Light of my Life

One

ONE

Amelia Florence must calm the quick rhythm of her heartbeat. Hearing other things besides the blood rushing through her at a fast pace that sounded like drums settling deep in her ears was most imperative. In order to escape this nightmare she'd been living in since she was a young girl of nine, Amelia needed to not only keep her courage, but hold fast to her wits.

She glanced down at the five-year-old girl staring up at her with wide eyes. Gracie's face held pure terror, which broke Amelia's heart. She took the girl's cold hand and rubbed warmth into it. The girl pressed her face against Amelia's skirt and sobbed quietly.

"Shh," Amelia whispered. "This will all be over soon, and we'll be on our way to freedom."

Taking a deep breath for courage, she led little Gracie down the steps of the three-story orphanage. Amelia was proud of the little girl for trying her best to be as silent as a mouse. The old house creaked, and the squeaky steps weren't much better, and the only sound in the house was from most of the fifty-eight children who lived in the orphanage, and their night cries.

Her heart wrenched, knowing full well what they were going through, because at age nine, she, her brother, and sister, were brought to this place after their parents sailed away and never returned. Amelia recalled hearing the words the ship went down, the first year of living in the orphanage. Nobody would really tell her what happened to her parents, except they were not coming to get her and her siblings. Within the next year, her brother died of pneumonia, and her sister ran away, leaving Amelia a true orphan.

She remembered crying every night. Not only did she miss her family, but she was scared to fall asleep because then the nightmares would come. There were more than one, but they all were of the orphanage and the beatings she'd witnessed being done to the other children. She'd prayed that Mr. and Mrs. Stone would never lay a hand on her as they'd done to the others, but she'd feared her prayers would go unanswered. Mr. and Mrs. Stone took to their whiskey bottles like an infant would to milk.

As Amelia stepped quietly toward the back of the house, she listened carefully for signs of the watchers. The kids in the orphanage had given this title to the cook, the gardener, and the Stone's oldest son, Lucas. Because Mr. and Mrs. Stone would eventually pass out due to the liquor they'd consumed, they had these others keeping watch over the children to make sure none of them ran away.

Amelia wished she knew how her older sister, Prudence, had gotten away. Amelia also wondered why her sister hadn't wanted to take her along. Every year, two children went missing, and the rest of the children figured they had run away. The Stones had become the meanest during this time since the state paid them per child. The more children at the orphanage, the more whiskey the Stones could afford to buy.

Gracie's gasp brought Amelia to a stop, jerking her out of her thoughts – memories from the past she wished she'd never remember again. She glanced down at Gracie. Her big, blue eyes stared up at Amelia.

"What's wrong?" Amelia whispered.

"I forgot my doll." Tears filled the little girl's eyes.

"Oh, sweetie. We can't go back. We're almost to the door now, and Uncle Theo will be waiting."

The girl's bottom lip trembled as the tears streaked down her dirt-coated face.

"We'll get you another doll, I promise." Amelia offered her a tender smile, hoping it would ease the girl's fears because she had no idea how they were going to get the money. She'd worry about that later. Right now, they just needed to get out of here.

Sniffing, Gracie wiped her hand under her nose and nodded.

Amelia continued in her journey to freedom, tip-toeing toward the side door where Uncle Theo would meet them with a wagon. Theo wasn't any relation to the children, but they all called him uncle, anyway. The deaf man had taught several of them sign language. He worked for the Stones as their maintenance man, yet Amelia knew he only stayed in this hell hole because he had no other place to go. Most people didn't know how to act around deaf people, and so they ridiculed him and treated him like a disease. Uncle Theo had been the only reason she had made it so long at the orphanage. But at age twenty-five, Amelia knew it was time to break away from this place. She was tired of working for the Stones as the children's schoolteacher without pay.