The Bad Bye. O2
By evening, it was dinner time and Nomen was asked to stay for dinner with the orphanage and boarding school children.
In the Dining Hall.
The dining hall was a large luxurious looking hall with lengthy tables arranged neatly, and on them mouth-watering desserts and delicacies laid out on them for the children and the staffs and admins of the orphanage.
Nomen and Elliam were seated at the admins' table.
They ate they talked, joked and jousted a little, in the middle of dinner, mother Essyher stood up and clinked her glass, calling for attention.
"Hear hear!"
"Good grand evening everyone, I'd like to make a toast to Mr Nomen, for making the children's smiles a lot brighter, he'd not only gave a large donation to provide food, clothing, education and other necessities for the orphanage children, he completely renovated their rooms, playgrounds and school,"
"Here is a man of a kind and golden heart, which in this world is extremely rare to see.....We drink to your health, Mr Nomen,"
Following immediately was a round of applause resounding within the large hall, as the adults took their wine glasses and thrust it into the air before drinking.
"And to you little Elliam,"
The applause died down a little.
"We again grandly welcome you into our prestigious asylum for children,"
Another round of applause was raised and all children chorused happily, " Welcome, Elliam!"
Elliam looked around her, the children seemed more animated as they devoured the food, laughed and played on the dinner tables.
But singularly she was looking for a person.
The grey haired boy.
She'd kept her eyes for him, trying to spot him but it seemed he was never even a child of neither the school nor the orphanage.
She'd asked Moriah but even she didn't seemed to know him either.
Elliam sighed pushed him out of her mind and tried to focus on eating.
••••••
Soon it was bedtime and all children retired to their rooms.
Elliam stood on the porch of the front house watching as Mother Essyher and some nuns and monks tried to persuade Nomen to stay the night.
"But sir, it's dark already it'd be safer to travel tomorrow,"
"Yes, how can we just let you leave at this time of the night mister? That'd be so ungrateful of us, let us host you, please?"
"It'd be my honor, but I really need to be somewhere very early tomorrow, I'm so sorry,"
" Alright, Mr Nomen we'll let you go, but remember you're always welcome here, anytime,"
Elliam suddenly heard a whispering from the door.
She turned and saw Moriah standing in the darkness.
" Aren't you coming to bed?"
Elliam nodded and said, "I want to wait a little while longer, I'm coming,"
After all farewell and pleasantries, Nomen asked, " May I get some time alone with her?"
"Of course sir," they all left the porch leaving the two outside.
Nomen sat on the bench in apparent exhaustion.
"So..."
He started.
"This is where we draw the curtains and walk our different roads, am I right?"
Elliam plucked at a bright red poppy stuck in the contrasting black soil.
"Elliam, are you going to be okay here?"
Elliam plucked some more at the poppy.
"I'm asking because I'm not sure when next I'm visiting, it might be a long time from now,"
He stood and sat next to Elliam.
She stopped her plucking.
"Are you going to be okay here?" He asked again quietly.
Elliam stared at the earth then turned towards Nomen.
"Yeah I'll be fine,"
Nomen smiled then patted her head.
Soon Nomen was in his car waving his goodbyes to Elliam and some staffs till he came for visiting whenever far away.
As Nomen drove out the large compound and waved to her and she did the same to him, she was suddenly resonant of the fact that her there were only 3 people in the world whom she was fairly familiar with, two were 6 ft under and one was going far far away leaving her with no knowledge of when he might come back or if he would anyways.
Thus, there stood Elliam thrust into a large, haunted world of darkness and unfamiliarity.
••••••••
Elliam lay on her bed as she turned and twisted while in a balled position, she was sweating profusely and her expression was that of fear and disturbance.
It was obvious her sleep was being disturbed by a nightmare.
Suddenly the door burst open and in came Mother Essyher with two servants following behind her.
"It's morning, miss Elliam, get up! Rise and shine, today is your first day as a child of our institution, young lady!" She said heartily.
Elliam slowly opened her eyes to the ailing, smiling face of the nun.
"How are you feeling today, miss Elliam?"
Elliam sat up and looked around.
"Fine,"
"Perfect! Now this is Khloe," she said gesturing to one of the two servants.
"And this is Kelp," she gestured to the other.
" And they are your personal... helping persons,"
"Ummm, I don't need them, I can take care of...."
" Now I'll leave you to be dressed up by them, take your time miss Elliam, breakfast is waiting," interrupted she, leaving they two in Elliam's room.
The female servant ushered Elliam into the bathroom while the male stayed, cleaning the room.
"Undress," the servant said to Elliam.
Elliam stared at her, uncomfortable.
"Don't be scared, undress," She repeated.
Elliam made an awkward face and said "I can bath myself, you can leave,"
The servant gave Elliam a long stare, before finally going out the door.
Alone in the room, Elliam gave a heavy sigh of relief as she stepped into the bathtub and turned on the shower.
Soon she walked out of the bathroom into her room.
It was clean, not that there was any dirtying done to it in the first place.
She opened the wardrobe to check out some of the clothes but closed it soon enough before checking instead in the bag she brought from her home.
Moriah had showed her a lot of rooms, so she knew the way to the main hall, which was where breakfast session would be held.
She looked around her and found that they weren't much persons awake, infact, the helpers were in the process of opening the curtains and the only some older kids were setting the table.
"Hey, new girl!"
Elliam spun around.
It was a group of kids above and below her age, there was a short rascally looking boy with wild brown-red hair and a taller calm looking girl with dark blue hair. They all looked very menacing with their dark eyes on her.
Very obviously, it was the red head speaking.
He looked like a lot of trouble, Elliam just wanted to get through this possible phase of hell, so she'd be on her own once she was sixteen.
"You're the girl with the large inheritance, right?" The boy said walking towards her and almost shoving his chubby fingers in her face.