I watched the remaining time tick down until Awakening with a mixture of anticipation and anxiety. Recently, a matter of some intensity had swept through the Orphanage. Madame Fevre discovered her larder had been broken into and a large wheel of cheese, some bread and even some of her personal stash of ale had been stolen. Her face was expressionless, but I could sense she was furious. How could one tell?

  Madame Fevre never yelled. Her face barely twitched even when she was pleased. It was her eyes. Typically ice cold, they became twin pits of smoldering fury. It was in those moments that even the cold nights in the dormitories were a more attractive burden to bear.

  We were lined up in the old assembly room in four rows, all current 26 Orphans. Toloph had died a few weeks earlier. His face had broken out in red spots and he had coughed himself to death. Both Madame Fevre and the lackeys had been avoiding us as a result, afraid another of us might catch whatever it was that did in poor Toloph, but none of us did.

  Gazing upward above the cold fireplace, I beheld the portrait of a stern faced man with white hair who possessed a passing resemblance to Madame Fevre. I sometimes wondered who he was. Madame Fevre’s father? It sometimes felt like the portrait’s eyes were watching me. I hated this room. It always smelled of old food and unwashed bodies. This was also the room where we ate due to its close proximity to the kitchen.

  26 Human children, as Madame Fevre despised the other races, of varying heights and ethnicities ranging in ages from as young as four years to fifteen all surrounded by Fevre’s lackeys who were perhaps as old as twenty. There were five of those, all young men and former orphans themselves whom Madame Fevre had shown a ‘mercy’ to by allowing them to stay and work for her. These lackeys all shared two things in common. Each had long since passed the age they could have left on their own and each one was overly large and had always possessed reputations for their aggressive natures.

  I was carefully watching one of the worst of the lackeys from the corner of my eye. Corlo was stalking up and down the line, a cudgel held in one of his meaty fists. Corlo was a bulky louse of a bully and I tried my best not to nervously fidget and draw attention to myself. We already knew who the culprit was. Corlo had teased the lot of us yesterday by chewing on a hunk of cheese while forcing several of us to scrub the east wing floor despite the fact that this particular chore had already done the day before.

  “Madame is going soft,” Corlo had spat in between bites of cheese, “she used to make us scrub these floors every damn day. Every day! You all get off easy! Work like tomorrow doesn’t exist and you’ll enjoy today’s meal all the more!” Corlo belched and swigged some of the ale he had pilfered. Nobody argued with him. Who would dare? Corlo wasn’t shy about using that cudgel.

  Now Corlo and the other lackeys stalked up and down the rows of Orphans, occasionally poking this or that individual with their cudgels while demanding they spill the name of the food thief. Nobody breathed a word. Talking wasn’t allowed anyway during meal times and as we all knew sound echoed in this room. One could have heard a pin drop just then. Madame Fevre stood stone faced while she watched her ‘men’ shake the lot of us down. Then Corlo was standing in front of me and he jammed his club into my stomach. I gasped and doubled over in pain.

  “What’s it gonna be, Davros, you ugly bastard? You’re way too quiet! You know who broke into the larder and stole food? You do realize that means the rest of you will be lucky to get any supper at all today or tomorrow?”

  I wasn’t that much shorter than Corlo, but I kept my eyes downcast. Each orphan fought to maintain their composures and not shiver or shake overmuch, but each of us was malnourished and underweight. Meanwhile, Corlo and the other lackeys were all well fed, if not necessarily healthy. Living in a barely held together house with no access to medicines had affected everyone. Skin colors were pale and unhealthy. Eyes were red rimmed and watery. Only Madame Fevre ever seemed unaffected by the conditions.

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  Madame Fevre shifted her stance and leaned upon her cane, gazing at me intently.

  How many times have I felt that cane on my back? A hundred? A thousand? I shifted uncomfortably.

  “Hey!” Corlo jammed his cudgel into my stomach again and this time I didn’t seen it coming, so the air whooshed out of my lungs in a huff along with some spittle that ended up on Corlo’s shirt. Corlo’s eyes widened and he looked from the spit on his shirt then slowly looked back at me. “You spitting on me? That’s your response?” Corlo cocked his arm back and brought the cudgel down hard on my right shoulder. With a cry I fell to the floor.

  “Davros did it! He did it, Madame Fevre!” Corlo leveled his club at me and I instinctively curled up to protect my face and other vitals. “I asked him the question and he spat at me!” Corlo roared. None of the others would looked at me or Corlo, but I knew they were all feeling relieved. Corlo had found his scapegoat to cover his crime and this time it just happened to be the disfigured and friendless one. Tomorrow it might be someone else, but for now I would take the beating and the punishment.

  “Take him to the Reflection Room, Corlo.” Madame Fevre’s voice was deceptively soft. She rarely raised her voice, preferring to let Corlo or one of the others be the brute force to her final judgement. “Make sure Master Davros knows that even though his time with us here grows short, we still have rules that will be obeyed.”

  “Yes, Madame Fevre.” I could hear the glee in Corlo’s voice as he and another lackey everyone called Bloke picked me up from under my arms and hustled me away. I neither struggled nor made any sort of protest in my defense. There was no point. Everyone knew that the Reflection Room, ‘The Box’ as it was more commonly known, wasn’t anything too serious. Madame Fevre seemed to hold the belief that being isolated in a dark room with the bare minimum of food and water to survive was enough to make ill behaved children into better people. To me, it was peace and quiet.

  Corlo and Bloke finally got tired of dragging me.

  “Walk, Bentface!” Corlo growled and he kicked my right leg, which caused me to stumble and catch myself on the wall. I was starting to get sick of the ill treatment and I could feel myself getting hot with anger. It also didn’t help that my stomach still hurt where Corlo had clubbed me. It was like a burning coal was stewing in my guts and slowly growing hotter and hotter.

  “How was the cheese, Corlo?” Corlo jerked as if struck and on my other side Bloke glanced down at me with a frown.

  Now, why did I go and say that?

  “What’d he say? What’s he jawin’ about, Corlo?” Bloke grumbled.

  “Yeah, what you say, Davros? Say it again? I didn’t quite catch that? It almost sounded like you wanted me to crack your skull open and scoop out what little is inside?” Corlo stared at me with bloodshot eyes, his face inches from my own.

  “I asked if you were hungover from all the ale you drank?” I answered with a giggle.

  What the hell am I doing?

  I had long ago learned to minimize my strange window timer and as my final day ticked down I had kept it in sight down in the lower right hand corner of my vision.

  Time Remaining: 1 minute, 18 seconds.

  Corlo’s eyes were wide and he gawped open mouthed while Bloke looked between the two of us.

  “Hey, you know the rule Corlo! You swipe somethin’ you gotta share it with the rest of us. The others find out you been holdin’ out they might let the ol’ Sow know!” Bloke whined.

  “Shut up. You shut yer damn mouth, Bloke!” Corlo hissed. He hadn’t taken his eyes off of me the whole time. His face was turning a deep shade of red and spittle dangling from his lips made him look like a rabid dog. “Think yer funny, Davros? Lyin’ like that, hmm?” I felt the club poke under my chin tilting my head up until I was looking Corlo straight in his eyes. “I thought maybe about putting a word in to Madame. Maybe let her invite you to stay on as a Proctor like Bloke and me. Where’s a freak like you gonna go anyway?”

  Like hell I would do that!

  The thought of spending the rest of his life in this place with people like Corlo and Bloke made me feel like vomiting.

  By the Eye, my stomach hurts!

  Awakening Initiated!

  The Eye sees you! Marfa’s Waning currently in effect! Imbolc’s Waxing currently in effect! The Eye has granted you Imbolc’s Trait: Born of Fire!

  “Hey, what the hell is wrong with this guy?” Bloke let go of my arm and backed away. “You gonna puke?”

  “He ain’t doing nothin’ until he and I set the record straight.” Corlo reached out and snatched me by the throat. I felt my gorge rise. Something was wrong. Corlo said something else and raised his club, but I was no longer paying attention. Something was coming. My whole body was shaking and I was sweating profusely. Bloke said something else and Corlo yelled at him to shut up. Then Corlo shook me, his grip tightening on my throat and I could no longer hold back. I opened my mouth and hell poured out.