Instantly Megan crossed herself and began to pray: Forgive me, Father. Let my thoughts be filled only with You. Let my spirit seek You that it may find its source and good in You.
And the sounds went on. Finally, when Megan thought she would be unable to bear it an instant longer, they stopped. But there were other noises keeping her awake. The sounds of the forest ricocheted around her. There was a cacophony of mating birds and crickets and the chattering of small animals and the guttural growlings of larger ones. Megan had forgotten how noisy the outside world could be. She missed the wonderful silence of the convent. To her own astonishment, she even missed the orphanage. The terrible, wonderful orphanage…
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Ávila
1957
They called her “Megan the Terror.”
They called her “Megan the Blue-eyed Devil.”
They called her “Megan the Impossible.”
She was ten years old.
She had been brought to the orphanage when she was an infant, having been left on the doorstep of a farmer and his wife who were unable to care for her.
The orphanage was an austere, two-story, whitewashed building on the outskirts of Ávila, in the poorer section of the city, off the Plaza de Santo Vicente. It was run by Mercedes Angeles, an Amazon of a woman with a fierce manner that belied the warmth she felt toward her wards.
Megan looked different from the other children, an alien with blond hair and bright blue eyes, standing out in stark contrast to the dark-eyed, dark-haired children. But from the beginning, Megan was different in other ways as well. She was a fiercely independent child, a leader, a mischief-maker. Whenever there was trouble at the orphanage, Mercedes Angeles could be certain that Megan was at the bottom of it.
Over the years, Megan led riots protesting the food, she tried to form the children into a union, and she found inventive ways to torment the supervisors, including half a dozen escape attempts. Needless to say, Megan was immensely popular with the other children. She was younger than many of them, but they all turned to her for guidance. She was a natural leader. And the younger children loved to have Megan tell them stories. She had a wild imagination.
“Who were my parents, Megan?”
“Ah. Your father was a clever jewel thief. He climbed over the roof of a hotel in the middle of the night to steal a diamond belonging to a famous actress. Well, just as he was putting the diamond in his pocket, the actress woke up. She turned on the light and saw him.”
“Did she have him arrested?”
“No. He was very handsome.”
“What happened, then?”
“They fell in love and got married. Then you were born.”
“But why did they send me to an orphanage? Didn’t they love me?”
That was always the difficult part. “Of course they loved you. But—well—they were skiing in Switzerland and they were killed in a terrible avalanche—”
“What’s a terrible avalanche?”
“That’s when a bunch of snow comes down all at once and buries you.”
“And my mother and father both died?”
“Yes. And their last words were that they loved you. But there was no one to take care of you, so you were sent here.”
Megan was as anxious as the others to know who her parents were, and at night she would put herself to sleep by making up stories to herself: My father was a soldier in the Civil War. He was a captain and very brave He was wounded in battle, and my mother was the nurse who took care of him. They married and he went back to the front and was killed My mother was too poor to keep me, so she had to leave me at the farmhouse, and it broke her heart. And she would weep with pity for her courageous dead father and her bereaved mother.
Or: My father was a bullfighter. He was one of the great matadors. He was the toast of Spain. Everyone adored him. My mother was a beautiful flamenco dancer. They were married but he was killed one day by a huge, dangerous bull My mother was forced to give me up.