The streets of Sapher, New York were windy and cold one night on October 15, 5038. The roads and sidewalks were still damp from the heavy storm that had just hit the old city. Small droplets of water incessantly dropped from the ceilings of wrecked, rusty, sun-dried brick buildings, plop plop. Just then, walking out of his newly opened orphanage with a small, elegant, brown hat set upon his head, Mr. Paul Zephyr removed the hat, brushed his gelled brown hair back, and chuckled to himself while staring at the sky, cheerful to have his new orphanage. He began walking to his car, a luxurious, sparkly gray Mercedes, with dark tinted windows, ready to arrive home to hot cocoa with his favorite salty crackers. Then suddenly, out of the corner of his bright green eye, the young, tall, and handsome Paul noticed a feminine figure covered in a cloak as dark as the night sky missing its stars.

Suddenly frozen with fear and confusion, Paul could do nothing more than stare at the strange figure approaching him. However, what he saw when the covered stranger got closer allowed him to realize what was happening. As the tall, shadowy structure that resembled a woman approached him, Paul noticed a large, blue, glowing, eye along with pale white skin, and a small falling streak of blonde hair under the covering the woman wore. She slowly walked towards him with bare feet, stared at him with pleading eyes, and under her dark cape revealed a calm, newborn baby girl. The baby’s blonde hair just barely growing from her head complimented her vanilla-colored skin. “You are in fact Paul Zephyr, are you not?” questioned the stunningly beautiful woman, now completely revealed to Paul’s eyes.
“Y-Yes….I’m Paul Z-Zephyr,” stuttered Paul, still in shock of the situation. “Owner of the Happy Zephyr orphanage. Which I assume is where you wish for this infant to go,” he began to brag, now calmly.
–“You do not understand, there is so much I must explain. From examining you for days, I know you are the individual whom I can trust to care for my child. She is beyond anyone else’s comprehension. I have learned that you have dealt with “gifted” children before. But she is not like the others. She is much more powerful, causing so many to envy her and desire to take her away from me, for she is…the only one.”
Paul’s eyes swiftly enlarged to a point where it seemed as if they would simply fall out of his eye-sockets. After years of dealing with gifted children at his door-step, Paul understood that the human world wasn’t the only existent world, and had become aware of this. He had met many spirits, that normal humans would believe to be strangers, and has learned so much about not only them, but the children left to his care and their parents. Therefore, he knew exactly what Athena meant.
“Could this be what I had only dreamed of?” asked Paul to no one in particular as he took the small child into his arms. “Something I had only visualized during my slumber. I must keep this child, and treat her as my greatest treasure.”
The baby was then elevated above Paul’s face by his strong yet gentle arms, as if to display the future King to the crowds in a kingdom.
“What is her name? As a matter of fact, what is yours?” He continued poetically, raising his left eyebrow to a peak and morphing his pale pink lips into a straight line.

“My name is Athena Windrick, my husband and I are guardians of the Royal Cloud Palace in the Great Seven Seas. Since word has spread about my child, we have had countless attempts of kidnap, not to mention even more security has been needed in the palace.” Replied Athena quickly. “I did not wish to accept it, but I know the others cannot find her if she is around mortals instead of witches, wizards, and spirits. I know Alice will be safer here.” She continued, almost in a sob.
“Alice, my dear lady, will be raised with love and care, and I will protect her with my life as her own father. This I can swear to you,” vowed Paul with a generous grin and a slight bow.
Athena let out a small tear from her ocean blue right eye that slowly caressed her smooth, pale, gentle face, and replied, “Spasibo, mnogo udachi vam. Thank you, much luck to you.”
Magnificently, the beautifully tall woman pressed her left cheek to Alice’s, kissed the infant’s forehead with her now dry, cracked, pink lips, and suddenly vanished in a twirl of wind and leaves, as if she were never there in the first place. Everything had occurred so quickly, almost in the blink of an eye, it could not possibly have been real. Nonetheless, the small, plump, red hands of the infant gently grasping Paul’s brown shirt allowed him to know this was very much real, and that what was to come would bring much sadness, fear, happiness, knowledge, and most of all, magic to both Paul’s and Alice’s life.





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December 14, 5047
“Go away freak! We don’t wanna play with you!” exclaimed Emily Rosendarg, pointing flaming, angry, and hateful brown eyes, with her tight-curly brown hair exploding from her head, towards nine-year-old Alice, who had kept her original last name, Windrick.
Emily’s nose tightly wrinkled, making her small brown freckles around her nose more visible. She stretched her neck and straightened her back, coming to a very dominant and, to Alice, threatening pose. As she did so, her minions, Lauren Pautriz, Tawny Loa, Wincy Sautt, and basically every other girl in the orphanage followed in Emily’s footsteps. Her eyebrows furrowed, making her plump face look slightly more chubby than usual, a hideous appearance, thought Alice.
She and the other girls of the “(Not so)”Happy Zephyr Orphanage held their paper dolls, play-doh, legos, drawings, colored pencils, basically everything Alice could possibly play with, tight to their chests. Toys overflowing out of their arms, risking breaking valuable possessions and stepping on pieces of broken plastic that had decayed off the dolls or legos, and irritated expressions on their faces, the girls of the orphanage kept a safe distance from Alice, wincing and screaming every time she stepped closer.
Teary-eyed, not from sadness but anger, the blonde, blue eyed, pale beauty, Alice Windrick clenched her hands into fists and harshly pressed her teeth together, almost red-faced from such infuriation. She had been abused, beaten, and brought down by the “perfectly-perfect”, or so she referred to them, girls in the orphanage, and she was absolutely sick of it.
“What’s so bad about my gift anyways?! So I can move things here and there with my mind every once in a while, but it’s not as if I’m hurting you! Why don’t you just-just-just leave me alone?!” hollered Alice to the girls, pouting and sobbing hysterically.
The group of terrified girls fell silent for a moment, leaving only a wisp of wind to be heard. They had enraged Alice, and they already knew what would come next. Alice stomped her foot hard on the wooden floor, breaking it into sharp pieces, revealing the moldy and decayed undergrowth. Papers, toys, paintings, and even shards of glass from windows, vases, and wood from the walls began twirling about, flying around the room like a tornado. Emily and the others dropped their toys and began running out of the door to their oxidized playground, where the muddy ground stained their bare feet and pajama dresses.
Infused with anger and frustration, Alice bolted to her small room where she was now alone, considering the two girls who had previously shared the room with her almost begged Paul to move them. Alice ran inside, took a quick look at the empty space where the other girls’ beds had once been, where there was now nothing more than dry, wooden, cracked floor. The smell of fungus ruled the air, like Florida after a strong thunderstorm, making her nose slightly wrinkle. The walls, displaying a putrid green color behind their white faces that had rotted off, began to watch Alice cautiously as she jumped to her bed and swiftly grasped a brown teddy bear sitting neatly on her pillow. She then began furiously punching the bear, which Paul had bought for her, with her clenched fists, only to then weakly lay on her bed, weeping even louder with her pale face sunk into her bright blue pillow, where no one but her could hear or understand her incredible sadness.
Alice sobbed and wept, letting out all of her enormous grief into what she called her “comfort pillow”. Made out of soft cotton, and painted in her favorite ocean blue color, the pillow made her feel as if she wasn’t a freak, but simply wasn’t in the right place. Alice finally separated her face from her comfort pillow, pushed away the sheets from her bed and simply stared at her pillow, letting out small cries and exhales. She could taste the saltiness of her clear tears reaching her tongue as she grasped for air.
“I know I don’t belong,” began Alice, tightening her eyes so she could see nothing, and only imagine wonderful images, like the glistening blue ocean that allowed her to simply imagine her mom’s appearance, soft, white doves, flying freely above the streams, bright blue skies, fed with large cotton white clouds, and fearless adventure.
Alice delicately picked the pillow from the surface of her shimmery white bed, held it tight to her chest, and innocently uttered to herself, “I don’t want to belong….not here. I want to belong where I can have friends just like me, play all day, and see my mom, my dad, my family…”
Alice gently put down her small pillow, wiped her flushed red cheeks, which had been showered with tears and sorrow, and decided she knew what she had to do. She set her small, bare feet on the creaking wooden floor, set her flat palms on her bed, and stared at the ceiling with her melting ocean blue eyes. Her tangled, dirty blonde, wavy hair falling on her shoulders and back, slowly rocking to the air that passed from the bedroom window, Alice watched small droplets dropping from the ceiling. Drip drop drip drop.
Alice quickly dressed herself, not bothering to tie her mane of hair. Without a variety of choices on what to wear, Alice wore a pair of old jean-shorts that went down to her knees, her old, ripped, black converse, and an over-sized, light blue sweater that had once belonged to Paul’s wife, Elisa. Unfortunately, she had died of malaria after catching it on a visit to Africa to contribute to hunger organizations. Alice didn’t miss her very much though. Elisa had treated her like a freak, just like everyone else, doing her best not to anger her, because she too was afraid.
Once dressed and ready to leave the only place she had known, Alice hauled the brown leather bag she had borrowed from Paul’s room and whispered to herself precociously, “I wonder if I can reach the stars, but I wonder this without ever even seeing them.”
She clutched her hands into fists, glared around her hideous, yet comforting room one last time and finally said, “I must leave, I’m sorry Paul.”



To be continued…