Daughter of the Moon

The Orphanage

Eleven years later, the alarm clock was making a deafening sound, so all the orphans were awake in a sec. Hya climbed out of her bed, for she was nearest the clock, and turned it off quickly. All the children were now out of bed, sleepy and in the same pyjamas, and walked out of the little attic room into the bathrooms. There was one girl's bathroom and one for the boys, and the attic was divided too, with a low wall between the girl's and boys.
A little later, they all sat down by the tables for breakfast. It was always toast or muesli, but nobody complained. Here it was better than in orphanages in other towns, they had heard. But it was a little boring. They were with 40 children from different ages, two of them just babies, half of them 4 to 10 years old, and the rest 11 to 17. When you became 18, you could leave the orphanage, but you could also apply for a job inside. Nobody has done that yet.

It was the 1st of August, and it was Hya's birthday. But she was not that happy. Looking expectingly out of the window, she saw that it was raining very hard. She would have liked it if the sun was shining, then she could go out in the village and buy something for herself. Normally they only might go out on very special occasions, like Christmas, the beginning and end of the holidays, and your birthday. Hya turned her around sadly back to her plate, where two toasts stupidly lay with marmelade on it.
She wanted to cry, never had she had a very nice birthday, as nobody could buy something for her and the only thing she got from the orphanage was a stupid song and a single piece of cake, and a balloon that was attached to your chair. It was always boring there, because the village in which they lived wasn't very big and there was only one toy-store, which was very expensive. So most of the time they sat in the classrooms which were in the orphanage, and in the garden.
But now even playing hide-and-seek couldn't be done on her eleventh birthday. No, she had to sit and talk a little with some other girls, if they wanted to listen. It was not that she was bullied, but she had no friends and was very lonely. Well, she hàd had friends. Her loneliness began when there were strange things happening around Hya.
That was a few years ago, maybe when she was seven years old, but it felt like all her life. She was playing hide and seek with as price a ball, something everybody wanted, and Hya just couldn't find a hiding place. All the good ones were occupied, and the seeker was already very nearby ... So Hya panicked and disappeared. She was standing in the middle of the garden, everyone could see her, but then not any more. She was not there, or so it seemed. All the children looked for her for ages, but when they had to go to lunch, Hya was standing by the tree were the seeker stood, and said she had been there almost the whole time. She didn't get the ball though, where everyone thought her to be a liar. From that moment on, nobody liked her very much.
And no sooner than one week later, when Hya was very sad because there was no marmelade anymore and she had to eat her toast dry, there was a jar of marmalade out of nothing standing beside her. Some thought she had lied and had stolen it from the kitchens, but Hya knew better. Maybe some other kid had done it to get her in trouble. And yes, she got in trouble for that. She had to wash all the clothes.
Then there happened all kind of things, her pencils were broken, but when she wanted to throw them away, they were just as new. Nobody understood what could have happened this time, only that she might have stolen another time. Hya was very unhappy that people thought she could steel, when she never stole anything from anyone.
Hya looked down at her plate, trying to hide the tears now gliding down from her eyes. She closed her eyes, and thought how this day would have been if she would had her parents still. Hya hid her face in her hands, for she was now crying. The only thing she knew was that she was found in the house of a man, mr. Lane, but that she couldn't have been his daughter, for he never had a wife or girlfriend. Mrs. Peaky had told her that, mrs. Peaky was the coördinator of the orphanage. The neighbour had heard cries from mr. Lane's house, and the door stood open. There he found mr. Lane, dead, and Hya.
But what if mr. Lane was her father? But then, hadn't she a necklace, that looked like a diamond? And what was enscribed in the necklace? There stood Hya Moon. Not, Hya Lane. To be fair, she was called Hya Lane now, because she was founded there and Moon might have been her middle name, or that from her mother. But nobody knew for sure.
Hya drew away her hands and looked down at her plate. Her eyes were still a little watery, and Hya wiped them off with her sleeve. She thought she might go insane, when she saw that, instead of the toast, there was now a smile on her plate. Eyes from backed eggs, a mouth from bacon, and a nose that was a strawberry. Stunned, she took the plate and shoved it a little closer to herself, then she let her hair be a sort of curtains, so nobody could see what she ate..
It was delicious, she had never had such a good breakfast. Smacking her lips, she looked at the other girls on her table, busy in conversation. She had eaten it very fast, so on everybody else's plates was still food. Hya thought it might be better for her to go away from the table, for nobody wanted to talk to her, expect when the were insulting her. Walking back to the attic, she heard a scared scream in the hallway. Running towards the sound, she saw that mrs. Peaky was standing by the door, while an owl sat on a table nearby. It had a letter attached to its leg.