The
Discovery
“Okay. Just remember that I’ll be home by
five. You two are cleaning the house for tomorrow’s inspection. Clean
everything.” Catherine’s mother sighed. “Okay. Bye now. My children in cleaning
gear. This must be the proudest day of my life. Which actually, is pretty sad.”
Their mother left their house and John turned to Catherine. “Okay. I’ll do
downstairs, and you’ll do up stairs. My room is clean, so you don’t need to
clean it. Okay. See you in a few hours.” He walked of into the kitchen. All right then. I’ll start with the bedrooms
and then the bathroom and finally the halls. Now, who should I’d start off
with. I don’t need to do John’s. Stephaney’s asleep so I don’t want to go in
there. My room is fine, so I’ll guess I do Mum and Dad’s. She thought and
she walked into her parent’s room. There was clothing on the floor and the
wardrobe was open and full of dust. She peered under the bed to see even more
stashed away cloths. “It’s like a five year old’s bedroom in here! Let see.
I’ll start under the bed and then the floor and finally the wardrobe.”
After the nightmare of cleaning from
under the bed, and the lesser nightmare of cleaning up the floor, Catherine
fully opened the wardrobe to be greeted by a cloud of dust. “Great, just great.
I’m going to need a vacuum cleaner. But John’s using it now. Maybe I should
remove the stuff from the top shelf first” Catherine started to take down boxes
of old cloths, shoes and belongings from the second highest shelf. When she had
finished she looked at the top shelf. There was a gold box that caught her attention. She had never seen
it before. Catherine reached up to try and get the box down, but she couldn’t
reach. She stepped up onto the self. “I…I got it!” she exclaimed. The box was
heavier then she expected and put her off balance. Catherine lost her footing
and CRASH! She and the box fell to the ground. “Ouch. That hurt.” She said
aloud. “Hey sis! What happened up there? Are you okay?” John asked as he ran up
the stairs. “Whoa! You found it!” John said he kneeled down and picked up the
box. “What is it?” Catherine asked confused. “It’s where Mum puts all the
confiscated stuff. It has everything! All my phones, games, DVDs! Everything!”
John shouted, “Cool!” Catherine said back.
The two of them stated to search
though the box. There were toys, games, videos and lots of papers and photos.
John was scrambling though the games and DVDs while the photos and papers
intrigued Catherine. So many photos of
the family on holidays. She thought. She looked in the box again. “Hey,
John… What’s that?” She asked. Catherine was looking at a jewellery box with
the letters A CE. “I don’t know. Maybe
Mum was called Ace in the old days?” he said. “I’m going to open it.” She said.
“Fine with me” he replied.
Catherine looked around the
brown jewellery box to find an opening. There was a lock without a key.
“Hey John. Is there, a key in
there?” she asked still looking at the locked box. “What…” John started to
rummage around the belongings. “Oh yeah. Here” He gave her a key and she
weighed it in her hand. It was heavy. Hmm.
Maybe it’s real gold? Catherine put the key into the lock and unlocked the
jewellery box. It opened with a sharp click.
The box was full of old papers and photos. One was a letter addressed to Mr and
Mrs Alander. It was in an old yellow envelope. Its letters were imprinted in
gold like the acceptance letter. “Hey John! This looks like my letter I got
from that school.” She said as she put it down and looked back into the
jewellery box. The top page said:
Certificate of Adoption.
This is to certify Mary Alander
has formally adopted the Janie Doe into the Alander family on this 25th
day of June 1997.
Catherine was shocked. Her mother
had adopted someone called Janie. Who is
Janie? No. A better question. Where is Janie? If my mum adopted her then
shouldn’t she be living with us? Maybe I should ask John. She thought.
“John… Do you know anyone named Janie?” she asked. “Janie… Janie. What’s her
last name?” he asked back. “Janie Doe.” She answered. “Janie Doe is a name for
a female child who no one knows who they are, or who their parents are. Why?”
Catherine showed him the certificate. John’s eyes grew wide. “Catherine… I…I’m
so-“ “John, my middle name is Janie, and the 25th of June is my
birthday and Mum said I was born in
1997. Please tell me this is just a coincidence.” Catherine’s eyes were welling
up with tears. John stared into her eyes. “Catherine I’m sorry…” he started. He
shuffled towards her, reaching out to her, wanting to comfort her. “Stay away
from me.” She said moving away. John was shocked, but he quickly calmed down.
“Catherine, I’ll clean up here. Why don’t you go to your room? Take that with
you.” He said as he motioned his head to the jewellery box. Catherine nodded
and got up. “And Catherine. Just remember that I still your brother though and
though, no matter what anyone says.” He said as his sister walked out of the
bedroom, tears still falling from her eyes.
Is this what you wanted to tell me? Catherine thought in her head as she
slammed her bedroom door closed. That I
was adopted? Couldn’t you have made that, I don’t know? TEN TIMES easier if you
just have told me that I was damn it, adopted? In my defence, I did. I even hinted it to you, many
times. You were just to signal minded to see that. I…I was… I just didn’t want to believe that my family was lying
to me. You can’t blame me for that. That is true, but still… Well. Are you all
right? Am I all right? I just found out that my entire life has
been a lie. I am not Catherine Alander. I am not apart of any family what so
ever. I am no one… That is not true. As I recall, there was more then that in that
box. And, I distinctly remember that there was a letter bound to you when I… I
mean, that man left you on the doorstep of this house. Is that in the box? I… I’ll have a look.
Catherine opened the box again, and
carefully searched though the pages and photos. There were blood test results,
photos of a young man and woman holding a baby, who Catherine presumed was
herself, and two letters. Catherine opened one of the letters. Inside there was
a short letter and a crystal locket about as big as a thumb, on a choker. The
locket was swarming in colours of blue, purple, red, yellow and green. Catherine
ran her finger over the crystal. At her touch the locket shone and opened.
Inside there was a round orb.
“What is it?” she asked looking at the
silver orb. It’s a moral orb. Only a few people in all the many realms have
them. The orb will glow with light when you are filled with Good and Unity, but
it will glow with darkness like a black hole when you are filled with Evil and
Chaos. A person who has a moral orb is called a Charmer. Each Charmer’s orb
shines in their own colour. I’ve only known of three other Charmers in the
entire world.
“What colour is their orb?” Catherine asked
picking up the orb and holding is in the palm of her hand. It shock slightly and glowed silver to red to
blue to green, like it was deciding what it wanted to be.
Red, Blue and Green. It
fitted them quite well I think. Maybe one day you’ll meet them. Catherine stared at her orb. “It
stopped glowing.” She said quietly to her self. She snapped her head up when
she heard her mother shut the front door. “I’m going to have to talk to her
aren’t I.” Catherine asked, she sighed really not wanting to. She shouldn’t
have to, right? She wasn’t her mum. If you don’t your brother will, then your mother will come up to
talk to you. She sighed again.
Today wasn’t going well for her. Catherine stood up and walked down stairs to
she her “mother’s” back to her putting stuff into the kitchen. John was nowhere
in sight. Well… Here goes nothing.
“Mum…
can I
Talk to
You?”
