Hollow: A Fallen Angel Novel

CHAPTER II

The next few days felt like a waking nightmare. My world was an empty grey bubble. I was looking forward to seeing Marie at the end of the week, but that too turned out to be a lie. Ms. Bernstein informed me that I too would be leaving Saint Michael's Orphanage for the Destitute, and like all big decision in my life, this one was sprung on me at the last minute.

I barely had the day to get my things together and to say goodbye to the friends that had become my family. Jane wept, it was terrible, her mascara ran down her cheeks like black tears. Ms. Bernstein led me down the lonely corridors as though I was sentenced to death. At the great front gates were my new wardens, Mr. and Mrs. McFarlane.

"Alexandra!" Cried Mrs. McFarlane in a high shrill voice of excitement.

She was a... portly woman... rotund maybe? She kind of looked like a barrel in a yellow dress, her arms wobbling as she enthusiastically waved to me, her new daughter. The words made me sick. Mr. McFarlane seemed the very opposite, straight-backed in a smart black suit. His hawkish eyes watched my every move in silence, their gaze so precise that you almost didn't see how far back his grey hair had receded.

"Come here, darling!" Mrs. McFarlane said taking me in a great bear hug.

I didn't know what to do. I felt so numb. My whole world was being ripped away from underneath me. I hated Saint Michael's so much that I guess I had begun to love it. I felt guilty, what made me so special to escape from these bleak walls? All my friends, my family, were here. I was leaving them. Little Marie, she was gone, but what if she came back? I wouldn't be here.

Mrs. McFarlane squeezed me tighter and my arms just hung to the sides like they belonged to a dead squid. I felt so hollow.

"What's wrong, my dear?" She said in her shrill voice, "we're so happy to finally meet you! Don't you want to meet us?"

I couldn't find words. They just weren't there.

Mr. McFarlane huffed, "Thank you, Ms. Bernstein."

He turned and opened the front doors and held them as his wife and I left the building. I didn't look back.

They led me down the cracked stone stairs to a sleek Mercedes waiting on the kerb outside the black gates. It shimmered gun metal grey in the winter sun. Mr. McFarlane looked back at me as he stood by the open driver's door.

"Don't scratch the leather." He said before slipping behind the wheel.

We took off from the sidewalk in awkward silence. Who were these people? They were strangers to me, but somehow the state deemed them my legal guardians now. Do I call them Mum and Dad?

"Oh, we're going to have so much fun," Mrs. McFarlane said as her face craned over the headrest in front of me.

Her voice had lost the shrill excitement it had when she first greeted me, but her perfect white teeth shone out in a smile all the same. She looked at me with her crystal blue eyes in expectation of a reply. I only just realised I hadn't even said hello yet.

"I can't wait," I managed to say, but even I could hear the lack of honesty in my tone.

"Neither can we, darling." She beamed, "you will absolutely love it in Williston."

"Williston?" I had never heard of the place.

"In North Dakota, our flights this afternoon."

It was at that moment that my heart split in two and a great fire spilt out from its bloody remains. I was both distraught and enraged.