Pearl Academy I The Emergence

Chapter 1

~ONCE there was darkness and blight.

Then came the Pearl who was Right~

-First line of the Moon Pearl Prophesy

The night is dark. There's no moon, no stars. We rush through the thicket of the woods, hand in hand with someone I cannot see. The only sound we hear is the pounding of our frantic running feet.

We run into low-hanging branches, fighting against them until we stumble to a clearing. My partner grabs my arm and leads me down another path. "Wait! Where are the others?" I shake my arm from their grasp. "Where are they?" There was a stillness to the dark woods. The type of stillness that holds danger within its shadows.

"They'll be fine!" I get pulled back down the path that I was being led to anyhow. "They know what to do. They won't find us if we stay separated." I ran alongside my hidden pair. The moon finally peers at us poor mortal souls through the branches. It shows us the way. "It's not him I am worried about, Sunistral. It's her." I hear a sharp breath behind us. I swear there was! But it was disguised as a searing gust of cold wind. When I looked back, there was nothing. Just an endless pit of darkness. It was then that I knew that it had found us.

*****

The morning had turned out to be a strange one. I have this strange feeling that I can't shake. It's a feeling that you can't possibly stomach before it all implodes in your face. My mind tries to replay the dream from last night. 'Try' being the operative word. The details leave me the harder I try to remember, but I do remember the feeling I had in the dream. It was a frightening mix of danger and inexplicable acceptance. Many specialized doctors have called it 'imagination'. My so-called imagination isn't anything new. I've had dangerous amounts of it ever since I was a little girl.

I clean my face with a splash of cold water and look at myself in the mirror. I have a great deal of underlying trauma that I have yet to understand. No amount of therapy could save me from the nightmares or my tendency to veer off unconsciously. I'm not entirely sure when it started but it feels like I've had it since birth. The first time I sleepwalked-that I know of, at least-was my first night with Karen. She found me standing in front of the door, staring blankly ahead with no sense of doing it.

I push myself off my sink and head downstairs for breakfast. The tots should already be up by now. They always wake up before sun-up. I blame Karen for that. And just as I take the first step down our stairs, I realized I was right.

Karen is my third foster parent. I can't say that I remember the first two-not that it matters anyway. They pushed me out of their house the moment things got weird. I've seen all the reports from my case worker. With some, it felt like they exaggerated their stories for the sake of the report.

The cavalry is all seated around the kitchen table, loudly fighting over something the other said. "Morning!" Five pairs of adorable eyes turn in my direction and simultaneously light up. These troublesome munchkins are the bane of life. "Morning, Kels!" They all scream in unison. When Karen got me, she hadn't applied to establish a group home. I was actually her first foster child. Actually, I was the catalyst that eventually made her create a home for the others.

"How'd you sleep, honey?" Karen walks out of the kitchen with three plates perfectly balanced on an arm. I can imagine how hard it has been for my foster mom, but she's done it flawlessly. That's why I hesitate before answering. My dreams, or nightmares, have been a topic of early morning conversation for as long as I can remember. And every time I talk about it, she worries. I can't keep doing that to her. So, I don't. "Good," I grab one of her plates and sit down, "although I had to stay up late doing a project that my teacher shamelessly gave me at the last minute." I give Karen a look.

Most of us are home-schooled. According to Karen, children who have had to be integrated into the system due to insurmountable amounts of trauma should not have to endure teachers and other kids who don't understand and, undoubtedly, make it worse. "I said I was sorry, Kelly. I completely forgot about that project."

"She did it to me too," Ryan whispers, leaning over the table so I can hear him. "I think I should go to public school at this rate." I openly laugh. Ryan is eleven and is as quick-witted as the legendary Sherlock Holmes. I sometimes can't even see how he has to see our therapist more times than I have to. "Don't let Karen hear you say that, Ryan. She'll take it seriously." We all spend this time as a family chatting about school and other things that have been festering since the night before.

After around fifteen minutes of miscellaneous chitchat, Karen sits down at the head of the table after serving breakfast for the younger kids and clears her throat.

The chatter dies down very quickly. "Um, Kelly?" I look up at her as I chew on my eggs. "After I take Allison and Toby to school, I would like to talk to you in my office about something important." I slowly swallow, observing her closely. Nothing ever good comes from being sent to her office. A few years back, when we had older kids with us, she would ask them to see her in her office and then break the news of their transfer or their 'escape' from the system. I'm not eighteen yet. I'm not even sixteen yet! My birthday isn't for another month. So, with that aside, it looks like it is my turn to be transferred.