Read Online Hadrian's Wall by Felicia Jensen - Free Book Online Page A

she didn’t deserve
to live. My only real wish was to be able to maintain secrecy about
my seizures, perhaps because my innermost secret desire was to be
considered a normal girl, one worthy of having a normal life. I feared that
someday a crisis would propel me straight into a sanitarium where
the doctors would probably lock me up and throw away the key if
they knew my secret. Most definitely, that was the one thing I
didn’t want, so I needed to keep people out of my personal
drama.
    * * *
    Director Janet Winfield gave me a
cold smile when I entered her office. I ’d read about that expression—the
“professional smile.” In her case, I thought it fit perfectly.
Sometimes I wondered if she’d become de-sensitized because she’d
experienced the shutdown process too many times. Did she really
care about an orphan’s fate after they left the orphanage or did it
matter to her at all? Although I’d been here a long time, I didn’t
know the answer. The only thing I knew for certain was that she
always showed a toughness that scared me. She never got to know the
children, at least not enough to know what they needed or wanted. I
also believed that she harbored a certain resentment of me because
I hadn’t endeavored to improve myself—at last as much as she’d
wanted. Maybe she didn’t want to grapple with a problematic child
any longer than necessary. Well, now she was finally going to be
rid of me.
    The Director carefully stacked the documents in
front of her, all the while casting furtive glances at me. I
waited, trying to prepare myself for what she would say.
    “ What am I to do about you, Melissa?
The Executive Council was considering the possibility of putting
you into a scholarship program for college, but with your poor
performance in school and insufficient score in the national tests,
there’s no chance of that. You would have to repeat the evaluation.
and until then...” She crossed her arms and stared at
me.
    “ You know, I just don’t understand.
You’ve had every chance to excel in the classroom, but you spent
your childhood calling people’s attention to your stories about
ghosts and monsters.” She gave me a facetious grin. “Honestly, what
was so special about you that creatures from another world would
waste their precious time coming after you—only you and not other
children? They would have to be lazy monsters.’” She laughed at her
own joke. “What were you thinking when you decided to wake up
everyone in the house at dawn with your hysterical cries and
unbelievable stories? Did you really believe that you could
manipulate the adults with your antics? All that you accomplished
was to be treated like a crazy child.”
    I let it pass. I was accustomed to these innuendoes.
Quite frankly, I preferred it. I mean I liked that she believed I
was a manipulative girl because it was better to be considered
manipulative than crazy.
    The Director noticed my annoyance and
in a condescending tone of voice, she poured salt into the
emotional wound she had just inflicted on me. “Of course, you were just a child. You had
no understanding about being manipulative and wanting all of the
attention for yourself. Unfortunately, instead of using your
creativity for the benefit of your studies or a promising adoption,
you decided to close yourself inside your own private world. Those
visions...”
    “ What visions?” I arched my
eyebrows, pretending I didn’t understand her. Hey, wasn’t she the one who
said that I invented everything? Don’t be contradictory in this stage of
the game, please!
    “ Melissa...” She shook her head,
once again donning her inscrutable expression when she realized
that I had not lowered my guard. “I was hard on you, I guess. Part
of your behavior is my fault, but I was not prepared for a child
who was so...so baffling.”
    “ But Reverend Merritt was...” I
said, not hiding my rancor.
    Reverend Merritt was the Director before Mrs.
Winfield. He was a good man,