by Michael Raymond

Created on: September 28, 2010

Jenny Lynn was seven. Her older sister, Dot was nine. They had been at the Shades of Home orphanage for almost two years. Ever since their mom had died after a loud, long fight with Rick, her boyfriend, and a brief search for their father had provided less evidence of his existence than the two visits she could remember, she and Dot had lived in the orphanage with eight to ten other girls. And Mrs. Kern.

Mrs. Kern, a forty-something year old whore ran the orphanage. Jenny had no idea what a whore was, but she had heard the name, and the disdain associated with it, from some of the older girls, and once even from Dot. If Dot said it was so, then so it must be. Maybe it had something to do with Mrs. Kern's age, Jenny had reasoned. Forty sounded impossibly old. Maybe whore was another way of saying someone was old.

Tonight was the last night the girls would spend together in their room. Dot was turning ten tomorrow, and the older girls for some reason, unfathomable to Dot and Jenny, were kept separate from the younger ones. Not that they wouldn't see each other, but house rules mandated changes in their living arrangements.

Until now, days had been mostly bearable. There was usually enough activity, enough chores to keep her mind off missing her mom. There was always school, or the vegetables to tend to, or yard work or housework or homework that needed doing. Frequently there would be visitors from town that made the trek out to the orphanage and they needed to be waited on and entertained as the guests that they were. Jenny assumed that they must be important men; they always smelled of after shave and wore nice clothes. Not always a Sunday suit, but nice.

Ravenous beasts haunted her dreams. Not dreams—nightmares. The beasts looked like wolves and roared like dragons. They spent her sleep devouring thoughts of happiness, memories of laughter, gnawing her soul away bit by bit each night. They were nowhere to be seen when she woke in the morning, but that did not make their presence during the night any less real, nor did it do anything to alleviate her trembling each night when "lights out" was called.

The nurse, Judy, had explained on more than one occasion that she thought Jenny Lynn was just missing her mom, and that she should begin to be less bothered by these nightmares as time continued to pass. That's what the nurse said, but the nightmares kept coming. Jenny eventually quit complaining to Nurse Judy about them at all which made for everyone involved

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