Gwen and Raven return from their nightly visit to their secret cave behind the waterfall, suppressing giggles as they sneak back into the Orphanage just after two in the morning. They come in through the back door of the chapel, going into the balcony; they find the small door that leads to the attic loft, which runs the entire expanse of the Orphanage. They follow it to Gwen’s small attic bedroom, which is just off of the loft. Then, they go their separate ways; Gwen to her bedroom, leaving Raven to sneak back downstairs and to his room, which is just two doors down from the base of the steps.
Gwen changes into her nightclothes, some pajama bottoms and an oversized T-shirt, and gets into bed, pulling the covers up around her chin.
“Darkana,” she chants in her native tongue and the lights in her tiny, closet-size bedroom turn off, throwing the room into total darkness. She rolls onto her side and tries to fall asleep.
As she lies there, she tries to think pleasant, soothing thoughts, but she keeps feeling distracted as though something is beckoning her back into the waking world. With an exasperated sigh, she sits up in bed and looks about the dark room.
She feels an eerie sensation as if something terribly wrong is about to happen. Compelled, Gwen gets out of bed to see what the matter is. She decides to just wander around and follow her instincts. Somewhere in the Orphanage, someone is in need of her help. But who and why? And why is it my problem?
Gwen creeps down the back stairs, her feet light as air on the old, creaky, wooden steps. She passes Raven’s room on her way down the hall. As she scurries through the night like a shadow. All her senses searching for the origins of the peculiar premonition, a deep, oozing sense of dread begins to creep over her as her search continues without any success. What if I don’t get there in time? What if I am too late? she
thinks to herself just as she is about to pass the doors leading to the outside courtyard. What if I’m just being silly and there’s nothing wrong at all? Suddenly, she hears a sound outside; frozen in place, she waits, reaching out again with her mind, this time looking for a human presence nearby.
What she finds is Douglas; the strange, hostile boy who once stole a much unwanted kiss from her. She barely thought of him since that day a year ago when she had injured him in defense of her person. When he had finally recovered and the bandages came off, he had wisely chosen to maintain his distance from Gwen.
The emotions racing through the boy’s mind are alarming. She feels pain and humiliation, dark, depressing thoughts of death and blood. This is startling enough but then Gwen sees some of Douglas’s recent memories.
She sees flashes of images. First, she sees Douglas sitting, trembling in fear, waiting outside Sister Whitmore’s office to be punished for starting a fight. Then, he’s in her office, the Sister looming over him saying unspeakable things to him, making him feel uncomfortable and afraid. Then, she’s touching him in places he doesn’t want to be touched, most of all by her. Gwen feels his horror and shame as she witnesses through his memories the things Sister Whitmore did and made him do to her. Gwen doesn’t fully understand the things that she sees but knows by the revolted and violated feeling that crashes upon her that it isn’t right or natural.
She can feel his anguish, his shame, and his self-loathing; most of all she feels his overwhelming desire to die, to erase himself from the face of the earth. This is why she is summoned here, what she has been sent to prevent from happening.
In a flash, she throws open the doors to the courtyard running down the steps into the yard, looking around frantically for the boy that should be there. It isn’t until she looks up that she sees him. He is standing in the bell tower of the chapel, standing high above on the ledge, looking down at the ground in a most solemn and melancholy manner.
Gwen freezes. She doesn’t want to startle him. Obviously, he hasn't noticed her standing there, yet she has to do something. Gwen walks slowly toward the chapel, never letting her eyes lose sight of Douglas as she tries to sneak closer. She quietly creeps around the back of the church to the back door that she and Raven had used only half an hour earlier. Opening the door just wide enough to squeeze herself inside, she enters the chapel, desperately hoping he doesn’t jump while she’s sneaking about. Fear and adrenaline rushes through her as she makes her way up the steps toward the bell tower. Her heart pounds frantically in her chest, her breath caught in her throat as she rounds the last curve in the staircase and ascends to the top. The large bell is blocking her field of vision. Slowly she walks around the landing surrounding the bell, still anxiously holding her breath as she comes toward the front, frightened she might not find him there, his body broken on the ground below.
Douglas’s thin, tall silhouette stands against the night sky. Gwen almost releases a sigh of relief but holds it in, fearing the sound might startle Douglas, causing him to slip and fall to his death. Ever so slowly, she approaches the boy, coming up from behind him; his back slouched over and his head downturned. With shaky hands, she reaches out slowly toward the boy. Suddenly, she wraps her arms around his chest and pulls him toward her to safety.
Douglas lets out a yell of alarm as Gwen, toppling backward, lands on her back with Douglas’s weight crushing her beneath him. Gwen groans in pain as she lets go of the boy, desperately pushing him off of her so she can breathe again. Douglas, startled, and scared out of his wits, rolls off of her, scrambling to his feet. He turns to confront his assailant
“What are you doing here?” Douglas demands.
“Trying to help you!” Gwen all but shouts back at him as she gingerly gets up off the floor, dusting herself off.
“Why would you help me? You hate me!” the nine-year-old boy quarrels back, unable to hide the unsteadiness of his voice.
“I don’t like you, but that doesn’t mean I want you to jump off a building,” Gwen replies a bit tersely.
Douglas becomes quiet; his demeanor seems struck by her blunt words. Shame shows on his face, the hopeless air of someone who doesn’t want to live anymore hangs about him. His life had never been easy, but the latest injustice he has suffered is just too much to bear on his own and he daren’t tell anyone what happened.
What does this girl know anyway? She doesn’t care. If she knew… she would’ve pushed me off the bell tower herself, Douglas thinks.
“No, I wouldn’t. And I do know. It doesn’t matter how I know, you just have to trust me.” The skinny, little seven-year-old Gwen says in a sympathetic tone.
Douglas looks at her, dumbfounded. Stammering, he says, “Bu--but... how did you know?” he starts to say, and then changing his mind, he goes on, “What wouldn’t you do? What do you
know?” he questions, challenging her.
“You were just thinking that I would push you off the bell tower if I knew what Sister Whitmore did to you,” Gwen says matter-of-factly, not knowing how to be delicate.
Douglas gives her a skeptical look.
“What? How could you know that? No one could know….” Douglas is surprised when, suddenly, Gwen rushes toward him, placing her hand firmly over his mouth to stop him speaking.
“I told you not to worry about how I know! You wouldn’t believe me if I told you anyway,” she says in a harsh whisper. Stepping back, she removes her hand from his mouth and instead, takes his hand in hers and turns as if to lead him away. Instantly, Douglas yanks his hand back from Gwen’s grasp, jerking her backward. Furious, she spins around to confront him.
“I’m not going anywhere!” Douglas protests.
“You can’t kill yourself,” Gwen counters, “I won’t let you!”
Douglas laughs at her and turns to get back out onto the ledge, but stops abruptly when he sees Gwen appear, as if magically, right in his path.
“It isn’t your fault. This doesn’t fix things. I don’t know how you feel, but--”
Before Gwen’s mind’s eye, she sees an image of a handsome middle-aged couple; the husband is tall, dark-haired, and athletic with a ready smile, his wife is a petite, little blonde with a sweet disposition. They stand in a room looking out the window at the orphans as they play in the courtyard. The Mother Superior and Sister Shaw stand next to them. They are all speaking together but Gwen can’t really hear the words for she is distracted by the blonde woman and the thoughts that stream from her consciousness through the vision. She is watching the boys at play when she notices Douglas walk by. It is his sad, solemn demeanor, and his striking resemblance to the baby brother who died when she was a teenager, that makes her notice him. She has the sudden need to know why this boy is so sad, wondering what he looks like when he smiles. She wants to make him smile, to take care of him and keep him safe. The woman turns to her husband…
“That’s the one, honey. That’s the one we want.” She points to Douglas.
The Mother Superior tries to dissuade the woman, telling the couple all about Douglas’s past and his destructive behavior, but the wife just smiles and shakes her head in response. Her mind is made up.
“You know he looks a little like Tommy, doesn’t he?” the husband comments to his wife. She looks up at him and smiles.
“Yes, he does,” she replies.
The vision fades away, gone as suddenly as it had come, leaving Gwen feeling dazed and disorientated.
“What was that?” Gwen says aloud, wobbling a little as she feels the world begin to spin around her. Suddenly, she finds herself on the floor, Douglas kneeling beside her.
“Are you okay?” he asks with genuine concern.
“I think so. I just… saw the strangest thing,” she replies, astounded.
“What do you mean?” Douglas tells her, clearly agitated. “There’s something wrong with you. You’re not normal. One second you’re talking to me, then you went all still and your eyes rolled into the back of your head,”
“I did? Oh, sorry that’s never happened to be me before.” Gwen tries to brush the whole thing off. She gets to her feet. Douglas stands up, watching her suspiciously.
“I’m just tired. It’s late. Come on, let’s go back to bed.” Again, she grabs his hand in an attempt to make him follow after her.
“Why?” Douglas makes Gwen stop and turn to face him. Not wanting him to get away from her, she keeps a hold of his hand. Embarrassed by the physical contact with Gwen, Douglas shakes her hand off forcibly, grimacing in disgust, even though he feels quite the opposite.
“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t jump,” he demands, staring Gwen down, determined to scare the little girl away.
“Because she needs you as much as you need her,” Gwen replies calmly, not the least bit intimidated by Douglas’s cold manner.
“What’re you talking about?!” Douglas shouts, exasperated and surprised by her strange response. “Just leave me alone!” he yells at her, turning his back on her, determined that this time he would jump even if he has to do it with Gwen watching. He doesn’t care anymore. He’s had it.
“Soon a couple will come. She’ll see you and she’ll love you right away. You’ll remind her of her little brother Thomas; he died when he was your age. They won’t care where you come from, or what you’ve done, or what’s been done to you. They’ll adopt you just as you are,” Gwen prophecies.
Douglas stops dead in his tracks, his back still turned away from her, he looks out of the bell tower at the Orphanage and the courtyard below.
“I’m not sure what will happen after, but she seems really nice, like someone who’d be a really good mom. I think you’re going to be happy with them,” Gwen replies, feeling suddenly jealous of the glorious future Douglas has before him, something Gwen knows she will never have. She has been adopted and returned so many times now that, after two years, the Nuns had finally given up and no longer even show Gwen to prospective parents. It hasn’t bothered her before, but just now, she feels utterly unwanted and alone in the world. But now isn’t the time to feel sorry for herself. She still hasn’t fulfilled her obligation to save Douglas; this is her top priority at the moment.
“That’s a good enough reason, isn’t it?”
Slowly, Douglas looks over his shoulder at Gwen.
“How can you…?” Douglas begins to ask but Gwen cuts him off.
“I told you, just trust me. I just know things sometimes. It doesn’t matter how or why!” Gwen shouts at him, losing her patience.
Douglas doesn’t know how to react, so he just stands there, stunned and speechless. After several minutes of silence and after Gwen’s anger finally subsided, she steps forward and takes Douglas’s hand yet again. This time he doesn’t resist and lets Gwen lead him back around the massive bell and down the stairs from the bell tower to the chapel below. All the while they hold hands, Gwen leading the way. They leave the chapel through the back doors and walk around the building to the courtyard. As they walk across the courtyard toward the large double doors leading into the main hall, Gwen can tell he’s about to ask her a question, giving him the time to build the courage to ask it, even though she already knows what he’ll say. Gwen reaches out with her free hand to turn the knob when Douglas stops her.
“Um… Gwen, can I ask you something?”
“What?” she whispers, afraid their voices will wake someone.
“Do you like me?” he blurts out. Gwen has to resist the urge to laugh because of the strange blush that spreads all over Douglas’s face.
“I don’t hate you. I told you that already,” she replies, a little confused as to why it matters if she likes him or not.
“Well, then… can we be friends?” he asks eagerly.
Gwen shrugs. “Okay, as long as you don’t try to kiss me again, or touch me at all for that matter.” She turns to the doors and opens them, going inside, not noticing the deeper beet-red color that has spread across Douglas’s face.
He is mortified, but he knows he should have expected her to say something like that. He knows he should apologize. He should be afraid of her. After all, she had broken several of his bones and hurled him across the courtyard, hospitalizing him for two weeks. But she has shown a different side of herself tonight. She didn’t have to come to his rescue, she could have just left him to his own fate, but she didn’t. Even though he had been so resistant to her, she had stayed, and she had brought him down. Whether she realizes it or not, she has been kinder to him in that one moment than anyone else has in his whole lifetime.
He isn’t sure whether he believes her about the couple she predicts will come for him, but after all the other strange things he has seen and heard her do, it seems possible that she could be right. The thought fills him with hope like he has never known before.
Gwen hears all of these thoughts, knowing she ought to shut him out but she can’t help herself.
Douglas hurries after Gwen into the Orphanage, trying to catch up to her. With a new spring in his step, Douglas follows Gwen back to his bedroom door where she says goodnight, waiting for him to enter his room and close the door before she returns to her own bed.
Douglas listens to her footsteps recede before quietly tiptoeing between his sleeping roommate’s beds. He slips into bed, pulling the covers up over him. Lying there, Douglas feels a multitude of emotions surging through him, making him feel anxious with excitement. No matter what tomorrow brings, he feels a sense of peace in knowing that now he has a friend.
Gwen enters her own room with quite a different feeling. Why does it hurt so much to know that Douglas has been afraid of me? Why does it make me uncomfortable that Douglas now thinks of me as his new best friend? She sits on her bed a wash in confusion. I wasn’t trying to be anyone’s hero. I just did what I had to do. She climbs under the bedcovers, wondering if she’s gotten herself in over her head with Douglas.
“Darkana,” she whispers, and the room goes dark and still.
* * * * *
The very next morning Douglas plops himself down next to Gwen at the breakfast table. Raven, sitting across the table, looks up at him, incredulous. He thinks, What, is he lost?
“Hi, Gwen.” Gwen looks up at Douglas and stifles a groan.
“Hi.” Raven catches her eye “Um… hey, it’s kind of a long story, but…”
“Gwen and I are friends now.” Douglas finishes for her, a smug look on his face.
“Since when?” Raven demands coldly. Gwen feels a wave of protective possessiveness rise within him as he remembers the stolen kiss incident.
“Last night,” Douglas says weakly.
“What’s that supposed to mean? If you touched her, I’ll…” Raven clenches his fists as disturbing images races through his mind, Gwen privy to every one of them.
“Hey, quit it! It’s not like that. I’ll explain later, okay?” Gwen’s says through tight lips, her face a shade of red Raven’s never seen before. She’s not the kind to embarrass easily.
“I didn’t do anything, Adam.” Douglas mutters sullenly.
Raven shoots daggers at him with his eyes. Gwen gives them both a look that quiets them, each boy looking down at his breakfast, cowed.
While they eat, Gwen shows Raven the events of the night before telepathically, inserting her memories into his mind, answering with a thought his occasional nonverbal question. By the time the meal is over and they separate from Douglas to go to their class, Raven knows everything. And several of the other children are whispering about the three of them eating together. Gwen shuts them out and focuses on the day ahead of her.
* * * * *
Later, Douglas follows Gwen and Raven about during afternoon break, and even sits near them in the classes they share. By lunchtime, everyone in the Orphanage is talking about the strange change in Douglas, the boy who had once been considered one of the worst bullies in St. Paul’s.
Gwen hopes that Douglas will tire of her and Raven’s bizarre company and cease following them around like a lost puppy; but, as time goes on, she realizes that Douglas has decided that he is now a part of their gang.
It’s odd for Gwen to have Douglas as a third wheel. After all, her and Raven’s friendship is neutral; formed of their common differences from the other children and the knowledge that they both come from the same mysterious society and share a language no one else has ever heard. Gwen doesn’t have to try to be nice or sensitive about Raven’s feelings. He being the strong silent type, preferring to listen and follow Gwen’s lead instead of being the center of attention. He speaks only when he has something important to say, letting you know if he doesn’t share your point of view, but for the most part, he is a terribly agreeable eleven-year-old boy.
Douglas is entirely different. Gwen has to actively try not to offend him, for he is headstrong, opinionated, sensitive, and irrational. The two are frequently in heated debates about every topic under the sun. It seems they never agree on anything. Yet, he still hangs on her every word as though they’re dripping with wisdom, and glances at her admiringly when he thinks she won’t notice, but telepaths notice all.
Raven can’t stand how confrontational Douglas is, not that it bothers him when Gwen is blunt or abrasive. Somehow it’s endearing when she does it. But it’s rude when Douglas acts this way. He hates the way he stares at Gwen and fawns over her, always managing to put himself between Raven and Gwen. He misses the peace and quiet of the old days when it had just been the two of them, racing in the forest, climbing trees, and playing in the waterfall. They rarely do any of those things now because of Douglas. They don’t want to have to explain how they’re able to do those things. Obviously, they’re different. As far as they know, they’re the only two people in the world who can run, jump, and climb like Greek-Gods in the stories.
Douglas has seen enough of Gwen’s peculiarities to suspect the truth and is always asking her questions. Poking his nose where it doesn’t belong. Raven is the only one who really knows everything there is to know about Gwen, and he likes it that way. The only other person either one of them has ever confided in is Sister Mary Shaw who is like a loving older sister with whom they know their secrets are safe.
* * * * *
The three of them sit under the walnut tree. Gwen in the middle, Raven pulling up grass to her right, and Douglas to her left, tossing a baseball in the air with one hand and catching it in the other. Gwen looks up from her Harlequin paperback to see Douglas staring at her again. He smiles at her pleasantly. Gwen raises an eyebrow at him in response.
“Is that book any good?” Douglas asks.
Gwen shrugs, noncommittal.
“Then why do you keep reading it?”
“I finish every book I start,” Gwen answers simply.
“Even if it sucks?” Douglas asks, disbelieving.
“Especially if it sucks.”
“You wouldn’t believe how bad some of those books are.” Raven, looking around Gwen, chirps in.
“Why don’t you two go do something useful instead of criticizing my book,” Gwen asks. She opens up the book to ignore them.
Douglas looks over to Raven.
“You want to play catch?” Douglas asks.
“Sure. Why not?”
From behind the cover of her book, Gwen watches the two boys walk into the center of the courtyard. Douglas gestures to Raven to back up. Raven wanders fifteen feet away. Satisfied, Douglas tosses Raven the ball.
Gwen is pleased to watch the changes in Douglas. She never really noticed before what a loner he had been. She at least has Raven to confide in, and Sister Shaw. But now that they’re all friends, he seems to be a whole new person, although a bit irritating. He’s almost enjoyable sometimes.
Douglas has completely changed in his demeanor toward the other children as well; his manners and behavior polite, yet detached. He’s completely open and friendly with Gwen and Raven just as long as Gwen agrees with him on everything, which of course, she never does.
Douglas even gets along with Raven as long as he stays out of his way when he wants to be close to Gwen, which she knows drives Raven crazy.
It gives her a funny feeling inside knowing she’s done something to help another. She stuck her neck out for Douglas and now she has to endure the consequences of her actions. If only he’d stop looking at me in that peculiar way of his, then everything would be just fine.
Gwen decides that it is a good thing she followed her premonition to the bell tower that night, and will forever be grateful that she hadn’t left the boy in the tower.