Emily. [Revised, bigger and better edition]

Ok so this is a bigger and better edition of the first story in a trilogy I am writing. Sorry for all the mistakes I am sure to make but please point them out for me on the FEEDBACK thread. Heres part one of the first chapter:

Chapter One.
Celeste Young gazed longingly out the window at the fluffy little flakes of white that floated gracefully to the ground. Snow. It had been years since it snowed, and now that it was, she was stuck inside a stuffy classroom with stuffy people she had tried, in vain, to make friends with.
Her teacher droned on about some project or other but hardly anyone in the room was listening, and he knew it too.
"Celeste, what did I just say?"
Celeste glanced up at her history teacher, wide emerald eyes portraying innocence.
"If you need me to tell you, sir, it can't be that important."
Her teacher sighed, too tired to argue with the annoying little girl his job required him to teach. It was the last class of the day, and also the last class of the year. He had only a few minutes left before the Christmas holidays, and then he would have four full weeks of freedom.
"You have a project, Celeste." he sighed, "Three pages on a historical event that happened in the last one hundred years. I am leaving it so vague Celeste because for once I want you to get a higher mark than a D. Class dismissed."
After battling her way out of the classroom, using force when necessary, she escaped out into the open air. To her dismay, however the snow had turned to ice, and she found herself tip-toeing home gracefully over it.
When Celeste reached home, the dark, morbid aura of Number four Lindsay's Lane reached out to greet her.
The road had been renamed that after the tragic death of a girl named Lindsay that had lived on the road. If it hadn't been for that tragic and desperate event however, Celeste would still be living in the care home she had lived in up until she was seven. It was then that two grieving people dressed in black came to the small orphanage, requesting to meet Celeste especially. The rest of the orphanage were shocked when they said they wanted to adopt her.
Why her? The pretty girls with blonde hair in plaits and wide blue eyes asked. Why Celeste, with her ugly red hair and cabbage-coloured eyes?
Celeste herself had asked that question many times, but had then forgotten all about it in favour of trying on yet even more summer dresses and playing with all her new toys and endless dolls in her very own playroom. Not once when she was eating out or going on a shopping trip did her mind ever wonder why her new parents had already had a bedroom prepared for her, have a playroom set up for her and clothes that fit her perfectly already neatly folded and stacked for her when she first arrived at number four Lindsay's Lane.
In fact, it wasn't until Celeste turned ten and her parents sang "Happy Birthday to Lindsay" yet again that something clicked. Upon discovering photos of a child on her fifth birthday with her parents Celeste's frightening theory was proved. The child in the photo had scarlet hair, and green eyes, and the cake in the photo read "Happy Birthday to Lindsay".

Celeste was nothing more then a replacement, and a very good one at that.

Celeste felt a tear roll down her cheek as she walked up to the black door. Every other house on the road was redbrick, with brightly coloured doors and flowers in the windows. Number four was a large looming cement affair, with a black door and window frames. Even the house seemed to be in mourning.
Celeste knocked lightly on the door and waited for the tall thin woman with greying red hair that was her "mother" to open the door, which she did. The two stared at each other for a moment before the taller of the two spoke.
"Hello Lindsay."
"Hello Mother."

 

Chapter One - part two

Celeste followed the stick figure into the kitchen where there was another painfully long silence. Once again, broken by Celeste's mother.
"You are to feed your rabbit Lindsay, as you did not do so this morning. Then I will expect you to complete your studies and assist me in preparing the dinner. Now run along."
Celeste fetched the rabbit food and treaded carefully on the ice towards the rabbit hutch that lay right at the bottom of the long garden.
Gradually, Celeste's adoptive parents had stopped calling her Celeste and started calling her Lindsay. Each time she objected to this her mother broke out in floods of tears, and her father in angry sobs. She had learned to put up and shut up or suffer the consequences.
After feeding her rabbit, Celeste decided to skate on the ice that had frozen hard on the ground. She started off timidly, holding onto the various trees and bushes that dotted the long narrow garden. After gaining speed however, she was confidently sliding around the garden in her black patent shoes when she slammed into a perfectly circular laurel bush, tumbled, and fell out the other side. Somewhere in her mind she was aware that there was blood coming from the back of her head and somewhere on her leg, but that wasn't why she was screaming...

 

A high-pitched scream rang in the air, and Celeste realised with a shock it was hers. Trembling she scrambled to her feet to inspect more closely what had given her the shock. Before she got a chance to, however, she was joined by the woman she had greeted only minutes ago, and it wasn't long long after that, summoned by his wive's and daughter's screams, Celeste's father ran out to see what was wrong.
The scene was not one you would expect to witness in a nightmare, but it was haunting nonetheless. An eerily pale girl lay half-buried in the snow behind the laurel bush, her worn dress not much more then rags, and icicles hanging from her lashes. Her feet were bare, but not blue as you would expect, just the same ivory colour as the rest of her skin. Her raven black hair stuck to the ice around her, and her arms and legs were mangled, stuck out in positions they shouldn't have been in. It was an eerie and beautiful scene, but for the most part, tragic. Maria, Celeste's adoptive mother, was the first to snap out of her trance.
"Charles," she barked, "Call the ambulance."
"Too late," he whimpered back, feeling for a pulse that was evidently not there, "We're too late."
Maria's tone was softer this time, and she knew her husband was right. It was with tears in her eyes and a heavy heart that she barely whispered back,
"No Charles," she began to beg, "Not again, we can't be! Not again Charles, no, not again! Call the ambulance, regardless, we don't know who she is even, why is she in our garden?"
He had no comment to make, or answer to her questions, but it was with tears brimming in his eyes that Charles Young pulled out his phone.

 

Long, endless corridors with the constant smell of bleach, large looming doctors just dying to inject you with some foreign liquid, tubes, endless tubes, that the overly-friendly paediatric nurses enjoy attaching to you just to see you squirm...
Add that to the painful experience of The Waiting Room and let's put it this way, visiting hospitals was not Celeste's favourite pastime.
Celeste's father paced up and down one such corridor, muttering angrily to himself, his brow furrowed in concentration.
"It's impossible!" he declared, standing upright and ignoring the look on the bemused nurses' faces as they walked by. "Can you hear them, Maria? Medical miracle, she is, that's what they're all saying. Well do you know what I'd like to know? Who's going to pay for the runaway gypsy's top class medical attention? Not me, for sure. And what was the gypsy doing in our garden in the first place? Hmm? Not looking at the flowers, I'll bet. Trying to break in, for sure." The spindly man was completely void of the earlier emotion he had displayed. All sadness had left him now, and he was feeling hollow and angry, for reasons unknown to those but himself.
If he was being completely honest, he was never really sad for the gypsy girl. Now that she had somehow been brought back to life by the doctors, God knows how, everyone expected him to throw a bloody party or something. If, God forbid, the gypsy had died, he would have been sad for her, but even sadder for himself. He knew his wife understood, she felt the same way. She had told him this in just three words. "Not again, Charles." she'd said. She and him had already tried once to save a girl, but had failed. The stakes had been higher that time, it had been their only daughter, just days after her seventh birthday. He tried not to think about it too much, but tried in vain.
She took a part of her parents with her the day she died, and the pain never lessened, and almost a year after their beloved Lindsay's death, they decided to adopt a child, one similar to Lindsay in looks, and roughly aged seven to try and help things. Celeste was perfect for the job. They could never replace their daughter they always thought, and it had never really sunk in properly, that they already had.
It didn't take long for them both to forget, to start calling Celeste Lindsay. Charles was just happy to see Maria a bit happier, so no-one pointed it out, and Celeste was a good, amiable child. Well, some of the time at least. She was starting to get a bit more adverse to it, grimacing at being called Lindsay, though she kept her real name in school and for documents and such. Celeste wanted to move school, though Charles saw nothing wrong with her education. He could feel a teenage rebellion starting, but he would cross that bridge when he came to it. Right now he was being called into A

 

Whaaaaaat!

Where it says she kept her real name for school and *** and stuff

IT SHOULD SAY

Though she kept her real name for school, and documents and stuff

Why was that censored?!?

 

('').-)

I have no idea why that is censored it just says d o c u m e n t s.

 

Heres what's cut off:

Right now he was being called into A

 

Humph. Last time

A and E with his family. The doctors had been right in calling her a medical miracle, the girl was conscious, but there was a problem. A big one.

 

When Celeste saw the girl, she knew immediately something was wrong. She just couldn't quite put her finger on it. The various machines that surrounded the girl were all turned off, silent and motionless. Even with no medical knowledge whatsoever, Celeste found this strange. Shouldn't they have had some kind of machine monitoring her heartbeat or something? It seemed like only moments ago that she had been lying crumpled and broken behind that laurel bush, with no pulse and icicles on her face, either the doctors were being incredibly naive and stupid or Celeste had missed something. The latter seemed the most likely, and Celeste inched closer to the bed, hoping to find answers there. The girl was awake, and her cold blue eyes stayed glued to the ceiling, her expression blank.
"Hello?" Celeste was beside the bed now, and she noticed a doctor pulling her parents away to talk to them. The accident and emergency ward was small, like the hospital, and the girl's bed was the only one filled. Celeste decided to introduce herself.

"I'm Celeste." she murmured, looking at the floor. "What's your name?"

The girl's eyes stayed fixed to the ceiling, but when she did speak, there was a tone of unmistakable anger in her voice.

"Apparently my name is Emily. That's what they tell me at least. Hell, my name could be Candyfloss for all I know."

Celeste didn't really know how to reply to that, and fumbled with her bracelet for something to do.

"How-" Celeste was cut off.

"No! I do not know how I ended up in your garden, where my parents are or even who I am! I've told them a hundred times! I can't remember! Just go, please," Emily's voice was desperate now, pleading. Celeste couldn't but feel sorry for the girl.

"No, how do they know your name is Emily?"

"Oh," Emily smiled, turning her head to face Celeste. "This."

 

Emily took a necklace off and handed it to Celeste. It was only then that Celeste really noticed Emily's eyes.
They were a bright, brilliant blue colour, but they still had the same empty cold look that Celeste had seen in them earlier.
Emily noticed Celeste staring and snapped.
"What?"
"Oh nothing it's just your eyes. They're, they're - they're really pretty."
"Oh. Yeah."
Celeste dragged her eyes back down to the necklace. She saw now that it was a locket. On the front there was a small blue stone, Celeste presumed it was a sapphire, and just below that Emily was etched into the metal. It looked like someone had cut it in with a knife, as the letters were messy and not exactly proportionate. Celeste came across a little groove in the metal and pushed her thumbnail through it. The locket immediately sprang open. Before she got a chance to inspect the inside however, the locket was snatched from her hand and Emily was glaring at her.
"How'd you do that?" she demanded
"Um, well-"
"Forget it." Emily put on the locket and hid it under her hospital nightgown. "Oh and Celeste," Emily addressed her for the first time, "I'd prefer if you didn't tell anyone about, you know, the locket opening and that."

"Yeah, ok sure."

A doctor walked in, followed by Celeste's parents, who were whispering anxiously. The doctor spoke first in his bright cheery tenor.
"Well Emily you seem to be perfectly fine now that we've got you warmed up and-" the doctors brow furrowed, "and such. Now, the police have been informed about your strange predicament and are searching vehemently for your parents, or guardians. Not one person that has passed through this hospital had amnesia this badly. From my chat with Mr. and Mrs. Young I can see no trigger. Don't get me wrong, I believe you Emily, I am just asking for your co-operation. If you should get a flashback I would strongly advise-"

He was cut off by a cold glare from Emily. "What happened to the nurses that were with me earlier?"

The doctor frowned and Celeste could swear she saw another wrinkle forming on the doctors worn, lined face. "They got a bit of a shock," he gestured towards one of the windows in the high ceilinged, white room. "Its getting dark now, look. You three better get on the road before it gets too late. I'll take care of Emily, don't worry. I think we'll keep her in for tonight. There's hardly anyone in this small hospital, and haven't a clue who or where her parents are." Celeste's parents nodded at the white-haired man - whom Celeste had taken an immediate dislike to - and began to leave.
Just as they were exiting, the doctor shouted over at them, "Call me about that idea you had Maria, as soon as you have decided."
Maria Young nodded, wiry red and grey corkscrew curls bobbing up and down as she did so, and pushed her daughter through the doors of Accident and Emergency.

****

 

Did you even read it?
I have gone past caring what your opinion is dbo cause I can already tell. Constructive criticism is good. Criticism is good. Dbo hating is just the way of the world.

Go read Shakespeare and whinge about that too.

 

Cool 

Emily sat up in the hard hospital biscuit of a bed she was forced to sleep in.

Only she couldn't.

The frustration that had been building up in her head had built up until it threatened to explode out on everyone, and burn them with the anger that she felt. Maybe then they would STOP ******* ASKING HER THE SAME BLOODY QUESTIONS OVER AND OVER AGAIN. Had their brains turned to mush when she wasn't looking? Couldn't they see she had no answers for them?
She flopped back down on the bed. The hard cold feeling of the metal locket reminded her of a question that had been bugging her all day. She knew there was something important that she should know, something she should be doing right now. She took the locket off and looked at the front of it. Emily was scratched on it, and by the looks of it by a knife or a nail. She mimicked what Celeste had done earlier and the locket sprung open. There were two photos inside. They were small ovals, and fit almost perfectly into the frames on either side. The first one was of a girl, and was taken from a distance. The photo was a sepia colour, and it was hard to see clearly who it was, other than it was a girl. Emily had a feeling it was her. The girl in the photo was holding hands with someone, but that someone had been cut out of the oval.
The other photo was quite different from the first. It was a man's face, the same faded sepia colour as the first, but a lot clearer. It was a kind face, a loving face, and Emily knew he was familiar, just not how he was. It was unclear from the colour of the photo what colour the man's eyes or hair was, but Emily thought he should have warm brown eyes and dark hair.

She just felt it.

She knew someone was missing from the first photo though. She wondered if it might be a mother figure, but nothing came to mind.

Then it hit her.
Not all of it, but some of it.
Enough to make her eyes go wide in shock.
Enough to make her stifle back a scream.
The thing that she had missed, the thing that she needed to know, came back to her, and her whole perspective changed.
It hit her like a ton of bricks, and she gasped.