The Missing of Moar by Bronwyn Eley

The Missing of Moar

Daewynn looked down at her hands, side by side, to the long red welt running across each palm, and thought they almost looked like a smile. Almost. She cocked her head at the pleasing way they linked up. The only thing pleasing about them.

She curled her hands shut, tears prickling in her eyes.

Matron struck the children when she was unhappy. All the teachers did. "Displeased" was the word they used, but Daewynn wasn't sure how to say it aloud. She hated big words.

'Dis, disss,' she sounded, 'dis-plee ...'

'Daewynn!' Lukin shouted.

Lukin was new, only a year younger than her. His mother died in childbirth; father fell down the stairs. But Daewynn wasn't sure how that killed a man. She fell down the stairs all the time. Her shoes were too big, cast-off from an older orphan who'd outgrown them and left when she turned of age.

She saw more children leave on their own, rather than with a new family. Even Daewynn was considered "too old". She'd be nine years old in a matter of weeks. On Choosing Day, most families went straight to the cribs or the playroom.

'Aren't you coming?' Lukin asked. 'Everyone is down at the beach.'

Daewynn nodded and jogged after him in silence, sounding out that horrible word again. Dis ... plee ...

Most of the children at the orphanage had been born on the mainland, bought across the water by rowboat.

Bought. No. Brought. Brought.

Bought for buying, brought for bringing. Tutor Kinnel preferred striking the behind, rather than the hands, when she got things wrong.

She'd been howling when they brought her across from the mainland. Five years old, or so she was told, with matted blonde hair and too-pink skin. Both parents killed when they "displeased" the wrong man.

That word again.

But she'd been spared and brought here, to the orphanage on Flatley Island, one of only a handful buildings on the entire island. It was completely flat, covered in silvergrass, all greys and greens and yellows. Northside of the island was all big cliffs and angry waters. Southside was the beach. It wasn't a big island. She and her friends could run from one end to the other, straight across the middle, without stopping.

Daewynn stared at the waves coming in. Where did they go? Children came here and ended up in the orphanage. The waves came, same as them, but they disappeared. What was their trick? And why couldn't they take her too? If only the ocean were a person that could adopt her ...

'Daewynn!' Lukin cried again. He was crouched with Shelley and Mannu by a cluster of rocks and boulders where soil and grass met sand. 'Quick! Come here!'

When she reached them, all gathered in a circle, Daewynn bent at the hips and frowned. 'What are they?'

'Skulls!' Shelley explained with a big smile at Daewynn. The older girl was what Daewynn imagined a big sister might be like. 'My father, before he died, helped make people better. He had a lot of drawings and charts in his office. These are human skulls.'

Daewynn frowned. 'I don't understand.'

'Here,' Shelley smiled, digging her fingers into the mix of soil and sand, pulling one of the strange white objects free. She held it up beside Lukin's head. 'That's what's inside us! See? Eyes go here. Mouth. Nose. Brain.'

Daewynn touched her nose, giving it a wiggle, then moved her fingers to feel what was beneath. 'Huh,' she said finally because what else was there to say?