Chapter 47: 47 Orphanage

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47: Orphanage 47: Orphanage Morning came with a doorbell that rang twice, shrill, somewhere downstairs.

Kairan’s eyes widened, already awake before the sound stopped, and he stood still for a moment, staring at the room he’d only glimpsed in the darkness the night before.

Eight beds.

Seven occupants, besides himself.

Gray blankets shifted one after another, bodies slowly rising, yawns, the creaking of the old metal bedposts.

It was the boy in the next bed, the one with the copper-colored hair plastered to his forehead, who noticed him first.

He stopped mid-yawn, his mouth still open, his eyes wide as he stared at Kairan’s face.

“Hey,” he said, nudging the boy in the next bed without looking away.

“Hey, look.” One by one, the other seven turned toward the bed by the window, and one by one, the sleepiness faded from their faces, replaced by the exact same expression: surprise, then something more akin to discomfort.

“His eyes,” whispered a girl with black hair pulled back in a messy braid, sitting up.

“Look at his eyes.” For a moment, none of the seven said anything.

They simply stared at him, the way you stare at something you’ve never seen before and aren’t yet sure whether to be afraid.

Kairan held their gaze without moving, letting them stare until they grew tired.

The auburn-haired boy was the first to break the silence.

“Who are you?

I’ve never seen you here.” “Kairan.” “Where are you from?” “I arrived last night.” The boy studied him for a moment longer, then seemed to decide it was worth introducing himself anyway.

“Peter Cobb,” she said.

“Ten years old.” She nodded, looking at Kairan’s eyes.

“What are they?

Are they real?” “Those are my eyes,” Kairan said.

“They don’t look like normal eyes,” said the girl with the loose braid.

“They look…

drawn.” “Amara Quill,” she said, not angry, just to be precise.

“Ten years old.” She hugged her knees to her chest.

“Are you here alone?

No one took your parents away from you, right?” “I don’t have parents here,” Kairan said.

A boy, huge for his age, slowly rose from the bed closest to the door, yawning with a noise that almost sounded like a roar.

He, too, froze in midair, his eyes landing on Kairan.

“Damn,” he muttered.

“I’ve never seen eyes like that on a real person.” She held out a huge hand to him, not to shake, just to point.

“Gregory Marsh.

Twelve years old.

I’m the oldest here, so if anyone bothers you, come to me.” “He always says that,” said a faint voice from the back of the room, “and then he never does anything.” Gregory whirled toward the bed by the window on the opposite side, where a younger boy, sitting with his knees to his chest, had finally looked up.

“Samuel,” Gregory said in a good-natured warning tone.

The boy looked at Kairan, his eyes darting quickly from her face to hers and back again.

“Samuel Vance,” he finally said.

“Eight years old.

The same age as you, I think?” “Yes,” Kairan replied.

From the bed at the end, a girl with brown hair pulled back in two short braids, a book still open on her pillow, slowly closed it.

She regarded Kairan with clinical, almost scientific attention, her head slightly tilted.

“It’s not normal,” she said, more to herself than to anyone else.

“The color, okay, it can happen.

But those patterns inside the iris…” He shook his head, then returned to his book without saying another word.

“Clara Wren.

Eleven years old.” It was Amara who nudged the girl sleeping in the bed next to hers, the only one who hadn’t moved yet.

“Lena.

Wake up.” The girl slowly sat up.

She was eight years old, and her brown hair fell softly to her shoulders, framing a face so delicate it seemed more suited to a painting than a real child.

When she opened her eyes—green, bright, a color that seemed to catch even the gray light filtering through the window—Peter stopped talking for a moment, something he rarely did.

Lena stared at Kairan and remained still, her green eyes slightly wide.

“They’re beautiful,” she said softly, without thinking, and immediately blushed.

“I mean…

sorry.

I meant they’re weird, but beautiful.” She pushed her hair back from her forehead, embarrassed.

“Lena Bright.

Eight years old.

Like you.” She didn’t say anything else.

She didn’t say where she was from, or why she was there, and no one asked her anything, as if there were an unwritten rule in the room that applied only to her.

The last bed was occupied by a boy who had just moved, his face still turned toward the wall.

“Victor,” Gregory called.

“Wake up.

There’s a new one.” The boy turned slowly, and his eyes, meeting Kairan’s, widened for a moment before returning to hers.

remained to lock them in a more controlled expression.

“Victor Doyle,” this solo.

“Twelve years.” He said nothing else, and almost immediately returned to staring at the ceiling.

Kairan looked at the eight beds, the seven faces she had now begun to distinguish.

Four boys, three girls.

“Keep looking at me like that all day?” she asked.

Peter burst out laughing.

“Probably.

It’s not every day you wake up and find someone with eyes like yours sitting three beds away.” There was time before breakfast, and Peter sank down on the edge of Kairan’s bed.

“Since you’re new,” he said, “you might as well know who you’re sharing the room with.

Me first.

Do you want it short or long?” “Long,” said Kairan.

Peter’s tone, so rapid a moment before, slowed.

“My father worked on roofs,” he said.

“He used to repair gutters, chimneys, that kind of thing.

One morning two winters ago, he slipped on a patch of ice that no one had seen.

I was down in the street, waiting for him so we could go to school together.” They look at each other’s hands.

“I saw him fall.

My mother couldn’t take the blow—not physically, I mean.

It’s like something inside her died with him.

Six months later, they told me she couldn’t take care of me anymore.

I haven’t seen her since.” Kairan listened without interrupting, and when Peter finished, she didn’t say anything for a moment.

It was Amara who broke the silence.

“Mine isn’t cheerful anymore,” she said, as if feeling the need to even things out.

She hugged her knees even tighter to her chest.

“I never knew my father.

My mother worked in a laundry.

When I was six, she got sick—her lungs, from the steam and bleach she breathed in all day.” He paused.

“She died slowly.

For months.

I watched her deteriorate every day, and I couldn’t do anything but bring her water and stay by her side.

When she left, there was no one else.

I’ve been here four years.

I’ve gotten used to it.” A heavy silence fell in the room.

It was Gregory who finally broke it, clapping a huge hand on Peter’s shoulder.

“I’ll spare you the other stories for now,” he said, looking at Clara, Samuel, and Victor with a knowing nod.

Kairan noticed that her gaze, having reached Lena, had instead lingered only an instant longer than necessary, and that no one, not even Gregory, had mentioned her name along with the others.

“And Lena?” Kairan asked softly.

The silence that followed was unlike any before.

Peter and Amara exchanged a quick glance.

It was Clara, from the back of the room, who answered, lowering her voice as if the walls themselves had managed to carry those words to her.

“None of us know the whole story,” she said.

“I only know that he arrived here three years ago, at night, brought by a priest who never wanted to explain where he came from.

He had marks on him.” She hesitated.

“Marks no child should have.” “We’ve never heard it,” Amara added, even more quietly.

“Not to anyone.

Not even Mrs.

Hargrove, even though she tried so hard.” Lena, sitting on her bed, was no longer looking at Kairan.

She was staring at her hands in her lap, her face suddenly closed, like a door closing softly so as not to make a sound.

Kairan looked at her for a long moment, and understood, with the same cold certainty with which she recognized a wound hidden under armor, that whatever had happened to that little girl was something far beyond all the stories she’d heard that morning.

She didn’t ask anything else.

It was then that the bell rang again, twice, shrill, and eight bodies moved quickly towards the door, while somewhere downstairs Mrs.

Hargrove’s voice was already shouting that breakfast would wait for no one.