St. Columb - Chapter Five

V

Meals were remarkably well organized given the fact that the orphanage was at over-capacity. The mess hall was set up youngest to oldest, each child sat with its own age group and a staff member of some sort tried to sit at every other table. I was allowed to help Emma and the two cooks in the kitchen serve the food. The children looked at me with a natural curiosity, some even started a conversation; one particular little red-haired boy quickly stole my heart.
“Hey! You're new! Who are you?” he asked.
“Rachel, and who are you good sir?” I smiled, he blossomed under the compliment; I saw his little chest puff right up and with a grin he replied:
“I'm Max.” he was missing a few of his teeth, and his curly red hair fell in his green eyes.
“Well Max it's a pleasure to meet you. You must be one of the older boys here.”
“I sure am, I'm eight! I'll be nine in April!”
“Eight! My goodness you fooled me, I thought you were older. It must be your height.”
“You think I look older miss?”
“Max my dear I could have sworn you were at least ten.”
“Well golly!” he smiled. This little boy was already becoming one of my favorites. I walked with him to the wastebasket, I noticed that he had left a rather healthy serving of his vegetables untouched.
“Tell me Max, why haven't you eaten those sprouts of broccoli?”
“Because its bloody nasty, I hate broccoli.”
“Ah, yes I did too when I was your age.”
“You did?”
“Oh yes, but I made the mistake of not eating it and I didn't get very tall, well as you can see.”
“It makes you grow tall miss?”
“Why of course, but I didn't have anyone to tell me that. If I did, I would have surely eaten it.”
“You would have? Even if you didn't like it?”
“Yes. Because sometimes you have to do things that you don't necessarily like, in order to do the things you really enjoy. Do you understand?”
“Yes miss I do.” he smiled, accentuating his dimples and freckles. Sitting down at a nearby table, he took up his fork in his little hand; he hesitated for a moment, eying the broccoli sprout as if it were going to attack him; after a moment he soon ate every bite.
“Well Max, what do you think?”
“I think I can feel myself growing taller already miss!”
“Spot on! Before you know it you'll be bigger than Dougan!”
“Yeah! Then I can take him for piggy-back rides!” I laughed, he smiled at me again. “Well I have to go see Miss Stephanie, the schoolmaster. She wants me to go study my multiplication tables. It was nice meeting you miss!”
With that he had already put his dishes in the washtub near the wastebasket and was off.
“You know I've been tryin' to get that boy to eat his vegetables for almost a bloody year now, and here you've been here a few hours and he cleans his plate.” Dougan laughed. I turned to face him, he had cleaned up a bit; his hair was neatly combed back and he was wearing a red shirt with the sleeves rolled up to the elbows. He always seemed to be so bloody distracting.
“Well sometimes you just have to know how to deliver the speech.” I replied, returning his smile.
“I've done that same speech, and it never seemed to work for me. Even though the boy is always askin' me to play a game of Peggity with him.”
“Well he sees you as his competitor. Little boys are striving to be the best, if he were to do what you wanted him to then he would 'loose the edge'. Myself however, he wants to impress me so I use that to my advantage.”
“You really know how to talk to kids.” Dougan smiled sitting down across from me, straddling a chair
“Oh bollocks.” I laughed
“No it's not! You have a gift Rachel, I can tell. I know these things.”
“You do now do you? You have only known me a few hours.”
“That's all I need.”
“And what is my gift, besides convincing little boys to eat their vegetables?”
“You see people, especially children. You are sensitive to their needs and their desires, you don't give a rats arse about what people think as long as the kids are happy.”
“My, my Dougan. And here you are talking about my so called gift, you seem to have a gift for seeing people yourself. Tell me, what else do you see?”
“Hmm....lets have a look.” he smiled, leaning forward and locking eyes with me. For a brief moment, I was hypnotized by his bright blue eyes looking directly into mine; it was as if he could see past them into my very soul. He smiled,
“You're shy by nature, and you enjoy readin'. You also act much older than what you really are.” he smiled. “None of which are bad traits.”
I felt my cheeks grow scarlet again, he had me spot on. How he did it I'll never know, to this day he still baffles me.
“You're a regular Nostradamus. Now let me see what I can tell about you.” I looked him up and down, cradling my chin with my finger; he was still smiling at me. “You sometimes pretend to be a bit of a bad boy, but you're really a softie, especially with the little ones. You also enjoy reading but will never admit it to anyone because that's not the sort of thing men in this day and age do.” I smiled, sitting back and folding my arms triumphantly.
“Now how do you enjoy I enjoy readin'? How do you know its not just some silly little idea that your girlish mind cooked up?” he smiled, tapping my forehead.
“Because, only a fellow reader would notice if another reads.” I laughed, returning the tap.
“Buggar you're right.” he laughed. “You won't tell anyone will you? I have a reputation to keep. If any of the older ones ever got wind of this, I'd have to start whippin' them to get respect.”
“I suppose I can keep that in my back pocket. Oh I have something to talk to you about.”
“Oh boy, what did I do?” he smiled.
“Well do you remember bringing a rather scrawny little blonde-haired girl in here about three years ago for stealing a loaf of bread?”
“Vaguely. Why do you ask?”
“Do you remember my story on the way here? About finding my sister?”
Dougan stared at me a minute, as if he was trying to connect what I was saying. Suddenly his eyes lit up and he sat upright, grasping the back of the chair.
“Cor Blimey! Lyn is your sister! God I'm such a bloomin' fool!” he said slapping his forehead.
“Oh no you're not, how could you have known!”
“Well now that you've said somethin' I was wrackin' my brain to try to figure out why you seemed so bloody familiar. I knew that I had never seen you before in my life, but somethin' kept nagging at me. I know now it was those beautiful eyes you have. They're just like Lyn's.”
“You think my eyes are beautiful do you?” I smiled, enjoying his reaction; his dark complexion became very red and he began to pick at his callous. I was happy he didn't notice that I too was rather red and my heart soared at the compliment.
“Well....I—yes...I mean they're unique...n—not that...that it's a bad thing. I—I think it's rather...cute...I mean beautiful...I mean...oh bloody hell you know what I mean...”
“Thank you Dougan. For both the compliment and for what you did for my sister.” I laughed, touching his hand; I earned a gentle squeeze and a smile in return.
“You're welcome Rachel.”

After dinner, I was introduced to the rest of the staff, they were all quite lovely and I was very satisfied with Emma's choices, she later told me that she may be more particular about who she chooses than I was. Before I retired for the evening, I went to visit Lynsay and spend more time with her. I found that she still sketched and painted a little, something that pleased me greatly; I always enjoyed her work and told her she'd be just as brilliant as Georgia O'Keeffe if she kept at it.
“Oh what a load of bollocks Rachel, Georgia O'Keeffe has an understanding of color and texture that I never will.”
“Poppycock. These are brilliant Lynsay! Oh what's this?” I noticed that there was one tucked inside a folder on her desk.
“Oh please don't look at it, it's not done and to be quite honest I don't think I ever will finish it.” she said, trying to grab it before I could get a hold of it; I proved to be faster than her.
“Now you've only made me curiouser.” I smiled, escaping her grasp and walking to the edge of the bed to avoid it. I opened the folder to find a sketch of myself, sitting on a bench reading with her sitting beside me with an open sketch pad.
“Oh Lynsay...this is beautiful. I should scold you for trying to hide it from me.”
“You think so? I feel like there's something missing, I don't know what but I feel like it's unfinished.” she replied, walking over to my side and looking at the drawing with her head on my shoulder.
“Well if you think it unfinished, then I must trust you're artistic instinct. But you must show it to me when you finally decide it finished.”
“All right, I promise I will.” she smiled at me, taking the folder and placing it back on her desk.

I said goodnight and proceeded to make my way downstairs, when I reached the second floor I hear a peculiar sound coming from the dark end of the hallway. It sounded a bit like whimpering, but as I advanced further I found it to be crying; barely audible but crying nonetheless.
“Hello? Is anyone there?”
I stood and listened, trying to find the source of the noise; I heard rustling underneath the bench by the window, I squatted down and saw a tiny figure moving in the dark.
“It's alright, I won't hurt you. Won't you come out?”
I thought I heard the figure whisper 'yes...' but I wasn't sure. When I helped the child up I noticed it was a young girl with platinum blonde hair and cream-colored skin dressed in a pink nightgown that was a bit too big for her. She was very small, probably less than forty pounds; I would've guessed she was only four or five years old.
“There now, that must be a bit more comfortable than crammed up in that tight space. I believe I saw you at dinner earlier, forgive me but what is your name darling?” I asked, squatting down to her level; I tried to keep my voice soft and calm, this child obviously had a fright and I didn't want to scare her anymore.
“Dona...Dona Austen miss...” she said, her tiny voice barely above a whisper.
“What a pretty name, and how old are you Dona?”
“I'm seven miss...but I don't look it.”
“Well that'll soon change I promise you. Now would you like to tell me why you were hiding? Or would you rather me walk you back to your room?”
Dona turned away, her tiny little gaze lost for a minute; it was as if she was making a life or death decision, I began to worry.
“Well we don't have to do either if you don't want to, we can sit here if you like or we can go somewhere where there's a bit more light. It's whatever you feel most comfortable doing dear.”
“I don't want to go anywhere where's there's light...the monster will find me.” she replied, turning her gaze back to me and grabbing my hand in her tiny fist; her eyes were wide with fear.
“Alright, alright we don't have to go anywhere where's there's light darling. What do you want to do?”
“I suppose you can just take me back to my room....as long as you promise...not to leave me.”
“I promise Dona, I won't leave until your safe.”
I stood up and took her hand in mine, I felt like a giant compared to her and I'm not a tall woman myself. My hand wrapped around hers making it disappear in a case of flesh; I concluded that this poor girl was probably denied the proper nutrition when she was an toddler, therefore attributing to her small size now. We walked downstairs to the first floor, where her room was located; I discovered that she bunked with another little girl a bit older than her.
“There we are, nice and snug.” I said quietly as I tucked her in her bed.
“Thank you Miss Rachel.” she whispered.
“Do you want me to stay with you until you fall asleep?”
“Yes please....if you wouldn't mind miss.”
“Alright, I will.”
“Thank you...I don't think the monster will come if you're here...”
“Monster? What do you mean dear? There are no such thing as monsters, I promise.”
“There is here...” she whispered.
I didn't press the issue any further, I didn't want to upset the child or scare her. I simply sang her a lullaby that my mother used to sing to me, soon she was fast asleep and I took my leave out of the room. I found myself bothered by Dona's last statement....

“There is here...”

I would soon find out that monsters do exist, and that they can come in the most unlikely forms and do the most evil thing imaginable.