The gravel crunches as I circumvent the mammoth gothic fountain that serves as a rotunda at the end of the tree-lined driveway. A spout at the top spews water on fifteen distorted cherub heads. They all have their faces scrunched as if in agony. The water spilling on them adds the effect of tears rolling down their chubby cheeks. In all my years of staying and visiting here, the fountain never fails to freak me out. I don’t even try to understand how Mistress Anne tolerates the monstrosity.
The orphanage looms. A great building that protects the lost children of Terra One. Staring up at the flying buttresses, pinnacles, and roaring gargoyles always makes me feel small, almost insignificant. None of the children who’ve grown up within its walls know why the ivy climbing the gates never scale the impressive facade of the building itself. I remember bedtime stories of powerful witches that placed a spell of protection around the building. This is why not even nature can lay claim to Open Arms. The older I got the less I believed in magic, but the mystery persists.
I park the bike by the front steps and remove my helmet. I run a hand over my hair, loosening the strands that stick to the sides of my face and head. Setting the helmet on my lap, I gather the locks and, for the lack of a ribbon, twist them into a knot.
One of the twelve-foot arched wooden doors creaks open, revealing a woman in a heavy black dress that covers everything but her bald head. She steps out and says, “RC, how dare you not inform me you were coming. I thought I taught you better manners than that.”
I fight off the grin threatening to stretch my lips. The second I passed the gates she already knew I was on my way. An alert would have told her so. I get off my bike and climb the steps and bury myself in my second mother’s arms like gale-force winds push me forward.
“You called me, remember?” I say into her neck, inhaling her calming talc scent. Once my nerves are settled, I pull away. “What happened? Knowing Slip, he’s been hiding this for weeks.”
Mistress Anne’s features wrinkle into a familiar frown. Her gloved hands frame each side of my face. “It must be all the stress of the coming IC.”
My heart sinks like a stone. “I should have known. This is his first year participating. It’s tough maintaining fifth.”
Shaking her head, she takes my hands and squeezes them. “There’s not much you can do when he gets this way, RC.” She tilts my chin up when I drop my gaze in guilt. I’m forced to look into her eyes. “You’re not to blame.”
“Mistress,” I choke out, then swallow the hard block in my throat. “Still. I should have checked on him. I should have—”
Mistress Anne smothers the rest of my words by hugging me again. I let the comfort she’s giving me work through my system. This is more than just Slipstream. Too much has happened, and seeing my second mother is what I needed. But I keep my focus on why I’m here. I step out of her arms and wipe away the last of my tears.
“I have to see him,” I say.
She nods and steps aside. I enter the massive foyer. Its walls are filled with pictures of all the children who’ve called this place home. I flick my gaze to the left, picking out the black frame of my picture. Countless memories flood back, including the ones involving Slipstream.
A nervous stomach. That was the reason he gave me when I first caught him puking his dinner out a month after he arrived at Open Arms. I believed him. Why wouldn’t he be vomiting? I’d overheard the caretakers whispering about Slipstream being made to witness his parents’ execution. So, connecting Slipstream not being able to keep his dinner to a bout of nerves, I told no one of his condition. I even rubbed his back when I caught him at it again, kneeling in front of a toilet, his small body heaving violently. This went on for three months.
Three months I believed his lie.
Until one night, right after dinner, Mistress Anne caught us. Slipstream was bent over the bowl while I held a moist towel for him to use afterward. I’d grown so used to the sour smell that my gag reflex no longer reacted. Mistress Anne stormed into the bathroom, yelling at me to step away from the gagging boy and to go back to my room. My refusal earned me a slap in the face. Lip bleeding, I stayed until she focused all her attention on Slipstream. She bundled him in her arms and rushed him to the infirmary. The doctor kept him there for three weeks. After that, another kind of doctor came to Open Arms to visit Slipstream. This one talked to him in Mistress Anne’s office a lot and gave him half-white half-green capsules to take every day. The small white tablets came when the green-and-white capsules didn’t work. And more talking. I asked Slipstream once what they talked about in Mistress Anne’s office, but he kept giving me the nervous stomach excuse.
Mistress Anne told all the children to report the times we caught Slipstream in the bathroom. She said it could mean his death if no one told her what he did there. The constant supervision forced him to hide his vomit in zip baggies inside the furthest corner of his closet. I found out
