"The Elite: Prologue 1" by Joanne Barnden

beyond reality one: the elite

Novena 8493

      Kenneth looked around the colony. There were no children in sight, except for his one of his own daughters, Alexandra. He kept her away from the other children as much as he could, but every time he found her, they were always around. That was how he had found her today, playing blissfully with the children of the colony, her age-mates. Kenneth had picked her up and taken her away, leaving all the kids staring after her in appalled amazement. Kenneth had taken her to the Tol Bey House, and sat her on the step. Then he had called Eleanor from inside the house, and was now waiting for her.

      “What’s the matter Kenneth?” Eleanor came towards him, down the steps of their house, carefully skirting around Alexandra who was sulking on the top step.

      “We have to get rid of her.” Kenneth pointed to Alexandra. “She is already playing with her magic, and a lot more powerful than most of the children in the colony. You know that she will end up more powerful than us… you know it!”

      Eleanor stared with loathing down at her eight novena old daughter. “Yes. We have to get rid of her.”

      Alexandra must have heard what her mother was saying, because her head came up and she stared back at Eleanor. With the eyes of a Thirteen, Kenneth surveyed his daughter’s aura. It was so powerful that it almost seemed able to swallow her mother’s, which while stronger than that of Threes and Eights, was a weaker aura than most of the Thirteens. Especially her daughter’s.

      “How are we going to do it?” Kenneth asked Eleanor, although he already had an idea about how it would work.

      “We’ll send her away to school, on a different island and tell everyone she’s run away…” Eleanor smiled, a truly evil smile.

      Kenneth raised an eyebrow. “Brilliant idea,” he looked toward Eleanor. “We can also disguise her as a boy, so that no one will see the difference. We can tell people that she prefers to disguise herself thus.”

      Eleanor smiled at her daughter. “Come Alexandra, it’s time to go somewhere with your mother.”

      Kenneth made all the arrangements with a private school on Zuk’nnal, called Monta. All the Thirteens were naturally wealthy, so it didn’t make too much of a problem. He told the principal, in strict secrecy, that Alexandra, while she looked and acted mostly like a little boy, was in fact a little girl. Plus, he said, she had bewitched herself to look like a boy, and called herself Alex. He also told the principal that in no uncertain terms, as she was like this, was she to be known as a Thirteen.

      “I trust you will use your discretion in this matter.” Kenneth told the principal. “It is just because of the odd nature of our child that we don’t wish her to force judgement that anyone else in our colony is like this. If you could please just behave as if she was a boy, and call her only by her first name, that should clear up her mind pretty quickly.”

      “Oh course,” the principal replied oily. “I can do that for you Mr Tolbey.”

      Kenneth smiled with glee as he placed down the phone. Well then, that was settled. The door creaked, and he looked up to see Eleanor enter, with little ‘Alex’ being led by the hand. Eleanor had done well with the spell, if you didn’t know that she was really a girl, you wouldn’t guess.

      Kenneth got to his feet and took Alex’s hand from Eleanor. “Well then my dear, I will just go and get rid of our little problem. I will be back in a little while.”

      Kenneth bent his head, and clasping Alex’s hand tightly, he began to whisper the well-known words of a transporting spell. Alex watched him with wide eyes, as the scenery around them changed.

      Kenneth looked around the campus of Monta and dragged Alex towards the office. It didn’t take him long to get rid of her in the principal’s office, with instructions to the principal to buy her whatever she needed. He then transported himself back to the colony, the whole thing taking him roughly 5 minutes. Eleanor was waiting for him with raised eyebrows, holding out a roughly packed bag.

      “You forgot to take this with you Kenneth,” she told him somewhat acerbically. “How are we going to convince anyone that child has run away unless some of her belongings have gone?”

      Kenneth frowned. “I forgot.” He looked out the window. “It looks as if Samson is going to come to talk to me,” he looked back up to Eleanor. “Could you take the bag to the principal or just hide it somewhere.”

      Eleanor nodded. She disappeared in a transport spell just before Samson appeared in the doorway.

      The next day they broke the news that Alexandra seemed to have run away sometime in the night. There was an immediate outcry, but since no one seemed to have known where she might have been going, there was nothing much that they could do. Kenneth and Eleanor claimed to have no knowledge of where or when she could have gone, the general idea of such being that she had escaped yesterday afternoon, after Kenneth had dragged her away from what she had been doing previously.

      It was universally known in the colony that Alexandra was not well treated, and had never been. There was speculation as to why this was, the general census had been that maybe it was because she had the potential to be better than her parents in terms of power, although from what Samson had told them, all the Tolbeys had the potential of being more powerful than their parents, even Benji, who was the ripe old age of two.

      Pietrr, Naish, Johnny, Jezebel and Benji scampered off to see Samson as soon as they heard that Alexandra was gone. It was debatable which of the kids was going to miss her more. Pietrr, at 10, Jezebel who was 5, Benji at 2 or her two triplet brothers, Naish and Johnny. But then again, there was no doubt as to the fact that she was going to be missed.