The Shadow Anthology

Jennifer

It was a cold and darkening night outside Moor's Orphanage. The rain had begun only minutes before, yet it had already become torrential. The relentless hammering throughout the night was to become a ritual over the coming months. Some residents found it soothing, others a bombardment that would keep them awake for hours into the morning. Jennifer was a part of the latter.
She patrolled the corridors of the manor for hours on end, occasionally aiding the girls who were awakened by nightmares, and confronting those who refused to rest. Though the monotonous persistence of the rain would keep her awake, the monotonous walk of the manor grounds would never fail to rest her mind. It was easier to distinguish the rooms tonight as they had been refurbished with elegant facilities earlier that day. Jennifer spun the globes like pinwheels, mesmerised by the fluttering colours. An abacus was a trivial plaything when she used it incorrectly. The books were ripe, yet she refrained from biting.
She completed a circuit of the first corridor and returned to her room. Jennifer’s bed was akin to most others in the building, rather simple in style, though more than acceptable for comfort. The wooden posts on the corners would, at times, be obstacles from which one could sustain a slight injury from the dark, though they often made for brittle guidelines back to safety instead. Thinking herself finally ready for sleep, Jennifer charged at her bed, bruising her head and awakening some of those around her. She hit the floor with a muffled smack and her friends went back to sleep. Taking this as a sign, Jennifer quit her room again.
As she glided back through the corridor, she managed to snag her shoulder on, what would turn out to be, a door handle. Though quiet, it was loud enough to awaken one of the girls inside the room. With a jolt, she sat up and looked around the blackened room. Waiting for her eyes to adjust, the startled girl whispered into the night with the voice of a trembling phoenix.
“Who's there?” Jennifer slid around the door in answer to the girl. To assure no further awakenings, she hushed her brash shadow and brought the calm white light of the moon in her hands. It made a ghost of her. She identified the girl’s voice before she saw the face. Knowing the child, she intoned her voice to be disarming and jovial.
“It's only me Sophie, I was just making my way back to bed." Sophie fell back onto her pillow in relief, hitting her head against the bannister as she did. She clutched her skull and Jennifer wafted over to her side, smoothing the bump and soothing the girl, all the while stifling a laugh and petting her own throbbing head. Sophie continued despite her throbbing scalp and winced with every exclamation.
“Thank goodness! I thought you were a ghost! Or a vampire, or a-.” She responded, being cut off by her friend’s muffled laughter before she could finish. Sophie looked up at Jennifer with irritable impatience which only made Jennifer laugh more. Eventually she stopped herself and sighed.
“You always make up brilliant stories.” Jennifer smiled as she moved Sophie’s hair behind her ears. “You've got the best imagination! I’d love to stay and talk the moon away, but we should both go to sleep now. Imagine if Miss Wallace catches us!” Both laughed as it was rumoured that most nights the teacher locked herself in her room and drank herself to sleep. Jennifer stepped up and kissed the girl’s hand, then as Sophie slid under the covers, Jennifer slipped out the door.
Upon reaching her bed, Jennifer clung to the post for guidance a second too late and reignited her thundering skull. Accepting her idiocy with spurious laughter, Jennifer almost awoke all those around her. She settled under the covers, had a final giggle to herself about Sophie's silly behaviour and her own, and blew out her bedside candlestick.
Soon she found herself abroad, experiencing world-renowned sites which various countries had to offer, while simultaneously bearing witness to opera and devouring the local cuisine. She then dove into the Thames and became immersed in the aquatic life created by her shimmering eyes. Following this, she was guided into a gypsy's tent where the man leaned over the table, grabbed her by the arm, looked into her eye and chanted one word repeatedly.
“Wake!”
It was morning. The rain had left the grass fresh and shimmering, while leaving the floor of Moor’s Orphanage cold and icy. Jennifer arose and left to check on Sophie. The floor touched her bare feet as a glacier while the bannister remained a temperate tower. Walking through the halls as though the floor were pock-marked with pins, she finally reached the room where the hustle and bustle of morning chores had begun.
Sophie’s bed was neatly made, her bedside chest had been polished and locked, and she appeared as clean as one could, given the somewhat unsanitary conditions. Jennifer approached the girl, asking how she slept following their conversation.
Sophie exclaimed “Oh, just perfectly! For once I feel completely ready for the day...” she sneezed “aside from the cold that is". Both girls laughed. Jennifer made her way back to bed where Miss Wallace stood waiting. She didn’t appear ready for light-hearted conversation.
“Have you enjoyed your little morning meander Jennifer?” questioned the slightly short but well-built woman. Her hands moved to her hips as she towered above the girl like a superhero. Jennifer’s feet twirled in circles of their own accord. Her eyes sank down and watched them. She knew herself to be a cornered criminal.
Jennifer tried to defend herself, “I'm sorry, I just went to check-", but was cut off by the watchtower gazing down at her.
“Once you wake up, you are supposed to immediately take to the chores of the day. Are you not, my dear girl?” furthered the sentry, to which Jennifer could only answer with an apology, in a timid whisper. Miss Wallace left the room, leaving Jennifer alone with a bed to make, a chest to polish and lock, a shower to take, and four young girls standing agape, staring solely at her. Miss Wallace had always been a patient and kind woman to all her girls, so an outburst like this was no small matter, especially when it targeted one of her favourite students.
Word spread quickly among the girls, as gossip so easily does when given the natural environment to thrive. Miss Wallace was the only teacher and the orphanage was comprised of girls alone, numbering just twenty in total, all of whom aged between twelve and fourteen, though next year this would be thirteen to fifteen, and so on until the youngest had her sixteenth birthday. Following this, girls between ten and twelve would once again enter the orphan doors. This format would carry on until the children could be sent back to their respective cities and orphanages.
The day began and ended like so many others before it. The girls would sit at their desks and learn from three different topics. Jennifer excelled in music, science and English, though not quite as much as some other girls, and her weaker subjects left her grades rather lacking in excellence. This had always been the case, even though she continually progressed.
However, her grades weren’t what had brought Jennifer to Miss Wallace's attention. Neither was it her working ethic, nor her slight speciality in certain subjects. It was how, even in the bleakest of times, she managed to show compassion to all those around her, friend or foe. It was how she could befriend all she met and how she could enter a tense room and soothe the mood without lifting a finger. This reputation and skill followed Jennifer throughout her life.
Night came swiftly, as it so often did in the winter. Soon Jennifer was once more comfortable in her warm bed, and soon she was once more uncomfortable with the intensity of the persistent rain. Once more she rose from her bed and, using the post as a crutch, she chose to forsake her restless gurney for a few hours.
The floor felt far from warm on her walk tonight, but it no longer scythed at her feet, rather kissed them like cool petals. Jennifer released two streams of fire from her nose. She was now a dragon under the half-full moon. Concluding that she was beginning to grow accustomed to the cold, she moved onward. As there was only one floor to the manor, and that floor was compromised solely of stone, the girl made no noise as she moved. This was the same for any other girl or woman who traversed this dark, lonely path.
Jennifer became mesmerised by the dancing shadows of the night. She had been here two years. By now she knew each of the natural shapes that could occur in her halls. The shadow at the end of the hall wasn’t one of these. She soon recognised the shadow as a young girl, allowing her fears to quell. This girl ran into the nearest room; Sophie's room. Jennifer was no cautious person. She strode casually to the room, peered past the door and whispered.
“Is anyone awake?” she asked of the night, enchanted by the fog she was creating.
“Yes Jennifer, it's me, Sophie. Why are you back here tonight? You shouldn't be out of bed again.”
“I couldn't sleep, and I don’t think I ever will again if the rain doesn’t stop!” She threw her hands up to the sky as if to command the weather. She sighed at her failure. “But what about you?”
“I feel the same...” she paused, “I wish I could sleep in your room.”
“Oh! I'd love that too, but I doubt Miss Wallace would ever let us.” There was a pause in the silent room, followed by Sophie's suggestion.
“Are you sure?” A moment of silence lay in the air. “What would be the harm in asking?” This received a resounding nod of approval, which resulted in Jennifer's departure. She backed out of the doorway intent on raising the suggestion in the coming day.
She softly shut the door. As she turned to walk away, Jennifer once more felt a distinct pull on her shoulder. Turning around, she once again discovered the door handle that had attacked her the previous night. Now the young girl had two points to raise to her mentor.
Gliding softly back to her room, she reached out to her bedpost for support and lay down. Once comfortable, despite the rain, she fell swiftly to sleep as she thought ahead to tomorrow's comforts. She wasn’t to remember much of what she dreamt of that night, although once more she jolted awake in the same way that she had the previous morning.