Page 87 of He Who Sleeps

She nodded, thoughtful. “I see, and I can appreciate that. Still doesn’t change that you both are men I feel so drawn to, so comfortable with. Since the beginning. I mean I was scared, but it was an apprehensive kinda fear...and then a fear that I wanted. You know, I have been thinking about what Emerson said, about their moms and such being raised in this...”

"Yeah? You said your orphanage was pretty decent." He wanted so much to ask her if she thought she might be a lost Order member, like him, but he didn't see how that could have happened. It wasn't The Order orphanage. She'd have known. And unless she was another legacy bloodline the priests had tried to hide from the Elders eliminating every family that stood in their way, it didn't make any sense that she'd have been taken and hidden somewhere different.

“It was. Safe, but largely kept apart for a long time. ‘Til high school at least. I mean we went to specific schools as girls, but then once high school came around, something changed, and I remember something changing because me and my friends were never allowed to hang out with other kids really...” She looked to him. “’Til high school. It was like, one day the ladies in charge were like ‘we have to get them ready for the world’ and started letting us go places alone, and to the movies and to school. It was weird.” She took a sip of her cocoa.

"Maybe it was some sort of orphanage policy?" he suggested, still considering the idea that she might be Order and not know it. "Were they Catholic or something? One of those religious places that keeps you sheltered?"

“No. I mean we went to the prep school, but there was no religion behind it. Looking back it felt like a finishing school, and then when we were of age for ninth grade, we were told it was going to be the public high school for us. Vic, she thought maybe funding for us ran out, but...can’t help but think that there were reasons for that.” She sighed. “We always thought it was weird we were all but unleashed on the world when our hormones were raging, and we had no idea how to deal with boys really...our socialization learned through each other and of all things etiquette classes, though much of that kinda was shit in real life, you know?”

"That is weird. To be so sheltered and then suddenly let go." He shook his head. Maybe it was just coincidence. He should probably let it go. And yet something just wouldn't stop niggling at the back of his brain. "What was the name of the orphanage?" he asked. "Maybe if they're low on funding we can look into it and help them. They did such a great job with you, it would be nice to pay it back and make sure no kids go through what I went through."

“Seasons House,” she said. “It wasn’t billed as an orphanage, but we were all there and orphans.”

"Seasons House..." He made a mental note. "And remind me again where exactly it was? If it's a private entity rather than a state-run organization, we could still become benefactors."

She considered that and smiled. “It’s in Ohio, a little town called Epiphany. When I left for college and all someone told me it was a paper town...you know, the ones that are added to actual maps for copyright traps?” She grinned. “I mean it was a town of like five thousand at most but it was mostly an aging population. Pretty sure the place is down to like three thousand people now. It’s been a while.”

"Do you know how you got there?" He pushed for more information, alarm bells still dinging somewhere in his mind that there would be such a well-financed orphanage in such a tiny place. "Seems kind of weird that there would be enough orphaned kids in such a small place to warrant having a whole orphanage."

“I wasn’t from there. I don’t think any of us were,” she offered. “I remember taking a car ride there...myself and Matron Angela, as well as two kids...babies actually.” She frowned. “Two little girls that cried a lot in the car. I don’t remember how I got in the car, but Matron Angela took us to Seasons house and I met my friends.” She frowned again. “And before you ask, I must have been three? Yeah. Me and the girls were all three...there were babies, too, and some would come, little girls and or babies sometimes, but after a while we didn’t have any new people. It was just us.”

"All girls?" He had to admit that it stung a little bit to talk about her experiences. If not for a random twist of fate, he could have been shipped off to some private institute instead of suffering the hell that he was delivered to.

She nodded. “Never any boys. We saw boys, knew what boys were, I mean we watched TV and all. But it wasn’t ‘til high school that we were around boys. And none of the women that worked with us were married or lived elsewhere.” She looked up, as if thinking. “All together there were twenty girls, and seven matrons when I was there. Now...now I just don’t know. Been a long ass time since I was back.” She frowned. “I don’t think I have been back since I left for college.”

That was an extraordinary amount of staff for such a small number of wards. They needed to look into this place. Was there some way The Order could have spirited away that many girls over the years without the Elders knowing? And why? Why would they have done it? Petra had been taken as a three-year-old. That was long before their fathers were killed. And yet...if there was a prophecy about the seven of them, it was possible there was a prophecy about her, too.

She was the central figure that triggered the coming war, after all. They needed to speak to the priests and threaten them until they got some straight fucking answers. They needed to tear this house apart, too. It was possible there were more hidden books lying around. Emerson's dad had been a smart man. He wouldn't have left all of the information in just one place in case someone other than Emerson had discovered it. He'd found the first journal, the one that mentioned the pact, somewhere completely different.

"That's a thoughtful face," Carter said, coming over to them with Brutus in tow. The dog was panting heavily, his sides heaving from exertion and his breath misting in the cold air.

"Yeah, Petra was telling me about her orphanage, where she grew up. Something about it just seems...off."

"Off as in we should investigate it?" Carter asked, and Easton was grateful that he didn't question his sanity or hesitate to back him up.

"Maybe," he hedged.

“You guys think something is up?” she asked and hummed. “What are you thinking Easton?”

"I don't really know," he admitted. "It's just something we talked about with Emerson...about how our wives almost always come from The Order. Like there's something hereditary in us that makes us a good fit for this life. Which made me wonder if you were somehow also an Order baby and somehow ended up at a random orphanage instead of one of The Order facilities, because the odds of finding a woman like you in the wild were billions to one. But the way you describe it, so many matrons to so few children, and so isolated and remote... I'm wondering if The Order is actually running an underground orphanage that the Elders don't know about and I can't make any sense of it."

"You think they were hiding kids from the Elders?" Carter frowned as he mulled it over. "But why? I don't know the details but Petra was there for a long time before our dads were killed."

"That's what I'm stuck at," Easton agreed. "Maybe I'm way off. Maybe there's nothing strange about it at all. Maybe it's just some rich person built and funded a private orphanage and overstaffed it out of the goodness of their heart."

She shook her head. “I don’t know. We never met anyone, we never had any important people come through...and didn’t you guys say that growing up you had things you learned, rites and all? Didn’t Emerson say something about the other facilities having their own rites and such? We didn’t have any of those things. I mean we didn’t celebrate any big holidays. Well, Halloween was always fun for us, dressing up, making pies and such, candy hunting on the grounds with flashlights...” She smiled at the memory. “But the winter holidays, like Christmas and yule...we didn’t do. We didn’t have a tree, didn’t get presents, didn’t celebrate birthdays, though Thanksgiving was always a thing.”

"See, that sounds like The Order," Easton said. "Even the shitty orphanages I went to celebrated Christmas with a cheap plastic tree. Getting the kids to make ugly-ass paper decorations was a great way to shut them up. There's definitely something off about it."

"I'll look into it," Carter said. "If there's a link to The Order, or anything nefarious, you know I'll find it." Easton did. Carter's ability to find things about people and places bordered on the supernatural. It helped that he had the best equipment and an incredible grasp of hacking skills, but he also just seemed to have a nose for it.

“But we never had things we did that could be considered rites. Didn’t you guys have like, devotionals or something?” she offered as they looked to see Jack walk out.

“Hey, guys. What’s going on? You all look really serious.”

"Not serious," Easton hedged. "More curious. But Carter's dealing with it. What's up?"

“Just wanted to make sure you guys weren’t popsicles out here.” He grinned. “And our girl was warm and toasty.”

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