Ravensborough Read Free Page A

I’ve just arrived here, I don’t really know much about it’, I explained. ‘I’ll take a leaflet though.’
    ‘Sure’, he said smiling at me again. He was taller than me by a good five inches, and his hair was tousled by the sharp wind. His face was too angular to be conventionally handsome, and his mouth was a little too large. Despite this, I was unable to look away. There was something faintly hypnotic about him.
    He handed me a leaflet. ‘You’re not from around here are you?’ he asked.
    I smiled. ‘Is the accent that much of a give away?’
    ‘Ireland is it?’
    ‘Yep. I just arrived here a few days ago.’
    ‘Are you here on holiday?’
    I shook my head. ‘I’ve moved here to live.’ I held up the bags containing my school supplies. ‘I’m just getting my stuff ready to start school next week.
    ‘Oh, don’t talk about that’, he grimaced. ‘I’m back next week too. My name is Gethan Ellis.’ He held out his hand to shake mine.
    ‘I’m Scarlett, Scarlett Edwards,’ I shook his gloved hand. It felt strangely formal. He didn’t let go of my hand and our eyes locked together. For the first time since I’d left the house I forgot about the cold and about how much I missed home.
    An elderly lady came by, looking for information on the petition. ‘I’d better go’, he said reluctantly, taking his hand away.
    ‘Of course...I’ll read this’ I waved the leaflet at him.
    ‘You do that,’ he said smiling at me again.
    I blushed to the roots of my hair as I walked away with a feeling of butterflies in my stomach. I wished I knew where to meet him again. I looked at the leaflet in my hand. I could always contact him through the organisation. I shook myself. He was just a random guy that I’d met. And besides, I already had a boyfriend, even if he was a few hundred miles away. Nevertheless, I decided to read over the campaign leaflet that he’d given me on the train ride home.
    It appeared that a policewoman had been denied the right to wear protection charm bracelets, a symbol of following a Pagan religion, to work. The protesters felt that this was yet another part of the Rationalist conspiracy to suppress the Pagan element of society, and they were campaigning to try to make the station change their decision.
    I reread the leaflet, confused. I knew that there were a lot of crazy people in Avalonia who believed in magic. I didn’t know what a Rationalist was, but I presumed that if this Gethan guy was handing out fliers for the Pagans he was either one himself or at the very least thought that they were telling the truth. Did that mean that he thought that magic was real? Great, I though: I meet a nice guy, the first person my own age that I’ve talked to since I arrived, and he turns out to be delusional.
    Not that it mattered. There were a few million people in Ravensborough. I wasn’t likely to meet him again. And even if I did see him again, Sam and I were trying to make a long distance relationship work. I was already spoken for.
    When Mum and Rupert got home that evening, I was busy looking through my text books. I needn’t have been so worried. The syllabus for biology, maths and German were pretty much the same as they had been back home. The English course covered similar enough topics as back home, with an additional module on Avalonian literature. History looked to be the biggest problem. It covered general European history, which I was familiar with, but it also covered Avalonian history, which I knew nothing about. I would also have a lot to catch up on with Avalonian politics.
    ‘How are you?’ Mum asked giving me a kiss on the head.
    ‘I’m good, thanks.’
    ‘Did you manage to get all your things for school?’
    ‘Yep, I’m all set for next week.’
    Rupert picked up the leaflet from the table and looked at it. ‘Where did you get this?’
    ‘Outside a police station off Guinevere Plaza,’ I explained. ‘There was a Pagan group staging a protest