Tobi was awakened by the beam of Miss Antonina’s flashlight sweeping the room. After a few seconds of disorientation, she realized that they were back in the house and that the Mistress was simply completing the bed checks that she performed every few hours each night. She didn’t dare move until the light disappeared down the hallway. It took a few moments for her eyes to adjust to the darkness. Once they did, she noticed that she was not in the same room that she had been sleeping in since her arrival at the property. She was in the only bedroom in the house that had two beds instead of three.
The house was split-level. The girl’s sleeping quarters were upstairs along with the kitchen, living room, and dining room. Their rooms could be found at the end of a long hallway. There were two doors on each side of the hallway, three bedrooms and a bathroom. Two of the rooms held three beds each and its own individual bathroom. The smaller room, which Tobi now found herself in, had only two beds. Those who stayed in this room used the bathroom in the hallway. Miss Antonina occupied the lower level of the house. A heavy, bolted door kept the girls from accessing her space.
There was one other room in the house, and all the girls hated it. It was the first room each girl was escorted to when arriving at the house: the locked room. At some point, a door had been placed in the wall of the living room and the locked room had been built on to the house. It was where any possessions they had brought with them were placed. It also held all their daily necessities including shampoo, soap, toothpaste… even their shoes.
Tobi’s original room had been one of the larger rooms which she had shared with Britelee and Kayin. For this, she had been grateful. While they weren’t exactly Tobi’s friends, but they weren’t as mean to her as some of the other girls. She had been placed in what was considered to be the calmest house at Crown’s Plank. She hadn’t known this until she had attended several of the mass groups that were held at the compound’s school.
Tobi removed her covers with the intention of heading for the bathroom. She needed to be alone to process what had happened in the Spired City. She had no idea how she had gotten clean or how long it had been since they had all been in the clearing by the stream. Her last memory was of reading the poem in the newspaper that she had found in The Spired City.
As she placed her feet on the floor, her curiosity got the better of her. \She had to find out who was in the room with her. Before she could stand to her feet, her question was answered by a whisper from the other bed. “Tobi… Tobi, please don’t go. I saw something… I don’t know what to do. I have to tell someone.”
It was Tess.
To be continued…