Ari held his stomach.
‘What will we tell Aunty Gertrude?’
‘Who cares? She can’t make us feel any worse than that breakfast.’
They all nodded, feeling their bellies, as the coarse food of raw oats and who knows what else, scraped through their insides.
Footsteps approached from the west wing, though a large pillar obscured who it was. Uncle Bear-Nard popped out looking a mite nervous.
‘Ah...Pembrooke is...waiting. J.j.j.just run along.’
‘Where’s Aunty?’ Melaleuca asked.
‘She left early t.t.t.this morning...had to see...someone.’
He smiled, happy with his words.
The cousins knew where she had gone.
‘M…m…m..missing one? Where’s...?’
Before any of the others answered, Lexington called out, ‘Here Uncle.’
She strode past him, joining her surprised looking cousins. Seeing the worried look on Melaleuca’s face Lexington thought to say, ‘I have reasoned with myself and found good cause.’
Uncle Bear-Nard turned to go but then spun back around again, horrified. He strode up to the cousins and pawed at the cloaks.
‘Oh…no, no, no, no, no, no…..p..p..please, wear something else…n..n..not these.’
They all groaned in protest, with Lexington taking up the cause.
‘Why forever not? What is it about these?’
Uncle Bear-Nard rolled his head around in obvious conflict.
Melaleuca removed her cloak.
‘Qui, take them all back. Today will be interesting enough as it is without whatever these cloaks will mean for us…..Happy Uncle?’
He half nodded, still as glum as ever, but seemed satisfied.
Once in the back of the cart, it pulled away, and the damage from Lexington’s earthquake costume stood out. On the left hand side of the Cathedral-Mansion, a large crack ran from top to bottom, with either side of the building skewered a few inches up and down. The crack ran out onto the lawn a few hundred metres before stopping.
Lexington whipped out her notebook.
‘It’s odd that no one mentioned that.’
Pembrooke shifted his body around toward them a little.
‘Ya Aunt’s scared. Ya poor Unc ain’t much betta either.’
‘Scared of what?’
Pembrooke said nothing in reply, but returned to facing forward.
‘And the cloaks?’
Pembrooke cracked the reigns and stayed facing ahead.
Melaleuca patted her knee.
‘You will work it out.’
***
Argus headed due west, into the morning sun, trudging alongside the ravine. Tussock grew for miles and miles and nothing else. After a few hours walking, the land started descending and he could see a river gush out of the ravine into a valley below. The river became braided as it streaked away along the valley floor.
Thousands and thousands of years of water pouring across the land had rent a ravine-scar into it. All the rock and rubble from it now spread for miles along the sides of the river; appearing every now and then as small stony islands.
Way off in the distance, on the verge of the horizon, he could see a mass of gleaming yellow, almost like a small gold-plated hill.
***
Greeted with boos and hisses and a hail of thistles, the cousins marched through the wrought iron gate alongside the five and six year old students. The thistles bounced off them painlessly, while the five and six year olds winced in silence, though masses of them got tangled in their hair.
Melaleuca nudged and nodded to Lexington, motioning that they would be fine. Lexington gave her a weak smile.
Standing again by the dizzying amphitheatre, they stood out. Not only were they dressed below their age, but they still had no scars or physical deformities, and instead of sullied expressions, looked fresh faced.
Amongst the throng of students milling to classes, Master Saurian weaved toward them muttering abuse and clouting students as they hurried by.
Lexington saw him first and clasped Ari’s hand. Melaleuca felt her desire to flee, and Ari squeezed her hand back, and nudged Quixote. Melaleuca stared at Master Saurian, her facial expression not changing, while Quixote smiled at him.
Master Saurian sauntered by, ignoring them.
‘I thought for sure he was going to at least say something,’ Ari said.
‘I think these uniforms make us blend in a little easier. I looked into the mirror that Quixote discovered. I looked tougher,’ Lexington said.
Melaleuca kept an eye on Master Saurian.
‘Maybe Harshon was right. We are now sort of accepted.’
‘Or Aunty Gertrude has told the Head Discipliner to treat us like normal,’ Ari said.
‘Whichever. Just stay on guard. High alert, all that,’ Melaleuca lifted Lexington’s chin to see eye to eye. ‘We can’t be hurt today. We need to blend in and well, enjoy, play.’ She swung her head up and around the massive Vahn. ‘As daunting as it may be.’
The students around them thinned out as they made their way to their first class of the day, leaving the cousins standing by themselves. Once again they realized they still did not know where to go.
Harshon appeared.
‘Follow me. You have thistles still caught in your hair. Students are to remove them before entering.’
The cousins started plucking them out.
‘What’s with these?’ Lexington asked.
‘It’s a prelude to the Thistle Ceremony,’ Harshon said. ‘Each year we celebrate our strength. The Thistle is our symbol of this.’ She looked on perplexed. ‘These thistles are painful to touch, or should be?’
Melaleuca elbowed Ari.
‘Oh, they hurt,’ he said. ‘We are controlling the pain, as we are supposed to. Are we not?’
‘Yes…yes you …are. It’s just that….Hmmm, never mind. Just take them out.’
Once finished, they trailed behind her up to her office, where they sat down.
Harshon stared at them, a little confused, and then spoke.
‘You all look different.’
None of them replied. Were the costumes and bracelets that obvious?
‘Never mind. I see Pembrooke has healed you well. It’s not allowed, but if it is not mentioned no one says anything.’ She bent down and opened a drawer at the bottom of her desk, rummaging in it.
Melaleuca winked at her cousins. ‘Yes, he’s good. Why does he pretend to be a gardener?’
Without thinking, and still searching, Harshon replied, ‘The healing arts were banned as a weakening factor years ago. The House of Asclepius fell many years ago.’
‘Houses? What houses?’ Lexington asked.
Harshon struggled to extract what she looked for, speaking as she did. ‘Twenty four great houses girded this land once, now three barely remain.’
Melaleuca felt Lexington bristle with fervour at the information.
‘Is...is the Throughnight Mansion one of the great houses?’ Melaleuca asked.
‘Oh where is it...hang on...’
Harshon climbed onto her hands and knees and shoved her whole body under the desk.
‘Yes,’ she replied, and with a muffled voice. ‘Once all the land had Cathedral-Mansions. Only two remain...ah got it.’
‘Where is the other one then?’ Melaleuca and Lexington asked together.
Harshon sat on her chair, unfurling a piece of paper and waited a few moments.
‘Well?’ Melaleuca asked.
‘Well?’ Harshon said back.
‘Where is the other Cathedral-Mansion?’
‘Never mind.’
Harshon handed the piece of paper to Melaleuca, which they all leant over to look at. ‘Do you recognize this person?’
On it lay a picture of Melaleuca, drawn in thick, dark pencil.
‘Is it me?’ Melaleuca asked.
‘It’s that girl I told you about yesterday, Karena. You bear a striking resemblance to her.’
Without doubt, a drawing of one of their mothers lay in front of her, though her gut feeling told her to lie to Harshon.
‘My mother was not called Karena, and she has three identical sisters. Their mother’s,’ Melaleuca said pointing to the others. ‘We are cousins.’
‘So this is not your mother, then?’
Melaleuca studied it again.
‘When was this drawn?’
‘About thirty years ago.’
‘Then it cannot be her or I, for myself and my mother look nothing alike. I am sorry.’
Disappointment sank into Harshon’s face and she sighed. It was obvious she had hoped that it would be true. She rocked back on her chair.
‘Matron Gertrude informs us that you four were found in the outside world, homeless, yet you say you knew your mother and these are your cousins. That does not seem to make sense.’
Lexington pulled the drawing closer to her.
‘Stranger still is the drawing. Thirty years ago. Why are there no photos of her, this could have been drawn last night.’
‘Photos are banned, so is most technology. All we have is drawings.’
‘At the Mansion there are photos adorning all the walls,’ Lexington said. ‘And what’s more this woman, who looks like Melaleuca, is in a lot of the photos.’
‘Shhhh!’ Harshon hushed suddenly, pushing her hand in front of her to quiet Lexington down, while looking side to side. She leant forward.
‘The walls have ears. Photos were banned after your world’s World War II. It has been years since I have been in the Throughnight Cathedral-Mansion. Those photos were supposed to have been destroyed years ago.’
At the mention of war, Ari’s ears pricked up.
‘Why? And why after World War II? What’s this place got to do with wars?’
Harshon held her hand up motioning for the questions to stop. Her face became a little sterner. ‘Please I told you yesterday, questions are not encouraged. Stop asking.’
Lexington flopped back in her chair, an obvious flummoxed feeling coming from her. Melaleuca saw her frustration and moved her hand to settle her, when Lexington thrust herself forward again.
‘But why? How can anyone truly learn?’
Harshon leant across her desk, and raised her head to glare down at them.
‘As I said yesterday, children die here. It is considered a high sign of intelligence to work things out for oneself. Asking questions shows weakness, weak mind, lack of analytical powers, and above all it is forbidden.’
‘Do you really believe that though?’
The question caught Harshon unaware, like a small dart had been fired through a chink in her armor.
‘Please, grasp this,’ Harshon said, desperation entering her voice. ‘It matters not what I think, but what they think. I am only one, they are many.’
She finished a little flustered, twiddling with her hair under the pretense of straightening it, but was clearly nervous. She fiddled with a quill on her desk while she thought.
‘Where were you found?’
Melaleuca matched her body language and leant back, staring around as if not to care.
‘The lady of the mansion asked us not to say. She said it would be best for all if we were considered a blank page.’
Harshon’s gentle face looked troubled.
Lexington sensed a great turmoil in her. Something about the picture of Melaleuca’s mother disturbed Harshon.
‘Harshon what are you thinking?’
Harshon stood, crossed to her windows and pulled the drapes, blocking the light, and came back to them, kneeling in front of them, a hushed air about her.
‘Breathe naught of this to no soul. I think this woman Karena is your mother. I think it is no accident that you bear a resemblance to her, and no accident that out of all the outsiders Matron Gertrude could have picked, she found and picked you.’
She stopped talking, her eyes wide with concern, waiting to see their reaction, though seemed surprised they said little in return.
‘This is not the first time you have heard this. Is it?’
Lexington looked to Melaleuca to see what she would say.
‘Why does this Karena concern you so?’ Melaleuca asked back.
Harshon pulled back, stood, and strode behind her desk, sat and looked at them, frustrated, yet tried to look disinterested.
‘Just curious, that’s all.’
Lexington nudged Melaleuca and gave her a look that asked if she could try and extract more information. Melaleuca nodded; surprised she had wanted her permission.
‘If we were related to this Karena, what would that mean?’ Lexington asked.
Harshon scribbled away with her quill.
‘You’re not. So it means nothing.’
An uncomfortable silence fell between them.
‘We have seen this lady in the outside world,’ Melaleuca said.
Harshon dropped her quill. ‘I knew it. I knew it. So she was your mother.’
‘Just a lady who visited us every now and then, that’s all we knew her as, she did not even tell us her name.’
‘She may very well have been your mother. It is more than a coincidence. I just know it. Look, what I said yesterday about you being in danger is more applicable now.’
‘Who was this woman Karena to you?’ Lexington asked.
‘A friend, a very dear and close friend, something not encouraged here in New Wakefield. She was implicated in a lot of trouble that happened a long time ago and banished to die. I never knew, but always had suspicions she had gone to the outside world.’
‘But this hardly makes sense,’ Lexington said. ‘All our mothers were Quadruplets, they all looked like that.’
‘No it does not make sense,’ Harshon agreed. ‘Karena never had any sisters. But you said that Karena used to visit you sometimes. If all your mothers looked the same, then where were they and how did you tell them apart.’
‘It seemed normal for us,’ Melaleuca said. ‘All our mothers came and went, sometimes all together, other times singularly and in twos or threes. So did these women. Being homeless we called lots of people our mother. We figured it out on our own that these four women that looked like Melaleuca must be our mothers.’
Harshon looked suspicious of their concocted tale.
‘Are you saying,’ Quixote asked, ‘that this lady Karena in the drawing was one of the Marauders?’
Quixote’s question drew Harshon’s gaze away from Melaleuca’s fabricated story, and his cousins rolled their eyes at him. Harshon raised her eyebrows, and with her lips pursed flicked her eyes amongst them.
‘That old legend. Heh heh.’
‘That old legend seems to have created quite a stir around here, we are led to believe,’ Lexington said.
‘There is a limit to how much we can say here.’ Harshon leant closer, whispering again, ‘The walls have ears. I think that will do today.’
She stood and walked to the door.
‘We will talk some more later. Go and stay out of trouble.’
Lexington filed out last, turning to Harshon, asking, ‘If you have noticed the resemblance, then others must have.’
‘Unlikely. Strong minds make for poor memories. Now run along. I will send for one of the prefects to take you to your first lesson.’
They stood outside Harshon’s office waiting.
‘That was one of our mothers,’ Lexington said.
‘Yes I know,’ Melaleuca said.
‘Do you think we should have told her?’ Ari asked.
‘Not yet,’ Melaleuca said. ‘We do a Lexington, gather information, until we know it is time to act.’
‘When’s that?’ Lexington asked.
‘When I say so,’ Melaleuca said trusting her feelings, ‘and not a moment sooner.’
A tall, official looking boy in his late teens strode toward them. Along with the dark uniform, holes in the knees, bare-footed boots and his Galeslar, he wore a red sash from shoulder to hip. He di
d not look at them, but as he passed by he said, ‘come,’ and carried on walking.
They trotted after him, wondering how their second day at the Vahn would turn out.
Chapter 27 - Galeslars and Pigeons
In a dimly-lit, musty room, with rows of shelves packed with uniforms and boxes, the cousins stood waiting, alone. Something shuffled between the rows.
‘Hello?’ Melaleuca cried out. ‘Is someone there?’
‘Someone is always here,’ a frail voice called back.
The door swung opened and Matron Henlenessy swished in. She paused, surveyed the scene, grimaced a quick smile, then threw open her cape, tossing it behind her back.
‘Old fool, get here quick.’
The owner of the frail voice rushed forward, a little shabby old man, stumps for hands. ‘Alright, alright.’
‘Shut your mouth. Where are the uniforms?’
Muttering, the old man reached up to a shelf above him, gripping a box between his two stumpy arms and throwing it down in front of them. Dust and dirt puffed up, causing him to cough, though he appeared not to mind.
‘Got nothing new - just these old things.’
Matron Henlenessy looked down her nose into the box. ‘They will do.’
‘Try them on first?’ The old man asked.
‘You dare question a Matron of the House of Knives. I said they will do.’ She spat at him, and then said to the cousins, ‘Put these on.’
‘Why are we changing clothes?’ Quixote asked.
‘Do not ask questions. Once these uniforms are on, you will report to detention!!’
Nonplussed Quixote said, ‘Can the others come too?’
Matron Henlenessy screwed her face up in astonishment. ‘Certainly not. Get these clothes on. I shall return soon,’ and she stormed out.
Eager to look semi-normal in their abnormal setting, they each pulled a set of brown trousers and shirts out of the box.
‘What if they don’t protect us?’ Lexington asked.
Looking amongst themselves, no answer immediately sprung to mind.
‘Let’s attack,’ Quixote whispered with a troublesome glint in his eye.
Vahn and the Bold Extraction, The Page 6
