Clinging to the past

Although there were quite a lot opportunities in the orphanage to be useful or brighten up leisure time, rather than waste it, Helen preferred to do the latter now. She was staring at her hands, which have long been different from the usual ones, and once again reflecting on how she came to such a life. Obviously, it has been clear, that in order to have her present life she had to lose the previous one. And how talentless, it’s worth to admit - brilliantly finish school, pass final exams, apply to a prestigious university… And eventually die at the age of eighteen in a car accident. Apparently, fate decided that it wasn’t the end, and therefore gave her a second chance to live. Only this time life was very unremarkable - just an orphan in one of the London orphanages, who found herself in an unenviable position, because the Second World War wasn’t very far away. Well, at least Helen had her name, and didn’t have to get used to respond on another. In theory, Helen should’ve had no idea about the impending catastrophe, but what a surprise - the memory of her past life hasn’t gone anywhere. It was a rather strange feeling when she suddenly became a baby and didn’t know, why she suddenly lost an opportunity to move and talk… What’s more, there was no way to even raise her head normally! Not a word could be said, and the only thing that burst out of the mouth was incoherent children babble, which, in general, didn’t impress anyone much - in the orphanage it wasn’t something extraordinary. Well, children grow up fast, and that couldn’t but please Helen, who had already started to go crazy trapped in a helpless infant body. She early tried to speak for the first time, remembering information she had read in her past life purely out of curiosity about children speech development, but she managed to speak normally only by the age of two. At least not later, and that was enough - some of her peers were still silent, no matter how hard the teachers tried to make them talk. Then there were the books, the opportunity to get to which appeared at the age of three… There wasn’t too much variety of literature here, and it wasn’t possible to reach many shelves due to low height, so she had to be content with what was there - simple children’s books, thanks to which her eyes learned to recognise the text again. Yes, whatever you say, it’s extremely uncomfortable to live in child’s body - for nine years she lived in it, Helen managed to make sure of that. Although lots of interesting situations happened as well, she didn’t want to remember them now. At least because she noticed a ball flying in her direction with the corner of her eye. A little effort, and it was caught - looked like that now life was much easier than it had been before. ‘Morgan, return the ball!’ the boys, who played football, addressed her with dissatisfaction in their voice. It seemed, that this ball turned out to be in her hands thanks to them. It was useless to argue and remind, that she also had a name, because they weren’t in the mood for it right now, so Helen only threw the ball on the ground close to the players. Interest in her person was immediately lost, and the girl looked at the older inhabitants of the orphanage. It wasn’t possible to see, what they were doing - they occupied the bench, leaning over something and quietly talking. However, it was only she who decided to settle down on the steps, and the rest were ones who preferred benches. Well, in vain, because it was much warmer here. It was much more pleasant to sit in free hours before lunch and bask in the sun, rather stay in the shade of trees - although, to be honest, sometimes on particularly hot days benches were still preferable. Another thing is that there were always people who wanted to sit there, because there weren’t many benches in the courtyard, but no one claimed a place on the steps - there was enough space for Helen and for those who wanted to pass by her. Everyone was used to that and no one tried to kick her out of there. It was quite strange to rejoice the place on steps, remembering her room and large yard, which was available to be alone in it for all day. Even so, here the books were much pleasing to read - the sun was not only warming, but also shining well, so fiction books were read from cover to cover with no problems at all. They weren’t from the category of fantasy especially loved in the past life, of course, but any port of a storm… The only bad thing was the number of unread books, which was threatening to become zero. But, to think of it, still not too cruel - she will read them again, that’s all. “It would be worth getting ready for lunch, so as not to get deaf from the bell, calling all the orphans to gather, once again” thought Helen, and she decided to do it immediately, getting up from the steps. Her neighbours were still in the yard, which meant that she could enter their room calmly without having to knock. It would be nice to jump on the bed and lie like that, staring at the ceiling, but then she’d be completely carried away and a series of memories in the smallest details will take over her mind, just to distract from one obsessive thought that had been chasing the girl for three days. ‘Get up, Helen Morgan, it’s time for lunch soon’ she quietly called to herself, getting out of bed and smoothing a thin blanket - in the end, she failed to refuse the temptation to lie down a little. Red, slightly tangled wavy hair won’t put itself in order after all, so it’s time to use the comb again to put hair in two tails. ‘Wait a second, have I finally got used to my new last name?’ muttered Helen, snatching her hair out of the comb - it was used by three neighbours, not only her, and she was the only redhead in the room, so the culprit would be obvious. Helen from her past life could only be indignant, looking at these unsanitary conditions, but such were the realities - the orphanage could not afford much. And the mirror in their room didn’t even have a frame, being in fact big shard with few cracks, standing on the windowsill. But as long as Helen could see herself clearly, and brown eyes weren’t fading to gray, she was fine with it. It was actually a miracle, that mirror, even like that, was in the room of eight-nine years old. If it weren’t for Kathy, who found it in an unknown place and convinced the teachers to let them keep it, they would be left with nothing at all. Time passed quickly, and, judging by the noise in corridor, which approached to their room, her neighbours were already on the way. ‘Oh, hi, Nellie!’ said someone cheerfully at the same time as the door opened. Obviously, that was Bessie. ‘Long time no see, Helen,’ said Kathy a little bit later. Helen chuckled, because they didn’t communicate for only a couple of hours. ‘Hi, Helen,’ Jessie greeted her, entering the room last and closing the door behind her. ‘Hi, Jessie, Katie, Bessie,’ Helen replied, walking away from the mirror, and clearly on time, because Bessie was on her way to it. All of girls had strong mutual understanding - there wasn’t even thought of bullying each other in their minds, although it wasn’t uncommon in other orphanages. They had already had time to study each other’s habits, so Helen hurried to get away, silently rejoicing that she had decided to go to the room before the others. But she also understood them, crowded by the mirror - nobody wanted to get a whack for untidiness, and they wouldn’t be able to justify themselves with their young age, because the orphans grew up early. Helen would also like to consider herself an adult, but eighteen years she lived earlier were still quite conditional, and for some reason childish habits and behaviour took over more and more often. She winced at the ringing of the bell, which she couldn’t stand for some reason, and hurried for lunch, at the same time wondering, why she would want to constantly rethink her current short life. She asked herself the same question during lunch, and after, and in the evening, and lying in bed, listening to quiet breathing of the girls who had fallen asleep long time ago, although she knew the answer perfectly well. Maybe, because children, frightened by a wild dog near the orphanage, run away, hide, at worst, climb a tree… But they certainly don’t fly over the fence even without touching it, as she did exactly these three days ago.