North Star

Chapter One: Caralye

The dream started out innocently enough. I was standing in a massive field, it was nighttime, and an enormous full moon hovered over the trees that famed the field, casting a silvery light and making everything look like it was under water, an impression that was strengthened by the long, soft grass that brushed against my hips in the breeze, like waves lapping against a shore. 

I was wearing a flowy, white cotton dress that came down to my knees, and no shoes. The dress was cut in a deep V in the front and back, so that hung off my shoulders, the long bell sleeves brushing my fingertips.

Instantly, I knew I wasn't alone in the field. I could feel the presence of someone even before I saw the person standing on the edge of the field, just in front of the tree line. I was too far away to make out anything about them. I couldn't even tell if they were male or female. That bothered me; I needed to know this person, who they were what they looked like, anything—everything.

I walked forward, drawn to this stranger like a magnet. I sped up, breaking into a run, but getting no closer. The wind got stronger, whipping the grass against my thighs like the switches I knew all well.

My left wrist burned, and I was yanked back by it. I looked down to find my entire left arm wrapped in thorny vines, blood running in little streams from the puncture wounds. I tried to pull free, but that only seemed to make the vines tighter. I screamed for the stranger to help me, but my voice was lost in the wind as the vines pulled me into the ground that was suddenly made of water.

I woke with a start, clutching my left arm. My wrist burned, but there was no vines. I wanted to flop back down into my lumpy pillows, but a glance at the clock on the nightstand stopped me. It was 4:55am. I need to leave soon.

I rolled out of bed, the thin mattress creaking as I got up, careful not to hit my head on the bunk above me, and made my bed, something I never did, tucking the duvet in at the corners, military style, the way Ms. Lincoln liked it, the way she did whenever a kid left, no matter what the reason. Once she saw this, she would know I was never coming back. If she ever saw me again, it would be to identify my dead body. I was fine with that.

Despite running low on time, I lingered in the shower, not knowing when the next time I would be able to take one would be. 

I thought about the dream. It was the first, but most certainly wouldn't be the last. These dreams would be instrumental in finding the person I was setting out to find. They were a result of a telepathic link between me and this person, who was reason my wrist was burning. The other person in the dream. I knew who they were. I knew even if I didn't know their name or what they looked like, I knew them. They were my Other Half. My Soulmate. The person who I would die unless I found.

I sighed and glanced down at the burning tattoo on the inside of my left wrist that was so much more than just a tattoo; it was a Soulmark. A black seed no bigger than a newborn baby's nail, sitting right where my wrist became my hand, where it had been, unchanging, since I was born. That is, until today, the day of my eighteenth birthday. The seed was still there, however the tattoo had grown so that the seed was now it was joined by a stem about a centimeter long with a tiny leaf on its tip. A tattoo of a sprout. It would continue to grow until I found my Other Half, at which point, it would bloom. Unless of course, I didn't find this person, in which case I would slowly die by the time I turned 21.

I dried my long black hair enough so that it wouldn't freeze when I went outside, and pulled it back into a French braid as I tiptoed back into the room I shared with the three other girls who lived in this hellhole. 

They boy's room was across the hall. The bedrooms—which were basically glorified closets—would have been cramped for one person, let alone three. There were six of us at the moment—three girls and three boys—living in identical closet bedrooms, each with two sets of bunkbeds. We were like a group of Harry Potters, only we weren't magic, and our destinies, whatever they were, held no profound purpose.