“Rise and shine!” Wha-?... “Get up sleepy-head!” What, no, I don’t want to get up yet….ugh….
I open one eye and squint into the light. Ethel’s face is directly in front of mine.
“Ah!” Screaming, I roll over, fall off the bed and jump up from the floor.
“Well, you’re up now,” Ethel laughs, “Good morning!”
“What? Where are we! How did we get here; I don’t remember… but we were just-”
I glance around, we look to be in some sort of room…with a big bed…a big room. It’s decorated exceedingly well, with only the nicest of furniture and cloth, and polished magnolia wood in all the tables…I’ve never seen anything so nice before. Ever. It’s almost like what I would expect the White House to look like.
“This is my house.” Ethel looks around, apparently adjusted to her surroundings.
“This is your house? Is it really?” Who knew?
“Yep. This is certainly my house, I’ve lived here for as long as I can remember. My Ma’s from France, and she’s very rich, and my Pa’s from Egypt, he’s also very rich. But they moved to America, and then had me. I have no siblings.”
“That’s nice. I don’t have any siblings either, I guess.”
“You guess?”
“I’m not really sure who my parents are. All I know is the Home.”
“Oh. I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay.” It’s really not okay. But I would never tell that to such a little girl like her. I’m thankful that she is always seemingly capable of staying happy “ it’s something I’ll never be able to achieve. It’s almost unnatural.
“Would you like any tea, or anything to eat?”
I drop down into a large, cushioned chair. I feel myself sink down, and note that these pillows are probably extremely expensive. Wow. I’ve only ever sat on hard wooden chairs. A girl could get used to this.
“I’d like some tea, I suppose.”
“RINA! Rina! Come here!” What?! Did I do something? Oh no…
The door creaks open, and in runs a girl, probably my age, wearing a gray dress and a frilly white apron.
“Yes, Miss? Do you need something, Miss?”
“Yes, Rina, could you get my friend and I some tea?”
“Yes Miss, I’ll come back in a moment.” The girl, Rina, the maid, runs back out the door to get us tea.
“Ethel, I could’ve gotten the tea for us.”
“Oh, it’s okay, we’ve got a couple dozen servants here, don’t worry.” Talk about wealthy people “ I bet that Ethel’s never had to clean a toilet, sleep on the floor, or cook what always seems to turn out to be cardboard….. I shake my head. Ethel’s more fortunate than me in life, so what. I’m free.
“Er, Ethel, would you mind telling me more about yourself? And myself too, I’m still quite confused to what’s going on.”
“Okay, I’ll start from the beginning. I’m Ethel Belington. I’m eight years old, and am very rich. I live here, in a big house. My parents are wizards.”
“Wait, wait. So, you’re a witch?”
Ethel’s blind eyes stare off into the distance, looking at nothing. They look no different, yet look…sadder.
“Yes.”
“You’re……a witch?"
“I’m a witch. I’m not really powerful, though. I can do Legilimency, though. I…I can’t really cast any spells, though. When I try…. It’s not that great.”
“Oh. I’m…I’m sorry. But…. It still is amazing.”
“Rina is a witch though. She likes to try to teach me things, even though they never work. She goes to Hogwarts.”
“Hogwarts?”
“Yep. It’s a school for witches and wizards in Scotland.”
“Isn’t that a little…far away?”
“Yes.”
“Isn’t there an American school?”
“No. And I’m too young to go to Hogwarts, anyway. You’re only accepted when you turn eleven. Then you get a letter. Maybe I will, when I turn eleven. I doubt it, though.” She frowns.
“Um…sorry.” I shift uncomfortably in the beautiful, extremely comfortable and expensively luxurious chair I’m sitting in.
“Okay.”
Things are getting…awkward.
I need to leave…I shouldn’t stay in one place too long- it’ll make it easier for the beasts at the Home to come get me. While I’m at it, perhaps I can find where those thugs came out of yesterday “ if I can find out what they want with me….
“I um…thanks for having me, but I kind of…need to leave.”
“To go defeat the Emerald Moriturus?”
It’d probably be a good idea to learn more about those guys before I leave, that is true. They just sort of…came onto me yesterday. Who knows? They are the enemy too.
I don’t even know why. I need to be ready.“Sorry if I’m irritating you, but would you tell me more about them?”
“The Emerald Moriturus? No.”
“Oh, sorr-”
“I can show you though.”
“Okay…”
Ethel leaps up, and runs over to a bookshelf. Off it, she grabs what appears to be a giant dictionary, after rummaging for a moment over the large selection of books. I frown. If she’s blind, why does she have so many things to read? Unless Rina reads them to her…..
“This is my father’s. He found it during an excavation in Egypt when he was seventeen. It’s a magical tome.”
“What does it do?” By this time, I was so confused, I probably wouldn’t even be able to remember my own name. I smile in my head. Oh, that’s right. I don’t have one. Just a number.
“It can bring you to the past, like this.” Ethel opens the book to a page near the middle, and goes to stand behind me. She pushes me toward the book, and I gasp. What is she doing? How does she know what page to go to?
Suddenly I feel something pulling me toward the book, and I try to resist it, when I hear Ethel in my head.
Don’t resist it. Just go.
I’m flying through the air, my head spinning, when I’m thrown back down onto the ground. Looking around, I have no idea where I am. I’m in a long hallway, with lots of people in it. They’re all around my age, some a couple years younger, some older. I’m panicking “ I’m not supposed to be here “ I don’t belong here.
But Ethel saved my life, and I should trust her.
That would be easier if I were more normal “ not from the Home, and I didn’t have to worry about my life and safety at every moment “ even from a blind, fragile eight year old.
“Hello? Excuse me, can you hear me?” I try to get the attention of some of the people, but none of them see me. Weird. It’s like…. It’s like I’m not here.
I try to look at what’s written on their robes. ‘Slytherin’. What is Slytherin? A group? A team? A book club?
Despite the fact that they can’t see or hear me, I can see and hear them. I try to see if I can recognize anyone.
At first, I see no one I know, but then one certain face stops my gaze. It’s that imbecile, Emory. But he looks younger here, maybe a couple years older than Ethel, ten or eleven. He’s kind of cute.
In a little boy way. Not at ALL in a ‘handsome’ way. He looks like a little boy, and that’s that.
I try to listen to what’s being said. All I can make out is individual comments.
“I hate this school, Hogwarts is such a dump.” Hogwarts. That’s what Ethel was talking about. That school.
“All the Muggle-born scum.” Muggles? What is a Muggle?
“Slytherin is the finest house. Hufflepuff….Gryffindor…they’re not worthy of being here. Ravenclaw is decent enough “ the only horrid part is they accept the Mudbloods and the Halfbood scum.” Houses. Like, divisions in a school. Even I know that “ at least we were educated at The Home. Gryffindor, Hufflepuff, Ravenclaw…those must be the other houses. There are four? Why don’t they have ordinary names? Like one, two, three and four “ I shake my head. That’s the Home coming back at me. Everything there is numbered : the rooms, the furniture, the classes, the employees, the children…
And then I hear Emory. “Shut up! Show some respect, you acromantulas!” A silence filled the air, so quiet that you could feel it. Even I wasn’t expecting him to say that. He seems to be the…leader.
Then I see another guy I recognize. It’s the other young guy in the Emerald Moriturus, the one who held Emory’s cape while he got his behind kicked…Idiot. Don’t let him boss you around!
He spoke with a thick British accent, “Calm yourself, Emory. They were simply expressing what they felt.”
Emory looks over at him. After a pause for thinking, he speaks, “Sorry, Bao-Zhi.” Looking quickly at the other guys, he continues, “Not to you pansies, though. It’s you who should be sorry.” He adds in an undertone, “When I rule… you will be-”Unexpectedly, everything fades out into white, and I’m at a different place. Again, I see Emory and Bao-Zhi, but this time they look to be a bit older. They’re sitting alone at a table, in a dark room decorated with a lot of silver, black, and emerald green….. the same colors on their robes… and on their ties, and bags, and… everything…. It must be the house colors.
Bao-Zhi was writing something with a quill, his hand shaking slightly. He appeared nervous, but hid his face from Emory, who was staring at the document.
“Bao. What are you doing?” They look to be about thirteen-to-fourteen-years-old. Strong, powerful, rich kids, but Bao doesn’t pull that off well. His real self shines through the façade: timid, scared, and nervous. Emory is looking great, though. A commanding force that’s not to be messed with…. Full of himself, much?
“I-I’m working…sorry.” There’s no one else around, but just as I think that, a man barges through a large portrait on the wall.
“You two!” he yells, and runs over. “What are you up to?”
Even Emory flinches at the sight of the man. I make a mental note: Make friends with him. He’s tall, with long, shining black hair that flows past his waist. He has dark, squinty eyes that always seemed to be focused on something directly behind you.
“Professor Tresemme. How nice to see you. We were just working on your essay, truly fascinating stuff.” An essay? That paper doesn’t seem like it. It’s covered in signatures, not paragraphs about some ‘truly fascinating’ topic. Emory is such a liar.
But the professor’s not fooled. Walking over to the paper, he tries to get a look at it.
“Professor, we can’t show you yet! You’ll have to wait. Work in progress, you see.”
“Boys, just show it to me. I’d like to see it.”
“Sorry, no.” Professor Tresemme leaps forward toward Emory, but Emory gestures across the room, and a wand zooms into his hand “ a different one from the one I saw him prodding the signatures with. Bao Zhi closes his eyes and turns away.
“Avada Kedavra!” With a flash of green light, the Professor falls to the floor, rather spectacularly. Is he…dead? I know he is “ he’s not knocked out…. He has the same look as those poor children the Home got tired of “ still. Just still. Dead.
“We’ve got to get out of here.” I hear Emory whisper something else to Bao Zhi, before they snatch up the parchment and run toward the wall, and soon disappear through it.. Soon enough though, I feel something grab hold of me, and I fly through brightness, landing eventually on my back.
“Ow!” I groan, and try to pick myself up, seeing a figure run toward me. I think it’s Ethel, but I’m too shocked and pained to see past my blurry eyes. I just saw a man die.
And it was Emory who killed him.
Well, this puts things into perspective, now doesn’t it?
I'm Only Number Three by LukiLaeta
Chapter Notes:Chapter two is up! I hope you enjoy, and review!
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you for reading so far. I really appreciate it...but if you review, I'll be happier! I'm excited for the next chapter...ha-ha!