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But coming from Maggie, it kind of hurts. It makes me self-conscious.
“It’s not a secret that you don’t follow the rules and Nora doesn’t like you very much for it.”
Nora is Mrs. Stewart aka Mrs. S and yup, she hates me.
“That’s putting it mildly.”
“It is. You can still quit and leave this town but since you don’t want to, let’s not flaunt how much we don’t care about the rules in her face. Let’s not try to get fired.”
“I wasn’t trying to –”
“Save it.”
I go quiet and tuck a strand of my hair behind my ear as Maggie continues, “Now, empty your pockets and give me whatever you had in there.”
Looking at her for a few seconds, I decide to just hand her all my goods. I fish out the pack of itch powder and the key and put them on the table.
Shaking her head, Maggie takes them into her possession. “Cleo. Cleo. Cleo.” She sighs. “What am I going to do with you?”
“Love me, maybe?”
Maggie chuckles. “Finish your pie and go home.”
Twenty minutes later and a lot of turning around to see if I’m still being followed, I’m in my cottage.
Servants’ cottages are located a little farther away from the main house. There are about five or six cottages in total, arranged in a semi-circle with woods at our backs.
I live in the smallest one with my best friend, Tina.
We’ve been BFFs ever since we were kids. A few guys stole her pink bike and I punched them to get it back.
Like me, Tina’s on the cleaning staff. College wasn’t for her either but unlike me, she always planned to come work at The Pleiades.
My room has a twin bed, a small dresser and an even smaller closet. The walls are white in color, which I’m not such a fan of.
When I first moved in, I thought I’d paint it blue with my dad’s paintbrushes; I saved a couple of his brushes among other things from my old house. But then I realized, I didn’t want to make it blue.
This isn’t home.
The north side, The Pleiades, they are not home. They are not my safe place. These are not my people.
My people – the people I can really call mine – are dead.
They’ve been dead for a year and I wonder how long it takes for the grief to go away and an orphan to not feel like one.
I put on my mom’s nightie, made of cotton and lace, and blue. My mom was a huge fan of the color blue. In fact, she had blue hair like me.
I’m just getting under the covers when something flashes in my peripheral vision.
It’s a falling star.
I scramble up on the bed and clutch the bars on the window. When I was little, my mom and I would always make it a point to wish upon a shooting star, if we saw one together. It was just one of the things we did.
And like always, I close my eyes and make a wish.
Please let me get my house back.
When I open my lids, the star’s gone like it wasn’t even there. Strangely, it makes me sad.
