Freaks

7 • beginning

"Like a new beginning," Aunt Victoria agrees.

A new beginning. I liked that, and I tell them as such. They respond with content smiles, as if relieved that for once, they had finally done something right.

❧

I didn't realise I had fallen asleep until I was woken up.

"We're here?" I ask my aunt, just as she retracts her hand from my shoulder which she had been lightly nudging for the past minute.

Aunt Victoria nods. "Ted's just getting your stuff out the trunk."

I follow her out the car and look up to stare at the building.

It was an airport.

Of course. Morgana wouldn't exactly have had her school in a location an hour or so drive's away from my home. After all her talk about how essential it was for me to keep this a secret, just as much as keeping my real name a secret, it would've been pitiful if that had been the case.

Yet, in its own way, being in an airport felt just as mundane. Uncle Ted passes me the hand of my two-wheeled hand luggage while I continue to observe everyday citizens and tourists move past us in busy jangles and with boisterous steps, despite the fact it was only eight in the morning.

My relatives and I begin to head in the same direction as them when we are called back.

"Miss Sparke?" one of the dark suited men calls. "It's this way."

I follow the direction his hand is pointing towards till I end up staring at an empty hall.

"Oh, okay," I reply surprised. We turn around and begin to walk to behind the men.

"Sorry, ma'am," another one of the men say, stepping in front of my aunt and uncle. "Not you two. Just Miss Sparke can go on from here."

A distressed look appears on uncle Ted's face, while Aunt Vic's forehead creases with worry.

"Are you sure we can't at least accompany her for a bit longer?" she asks in a pleading tone.

"We're all she has," Uncle Ted chimes in.

"Again, we're sorry but we can't do that. There are safety checks we have to maintain," the first man replies stoically.

"You can say your final goodbyes to Miss Sparke now, but we can't take you further," the last man, who I hadn't realised was actually a woman tells us, with a more apologetic voice.

Uncle Ted and Aunt Victoria look at each other. Then at me. I cautiously approach them to wrap them in a final hug.

"I'll be okay," I assure them.

"We know," my uncle sighs. "But we'll worry anyway."

"I know," I say with a small smile. After another moment, we pull away. "Tell Andrew I said bye, okay?"

"We will. Though, it's a shame he couldn't make it," Aunt Vic comments, a frown still weighing down her lips.

"He said his dad wanted him to go somewhere with him," I shrug. "Though, I think this is easier without him here. At least we don't have to start explaining them," I nudge my head in the direction of our accompaniment, "to him."