After daily prayer, the girls all flocked outside to the courtyards. Mary had her bible in one hand, and a pen in the other. She slowly trailed behind Jess as they walked out of the cold building and into the warm sun. She could feel the rays on her pale skin, and she found a stone bench in a small corner of the grass. Sitting down, she pressed her back against Jess' shoulder, and propped her knees up on the bench. Jess seemed distracted.
"You should be reading the word, Jessica." She hated it when Mary called her that.
Jess cringed.
"Ugh, God, you know I hate that."
Mary smiled shyly, and tucked her face into her bible. Their heads turned when the boys' side entered the courtyard. The other girls in the courtyard stopped what they were doing, and immediately began to whisper and gawk amongst each other. Mary rolled her eyes, but then someone caught her attention; Caught it enough to take her eyes from the Lord's work. A taller boy, with chestnut colored hair and sage green eyes walked through the grass, joined by two other boys who frankly, she didn't pay enough attention to to see their appearance. She sat up slowly, and her eyes were glued to him. Apparently he wasn't the only one. Two girls quickly approached him and his friends, tucking their hair behind their ears. Their voices mysteriously rose three octaves, and their high pitched laughs annoyed Jess terribly. Mary wished she wasn't too shy to approach the boy. Jess certainly wouldn't be. Mary remembered when Jess used to see a different boy from the home a few years back. She never told her why they ended, only that it was done and over.
The women who took care of them were called the "Mothers". Each day, there would be a list of chores posted in the hallway. Each wing of the home was assigned to a different chore. As tiresome and mundane as it seemed, it kept Mary's mind active and away from the other things her mind would at times wander to.
After supper, Mary went to put away the cleaning equipment. It was a longer walk, which took her down a flight of cold cement stares that always spooked her. She clutched the mop to her chest, and her legs trembled with each step she took. The candlelight was the only thing illuminating the dark stairwell, and with each second it flickered, her pace quickened. Once she reached the room, she pushed open the oak door, and stepped inside, her nose flooded with the smell of dust and dirt. She coughed, and squinted her eyes in the dark to try and find where to set the mop down. Suddenly, she felt a cold rush of a breeze travel through the room. Perhaps, a draft, she thought to herself, and she kept looking. The air grew colder and colder the longer she stayed in there, her eyes tracing the shelves. She pushed aside some old sheets, and tried to make a new space for the mop.
Mary stopped dead in her motion. Behind the sheets, lie a large wooden door, much like the one she'd walked through. However, the wood was dark enough to almost blend in with the dark walls. She took a few steps closer, and realized that was where the cold air was coming from. Her curiosity began to consume her, and she set the mop aside, and pressed her sweating palms against the freezing cold door. It creaked open, and she felt her heart beat speed up, as she slipped through the door, eager to see what lie on the other side.