A Bright Star

The Letter

Cassiopeia loved summer. No school, lots of free time, and, recently, the only time she got to see her brother. Well, he wasn't her actual brother, but he was close enough.

See, Cassiopeia didn't know her family. She was an orphan, found on the side of the road by two officers and brought to Wool's Orphanage when she was a few months old. And here she remained.

Cassiopeia wasn't the most liked resident at the orphanage. Many kids thought she was weird. Truthfully, Cassiopeia thought she herself was weird too.

Whenever she grew too angry little accidents would occur.

Once, a few older kids had pushed her into a lake during a field trip, knowing she couldn't swim. Somehow, Cassiopeia had been able to breathe underwater during her panic and once she pushed herself back to shore a huge wave came from the lake, knocking the older kids down and soaking them to the bone. They had felt cold for two weeks after that incident, no matter how many blankets the matron had given them they couldn't get warm.

Another time, when Cassiopeia was eight, she had been picked to live with a foster family. She was with three other foster kids, two boys and another girl, all older than her. Cassiopeia had thought she could finally be part of a family and someone would finally love her.

Except the love she received wasn't the type she had wanted.

Her foster father had paid special attention to her, something her foster siblings noticed. They took care to keep Cassiopeia with them at all times, except one night they couldn't. Their foster mother had been working late and Alec and Ben, her foster brothers, had a football game. Liza was staying over at a friend's house, leaving Cassiopeia home alone. That was the first night her foster father touched her and that night shocked, afraid, and frozen, Cassiopeia had lost her first kiss.

Things continued to grow, her foster father finding any excuse to be alone with her until one day, weeks later, he stumbled drunkenly into the room she shared with Liza. Both girls woke up with a start at the loud bang of the door against the wall. When he had stumbled and collapsed on top of Cassiopeia, Liza had run out, banging their brothers doors to wake them up. However, their help hadn't been needed. The moment he had attempted to pull Cassiopeia's pants down, something, a force, had crashed out at the man, slamming him into the closet doors.

Liza, Alec, and Ben had rushed into the room tripping over themselves to find a tearful Cassiopeia curled together on the bed and their foster father knocked out cold on the ground feet away. Her social worker appeared the next morning and Cassiopeia never saw her foster family again.

Cassiopeia had never been able to figure out what she had done. Or if it was even her. Maybe, just maybe she had a guardian angel looking out for her.

On her return to Wools the other kids seemed almost scared of her. Like they thought she'd use her "force" and attack them too. So they stayed away. And Cassiopeia was lonely and hated them for how they made her feel. She had already been abandoned by her family, tossed away on the side of the road like garbage.

Even amongst those with no family, she was an outsider. Never belonging. Never loved.

If only the matrons of the orphanage ignored her as much as the kids, maybe then Cassiopeia wouldn't have felt as bitter as she did. Because while the kids ignored her, the matrons never hesitated to remind her that she was a devil child and that no good soul would ever love her. Well, that was alright, Cassiopeia thought, because if having a good soul meant hitting kids with anything within reach and berating them like the matrons did then she didn't want to be a good soul.

The highlight of her life came when Cassiopeia was 9. Cassiopeia's class had a field trip that was joined by the older years. There, they had a buddy system - one older student paired with a younger. Cassiopeia had been paired with Harry Potter, and the two became each other's first friend. They understood each other, both orphans and both bitter about the 'loving' care they received.