A Dreadful Thing

5: THE LONE SURVIVOR

FIVE: THE LONE SURVIVOR

Orla

The totality of Orla's life could be laid out on a single twin bed.

It consisted of old, thrifted clothes that never fit right, two pairs of dirty sneakers, a set of loaned textbooks, and paperbacks scavenged from Mr. Byrne's overgrown collection. It was sea glass on a shelf, interesting bits of driftwood, dried flowers, and rumpled dollar bills saved from her allowance.

No photographs. No momentos. No souvenirs from vacations or outings to the county fair. They'd never had the money to go abroad, and Orla wasn't sure of Mr. Byrne's profession. People in town speculated, of course, some thinking he'd retired young, maybe had a slim inheritance, used welfare, or maybe participated in less savory career paths. Orla had asked several times over the years, and the answer had always been the same:

"Mind your own business."

Orla bit her lip as she upended her school bag, scattering broken pencils and used bundles of crumpled graph paper. It was the closest she had to luggage, and the only thing she could use to pack her things if she didn't intend to grab a garbage bag and use that. She jerked open the top drawer of her wooden dresser and pulled free the first clothes she found.

She'd considered before what it would be like to leave Mr. Byrne's house. Maybe it would happen when she turned eighteen, and he would encourage her to go out on her own. Orla sometimes imagined herself running away—dressing up as a guy, fudging her age, and working on one of the boats that traveled the coastline or even crossed the Atlantic. Maybe she'd get lost in a new city or foreign country and have an adventure. It'd been a fantastical idea when she'd always accepted she would most likely matriculate to an average service job in Dirgemore and then be stuck behind a counter for the rest of her life.

Her reality was proving more fantastical than anything she'd imagined.

"I cannot make excuses for Henry's behavior," Mrs. Porter said as she observed Orla's efforts from the doorway. The woman had been silent since they departed the kitchen. "And I will not ask you to forgive him, as it is not my place. Why he thought it best to—well. I can't understand it. I will say that he took what happened to your family very hard, harder than we expected. He cut off most contact with the Seraphium world years ago, but we assumed he simply needed...time."

Orla buried her lumpy socks in the bottom of the bag. "What do you mean by 'what happened?'"

The woman sighed through her nose, then came to perch at the end of Orla's bed, shifting her things out of the way.

"It must have been ten years ago now," she began, turning her head so she could look out the window. The light bounced strangely in her eyes, and Orla almost wished to ask if that was because she was Seraphium, but thought it might be the wrong time. "Your mother, Moira, had just been promoted to Dean of the School of Enchantment at the Morsath Institute. Morsath was an island—hidden, as we do—near the waters of Ireland that held a sizable Irish, Welsh, and immigrant population. The Institute itself had become popular, and so the island had developed into somewhat of a central city to our people. There were many families." Her voice drifted.

"So she—my mother—enchanted things?"

Orla's question stirred Mrs. Porter from wherever her thoughts had wandered, and she smiled, a slight pursing of her lips. "That would be a simple way of putting it, yes. She had just been promoted, and so your family—you, your older brother Cillian, your father Eoghan, and Moira—moved from County Clare to Morsath, where several of your other family members resided already as I understand it. Your mother, her brother Lorcan, and her father Henry had been alumni of the Institute and had a history there. The Byrnes have been associated with Morsath for a very long time."