Gorephans

A day.

Mummy and Daddy left me. 

They went away and left me on my own, in this scary place with sharp and spiky stones that stab my feet. I don’t want to cry, on this beach, if it is a beach, because the only sound is that of pebbles crunching beneath my toes and my voice sounds weird, like an echo. There’s nothing to see except the wispy grey fog that folds around me. It feels like I’m by the sea, because of the stones and that disgusting, salty smell, but I can’t hear any waves or people splashing. 

If it is the seaside, a boring seaside with a stony beach, I don’t know how I got here. I remember being with Mummy and Daddy. We went for a picnic and stopped at the toy store, Daddy bought me a brand new Katplush. Miss Mittens. At least she’s here, to keep me company. If I didn’t have her, I think I would really cry, not because of the stones, or the fog, or the smell, but because Mummy and Daddy left me.

Why would they bring me here?

Why would they go home without me?

When are they coming back?

I don’t understand.

The next day.

“Mummy and Daddy left me and I don’t know where they are.”

I’m crying now because I’ve been lost on this beach for so long, and when I see the woman float out of the fog with a smile and a big fluffy blanket, I know she’ll help.

“I know, Tilly. I’m sorry I’m late. It took me some time to locate you.”

“How do you know my name?” I ask the woman as she bundles me in her blanket. I’ve been in my nightdress on this seaside-with-no-sea, and the fog has been getting frosty, so it’s nice to be wrapped in something warm. “Did Mummy and Daddy send you?”

“Not exactly, Tilly. Mummy and Daddy are sorry they couldn’t get to you themselves, but I’m here now, and I’ll take care of you. Come along. Let’s get you someplace safe.”

“Home?”

“My home, Tilly. For a while. Don’t worry, there are other girls like you there. I’m sure you’ll make friends. And you can rest while we figure this out.”

The woman in the old-fashioned dress that has lacey trim around the collar puts her arm around me and we start to walk back the way she came, stones crunching and crumbling beneath her fancy boots and my frozen toes. 

I have lots of questions but I don’t know which to ask first so I say nothing and think about what she said. New home? Other girls? Figure this out? 

“My face feels funny,” I say, and my eyelids grow heavy.

“Your face is beautiful,” the woman answers, but I don’t reply. 

Another day.

Mummy and Daddy left me and the house went on fire.

That’s what Mabel Montgomery is trying to say, in a roundabout way like I’m a baby, but I know she’s wrong. There’s no way Mummy and Daddy would leave me alone; and there’s no way our house would go on fire because it’s a new house with fire alarms and everything; and there’s no way I died because I’m sitting in an armchair in an office, wearing a stiff, blue dress that was laid out for me when I woke up, in a bed with tall posts and a lace canopy.

I don’t know why she’s doing this. I thought she was nice when she brought me here, to this mansion with dozens of rooms and maids and girls, but now I think she might be trying to kidnap me. Maybe she did that to the others. I haven’t had a chance to talk to anyone yet because I just got up today after sleeping for a really long time. But sleeping for a long time is not the same as dying.  

“I know it’s hard,” the woman with the silver hair says. “You need time. But I’m here for you. We will work together to get you through this. And then, when you’re ready, we’ll find someone nice to take care of you.”  

She places a hand on my shoulder and smiles but I don’t trust her, not anymore, because it’s a lie. This manor, the beach, the fog. A lie, or a dream, or a nightmare. What else can explain the face staring back at me from the mirror as Mabel leads me from her office? 

The horrible, burnt face of a monster that couldn’t be me.

Because I didn’t die in a fire.

Yet another day.

“You’re Tilly, right? I’m Jessica. I hope you’re doing okay? I know it’s a lot to take in, finding yourself here. I know it hurts. A lot. But you’ll survive.”

It’s easy for her to say, the teenager in the dress that’s the same style as mine except green. Her face isn’t scarred and disgusting. Her hands aren’t marbled and shiny. She has long, blonde hair like I did. She’s pretty.

“I heard what happened. It must have been so scary. I know how scared I was when I was drowning but… I can’t imagine what it must have been like to…”

She tries to be brave and look at my face while she talks, but the look of pity in her eyes is worse than the look of disgust I see in others and I hate it.

“I don’t remember, alright? Can you go away? I want to be on my own.”

“Sure. I just thought you might want to talk. I know it isn’t easy coming to terms with things. We’ve all been through it. You’ll see a lot of girls like you, keeping to themselves. You’ll see girls with injuries and wounds they’re not ready to let go of. You’ll see others like me. But none of us had it easy. So take your time. It will get better, I promise.”

“I said leave me alone!” I surprise myself by shouting. I hop up from the window seat, abandoning my view of the fog, and push the girl away before storming across the polished wooden floorboards and racing up the staircase to the bedrooms. 

Bedrooms occupied by girls, aged six to eighteen, girls I don’t want to talk to, girls I can’t even look at. Some of them have missing limbs. Some of them have cuts and horrible wounds. Some of them have holes. But the hardest ones to look at are the ones like Jessica, who look complete, like nothing happened.

Because my body is burnt and ugly from a fire. 

And it’s not fair.  

The fifth day. Or more. 

“Hey. I’m Carly. Seen you around but figured you wouldn’t want to talk yet. Enjoying Miss Mabel Montgomery’s Orphanage for Late Lamented Lassies? Or, as I call it, the Gorephanage. If you’re lonely you can move in with me. I won’t bug you about ‘adapting’ and I don’t want to know your ‘tragic past’. I have a spare bunk since my friend Delilah sold out and got adopted. The traitor.”

I’ve seen this girl around too. Sulking and being mean to the maids. She’s another damaged girl, like me. She has a gash on her neck, one that seems to laugh as she speaks, and purple bruises on her legs and arms, which are visible because she isn’t wearing a dress. She’s got jeans shorts on and a t-shirt with a picture of Taylor Swift, both of them covered in reddish-brown stains. I guess that’s what she was wearing when she got here. I wish I’d kept my nightdress and hadn’t ‘sold out’.

“Maybe,” I reply, which is a surprise. I haven’t spoken to anyone in days, though plenty have tried to talk to me. Mabel. The maids. Various girls, mostly the complete ones, though some of the gruesome ones too. I wasn’t in the mood. But there’s something about this freckle-faced girl with the ponytail and chipped front tooth that makes me feel comfortable. “Have you been here long?”

“Long enough to know how to get on Miss Mabel’s tits! And how to scare the shit out of the ‘Ghost Mothers’. Wanna come to my room? We can hatch some devious plans.”

Carly is about my age but she uses lots of grown-up words and it makes me nervous but also excited. I never had a friend like her. And she isn’t looking at me funny like the others, even the ones with missing limbs. So I nod and smile, for the first time in ages. 

Leaving my room, I look over the bannister down into the foyer of the mansion. Miss Montgomery is there, with Jessica, who hasn’t spoken to me since I told her to go away. She’s holding the hand of a person I haven’t seen before, a tall, pale stick of a woman in a tweed outfit. Miss Montgomery opens the door and wisps of fog sneak in as Jessica looks up and waves. I don’t wave back. I see the skinny woman follow Jessica’s gaze and gasp as her eyes fall on me. Shocked by my appearance. I stick my tongue out and waggle my hands alongside my crusty face then hurry after Carly, avoiding Mabel’s disappointed look.

A later day.

Mabel tells me Carly is a rebellious girl who’s struggling to accept her own passing so it would be better if I talked to someone else. So I can ‘process’. And ‘come to terms’. Well, what if I don’t want to process how my parents left me to die? What if I don’t want to come to terms with being burnt alive and looking like a monster? 

Carly says I don’t have to. Carly says I can wear my scars like a badge of honour and if Mabel and her maids and the Ghost Mothers who come to replace the kids they left behind in the real world don’t like it, then tough. Mothers who leave their children are the worst, even if they do it by dying. 

Why would I want a new Mother anyway? A dead one? They don’t care about me. They can’t even look at me. Every time one visits, I see how they turn away. From me and Carly. And Lucinda and Selina and Flair. Because we’re ugly. Burnt or cut or missing important pieces. We’re Gorephans. And nobody wants a Gorephan, even if they might say they do. 

Fake smiles. Telling me I’m beautiful. 

Telling me my soul is beautiful. I don’t give a shit about my soul, I want my face. That’s why it’s fun when Carly tricks them, waits til they get close then spurts a fountain of blood from the gash on her neck. So funny seeing them jump. That’s why I let her teach me how to summon my own ‘death echo’. So I can scare the shit out of Ghost Mothers by bursting into flames. It gets rid of them pretty fast. And it gets on Miss Montgomery’s tits. And I get to spend more time with the Gorephans. The ones that didn’t sell out, like Bambi, who took the rope marks off her neck the other day and went away. A traitor.

But she’ll see. 

When she gets abandoned again.

She’ll see it’s a waste of time trusting a Mother.   

A bad day.

Carly isn’t talking. 

I think she’s depressed. Mabel brought a bunch of Ghost Mothers to the Gorephanage the other day and assembled us girls to be ‘inspected’. Not that she used that word. She said there had been an influx of parents to the beach due to a global ‘pandemic’ and it was an opportunity to place a few girls. 

But Carly said we were just being inspected. 

And, of course, it was only girls with no obvious injuries who got adopted. Sure, a few Mothers tried to talk to me and pretended they didn’t notice my scars but I knew they were just trying to make me feel better. Why would they pick me when they could have a Complete? Why would they want a girl with a face like burnt toast? 

Carly lost it after the fourth or fifth Mother tried to hug her. She threw her head back and sprayed the biggest fountain of blood I’ve ever seen. It went everywhere. All over the Mothers, and the girls, and Mabel and the maids and the floor. I didn’t think it was ever going to stop, I couldn’t stop laughing. 

Mabel had to send the Mothers away and that’s when stupid Lilah pushed Carly, telling her she was a selfish A-hole for ruining things for everyone else. How dare she? Why is it okay for Completes to get adopted but not Gorephans? That’s not fair. I told Carly that but she was upset and didn’t want to talk. She went to the window seat to stare into the fog. She’s been there for days and I miss her.

I’m lonely again.

I hate it.

I want to go home.

The worst day.

“Carly’s missing, have you seen her?”

Carly is gone from the window seat. I checked everywhere, the kitchen, the pantry, Lucinda and Flair’s rooms, the lounge, but I can't find her and nobody knows where she is. So I burst into Mabel’s office, even though I’m not supposed to when the door’s shut.

Mabel is behind her desk, talking to a woman and girl who have their backs to me, a woman in jeans and a jumper and a girl with long brown hair in an ivory dress with lace trim, one of Mabel’s dresses, though I haven’t seen it before. 

“Tilly, I’m busy. Can you go to your room and wait? I’ll talk to you when I finish here.”

The way she says it makes me think she knows something. I hesitate because I want to know what it is now, but the Mother starts to turn and I don’t want to be looked at with disgust so I back out of the room. Until the girl in the ivory dress turns and I recognise her freckles and chipped tooth. With her hair down and without her wound, Carly looks like a different person. A nice girl. A pretty girl. 

Complete.

“Tilly,” she says, slumping her shoulders. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened, I just…” 

I don’t want to hear it. She’s a sell-out. A traitor. Like Delilah and Bambi and Selina. Another one who’s going to leave me. And this time I can’t stop my tears.

“It was my time and…” 

I slam the office door shut and run upstairs.

Day whatever.

Mabel talks and talks but I don’t hear.

Ghost Mothers visit but I stay in bed.

Flair and Lucinda try to cheer me up with their death echoes. Flair pops off her head and juggles with it while Lucinda pulls out her guts and ties them in the shape of a dog. 

I don’t care.

Mummy and Daddy left me.

Carly left me.

Even Miss Mittens disappeared.

Why does nobody want me?

Why do I exist?

I want to die.

But I’m already dead.

I’m dead.

I’m.

Dead.

A much later day.

“No, I don’t wanna stay here, I wanna go home!”

Miss Montgomery’s door slams back against the wall, startling me from my fog-watching and bringing my eyes to the six or seven year old girl who runs from the office to the large double doors of the manor.

“I want my mom! Let me out!”

Two maids intercept the girl, whose long, blonde hair is bloody and matted around a hole in her head that shows her brain, whose dungarees and shirt are torn and stained. 

“Go away! Don’t touch me!”

Mabel is in her doorway, arms crossed, watching. Just another day at the office.

“Where’s my mom?! What did you do to her?”

The girl lashes out and knocks a vase off a tall, wooden table.  

“Leave me alone!”

The girl pushes a maid away, roughly.

“Where’s my mom?! I want her!”

The girl escapes the second maid, not looking where she’s going, runs into me before I can step aside. She looks up, angry, spittle flying from her lips. When she sees I’m just a girl, her expression changes.

“Have you seen my mom? Do you live here?”

Fear on her face now, terror in her eyes.

“Temporarily,” I reply, and drop down on one knee. “It’s a place to be. While we wait.”

“For what? To go home?”

“Sort of. What’s your name?”

“Alice.” 

“Okay, Alice. I know you’re confused. And it will be hard for you to understand why you’re here. But it’s a safe place. It’s okay to be angry. But you can make friends, and those friends will help you come to terms with…”

“Shut up!”

The fear gone, the anger back, she thinks I’m another of them. 

 Because I sound like Mabel.

“Mom! Where are you?!”

She breaks away from me, runs to the staircase and up, the other girls standing at the top, drawn by the commotion. She sees Lucinda and Rebecca with her face of glass shards and screams, drops to the floor, covers her head. A maid secures her, bundles her up and carries her crying the rest of the way.

To a room. A bed. A dress.

I realise Alice looked me in the eye when I was talking. She didn’t flinch or try to get away. I stand and take a step to a wall-mounted mirror. 

There, staring back at me, is Tilly. 

Scars remain, but not as monstrous as before. 

My arms and hands remain pink and shiny.

But I recognise myself.

In the reflection, Mabel smiles as she closes her door.

I still have a long way to go.

But maybe, like Jessica said, I will survive.

And so will Alice.

A new day.