grapefruit, rocky road and cookies 'n' cream with malt and whipped cream
Story: Timeless { backstory | index }
Title: Somewhere That’s Green
Rating: PG
Challenge: Grapefruit #19: mother earth, Cookies ‘n’ Cream #6: hide, Rocky Road #3: yard
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream, malt
Wordcount: 551
Summary: The girls in Foxholt Alley grow up fast.
Notes: The title song broke my heart the first time I heard it. Oh Audrey! Grapefruit PFAH: Isaac : tell me, where is evil bred, in the heart or in the head?
From the window of the dormitory they could see it all.
Isaac’s breath fogged up the glass and he quickly wiped it away again with a series of faint squeaks. Charlie glanced at him in clear irritation and then the two of them glued their noses back to the cold windowpane.
Down in the courtyard in front of the Foxholt Alley Orphanage was a large, gloomy carriage. It was faded and rather dull-looking, pushing away attention at every opportunity. It had no windows, only black boards. It was dark but the two boys-Charlie seven, Isaac six-could just about see the short line of rick-a-bones girls that they had shared their home with for as long as they had been in the orphanage.
“Where are they taking them?” Isaac whispered, cold beginning to needle through his skin and into his bones. Next to him, Charlie frowned as another girl stepped into the carriage.
“Work,” he said simply.
“It’s the middle of the night!”
Charlie sighed loudly.
Another girl with her head low stepped onto the carriage. Her hair was down, slipping like ribbon down her back, gleaming dully in the faint light. Isaac wrinkled his nose.
“That’s Julia,” he said.
“I know.”
“Will she be back?”
“Probably not.”
The girls were calm and quiet; accepting of their fate. The oldest of them was perhaps fourteen.
“Where are they going to work?”
Charlie looked at him despairingly then, brows furrowed over his young but trouble-clouded eyes. What he saw was always very different to what Isaac saw. A momentous occasion: the older boy seemed to take pity on Isaac.
“On a farm, like,” he said gruffly, turning back to the window. “Far away. Lookin’ after geese an’ all that.”
For an embarrassingly long time after that, far longer than Isaac ever admitted to anyone, he believed it-and in his mind Julia and Susan and Clara and Bonnie, Katy and Marissa and Hannah, all of them went somewhere green with lots of daisies and lambs. Somewhere with trees filled with birds and a rich sky like a blue blanket fresh out of a sudsy wash, and a musical river where the girls would wash their feet. He could almost hear them laughing as they ran and misted out of sight amidst the heat-haze of early May, flowers curling over their fingers, flapping dresses nothing more than a warm, blurry glow.
The reverie was shattered when one of the robust men suddenly glanced up towards their window. It was doubtful that he saw anything but the panic seized Isaac by the throat, pummelled his pulse into paroxysms, and both he and Charlie collapsed to the floor, the window above their scruffy hair, backs to the wall.
“Bastards,” Charlie muttered.
Isaac always remembered looking at Charlie then and wondering just how long he’d been in the orphanage. Isaac himself had only been there a month. He had a feeling that Charlie was one of the ones practically born into the place; there was a baby’s ward, up in the attic. They cried and cried and cried.
It explained a lot.
He also always remembered the line of solemn girls, not resisting an inch as the adults controlling their lives pushed them towards a fate indeterminate. He always hoped they reached that farm someday.
Title: Somewhere That’s Green
Rating: PG
Challenge: Grapefruit #19: mother earth, Cookies ‘n’ Cream #6: hide, Rocky Road #3: yard
Toppings/Extras: whipped cream, malt
Wordcount: 551
Summary: The girls in Foxholt Alley grow up fast.
Notes: The title song broke my heart the first time I heard it. Oh Audrey! Grapefruit PFAH: Isaac : tell me, where is evil bred, in the heart or in the head?
From the window of the dormitory they could see it all.
Isaac’s breath fogged up the glass and he quickly wiped it away again with a series of faint squeaks. Charlie glanced at him in clear irritation and then the two of them glued their noses back to the cold windowpane.
Down in the courtyard in front of the Foxholt Alley Orphanage was a large, gloomy carriage. It was faded and rather dull-looking, pushing away attention at every opportunity. It had no windows, only black boards. It was dark but the two boys-Charlie seven, Isaac six-could just about see the short line of rick-a-bones girls that they had shared their home with for as long as they had been in the orphanage.
“Where are they taking them?” Isaac whispered, cold beginning to needle through his skin and into his bones. Next to him, Charlie frowned as another girl stepped into the carriage.
“Work,” he said simply.
“It’s the middle of the night!”
Charlie sighed loudly.
Another girl with her head low stepped onto the carriage. Her hair was down, slipping like ribbon down her back, gleaming dully in the faint light. Isaac wrinkled his nose.
“That’s Julia,” he said.
“I know.”
“Will she be back?”
“Probably not.”
The girls were calm and quiet; accepting of their fate. The oldest of them was perhaps fourteen.
“Where are they going to work?”
Charlie looked at him despairingly then, brows furrowed over his young but trouble-clouded eyes. What he saw was always very different to what Isaac saw. A momentous occasion: the older boy seemed to take pity on Isaac.
“On a farm, like,” he said gruffly, turning back to the window. “Far away. Lookin’ after geese an’ all that.”
For an embarrassingly long time after that, far longer than Isaac ever admitted to anyone, he believed it-and in his mind Julia and Susan and Clara and Bonnie, Katy and Marissa and Hannah, all of them went somewhere green with lots of daisies and lambs. Somewhere with trees filled with birds and a rich sky like a blue blanket fresh out of a sudsy wash, and a musical river where the girls would wash their feet. He could almost hear them laughing as they ran and misted out of sight amidst the heat-haze of early May, flowers curling over their fingers, flapping dresses nothing more than a warm, blurry glow.
The reverie was shattered when one of the robust men suddenly glanced up towards their window. It was doubtful that he saw anything but the panic seized Isaac by the throat, pummelled his pulse into paroxysms, and both he and Charlie collapsed to the floor, the window above their scruffy hair, backs to the wall.
“Bastards,” Charlie muttered.
Isaac always remembered looking at Charlie then and wondering just how long he’d been in the orphanage. Isaac himself had only been there a month. He had a feeling that Charlie was one of the ones practically born into the place; there was a baby’s ward, up in the attic. They cried and cried and cried.
It explained a lot.
He also always remembered the line of solemn girls, not resisting an inch as the adults controlling their lives pushed them towards a fate indeterminate. He always hoped they reached that farm someday.