Roses

Juillietta surveyed herself in the mirror, and sighed.

The uniform was horrible. The skirt, which reached below her knees and kissed her shins, was unbecoming. The skirt, which reached just below her knees, made her legs look worryingly twig-like and the black sweater, with it’s royal blue trim, that she had to wear over her shirt sucked the life and colour out of her skin.

At least, she told herself, her platinum hair looked good against it.

It wasn’t much of an ‘at least’.

She slipped down the stairs, pouting.

“Good morning Gorgeous,” Will said cheerfully with a mouth full of toast as she slunk into the kitchen.

“Stop being stupid,” she muttered, sitting down at the table. Luciana set a plate in front of her.

“I’m not being stupid, my dearest Juillietta. You are very pretty. However, you do look like an old woman. You need to pull up your skirt.”

“William!” she cried, shocked at his suggestion.

“Not like that. Just so that it’s shorter. Look, stand up.”

Juillietta did so obediently, and Luciana watched interestedly.

Will un-tucked the shirt and reached underneath her shirt to pull the waistband up. Which was, of course, the moment that Aurora chose to walk in in her own uniform.

“Jeez Will, if you’re going to get it on with my sister can you not do it in the kitchen,” she said, grabbing a plate from the sideboard and piling it up with food.

“Shut up, Aurora,” William murmured good naturedly in reply, rolling the waistband of the skirt up, so that it stayed secured and the skirt now reached the middle of Luciana’s thigh.

“Get my mum to take up the hem for you,” he said, surveying his handiwork. “Now you really look hot. Chuck will have to resort to murder to keep the guys away from you,” he said, nodding appreciatively at the thought.

Luciana crossed the kitchen, and gathered up her sister’s hair.

Juillietta flinched a little- she hadn’t forgotten her sisters ‘crazy turn’, as she called it, and was a little bit wary of physical contact with her.

Luciana flinched as well, from the overwhelming sense of déjà vu of the exact kind she got in her nightmares, but she diligently ignored it and braided her sister’s hair. She twisted the braid into the bun, and secured it with a few bobby pins drawn from her own hair.

Will nodded approvingly. “There. Doesn’t she look good Aurora?”

“Chuck will have a bitch-fit,” replied Aurora, earning herself a short lecture on bad language from Luciana.

William just laughed, and Juillietta sat down to her meal.

Attention turned to Aurora then. She looked, as Juillietta said snidely, absolutely adorable in her uniform. It was a red and white dress with white socks and black patent shoes. She had a straw hat with a red ribbon and a red cardigan.

“It’s disgusting,” Aurora said matter-of-factly, shoveling food into her mouth. “I don’t know what they’re trying to do to me. It’s like they hate me already.”

“I think you look lovely,” Caroline said, coming in.

“Yes, but you would. You’re a mum, mum’s always like things like this,” Aurora replied, like she would actually know. She was also upset because she was only allowed to keep on her charm bracelet and ring. Both Caroline and Luciana had forbidden the wearing of the rest of her jewelry to school on the grounds that it was unnecessary.

“The kids would think you’re just showing off,” Caroline had said.

“I would just be showing off, if they didn’t have stuff like it,” Aurora had counter-argued, making everyone laugh. Caroline still hadn’t let her though.

Juillietta had teased her about it until Caroline told her she shouldn’t wear her necklace either.

Luciana was the unluckiest of all because at work she would only be allowed to wear her anklet and her necklaces, because the bracelets and the rings would all get in the way.

But, as the other two had pointed out, she only worked two days a week and no one would actually see her minus all her finery anyway.

“Aura, let me do your hair. You can’t go out with it like that,” Luciana said.

Aurora took off her hat and shook out her black hair.

Luciana combed it through with her fingers and braided it through then pinned the braids round her hair so that they were barely visible underneath her hat.

Her own braid fell out of its bun and hung loose down her back.

Robbie walked in, and over to the sideboard to begin sharing for himself.

“Let me do that,” Luciana said, hurrying over to him and taking away the plate. “Sit down.” But Robbie refused, and made the job twice as long by insisting on helping her share for him.

Those at the table all looked knowingly at each other and stifled laughs.

Aurora, Will and Juillietta left soon after, and then Caroline after them, leaving Luciana and Robbie to tidy up.

“Don’t you want to go to school?” Robbie asked, as he scraped the plates, although Luciana’s and Caroline’s were the only ones with anything actually left on them.

“I’m too old,” Luciana laughed, soaping the plates as Robbie handed them to her.

“No you’re not. You can go to university. And you can go at any age, as well. Wouldn’t you like to go to university? You get to choose what you want to do- whatever you want- and study it.”

“I could?” Luciana asked, and for a second Luciana seemed interested. Robbie nodded eagerly, but as quickly as her enthusiasm came, it left, and she seemed to slump down. “No. No, I don’t think I could.”

There was a silence, and Robbie went round to her other side, to dry off the plates.

“Don’t you want to go to university?” Luciana asked hurriedly, seeing that Robbie was going to speak again, and guessing correctly that he was going to ask her why she didn’t think she could.

“I do. And I was, but I didn’t enjoy my course, so I’ve reapplied and I’m going to start again next year.”

“Oh,” Luciana murmured. “What did you want to do?”

“I was studying History and French,” he replied, and Luciana sighed, almost wistfully. “You could study another language. You pick them up so quickly. Or you could study Literature- I think you’d like that-” he begun but Luciana shook her head vigourously and slammed her hand against the draining board.

“No. No, I couldn’t.”

They cleaned up in silence after that.



“And, as I’m sure you’ve all noticed, we have a new student! Class, I’d like you all to welcome Aurora!”

That was how the overly perky teacher concluded the morning’s announcements.

The entire class turned to face her and, as one mouth, chanted “hello Aurora!”

It was like being swallowed whole by a horror movie.



Something similar was happening in the school Luciana now went to.

“Year eleven, we have a new student. Her name is… Juliet-” Juillietta cringed- “and I’d like you to all make her feel welcome,” the teacher said, monotonously.

Juillietta was, at current, sitting at a table with Chuck on one side with his arm across the back of her chair and Will at the other with his hand resting on top of hers on the table.

There was- thankfully- no classwide “Welcome Juliet”, but half the boys in the class and a few of the girls sauntered over to ‘make her feel welcome’ in their own special way.

“So you’re one of the girls Will found?” one girl asked, twiddling a strand of hair around a finger.

“Yeah,” Juillietta said, overwhelmed. Somehow this translated as ‘I am, so you can ignore my presence.’

“She’s pretty, isn’t she?” another girl asked, to widespread agreement.

“A bit sickly look though,” a third said.

“And entirely still present,” Juillietta cut in, harshly.

“Oh. Sorry,” the girl simpered, not meaning a word of it.

Juillietta narrowed her eyes, and would have said something, had Will not told her to leave it.

“Is it really worth making enemies on your first day?”

“Yes,” Juillietta said, still glaring.

“No, it’s not. Besides, then they’ll tell my mum. Do you want that?”

Juillietta sighed, and shook her head.

The bell rung then, and the students melted back to their seats to collect their belongings.

Will took Luciana’s freshly printed timetable off the table and studied it.

“You have Maths first, with Chuck and me.”

Juillietta frowned. After the abysmal numeracy test a united effort had been made by the entire household to raise her maths skills to an acceptable standard.

The result was that Juillietta became proficient in maths, and would have no trouble with Maths lessons at school, and that she learned how to hate it on more than a mere theoretical basis.

“Ahh, it won’t be that bad,” Will said, getting up and patting her back.

She sighed, and shut her eyes. She was disliking school already.



Aurora was faring no better.

The class were reading Spud From Outer Space.

It was about an alien man-eating potato, and that was all she needed to know about it.
She felt like she was dying, and if she wasn’t dying she would definitely kill herself.

She tried to explain to the teacher that the book was absolute bollocks, and she’d be far more comfortable reading proper literature, like The War of the Worlds, but the teacher had just explained to her- gently- that they didn’t tolerate the use of the word ‘bollocks’ in the school.

Aurora replied that they obviously did, otherwise they wouldn’t expect the students to read it, and was sent to sit on the ‘naughty table’ by herself.

And so, as the rest of the class immersed themselves deep in the adventures of ‘Spud’, Aurora was drawing on the table in pencil; a great old terrible forest in which her perky class teacher was being devoured by wolves. You couldn’t actually see it happening in the picture, but Aurora knew it was there, and that was good enough for her.



Robbie, on Luciana’s insistence, had taken out the old history books needed for his last course, and was watching her read through them.

After a while she stopped, and asked Robbie for a pen and paper.

He got them for her, and then turned on the TV.

She began to write, ignoring the noise of the TV, translating the story the book told- the awful story- into her own language.

For some reason, the blood shed and the cries for the heads of the nobility struck some chord in her heart, and she had to, she absolutely had to write it down.

Somewhere along the line, although Luciana didn’t realize it, she stopped writing about the French Revolution and started writing about an entirely different revolution.

Robbie peered over her shoulder once, but l as with the night before he couldn’t discern individual letters, or characters, or whatever it was that she was writing in. All he knew was that it was beautiful.

It was impossible to pull her from her daze of words and déjà vu, and so he left for the kitchen, to make them lunch.



Juillietta had done well in her Maths lesson, having had trouble at first, but improving quickly, as Will had expected. But she was miserable.

Maths, as she’d guessed, was intolerably dull, and she was sat on a table with two quiet boys who didn’t talk unless it was about the work.

She looked over to Will and Chuck’s table, where a lively debate had failed to be hushed by the teacher’s threats- not even when she sent on the of the kids on the table out.

If luck were being a lady, she was one of the dog variety.

Things turned up in Art, although neither of the boys were with her in that lesson at all.

However, the teacher was a lovely middle-aged man who supplied her with a sketchbook and a quick overview of roughly where things were in the classroom, told her the unit topic and then left her alone to get on with it.

The girl next to her filled her in on all the important things.

“Like Mr. French said, the topic is ‘I, me, mine’, but because it’s art that basically can be made to mean anything. This is our exam topic, so we’ll be working up towards a final piece through the work we do in our sketchbooks, at home and in class.”

“I, me, mine? What would that mean?” Juillietta asked, a horrible premonition growing in her stomach.

“It’s about identity. So who are you, and how can you put that into art?”

Juillietta shrunk. “I don’t really know who I am.”

“Identity crisis?” The girl asked, opening her sketchbook onto a page with a pencil sketch on it.

“No. I just don’t remember who I am, at all.”

“Oh. You must be one of the girls Will found. What’s your name again?”

“Juillietta.”

“Did you choose that name, or was it one you remembered.”

“I remembered it.”

“Then start with that. Start with all the things you remembered. Your project will be far more interesting then anyone else’s.”

And so Juillietta started with her name.

She’s never been taught to write it in English so, borrowing a pencil from the girl next to her, she wrote it on her mother tongue on the first page of the sketchbook.

“That’s beautiful,” the girl said. “What is it?”

“It’s my name. That’s how it’s written.” Juillietta pointed to the intricately woven, interlocking characters, saying each sound as she passed it.

“What language is this? It’s gorgeous.”

Luciana shrugged. “I don’t remember.”

The girl smiled, and Juillietta decided she liked her already, without even knowing her name.



“Do you want to hang out with me at break?” The girl asked, as they packed up. “That is, if you don’t have anyone else you want to hang with,” she added on, noticing Juillietta’s hesitation.

“I would like to. I don’t know what Chuck and Will would think though.”

“Chuck and Will? Do you like them?” the girl asked. It turned out her name was Louise. Juillietta had only found that out when someone had asked her to pass them the bottle of black acrylic.

“Yeah, I do,” Juillietta said, following the girl out of the room.

“Oh.”

“Why do you say it like that?”

“No reason. Okay, so there is a reason. I think they’re a little… obnoxious. And full of themselves.”

“Obnoxious?”

“Yeah. Like… rude, and a bit disgusting.”

“I think everyone’s obnoxious and full of themselves. Either they’re that, or they’re freaky, or they’re old,” Juillietta said, but then added, “but I guess I only know a few people. Maybe ten, or eleven. And you.” Louise laughed. “But I like Will, and Chuck. They’re nice. They are really nice.”

Louise tactfully changed the topic.

“So you have sisters, right? What are they like?”

“Luciana is my oldest sister. She’s twenty-one, and she’s really crazy. I’m not sure if she was always like that but she is now, and it’s really freaky. And my youngest sister is Aurora. She’s nine, and her and Will get along really well because she can make up the dirtiest stories in the world, and they teach each other how to swear.”

“Wow. That sounds… well actually that sounds insane. And you live…?”

“We live with Will and his family. Caroline, his mum, adopted us.”

They emerged into the bright sunlight in the playground and headed towards a particular spot where a group had already amassed.

“So you really don’t remember anything? Not where you were born, or who your parents are, or anything?”

Juillietta shook her head. “Nothing about myself, except my name, my age and the fact that Cianae and Aura are my sisters.”

“Wow. You should definitely put all of that in you sketchbook.” They reached the little group. “Guys, this is Julletta, she’s new.”

“It’s Juillietta, actually. Umm, hi,” she said, a little awkwardly, not knowing what the correct way to introduce herself was.

People began to come forward to greet her and introduce themselves, and she was just being asked by ‘Cassy’ how she managed to get her skin to glow so beautifully when someone rested their arms on Juillietta’s shoulders.

The group fell into the mumbling silence of people trying to eavesdrop whilst carrying on with their conversation in an attempt to cover up the fact that they are eavesdropping.

“Juillietta you had Chuck and I a little worried. We couldn’t think where the hell you might be, and then we thought you might have gotten lost and Christ, it was such a struggle to stop Chuck from shooting himself in the head when he thought that maybe you had died because he failed to give you any sort of instructions on how to get into the playground from your classroom,” Will said, barely pausing for breath.

“Chuck’s an idiot,” Juillietta said, shrugging Will off.

“Chuck’s right here,” Chuck said, stepping into Juillietta’s sight line.

“You’re an idiot, Chuck,” Juillietta repeated to applause from Will.

“Thanks a bunch Juillietta,” Chuck said bitterly, and to the group of Louise’s friends, “you guys can keep her.”

“Chuck’s just stressing out because Juillietta doesn’t ‘feel the same way about him as he does about her.’ It’s one part cute, three parts pathetic,” Will announced, causing Chuck to shove him.

Juillietta rolled her eyes, and walked a little way a way from the boys. “That is them being obnoxious, I guess?” she asked Louise, who nodded.

“Don’t they even irritate you a little bit?”

Juillietta shrugged. “No, not really.”

“Wow. You must have the patience of a saint.”

Juillietta nodded. She thought she did too.



Aurora’s day got no better. She got told off for drawing on the table, and things hit rock bottom when she found out about school dinners.

“This is shit,” she said to her crowd of ardent admirers who giggled when she swore but were too self-conscious, or who lacked the guts to do so themselves.

“It actually tastes like shit,” she said again, frowning at her plate.

“It always tastes like that,” the girl next to her giggled, delicately picking at her own plate of unidentifiable jelloid mass.

“I don’t think I can subject myself to this crap every day,” Aurora stated, shaking her head.

“Well, you could go on packed lunch,” said the girl on her right who was playing with the charms on Aurora’s charm bracelet.

“Which is what, exactly?”

“Packed lunch. Your mum- or your dad-” she added, with a gracious nine-year-old nod to gender equality, “makes it for you, and you take it to school, and then you eat in the packed lunch hall in the back playground.”

“And I can bring whatever the hell I want to eat, right?”

“Right.”

“Good. In which case, I’ll see you later. I’m going to find myself a packed lunch. About eight girls all had to jump on her, to stop her from leaving the table then, and they all got bellowed at mightily by the dinner lady on warder charge.

Her day was not getting any better at all.



Luciana and Robbie’s lunch was going better.

Her fit of writing had left her exhausted, and she and Robbie ate the pasta he had made in relative silence.

Then they returned to the living room after they ate, and Luciana stretched out full length along the sofa, with her head in Robbie’s lap, and he stroked her hair till she fell asleep, promising to wake her up as soon as she started to dream.

It only took half an hour before her eyes started to flicker, and Robbie shook her gently awake. She sat up slowly, and shakily, and leant against him.

She’d seen enough of the dream to know that it was her worst one, the one with the beautiful boy with the icy blue eyes…

Robbie’s hand held hers comfortingly, but she couldn’t shake off the feeling of those icy blue eyes staring at her.

That was the worst thing about her nightmares. The feeling… no, not the feeling the knowledge that they were real. That they were things that happened, or that were going to happen, or that should have happened.

“Was it really bad sweety?” Robbie asked, the endearment slipping from his lips before he could stop it. Luciana didn’t notice.

She nodded, but wouldn’t say anything more about why, and after a while Robbie decided they should leave the house, and go for a walk around time before it was time to pick Aurora up.

Luciana had only been in the town a few times in the past few months, outside working in Caroline’s café. She didn’t know where much of anything was, or how to get anywhere.

Being cooped up inside wasn’t helping her… her condition any, Robbie was sure.

So they put on shoes and socks and left the house and made the ten minute walk into town.

It was a truly beautiful day, with fluffy white clouds flitting across the sky and a slight breeze rustling the leaves of the trees and the hedgerows as they passed.

Luciana held Robbie’s hand.

She hadn’t noticed that she was doing it, but she was, and Robbie had.

The icy eyes were still there, in a glimpse of a cloud in the sky, or the face of a person she passed in the street, once even in her own reflection in a shop window.

They ended up in Caroline’s café, reading a magazine.

It was Luciana’s first time reading a magazine, and her reaction to the majority of the information contained in it was high class entertainment for Robbie.

She nudged him urgently, and pointed to the current article.

“Do they… is this… is this really in here? So… openly?” she asked, shocked.

Robbie looked over at the page and suppressed laughter. He nodded. “Yeah. They put sex tips-” Luciana flushed, embarrassed- “in magazines. I guess it sells more.” He chuckled, unable to hold it back. Luciana was horrified.

“And that’s okay?”

Robbie nodded again, now laughing so much he couldn’t speak.

Luciana pursed her lips, and put the magazine down, but then picked it up again after half a minute or so.

Robert laughed again as Luciana read, her face showing plainly her shock and disgust.

“They shouldn’t put things like this in. Anyone could read it. God, imagine if Aurora read it?”

“There’s nothing in it that would surprise her, I’m sure,” Robbie muttered. Luciana decided not to hear him.

“This is… surely this can’t be true,” she murmured, bringing the magazine closer to her face as if this would make the words somehow change.

After a while she shook her head and threw the magazine down again.

“It’s disgusting,” she said, primly.

“It’s life,” Robbie replied, with a shrug. Luciana shuddered, and went off to select a classic without overt sexual references to read.

When she sat back down on the chair, she leant against him. He wanted to put his arm around her, but he didn’t push it.



“How was your day?” Robbie asked Aurora.

Aurora, in return, scowled.

“That bad, huh?”

“It was absolute crap. Every last moment of it, shit. I got shouted at five times for the most trivial things!”

A teacher stormed over at that moment, a look of solid determination on her face.

“Are you Aurora’s guardians?” She asked, almost shaking with righteous indignation.

“I’m her sister,” Luciana said, stepping forward.

“Ah, well Miss… miss. I’m afraid to say that Aurora’s first day hasn’t been a very good start for her at all. Now I understand that her situation is a little delicate, in that she’s never been to school before but there are some boundaries that we expect her to know. Her language is appalling, and she has no respect for her teachers or the school property or those around her. She refused to join in with class activities.”

Luciana sighed, and seemed to shrink.

“Aura, is this true?”

Aurora shrugged. “Cianae, look what she had me reading. Look!” she pulled her already-defaced book out of her bag and waved it in Luciana’s face. “Is this not crap?”

Luciana took the book and inspected it carefully, turning it over in her hands and reading the first page, lips pursed.

“I would not have put it like that,” she said finally. The teacher almost exploded there and then.

“This is recommended reading for year five,” she said, pointedly, reintroducing herself into the conversation.

“Ahh, I’m very sorry. If I had known, I wouldn’t have let her read anything else,” Luciana said, absolutely sincere, but sounding sarcastic to the teacher.

“Ahh, so what does Aurora read at home? She mentioned The War of the Worlds,” The teacher said, her voice saying very plainly what she did not- that she thought Aurora was lying.

“Ahh, Aura did like that. Currently I have her reading Anna Karenina- but I will take her off it immediately.”

“Cianae!” Aurora said, shocked.

“Well you said you didn’t like it!” Luciana snapped back in reply.

“Yes, but it’s better than that!” She said, pointing to the book. “At least I can appreciate Tolstoy. There is absolutely nothing appreciable about that. It’s like sticking my head in mush!”

“Aura, if it’s your school work you will read it. Yes?”

Aurora didn’t reply.

“Aurora! Oukaio? Answer me! Say ‘aye Lucianae, o oikaio’!”

“Aye, Lucianae, o oikaio,” Aurora muttered, then, quieter, but still audible; “Manchenda.”

“Aurora don’t you dare talk to me like that,” Luciana said, her voice holding the same authority it held the night before, when she handed out the jewelry.

“But it’s not fair! Why do I have to read this? Do they want me to regress?” she wailed, almost about to cry.

“She can read it alongside whatever she’s reading at home,” the teacher interjected hurriedly. “As long as she reads it.”

“There. Your nice teacher said you can read that as well as Anna Karenina. Say thank you to her.” Luciana’s voice had reverted, almost, to its normal self, and so Aurora screwed up the courage to refuse.

“I’m not thanking her. All she’s done to me today is yell at me.”

Luciana sighed. “I’m very disappointed, Aurora,” she said, shaking her head and turning to the teacher.

“Please, if you have any more trouble from her, tell me. I am so sorry for her behaviour.”

The teacher thanked her, and assured her that when there was more trouble, she would make sure Luciana heard about it.



Luciana walked ahead of Aurora and Robbie, who was disappointed- he was hoping she would hold his hand again.

“I don’t know why she was so upset,” Aurora moaned, dragging her bag behind her.

“I think she just wanted to be able to say how proud of you she was,” Robbie replied, with a shrug.

“Huh. I think she’s just crazy,” Aurora replied, scowling.

“Aurora, don’t joke about serious things like that,” Robbie said, and Aurora noticed that he didn’t disagree.

“So how was it today. Any progress?” Aurora asked, changing the subject and nudging him.

“Umm, well… yes, actually. We went for a little bit of a walk around the town and she held my hand.”

“She held your hand?” Aurora asked, an eyebrow raised.

Robbie nodded, silently.

“You sounded like a little girl just then; ‘and we held hands’,” Aurora mimicked cruelly.

“Hey, you are a little girl, so you can’t talk,” Robbie replied easily, ignoring Aurora’s mocking.

Aurora hit him lightly, and laughed.

Nearer the house, when Luciana’s speed had not relented at all, Robbie spoke again.

“Please try and be good for her tomorrow. Please, Aurora. She was so happy today.”

“Her, happy? Yeah, right.”

“Okay, so maybe she wasn’t skipping around and singing but she was… she was friendly. She was more…”

“Normal?” Aurora suggested, a cheeky grin on her face.

“Don’t be like that, Aurora!” Robbie said, and Aurora relented.

“Fine. I’ll be good. Wouldn’t want to be in the way of you getting laid,” she said, skipping away from him, and he chased her up the hill, past Luciana, and caught her, tickling her mercilessly till Luciana caught back up.

She looked at them, and sighed.



Will and Juillietta arrived back at the house with Chuck and Louise in tow half an hour after Robbie, Luciana and Aurora did.

“Hello. How was your day?” Luciana asked Juillietta as she came into the living room.

“Horrible. I had Science last, it was even worse than Maths. I hate it,” Juillietta said. “This is my friend Louise,” Juillietta moved aside so that Louise could come in.

“Hi,” she said, smiling widely.

“Hello. I’m Luciana. Is there anything I can get you?”

“No thank you,” Louise said, still smiling.

“Aurora! Where you at, sistah?” William called, coming into the living room.

‘I’m here homie,” Aurora replied, popping her head up over the back of a chair.

“How was your day?”

She stood up, and stretched. “God-awful. The teachers a bitch, the work is shit and Cianae’s pissed at me.”

“Aurora!” Robbie and Luciana scolded in unison.

“Oh. Sorry, you two. Didn’t mean to offend. Cianae, can I take a break, please? If I read any more of this… low level literature, potatoes will start pulverizing themselves out of my ears,” she added.

“Fine,” Luciana said, suddenly emotionless, turning back to her book.

Aurora rolled her eyes at Robbie before jumping over the back of the chair and making her way over to Will and Chuck.

Luciana watched the five traipse upstairs then sighed, and got up to make dinner.



Dinner was insane.

There were too many people to sit at the kitchen table so they sat in the living room instead, and everyone seemed to be talking at once, but Aurora’s voice reigned supreme.

Luciana was the only silent one.

She spent more time pushing her food around on her plate than actually eating it.

This was so common that the only person who noticed it at all was Louise.

“This is really nice,” she said, little gingerly.

“I’m glad you like it,” Luciana murmured.

Louise looked at her, visibly shocked.

“Oh, you made it? Well it really is… delicious.”

“Luciana’s an absolute saint. She cooks all our meals for us,” Caroline said, putting another forkful of the pasta bake in her mouth.

Louise looked at Luciana, who was staring at her plate, not noticing at all that she had attracted attention.

Caroline looked back at Louise as well, to see how she was enjoying the food she had made.

Robbie looked at her as well, now that Caroline and Louise were, and soon the entire room fell silent, all of them watching Luciana push her food round her plate as if trying to find gastronomic gold beneath it

“Luciana,” Robbie murmured, but the room was so silent that his words rang out like a bell.
She looked at him, the question in her eyes.

“Are you going to eat something?”

She looked down at her plate and ice blue eyes looked back up at her. She looked up hurriedly and noticed everyone at the table looking at her with their cold, ice blue eyes. She shook her head. “Umm, no… No, I don’t think I’m hungry. I think that I want to lie down, actually. Excuse me…” she stood up and was taking her plate into the kitchen when Aurora stopped her.

“If you’re not going to eat that Cianae, pass it here. I’m ravenous.”

Luciana placed the plate at Aurora’s feet silently, and drifted out of the room.

Everyone cast sly glances at Robbie, but because they all did it at the same time the overall effect was of six heads all momentarily gravitating towards him.

He ignored them, and carried on with his food, so everyone else did too.



Luciana sat in Robbie’s bed, her head cradled in her hand.

They eyes were not fading away like they usually did. They were still there, and the image of them was now everywhere she looked. Even shutting her own eyes didn’t block them out.

She could feel her heart shattering and shattering and shattering inside her chest, breaking in to infinite, infinitesimal pieces. And she felt guilt- an incredible guilt.

“What did I do?” she whimpered to herself. “What have I done wrong?”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” was her reply. She looked up instantly, assuming out of a force of habit, that the voice would be Robbie’s. But she saw no one. That’s when it hit her that both the question and it’s answer had both been in her mother tongue- the one that no one in England- or in that specific locality, anyway, had ever heard of.

“Who are you?” She demanded and then, “where are you?”

But there was no reply this time, just endless, bottomless black silence that held the promise of deep and dreamless sleep; the sleep of the dead.



When Robbie came up at nine, after Louise and Chuck had left for home and Aurora had been sent to bed, Luciana had not moved an inch.

He checked only her lids. They weren’t moving. He sighed, and nodded, and got what he came up for, his burgundy hoody, and went back down again.

He’d agreed to go with Juillietta to the shop- she’d ben struck with a sudden desire for chocolate which nothing, save a galaxy bar would appease.

He left with some change he’d picked up in his pocket and a request to Caroline that she’d check on Luciana in five minutes, and then they left.

They walked into the town, and talked about Juillietta’s day, and at intervals, Robbie would whistle cheerfully. Juillietta was just enjoying the fact that they were alone together, for the first time.

“So,” Juillietta started tentatively, “you like Cianae, don’t you?”

“It’s really obvious, isn’t it?” Robbie replied with a question, and a pathetic little laugh.
Juillietta forced herself to laugh as well.

“So what… umm, what do you like about her?”

Robbie thought for a second before replying. “Well, she’s very earnest,” he said finally, a faint little smile on his face. “And she’s very thoughtful. It’s obvious that she cares a lot about you, and Aurora. And she has a lovely laugh-”

“She laughs?” Juillietta asked, shocked. She was sure she’d never heard her sister laugh before.

“Yeah, she does. Quite a lot sometimes,” Robbie replied, amused by Juillietta’s shock. “She’s just lovely. She really is.”

Juillietta pursed her lips. “You love her,” she said, accusatorially.

Robbie shook his head. “No, no I don’t, I just think she’s- you know- I don’t-”

“You do, you love her!” Juillietta said, now almost in tears.

Robbie stopped abruptly. “Juillietta, what’s the matter?” he asked confused.

“It’s not fair,” she said, trying and failing to keep her face and her voice from slipping into tears. “I like you more than she does! She doesn’t even notice you. She doesn’t even do anything! It’s not fair. Why do you like her?”

“Juillietta,” Robbie said, but he had nothing else to say, nothing that would make her less upset, so he just patted her hand awkwardly.

They stood there for what felt like years, Juillietta crying into her hands, Robbie standing by awkwardly, trying to comfort her.

But she did stop crying, eventually. She wiped her eyes with her sleeves and took a few deep breaths.

“I think I’m okay now,” she said, and her voice only trembled a little bit. “Umm. I’m sorry. Can we not tell anyone? And just pretend that never happened?”

Robbie nodded.

“Okay. And I’m… I’m sorry that I couldn’t return your feelings. I just-”

Juillietta cut him off, not wanting to hear him say it. “I know. I understand.”

Robbie nodded again, and they continued on to the shop.



“You’ve been gone a while,” Caroline observed when they got back.

“Yeah, well…” Robbie said, by way of explanation, and not expanding any further. Caroline shrugged, and turned back to her paper.

Juillietta and Robbie went upstairs, silently, and parted ways, silently.

In Robbie’s room, Luciana was still sleeping. She hadn’t moved.

Her lids were still.

Robbie begun to worry. He and Juillietta had been out for half an hour.

Luciana’s paleness was no help. If something were wrong with her he wouldn’t be able to tell simply by looking at her, but he didn’t dare to move her to check her pulse, didn’t want to see if she was still breathing. Because if she wasn’t then…

If she wasn’t, he didn’t know what he would do.

He forced himself to calm down and walked over to Luciana. Did he detect movement? Had she moved?

No.

He stole a little closer. No discernable movement, no sound.

He held a finger under her nose, and counted. Nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing, nothing- warmth. He sighed. She was still alive.

He shook her shoulder gently, but there was no reaction. So he shook a little more vigourously, and then a little more but he may as well have been shaking a mannequin. Luciana didn’t react.

Which left only one answer: Luciana was unconscious. She must have hit her head or something.

Robbie ran down the stairs, to alert his mum.

“Mum, something’s wrong with Luciana. She’s not moving. I think she’s unconscious.”

“Are you sure, Robbie?”

“Yes, I’m sure mum. She won’t wake up.”

Caroline put her paper down, and went upstairs to check if Robbie was just overreacting. Robbie trailed after her like a lost animal.

Caroline shook Luciana hard enough that Robbie thought something would break off, and then pulled up an eyelid. Luciana’s flat green eye stared back at her, lifelessly. Caroline let the lid shut hurriedly.

“We’ll take her to A&E,” Caroline said, her voice now showing a trace of panic. “Give me a hand with her.”

Robbie picked her light frame up all alone though- she barely weighed anything because she barely ate anything.

He carried her down to the car with Caroline following, giving him unnecessary warnings to be careful with her.

Robbie didn’t need to be told to be careful with her; he was treating her like she was made of china.

They conducted the drive to the hospital in silence, Robbie sitting in the back with Luciana’s head in his lap, watching over her carefully.

The regional hospital’s A&E was crowded with drunks and people who’d injured themselves in various, ridiculous ways. As she spoke to the nurse at the front desk, Caroline hoped to God that they wouldn’t have to wait in there long.

Her prayers were answered. Because they suspected Luciana had a head injury, they were seen to almost immediately by a pretty doctor with a sympathetic smile, who explained to them the scans they were going to do on Luciana, and what the results would imply.

“Caroline listened anxiously while Robbie faded into a quiet oblivion, watching Luciana’s still, almost lifeless face.

“You should go home, and get some rest,” Caroline said to him, breaking him out of whatever trance he’d been in.

“No, no I couldn’t… I couldn’t sleep knowing that something might be wrong with her. And you should get home. You’re the one who has to work tomorrow.”

“I’m her legal guardian Robbie. Besides, how on earth do you think that you two will get home? Did you even think to bring your phone?”

Robbie pulled his phone out of his pocket. “Here, actually.”

“Whatever. I’m still staying.”

“Then I’m staying. I can’t leave her mum.”

Caroline sighed. “Fine. You are one soppy boy.”

Robbie didn’t laugh. He just sighed and let his head sink into his hands.

It would be a long night.