Young Guardian Trilogy by Lady Adellandra Dratianos (read aloud .txt) 📕

and who she turned out to be. Still sitting, Ariana stood her ground, keeping her mouth shut and listening to her old Mistress rant.
"You once believed yourself so special, so much better than anyone else. Now look at you. Brought down from the very pedestal you've placed yourself on and left to fend for yourself on the streets." Mrs. Gertrude laughed in her face. "How does it feel, once again being my personal slave?" She turned to a boy in the corner. "Matthew, untie her!"
Matthew untied Ariana and she stood up, rubbing her wrists. Mrs. Gertrude's eyes spied the Dream Locket around her neck, but said nothing.
"Matthew, you're excused." She called to the boy without looking at him. When he left, Mrs. Gertrude reached for the locket, making Ariana cringe. "Still have this ugly thing, do you?" Mrs. Gertrude sneered, releasing it. “How did you manage to keep it all these years?”
“It’s been my link to freedom, Mrs. Gertrude.” Ariana supplied. “Freedom you never let any of us have. With it, I have a future. Not even you can take this Locket away from me.”
Mrs. Gertrude didn't say anything, disbelieving. To make it easier for herself in the long run, Ariana sent her a telepathic message.
Give her words no second thought or doubt, for she will never lie to you.
By the believing look on Mrs. Gertrude's face, Ariana could tell the message worked. Madam Mayhem led her to a room with several young teenage girls.
Mrs. Gertrude turned to her. "This will be your brood of wretched children to look after. You remember the routine?" Ariana nodded, sighing. "Well, be sure to enforce it. Good luck."
She left Ariana standing there with a slam of the door.
Ariana set her backpack on an empty unmade bed. She rubbed her hands together and surveyed the room. Six pairs of eyes stared back at her blankly.
Neither said a word, giving Ariana the advantage to use Empathy on the girls. They were frightened of newcomers and anyone that showed them attention. With a single smile from Ariana, she felt the girls relax. They were still frightened, but Ariana knew what it took to change it. She didn’t want to use telepathy to tell these girls she wouldn’t hurt them. That would scare them even more.
No. Ariana thought. Gentle words from a friendly face would do.
"Are you going to beat us up?" Asked a timid voice from the back. Ariana saw it belonged to a petite red-haired girl.
"Are you going to be a Meany?" Asked a soft blond-haired girl in front of her. The little girl reminded Ariana of herself at that age.
Ariana smiled, shaking her head. She placed an arm around the blond girl and sat down. At first, the girl shuddered, but a caring glance made the little girl relax. "Of course not. I'm someone who cares a great deal about all children. I could never hurt them."
A curly brown-haired girl found herself beside Ariana on the bed. "What about boys?"
"Yeah, boys are mean, smelly, and gross. We don't like boys." Said the redhead with a wrinkle of her nose.
The blond beside her shook her head and stuck out her tongue.
Ariana giggled. "Not all boys are gross."
"Yes, they are!" A tall lanky girl asked.
"Well, what about future boyfriends? Aren't you going to have any?" Ariana asked.
"Boyfriends? Ewww!" They chorused, bursting into hilarious giggles.
Ariana was waiting for that response! Smiles and giggles weren't common amongst Mrs. Gertrude's children. It was often forbidden to be fun and child-like. It was a lovely change from frowns and sadness.
Time for introductions.
"My name is -- was -- Ariana Moon, but you can call me Ariana."
"I'm Tara Mae." The blond girl replied, outstretching her hand.
Ariana took it happily, laughing. Her laughter eased some of the tensions in the air. "Now then," Ariana continued. "Are the rules still the same? No music, no games, no laughing, no playing like kids, no smiling, no fun?"
The brown-haired girl nodded. "Yeah." She looked at Ariana and said. "My name is Laura Michelle."
"Nice to meet you, Laura Michelle." Ariana said, nodding with a smile. "Is the schedule still the same? Breakfast at seven in the morning? Lunch, if you were good, at noon? Dinner at seven in the evening, and bedtime at nine?"
Laura nodded.
Ariana looked at her watch. It was almost seven o'clock now. "My first request girls, is that you go into that bathroom and wash your hands. Dinnertime is almost here. Hurry, hurry, hurry!"
"Yes, Miss Ariana." The girls chorused, racing to wash up.
Ariana made sure they were gone before practicing her powers with this new place. She looked at her clean bed and decided to use a little magic to make it and put her stuff away safe and neatly.
Sure enough, as she waved her hand over the mattress, the blanket and sheet made itself neatly on the bed. "There," she said to herself, nodding once. "Now, for my pack."
Ariana waved her arms and each of her clothes went to spots of their own. Even her journal hid itself in a secret place. Proud of herself, Ariana led the girls to the dining area to eat dinner.
She hadn’t eaten in hours, and needed to refuel from the Magic.

II

Despite his adopted background, eighteen-year-old Mark Grey had an interesting life. His new mother had adopted him as a brother-figure for her spoiled daughter. This never fazed him, though. He often kept to himself when he was home, and Caroline Parker, the daughter, did whatever she wanted anyway. Mrs. Parker was a successful businesswoman who made more money per week than he'd ever seen in his whole life.
He had it all. Money, a car, job, and the best of anything he wanted.
The only things he lacked were friendship and confidence. Caroline went her own spoiled, troublesome way, never caring who she hurt in the process. He was often lonely, and one day played detective with the locked room across from his own.
That room had been his adopted sister Bonnie Parker’s before she ran away. Bonnie Marie Parker was older than her sister Caroline, and a lot nicer. It didn’t seem the two were from the same planet, let alone family.
The day she ran away, she was sad, which made him sad now, too, just thinking about her. Since then, he’d missed her terribly. Her long white-blond hair blowing in the wind, her gentle violet eyes that filled with joy every time they met his own.
Mark had learned to pick locks long ago, but decided to wait until nobody was around to do it.
Gently...gently...careful...there! Got it!
The door opened with a slow, loud creak. Mark stepped inside, breathing in the faint scent of lavender, Bonnie’s favorite flower. He was surprised to find the bed perfectly made, her old dolls safely on the shelf above it. There were no cobwebs on anything in the room. It was as if she’d never left, or was going to return at any moment.
That seemed odd to him, since the room was locked up for so long. He'd seen only one person go in there, and never lived to tell about it. Mr. Parker was murdered some time ago, but the Hill View Police still hadn't caught to killer.
It didn't seem fair. Before his death, Mr. Parker was the only one Mark had liked.
Mark saw a picture of his late-adopted father. He picked it up.
In the picture, Mr. Parker had an arm around a girl Mark recognized as Bonnie and the other arm around a young red-headed Caroline. Caroline had a mean look on her face. He didn't have to wonder why. Caroline was one of the most spoiled, evil brats he'd ever encountered.
Mark heard footsteps coming up the steps and panicked. He set the picture back in its original spot and raced out of the mysterious room, quietly closing the door behind him. He rushed into his own bedroom and closed that door as well.
Mark sighed, picking up a book to begin reading. He hoped the story would take him out of his depression.

III

Ariana could sense something wrong. She was wide awake, sleeping in her bed at the Hill View Orphanage. Her girls were sleeping soundly in their own beds. Why was she awake then?
"Aaaaaahhhhh!" Ariana heard one of the girls scream in the darkness. "Ariana! Ariana! I'm scared!"
She recognized the little voice of Tara Mae, nicknamed "Tart," the tiniest of her six girls. Ariana flicked on the light and soon, all awoke by the screams.
Ariana rushed to Tara and sat down beside her on the bed. Little Tara's face was tear-stricken, and her body was shaking. "What happened, Tart?" Ariana hugged her, letting her cry on her shoulder.
"The bad man almost got me!" Tart cried.
The other four girls were wide awake now, and gathered around Tart.
"What bad man?" Ariana asked, half hoping it wasn't Orthos the Dominionite Master or his son Damian. "What happened in your nightmare?"
"I was playing with my friends, and you were there when a dragon came and scared them away. I screamed, wanting to run, but I couldn't. He blew fire at you, and you were burned." Tart told Ariana, snuggling closer to her.
"Sit on my lap. It'll be okay soon." Ariana tried to comfort her. "It was only a nightmare, Little One." Tart sat on her lap and began sucking her thumb.
The fire-shooting dragon in Tart’s nightmare was Orthos all right. The girl’s description of the Master was uncanny. Ariana had to do something to make sure these girls weren’t more of his Dreamer victims. She had to protect them somehow, the way she was now protected.
"Girls, I want you to listen to a story." Ariana replied. The girls gathered, listening intently. "Tara isn't the only one the Dominionite Master has been haunting."
She didn't want Mrs. Gertrude to hear them, so she whispered. All the girls and she would receive whippings in a special locked room if she found out they were still awake.
"Who's that?" Juliet, a tall and awkward girl asked.
"Will he hurt us, too?" Another girl asked.
"He will if I don't do something to stop him now." Ariana replied softly, looking distant. She missed going to the Dream Realm with Derrick on the Crusade. Would she ever see him again?
"What can you do?" Tara's little voice asked, interrupting her thoughts. "Are you magic?"
Ariana smiled at her. "In a way, yes, I am magic." She told them. "When I was a little girl, I lived with Madam Pain in California. My only friends were a pair of twins, Aimee and Aaron. When the three of us would get together and play, one of her spies would tell on us. We would get a terrible beating.
"One day, I stared Mrs. Gertrude in the face and wished for her to come down with a terrible cold." Ariana began. She smiled. "Immediately, she began to sneeze. Again and again and again she'd sneeze, unable to stop."
The girls giggled at the thought.
"What did she do next?"
"Nothing. Aaron and I hurried to our secret spot in the attic." Ariana replied. "In that attic is where I learned more of what I could do. I was able to make things move just by thinking about them, and I could read Aaron's and Aimee's minds. I was also able to make things appear out of thin air."
"Wow!" Laura Michelle cried in a whisper. "You can do that? Cool!"
"My story doesn't end there. Tart had a bad meeting with a bad man, remember?"
They nodded.
"I met the Dominionite