The Queen Of Hearts

Chapter 1

Dumping the parcel on the sturdy desk, Kara sat down on the edge of her bed and turned the envelope over, letting the occupants of it slide out into her hand. With a small crease between her eyebrows, Kara stared down at the red playing card in her hand with a baffled look on her face and turned it around to find herself looking down at the Ace of Diamonds, the tiny red diamonds and A's staring up at her from opposite corners of the card. There was writing in an unfamiliar handwritten across the large red diamond in the middle, and Kara's blonde hair fell around her shoulders as she bowed her head, frowning as she read what was written on it.

Winn Schott.

Blinking in surprise at the name scrawled in neat block letters in a black biro, Kara frowned slightly. She knew Winn - not that they were friends - and she wondered why she'd been sent the Ace of Diamonds with his name written on it in an unmarked envelope slipped into her pigeonhole. They'd never spoken before. He was captain of the I.T. club, a genius in science class, and ran the weekly Dungeons and Dragons game for him and two other students in an abandoned classroom on the second floor. Their circles had never collided, and Kara turned the card over in her hand, staring at the unmarked red-patterned back of the ordinary playing card before she pulled open the drawer of her side table and tossed it inside. There was nothing else in the envelope and she crumpled it up and tossed it into the trash, opening the parcel from Eliza and digging into a homemade chocolate chip cookie as she opened her laptop and brought up her half-finished essay of The Great Gatsby and squared her shoulders as she settled in to do her homework until dinner time.

The sun was starting to set when she rubbed her tired eyes, jostling the plastic frames of the glasses perched on her nose, and stared out at the blindingly bright rays of sunlight disappearing over the fringes of the fiery trees, just to the left of the hazy mountains, and she shut her window as a chill seeped in. Smoothing the grey skirt of her uniform, she made sure she had her room key and walked out into the hallway, passing open doors to other dorms, where music drifted out of and stepping over the legs of girls sitting along the base of the wall, chatting and laughing, and made her way downstairs, slipping back into the main area of the school. 

The sprawling mansion was old, filled with old antique clocks and vases and stuffed velvet wingback chairs and Persian rugs, and Kara had to admit that she liked the dusty smell, the cosy wood panelled walls, the high arched windows and the flagstones courtyards outside, and the heavy leather-bound books in the old section of the library. Being sent away to boarding school had been a big adjustment to her when she'd first been sent to St. Rao's - she'd always been homeschooled with private tutors - but she'd found it easier in some ways. Kara still missed her parents, and she wasn't sure if she would've been able to stay at home with her new mom, because as kind as Eliza was - if a little unavailable due to her work - she wasn't Kara's mother, and Kara didn't want to have to struggle with the guilt of feeling ungrateful for the fact that she'd been so graciously taken into the family. She'd even been given their surname, a thing she'd strongly objected to and was still getting used to. Being sent to boarding school had been somewhat of a blessing - only somewhat though.

As Kara entered the dining hall, the trestle tables spanning the length of the massive room, she immediately spotted her sister sitting with her friends, and Kara felt a flicker of sadness inside - she'd thought that having Alex here at school with her would've been a good thing, but her sister was so insistent on pretending that she didn't have a new sister that she barely spared Kara a quick glance whenever they crossed paths. She never told Eliza of her problems with Alex, because her adoptive mother was trying so hard to be a good replacement for Kara, calling her three times a week to check up on her, sending her snacks and gifts every so often, and Kara didn't want to sow discord between Alex and her mom. 

She couldn't even fault Alex for resenting her, because she was like a cuckoo - a fully sized cuckoo that had barged its way into an already full nest with no warning. It was difficult for them both. Ignoring her sister, Kara made her way to the buffet set out at the back of the room, filling a tray up with food and choosing a seat in an empty section along the second table that spanned the hall. She'd brought The Great Gatsby with her to refresh her memory on some key points for her essay, and she pored over the book as she made her way through the shepherd's pie they were serving for dinner, occasionally letting her eyes wander around the room as she ate. 

Very briefly, she met Alex's eyes, giving her sister a tiny smile and feeling her heart sink when Alex scowled at her, and she kept finding her eyes wandering over to Winn, the weedy boy with a shock of mousy hair that always seemed to be sticking up on end and who always carried around figurines and had his shirt neatly tucked in beneath his school sweater. She stared at him intensely, trying to figure out why his name had been on a playing card delivered to her pigeonhole and was still in the midst of trying to figure out the puzzle when a snarky voice came from behind her.

"Got a crush on the super geek have you, Danvers?" Veronica Sinclair drawled, and Kara felt her cheeks turn red at the realisation that she'd been caught staring at Winn, and her shoulders were hunched nearly up to her ears as she ducked her head down.

There was a melodic laugh behind her, and Kara felt her stomach twinge slightly at the sound. She'd been hoping for a good year this year, and so far, it wasn't off to a great start - an interesting one, perhaps, but not great - and the appearance of the girls behind her made Kara wish that she could truly turn invisible. It wouldn't have been so bad if she'd just been completely ignored and shunned to the side, being the friendless loser until she could graduate and go off to one of the Ivy League colleges she had her eyes on, but she was the friendless loser who wasn't allowed to be overlooked. 

Her head came up slightly and she turned to peek over her shoulder, her eyes seeking out the raven dark hair and the sharp green eyes, and she had to bite back a groan at the smirk playing on Lena's lips. Of all the people Kara had to have a secret crush on, she cursed herself for having one on the resident popular mean girl, with her posse of arrogant bitches who took any opportunity to embarrass some of the social outcasts, which unfortunately for Kara, included her. Lena Luthor. She'd caught Kara's eye the second she'd been sent to boarding school, and apparently, Kara had caught hers too, but not in quite the way she'd hoped. 

For three years she'd been the butt of cruel jokes and rumours, mean pranks and taunting, and she was hoping that this year would be different. She was almost sixteen now, and so was Lena, and she'd thought that maybe she would've changed over the summer - her mom was a surgeon too, and they'd been at a few garden parties and mixers together, not speaking but Lena hadn't been mean to her either, which was a win in Kara's book - but apparently Lena and her gang were up to their usual antics.

"Nerd love," Gayle snorted, and the group of pretty girls that surrounded Lena all burst into laughter, making Kara's cheeks turn even redder.

Finding herself tongue-tied, as she was prone to being in the presence of Lena, Kara buried her face in her book and tried to pretend that they weren't there, knowing the back of her neck was red as she shovelled mash into her mouth. There were a few more jibes and then they moved on, no doubt out to find their next target, and Kara finished her food quickly, dumping her tray and walking out of the dining hall at a brisk pace. 

She turned around once, scanning the sea of faces and finding Lena watching her with an unreadable expression on her face. Feeling herself flush, Kara quickly ducked her head down and doubled her pace back up to her room. Foregoing a night in the common room, she changed into a pair of expensive pale blue flannelette pyjamas and climbed into bed, listening to music while she reread her book, and by the time she finished it, her eyes were burning and itching to close. 

Before she took her glasses off and went to bed, she pulled the playing card back out of the drawer and looked at it closely, wondering what it could mean, before she tossed it back inside and switched off her lamp. She slept restlessly that night, too many thoughts swirling around in her mind, and she still couldn't make heads or tails of it when she woke up early the next morning, the sky a dusky blue and the view outside her window still all shadows as she breathed in the sharp coldness of the fresh air through the open window.