Chapter Twenty-three

" Would you like a tour round the orphanage? You know, get to see the children?" father Louis asked after he signed the contract.

" Don't worry, some other time", I said, not buying any motive he had.

" Come on, nothing bad can come out of it, and the children are lovely, come", gesturing me to follow him. I succumbed and followed him upstairs, where the clatter of spoons, forks, and plates harmonized in a balanced lovely way with echoes of laughter, making the seemingly noisy sound to feel like music to the ears and language to the soul.

There were kids everywhere around the very large round dining table. Teenagers of around fifteen years were the bigger ones there, and they were doing a fine job, chatting with each other and feeding the toddlers as they themselves ate. The semi little kids had stew spewed on their lips and chin; a vivid image of a vampire who had just drained a victim, and the stew was benevolent enough to expand it's territory, marking its boundaries o