open, but she seemed still asleep. Christy reached out, almost tentatively, and ran her hand down her younger sister's face. Anne's eyes slid to meet Christy's. She smiled sadly, then sat up and glanced, almost angrily, around the room.

Neither girl said anything, but words were not needed. They dressed quickly, Christy helping with Anne's difficult buttons, and then pulled the blankets up over the pallet, striving to obtain some sense of order and normalcy in their otherwise un-orderly and un-normal lives.

Christy was gathering the dishes from yesterday's meal and Anne was sitting quietly on the pallet when the door opened and a rather cross looking woman poked her head into the room. Her narrow, glaring eyes took in the room, Christy, and Anne in one shriveling glance, and then she opened her mouth and spat words in their direction, as if she were dispensing poison. "Well, if it isn't our new arrivals." She paused and glared pointedly at Anne, as if it were her fault, and her's alone, that she and Christy had come to live at the orphanage, then continued. "l hope you will not continue the tardiness, you have kept us all waiting."

"Pardon my ignorance, but I fear I do not know of what you speak." Christy managed to keep her voice polite, but she felt the anger within, anger which had grown on all the uncertainty and difficulty of the past few years, rising to the surface. The woman's lips pleated. "Oh, I suppose you wouldn't know that human beings take part in a morning ritual called breakfast."

The woman's words broke off abruptly as she slammed the door, effectively ending the conversation. Christy's jaw tightened, and her hands were curled so firmly around the bowls she'd retrieved from the floor that her knuckles had turned white.

"What did we do?" Anne's voice was small and dejected in the still room. At her sister's voice, Christy started. She dropped the bowls, not caring that they shattered on the stone floor, and hurried to Anne's side. "Nothing. We didn't do anything. Anne, you must believe me." Christy grasped Anne's chin and lifted her face so that their eyes met. "There is nothing wrong with you, Anne. Just because some pig of a woman decides it's her duty to discipline innocent children in such a way doesn't mean you have something wrong with you." She sank to the pallet beside Anne and gathered her sister into her arms. "Anne, dear, we have absolutely nothing wrong with us, other than the fact that we lost our family. We may be different, but it isn't in a bad way, we just collided with trouble a little earlier than most, and we must learn to deal with it...a little earlier than most. Do you understand?"

Something pounded behind Christy's temples, something angry and very much alive. It pulsed beneath the surface, waiting to break free, waiting for its chance. She rubbed her throbbing head, then glanced down at Anne. Her sister, eyes like the open pages of a book, was studying Christy, her lower lip firmly entrapped between gnawing teeth. "If there is nothing wrong with us, why did ithappen to us?" Anne's voice was barely above a whisper, and Christy could hear the obvious inflection of tears behind the husky, wavering words.

"Oh Anne, I don't know how to explain it, other than it is God's will, and He alone knows why...our parents died, why no one wanted to take us in, why we are stuck in this dreadful, never ending circle of orphanages."

Anne nodded, her hair rubbing against Christy's throat. "I think I understand. I just don't know why He would allow this if He loved us so much." Christy sighed. "Anne, dear, let's not discuss it. I'm hungry, and those shattered pieces need picked up. We can discuss this...and another matter, some other time."

She released Anne, and they both rose and began collecting the shattered remnants of the bowls from the floor. Christy's vision was strangely blurry, and it wasn't until she wiped a hand across her eyes that she realized she was crying. Something about her own words, something about the shattered pieces- she froze, hand suspended over the floor. Shattered pieces. Her heart, in shattered pieces. Her life, in shattered pieces. She glanced at Anne. Her Anne, in shattered pieces.

After collecting the broken dishes, Christy and Anne had ventured from the seclusion of their room. A confusing network of halls surrounded their room, and they would have gotten lost it it weren't for the noise coming from the dining area. They tiptoed down the hall the noise was coming from, pausing only to dump the shattered pieces into the nearest trash bin.

Peering around the corner, they instantly spied the woman from earlier, and a slew of rowdy children quite obviously drastically ranging in age. Christy pulled back and leaned against the wall, breathing deeply.

She must not show fear, not in front of Anne. She straightened her skirt and hair, grabbed Anne's hand, and lifted her chin. She stepped around the corner and nearly collided with a young man.

Anne started, and Christy had to bite her lip to keep from crying out, though she knew her eyes would betray her. The young man appeared to be about her age, though his clothes were a good bit more well taken care of, and his eyes held a hint of amusement, a trait that Christy had lost long ago.

"Well, what have we here?" The boy shoved his hands into his pockets, but promptly pulled them back out, as if he had been burned, and extended one. "Name's Peter...miss." Christy lifted a brow, and her eyes darkened dangerously.

As she had intended, Peter noticed. His mouth fell open, and he glanced from she to Anne, his eyes showing his sudden offence. "My gosh, I didn't mean no harm, miss uppity." The tenseness in Christy's entire being faded suddenly, and she felt an excruciating embarrassment creep into its place. She extended her hand, and took Peter's, which he seemed very near dropping to his side. "I, ah, apologize for my conduct...Peter."

The boy smiled crookedly. "No offense taken. Say, you the new girls?" Christy nodded. "Yes." She groped for a proper continuation, but proprieties, long unused, evaded her clutching hands. Instead, she asked, "Would there possibly be a chance that my sister and I could have a bite to eat?"

Peter nodded. "Course! Follow me." The boy turned and sauntered back into dining hall, leaving the girls no choice but to follow. Inwardly shrinking, Christy lifted her chin once more and stepped into the hall. Much to her great relief, the room did not go quiet, and only a few children looked their way.

Something touched her arm, and Christy jumped. She took a deep, shaky breath, then turned to Peter and smiled bravely. "I don't know why I'm so jumpy." She glanced down at the open seats in front of her. "Are these ours?" Peter nodded seriously, but Christy could see the amusement sparkling in his eyes.

Christy stepped over the bench, smoothed her skirt, and sank to the hard wooden plank. When Anne followed suit, Christy looked up at Peter, but he'd gone. Anne's cold fingers gripped her arm, and Christy could feel the fear radiating through her younger sister's entire being. She patted Anne's hands, then reached for the bowls set in front of their seats.

"Here Anne, let's eat."

Sorry - again - for another short chapter, it was just convenient to end it there, rather than drag it out until the next convenient ending.