Legacy of a Dreamer (2 page)

“He’s gone. He left long ago,” she whispers, knowing it to be so.

“I see,” he says, turning to face the congregation. She notices that the church is now full, each pew cluttered with waiting patrons, watching the pair of them in vague interest.

The women wear big hats and fancy jewelry. Their faces painted heavily with makeup, their clothes positioned provocatively around their altered, curved bodies. The men dressed in their finest suits. Gold watches glitter from thick wrists as they shake the hands of brothers in business. Children play with electronic devices, ignoring their mother’s demands as the artfully crafted games of violence and death consume them.

The husbands ignore their wives, catching the eye of the lovely girls across the pew. The wives stew in their seats, distracted by thoughts of jealousy and revenge. Each focus on the mundane, coveting what they don’t have, lusting after that which isn’t theirs.

“He’s not here,” the boy says, his expression eager. “They don’t see Him, do they?”

She glances out into the crowd, catching only a few glimpses of interest from those who’ve came to worship. Each person seems to find something else to hold his or her attention. They know the cross was bare to begin with.

“I guess they don’t.”
 

A mysterious weight falls upon her chest.

The boy’s voice turns menacing, dropping an octave. “Good. Maybe they’ll see this.”

Taking a step forward, he pulls out a long blade and slits his throat. Blood sprays over the altar, a black stain covering the sacred ground.

She lunges for him in an attempt to staunch the hemorrhaging, but the liquid burns like acid. The boy falls to the ground in a puddle of tainted blood. She screams for someone to help him, looking into the enamored crowd, desperate for help.

No one notices her screams, too busy with their own endeavors. He dies as the ominous singing restarts once more.

“Chantal!”

   
A loud knock against the wall caused plaster and debris from the termite-riddled walls to scatter across the bed, coating the young woman in grit before she’d even had a chance to pull herself out of her afternoon reverie. She’d come into her room to escape the hell she lived in; it was just like that nasty woman to deny her a small moment of peace.

“Chantal!” her housemother called again, this time with that high-pitched shrill that set her teeth on edge. She ran her fingers through the dark length of her hair in attempt to soothe her rapidly growing frustration.

“What?” she snapped, a sharp jolt of annoyance coloring her tone.

“I told you to take the damn trash out,” the harpy screamed.

Chantal gritted her teeth in an attempt to bite her tongue. All she wanted was a moment of peace to allow the day to settle without adding to her unease. If it wasn’t the nightmarish dreams that chased her in the waking hours of the day, it was her precarious future staring her straight in the face, and she was loaded down with stress, ready to snap.

“Chantal Breelan!”

I’m comin’!” she yelled back, hating that her temper had gotten the best of her. A slight lilt to her words seemed to rear its ugly head whenever she got good and mad, but she tried to hide it as best she could. She was originally from New York and lived her whole life here, so she didn’t know why a twang would appear at times like these, but she figured it was something she’d picked up over the years. Since she’d been taken away from her home at such an early age, her background and family lineage would be among the countless questions she had.

“Good. It may be your last day here, but I’ll be damned if I end up picking up your slack.”

“Yeah, right,” Chantal said, rolling her mauve colored eyes. In the last six years, that woman had never lifted a finger to help around the house, no matter who had come and gone. She figured being in charge of twelve delinquent teenagers was grounds for a trip to the loony bin, but the woman lived the high life in her eyes.

Paid nicely by the government for each foster child she took in, Regina Monson only housed kids over the age of twelve so she didn’t have to put up with them for very long if they became a nuisance. The result was a mini army of servants, awaiting their orders.

“She never lets up,” Natalie grumbled from the bunk below her. A sharp thwack against the paper-thin wall came in retaliation. She hadn’t known Natalie Kilpatrick was there, but it shouldn’t have surprised her. Her semi-best friend had always been a recluse, hiding away in her room whenever she got the chance, never letting anyone close enough to know everything about her. Chantal knew it was more of a defense mechanism than a slight on her.

“She means well,” Chantal said, earning herself a scoff from her friend that caused her to smile.

Natalie was a year younger than Chantal and had the tenacity of a pit bull, something she’d probably developed from her stint in juvenile hall at the ripe old age of eleven. She’d been caught stealing apples from the grocery store, and it had probably saved her life. Natalie had been living on the streets, starving and scarred from the many fights she’d been in over the most basic needs, food and shelter. The courts had scooped her up, locked her away for a time, and then released her into foster care. Luckily, she’d landed in Regina’s home, otherwise, she could have ended up in a place where she would have most likely been abused and run away. Regina made Miss Hannigan look like a saint. At least she left them alone once their work was done.

Natalie had earned her reputation as a fighter when Nathan, one of the older boys in the house, tried to take a cookie away from a younger kid. The girls had all been huddled against the back fence as Nathan bullied him into submission, when Natalie walked straight up to him and punched him in the gut, gave the cookie back and rejoined the girls as if nothing had happened. From then on, even the boys gave her a wide berth. Her temper matched her red hair, and her pale complexion mirrored her warm personality, but she was fiercely loyal.

“Tomorrow’s your birthday. Can’t she let you have one last day in peace?” Natalie said.
 

“It’s not like her to do nothin’ kind for nobody,” Becca said, entering through the bedroom door, her thick southern twang in sharp contrast to her Asian heritage, making Chantal’s occasional drawl seem like a proper English accent.

Becca’s evenly cropped black hair hung in her eyes, stringy and dirty. The blue dress she wore was faded to an odd shade of purple, and the dirt under her nails was evidence of a hard day’s work. Her expression set in firm lines, she looked pissed off; her thin arms were crossed over her chest in a guarded fashion. “Took out the trash, Chantie, so you don’t haffta worry ’bout it no more.”

Chantal sat up at the use of her nickname, glancing down at the irate-looking girl sitting on her bed with a deep scowl on her face.

“What happened?” she whispered, wondering what retaliation Regina had imposed because Becca did Chantal’s chores. Becca went to get her pajamas from her dresser, keeping her eyes averted, and after several moments of silence, slammed the drawer closed, causing the items on top to clatter.

“She’s makin’ me feed Brutus for another three weeks,” Becca said, turning around in anger. The hell hound Regina owned didn’t like being fed after six thirty in the morning, and the huge rottweiler never learned that he shouldn’t bite the hand that fed him. It was one of the worst chores that could be assigned and, like cleaning out the toilets and scraping the bottom of Regina’s mold-filled bathtub, it was rotated among the kids every week.

“I’ll go talk to her,” Chantal said, and got up. She hated that Becca had gotten in trouble on her behalf.

“No,” Becca said, holding her hands out. “I knew she was gonna get mad, but I wanted to do it anyways. I ain’t got no money to buy you nothin’, and it’s your birthday, so, just leave it, okay? I don’t mind feeding that stupid mutt for a while.”

“Thanks, girlie.”
 

Chantal gave her a warm smile. She would’ve hugged the girl, but she knew Becca didn’t like to be touched. It was a common wound among kids like her. Chantal found herself grateful once again that she didn’t carry those types of scars with her. She may be plagued by nightmares every night, but she’d never had to live through what Becca had.

The door creaked open and a young girl poked her head in, checking to see if the coast was clear before she came in. Her dark hair hung in damp strands, leaving a few sticking to her neck. She wore tattered pajamas and smelled mildly of soap. Chantal smiled at the girl, knowing how flighty she could be when there was a group of people around.

“Hey, Peanut.”
 

The young girl nicknamed Peanut picked up her head and returned a meek grin. It had taken a while for the youngest resident to become comfortable rooming with three other girls, but Chantal had noticed a slight difference in her newest foster sister. She was starting to come out of her shell.

“There any hot water left?” Becca said, continuing to gather her things, pausing to look at Peanut, knowing that she didn’t speak often. The little one shook her head, her expression apologetic.

“Of course not,” Becca said, dropping back down onto her bed.
 

Peanut walked across the room, her arms filled with her dirty clothes, and threw them on the bed. She put her clothes away meticulously, treating each object as if it were something precious to her. It probably was.

Peanut was the youngest, having come to stay at the home only five months ago. She arrived emaciated and emotionally scarred. No one really knew much about Peanut’s backstory. Even her real name had been a mystery; she told everyone to call her by the nickname she’d picked up at an orphanage back in Montana due to her small stature and shelled disposition.

One time she did let it slip. Chantal was supposed to pick Peanut up from the junior high on her way home, but she hadn’t been in their usual meeting place. She had spent an hour looking for her among the long-since-vacated classrooms and finally found her in a secluded bathroom, tears cascading down her face as she huddled against the tiled wall.

Chantal coaxed her out with promises of kindness and security, knowing in her gut that something very wrong had happened. With a child as damaged as Peanut, things like milk and cookies wouldn’t earn her trust. It was safety the girl craved.

She’d finally told Chantal that her name was Emma Grace, but she didn’t want to be called that because it was bad luck. She didn’t push her on it, and she never told a soul Peanut’s secret, earning the trust of a girl whose real name fit her subtle beauty better than her nickname.

“What’s for dinner tonight?” Natalie asked, then pulled herself off the bed, picked up a hair brush from the dresser, and then went over to gently brush Peanut’s hair.

“It smells like fish,” Peanut said in her soft voice, and Natalie made a face.

“Did the boys go fishing in the canal again?” Natalie said, looking at Becca in alarm.

“You know they did. John Paul had a whole bucket fulla bottom dwellers, and you know how he gets all proud when we eat his catch,” Becca said.

Natalie and Peanut shuddered in response, causing Chantal to chuckle. She was going to miss this, she thought, and a sudden wave of grief enveloped her.

New York law stated that a child could no longer receive foster care once they reached the ripe old age of eighteen, when they were considered an adult and no longer a ward of the state. It didn’t matter if the child was still in high school or if they didn’t have place to go, which resulted in a horde of uneducated, homeless kids with no hope for a future.

Adiós! C’est la vie!
Peace out and good luck!

Chantal was one of the lucky ones, since her birthday fell in late summer. She’d already finished high school, having skipped a grade in elementary. Her good marks had given her an opportunity that not many in her position were awarded: an academic scholarship to NYU. Paying for room and board was another issue, but she’d figure that out once she got there.

“Dinner!” Regina called in her usual bellow, and the girls grumbled as they reluctantly began to head out the door.

“Just plug your nose,” Natalie whispered to Peanut. “It makes it taste less like slime.” Peanut giggled, following Becca out the door.

“Hey.” Natalie paused to look up at Chantal in concern. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” Chantal nodded, taking a deep breath to squelch the emotions threatening to consume her. “Just nervous, you know?”

“Don’t be,” Natalie said in a firm tone. “You’re going to be fine, Chantie. Out of all of us here, you’re the one that will make a better life for herself. Just . . . be safe, okay?”

Chantal nodded, unable to speak against the lump in her throat. Natalie gave her a half-smile and left the room. Chantal got up and made her way down the bunk ladder with a slowness that matched the heavy emotion in her heart. This would be her last night of security. Tomorrow was her birthday, and there was no telling what the future would bring.