Jeanne - Book 1- The Oracle

Chapter 5

How I see myself

A man is standing before me, arms stretched, legs apart, a little going through his knees. I'm running at him. He takes me in his arms, saying: 'Welcome home, Jeanne!' Welcome home...

She's not sleeping anymore, though her eyes are still closed. Until she feels a sudden light against her eyelids.

The sun's coming up, she thinks. That big, cold sun. Slowly, she opens her eyes and rolls over to the side of the bed. She didn't sleep well. The dream she had had was nice, but there was a cold undertone in the sweet scenario.

The man... She had known the man. Was it... Could it be that he was her dad? She hadn't recognised him, but she didn't expected her to do either.

Jeanne stood up from the big but uncomfortable bed. On the chair next to it lay a set of clothes she didn't recognise. It was a white blouse, with on the place of your heart a logo. Over it you needed to wear a blue vest with the same logo, and the trousers were long, wide and grey. A pair of ugly grey shoes stood under the chair. Jeanne sighed.

She walked to another door, one she didn't saw yesterday, and as she did so tried not to look in any of the mirrors. She pushed the doorknob and opened the door to see a shining, blue-tiled bathroom.

Beside a big bathtub and a toilet, above the sink, hung another mirror. This time, without thinking, she did look in it. And what she saw...

Brown, untidy hair, which stuck out of her ponytail. A thin, pale face with a pointy chin. A little nose and a small mouth. And wide, red eyes.

The red eyes belonged to her.

No wonder. No wonder Noor didn't want to look her in the eyes. No wonder when, in her memories, she saw a mirror and a girl and red eyes. No wonder Rob and Noor had such weird eye-colours: She had them too.

Jeanne had finally been able to not look at her reflection anymore. She showered for a quarter of an hour, brushed her teeth and combed her hair (although it didn't work out as well as she wanted it). She put on the uniform Noor had layed out for her. She checked one last time in the bathroom mirror (she denied to look in the other mirrors) before walking out the door to a completely empty hallway.

She hadn't noticed the other doors in the hallway before. They all looked the same and you could only see the outline in the white background. All doors were closed.

Her room was the closest to the white spiral staircase and she quickly went downstairs. She hadn't noticed it yesterday, but Noor had led her up three stairs to her room. Stupid room.

The stairs came on the first floor out on a great chamber, a little like a ballroom. Big windows, a piano in the corner and marmer pillars that supported the ceiling. The red velvet curtains let through only a few beams of light, shining on the clean stone floor.

Her footsteps echoëd around the room as she walked to the door at the other side. Just like all other doors, this one almost wasn't visible against the wall.

She heard something and stood still. It wasn't what she heard that made her look startled, but the fact thát she heard something. She came closer to the door, put her ear against it and listened. Yes, she definitely heard someone talking. More people, actually. A whole group. A group of... She listened closer. A group of children?

She stopped listening and opened the door. It led to The Conference Hall, but this time, Rob and Noor were nowhere to be seen. But there were some children in The Hall, not that much, only six, three boys, three girls, standing all over the room. Some were talking to each other - others were standing alone and looked bitter.

The talking didn't stop when she came in, nor did anyone look up. Only one girl - the tallest and probbably the oldest - looked in her direction, said 'Excuse me' to the boy she was talking to and came her way.

'Hello' She stook out her hand. 'My name's Claire. You must be the new girl. Joanna, was it? Or Joanne?'

Jeanne shook the girl's hand, who was at least half a head taller than her. 'Jeanne. Hello' Claire had let go of her hand and now they stood, facing each other, and saying nothing. Because what was there to say? What would you say in such a moment?

'Have... Have you already met the others?', Claire tried.

'Um, no' She felt that she was going pink in the face. Claire didn't notice, grabbed her arm and took her with her to the boy she had just been talking to.

As soon as the boy saw them, his face also went pink. This made her a little more comfortable around him and she gave him a small, shy smile.

'Jeanne, this is Levi. He's from the Water-World. Levi, this is Jeanne. She's from the same world as me!'

'Hi Jeanne', he said without looking up.

'He's a little shy', Claire explained before dragging her to two other children talking.

'Jeanne, Myrth, Jonas' She pointed at them while saying there names.

'Hey', the girl named Myrth and the boy named Jonas said, but Claire had already pulled her away and to another boy standing alone in the corner.

'This is Dirum, he's an idiot'

The boy raised his eyebrows at her, but seemed like he didn't want to lower himself and talk to them.

'Hi', Jeanne said. Dirum gave her an irritated look and she quickly looked away.

Claire dragged her away again, to the other side of the room, where the last girl stood, wearing the most irritated expression (Jeanne thaught) she had ever seen.

Claire ignored it and instead said: 'This is Mary-Anne. She's just weird'

The girl named Mary-Anne looked at Claire with such hatred that it made Jeanne worry about Claire's safety.

Claire, again, ignored her and walked her back to Levi, who was standing by himself looking lonely.

Before she could say another thing, Claire was already talking with him and seemingly completely forgotten about her.

Jeanne looked around a little helpless. Nobody seemed to even notice her anymore. Who were these people? They were humans, just like her, but so different and cold at the same time. A bit like the sun outside; it looked just like the other sun, her sun, but bigger and not even in the slightest as warm as the normal sun.

That's when she really realised it: She was in an alternate universe. Everything here seemed to be the same, but it definitely isn't. And if all those kids, including herself, were all from their own individual dimensions, of course they were different from what she had expected. Because really, what hád she expect to happen? A song, a cake and an open welcome?

She took a better look at the children. Claire, as was said, was the tallest, slowly followed by the grumpy boy named Dirum. She also noticed that she, although Myrth was only a bit taller, was the shortest.

The differences between the people around her overwhelmed her now she noticed them. Claire, who looked Asian, didn't look at all like Myrth, who was frizzy-haired and black. And at the same time, Myrth had nothing in common with the pale, almost vampire-like Mary-Anne. Dirum, tall, blond and also very white, differed with Jonas, who was short, red-haired and had a tan. Levi, she thought, looked the most like herself: Brown, untidy but short hair, small and clumsy with bright...

Diferent pairs of eyes flash before my red ones, first brown, then black, grey, violet, blue, green, blue-greyish, amber, red... Two pairs of red eyes, no, only one, one pair of eyes...

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