The Last Alice of Wonderland

Chapter Seven

"Okay. Just remember that I'll be home by five. You two are cleaning the house for tomorrow's inspection. Clean everything." Cynthia's mother sighed. "Okay. Bye now. My children in cleaning gear. This must be the proudest day of my life. Which actually, is pretty sad." Their mother left their house and John turned to Cynthia. "Okay. I'll do downstairs, and you'll do upstairs. My room is clean, so you don't need to clean it. Okay. See you in a few hours." He walked off into the kitchen. All right then. I'll start with the bedrooms and then the bathroom and finally the halls. Now, who should I'd start off with? I don't need to do John's. Stephanie's asleep so I don't want to go in there. My room is fine, so I'll guess I do Mum and Dad's. She thought and she walked into her parent's room. There was clothing on the floor and the wardrobe was open and full of dust. She peered under the bed to see even more stashed away clothes. "It's like a five-year old's bedroom in here! Let see. I'll start under the bed and then the floor and finally the wardrobe."

After the nightmare of cleaning from under the bed, and the lesser nightmare of cleaning up the floor, Cynthia fully opened the wardrobe to be greeted by a cloud of dust. "Great, just great. I'm going to need a vacuum cleaner. But John's using it now. Maybe I should remove the stuff from the top shelf first" Cynthia started to take down boxes of old clothes, shoes and belongings from the second highest shelf. When she had finished she looked at the top shelf. There was a gold box that caught her attention. She had never seen it before. Cynthia reached up to try and get the box down, but she couldn't reach. She stepped up onto the self. "I...I got it!" she exclaimed. The box was heavier than she expected and put her off balance. Cynthia lost her footing and CRASH! She and the box fell to the ground. "Ouch. That hurt." She said aloud. "Hey, sis! What happened up there? Are you okay?" John asked as he ran up the stairs. "Whoa! You found it!" John said he kneeled down and picked up the box. "What is it?" Cynthia asked confused. "It's where Mum puts all the confiscated stuff. It has everything! All my phones, games, DVDs! Everything!" John shouted, "Cool!" Cynthia said back.

The two of them started to search through the box. There were toys, games, videos and lots of papers and photos. John was scrambling through the games and DVDs while the photos and papers intrigued Cynthia. So many photos of the family on holidays. She thought. She looked in the box again. "Hey, John... What's that?" She asked. Cynthia was looking at a jewellery box with the letters A  CE. "I don't know. Maybe Mum was called Ace in the old days?" he said. "I'm going to open it." She said. "Fine with me" he replied.

Cynthia looked around the brown jewellery box to find an opening. There was a lock without a key.

"Hey, John. Is there, a key in there?" she asked still looking at the locked box. "What..." John started to rummage around the belongings. "Oh yeah. Here" He gave her a key and she weighed it in her hand. It was heavy. Hmm. Maybe it's real gold? Cynthia put the key into the lock and unlocked the jewellery box. It opened with a sharp click. The box was full of old papers and photos. One was a letter addressed to Mr and Mrs Alander. It was in an old yellow envelope. Its letters were imprinted in gold like the acceptance letter. "Hey, John! This looks like my letter I got from that school." She said as she put it down and looked back into the jewellery box. The top page said:

Certificate of Adoption. 

This is to certify Mary Alander has formally adopted the Janie Doe into the Alander family on this 25th day of June 1997. 

Cynthia was shocked. Her mother had adopted someone called Janie. Who is Janie? No. A better question. Where is Janie? If my mum adopted her then shouldn't she be living with us? Maybe I should ask John. She thought. "John... Do you know anyone named Janie?" she asked. "Janie... Janie. What's her last name?" he asked back. "Janie Doe." She answered. "Janie Doe is a name for a female child who no one knows who they are, or who their parents are. Why?" Cynthia showed him the certificate. John's eyes grew wide. "Cee... I...I'm so-" "John, my middle name is Janie, and the 25th of June is my birthday and Mum said I was born in 1997. Please tell me this is just a coincidence." Cynthia's eyes were welling up with tears. John stared into her eyes. "Cee I'm sorry..." he started. He shuffled towards her, reaching out to her, wanting to comfort her. "Stay away from me." She said moving away. John was shocked, but he quickly calmed down. "Cee, I'll clean up here. Why don't you go to your room? Take that with you." He said as he motioned his head to the jewellery box. Cynthia nodded and got up. "And Cee. Just remember that I still your brother though and though, no matter what anyone says." He said as his sister walked out of the bedroom, tears still falling from her eyes.

Is this what you wanted to tell me? Cynthia thought in her head as she slammed her bedroom door closed. That I was adopted? Couldn't you have made that, I don't know? TEN TIMES easier if you just have told me that I was damn it, adopted? In my defence, I did. I even hinted it to you, many times. You were just to signal minded to see that. I...I was... I just didn't want to believe that my family was lying to me. You can't blame me for that. That is true, but still... Well. Are you all right? Am I all right? I just found out that my entire life has been a lie. I am not Cynthia Alander. I am not a part of any family what so ever. I am no one... That is not true. As I recall, there was more than that in that box. And, I distinctly remember that there was a letter bound to you when I... I mean, that man left you on the doorstep of this house. Is that in the box? I... I'll have a look.

Cynthia opened the box again, and carefully searched through the pages and photos. There were blood test results, photos of a young man and woman holding a baby, who Cynthia presumed was herself, and two letters. Cynthia opened one of the letters. Inside there was a short letter and a crystal locket about as big as a thumb, on a choker. The locket was swarming in colours of blue, purple, red, yellow and green. Cynthia ran her finger over the crystal. At her touch, the locket shone and opened. Inside there was a round orb.

"What is it?" she asked looking at the silver orb. It's a moral orb. Only a few people in all the many realms have them. The orb will glow with light when you are filled with Good and Unity, but it will glow with darkness like a black hole when you are filled with Evil and Chaos. A person who has a moral orb is called a Charmer. Each Charmer's orb shines in their own colour. I've only known of three other Charmers in the entire world.

"What colour is their orb?" Cynthia asked picking up the orb and holding is in the palm of her hand.  It shocks slightly and glowed silver to red to blue to green like it was deciding what it wanted to be.

Red, Blue and Green. It fitted them quite well I think. Maybe one day you'll meet them. Cynthia stared at her orb. "It stopped glowing." She said quietly to herself. She snapped her head up when she heard her mother shut the front door. "I'm going to have to talk to her aren't I," Cynthia asked, she sighed really not wanting to. She shouldn't have to, right? She wasn't her mum. If you don't your brother will, then your mother will come up to talk to you. She sighed again. Today wasn't going well for her. Cynthia stood up and walked downstairs to her "mother's" back to her putting stuff into the kitchen. John was nowhere in sight. Well... Here goes nothing. "Mum, can I talk to you?"

I"M SOOOO SORRY I'VE HAVEN'T POSTED!! I'VE FORGOTTEN AND GOTTEN WRITER'S BLOCK AND SO YEAH. To clarify. Anything Like this means it is what that person is thinking. Anything Like this is when the voice in Cynthia's head is talking to her. So yeah. Bye.