Where Foundlings Hide

Chapter 17

My thoughts about my parents had become lost, somewhere between finding out that Lana wasn't my sister and Roma's request for me to take Lana's – or Acacia's - place. Now they're jostling for space inside my head.

After I had calmed down a little, Ivy explained that she had taken me from an orphanage. She had used mind control – another revelation I was trying to come to terms with – to speed up the adoption process.

It turns out I was left at the door of the orphanage and the authorities hadn't been able to trace my birth mother, so they had very little information on me, and that made me a perfect candidate for the decoy operation.

All I could think of was the elaborate lie that Ivy told me – the one where my parents had died in a plane crash - and I had looked determinedly away from her when I told the room that I needed time to think.

I was desperate to get away from Ivy and Roma, to have some time to myself, to let everything they had told me sink in.

When Roma said she had prepared some quarters for me in the Household and would arrange for someone to show me to them, I asked for Caleb. While I was still mad at him, his betrayal didn't run as deeply as Ivy's and he hadn't tried to counsel me on my grief like Parker had, knowing all this time that Lana wasn't my sister. Most of all, I think I was just looking for someone to take my frustration out on.

"You could've warned me about all of this." I mutter, as Caleb leads me back through the labyrinth that I had learnt was called the Atrium - the main building of the Vedmak Household.

He shakes his head. "I wanted to, but there wasn't time. I had my instructions and I obeyed."

"Like a good Displacian." I frown at how familiar the word already sounds.

"I'm sorry if you think I deceived you," Caleb says, as he leads me up a winding, marble staircase. The upper quarters of the Household are made mostly from glass, the light filtering in warm and bright. "It wasn't my place to tell you your family secrets."

"They're not my family secrets," I say. "I was just a hostage, remember?"

"You were a decoy." He corrects.

"Is that different?"

Caleb smiles, but it doesn't reach his eyes.

We emerge in a corridor with another wall of glass, and I press my hands against the pane to look out onto the golden world of Displacia. It looks like the start of autumn, the trees are a mixture of green, orange and yellow, like the leaves are about to fall to the ground. I can feel the warmth on my skin as I gaze at the dazzling light reflecting off the tall, glass buildings in the distance.

There are people outside sitting on a perfectly manicured lawn, enjoying the warm rays. From what I can see from here, there are no congested roads or industrial skylines beyond the grounds of the Vedmak Household, just expanses of yellow meadows and clusters of woodland.

"It's beautiful." I whisper.

"Yes, it is," Caleb says. "We learnt our lessons from Earth's mistakes, we tried to preserve our world as much as possible."

I feel myself bristle at his reproachful undertone and I reluctantly tear my eyes away from the view. "Is that why you want to keep the connection with Earth, so that you can feel superior?"

He looks surprised. "We don't feel superior. Displacia has had its share of problems, as you've heard, but our environment isn't one of them. We're lucky to live in a world free from pollution, but that's only because we saw the impact of modern industry on Earth. We only manufacture what is absolutely essential."