"I’ve never stopped loving you, Amanda. Not for a moment. Not once."

- The Best of Me, coming to theaters October 17

Part One

Wednesday, November 4th, 1953. The date Elara Song’s world became stone walls and sublime, infinite countryside. She was eleven years old. She had her long black hair braided into two separate pigtails that flowed down her back, both embellished by a red bow her mother had insisted she wear on her first day. Elara clutched onto the suitcase in her hands as she followed Florence Buchanan, an older student tasked with her guidance, through the narrow corridors.

St. Catherine’s Roman Catholic School for Girls – or less formally known as Cathers by the students– was located in the heart of Hampshire. Which, for Elara, it might as well been in the middle of nowhere, as the nearest form of civilisation was a town named Bellmoor and that was over twenty miles away. Elara had spent a good portion of her childhood in the bustling streets of London, she was used to the hum and noise of a big city so moving to such an isolated and quiet setting like St. Catherine’s would be prove to be a challenge for her.

“It can be a little bit daunting at first but you’ll find Cathers isn’t all that bad, in fact it’s one of the best boarding schools in the south of England,” Florence said as she came to an extensive pair of double doors. She pushed them open with a soft grunt, quietly grumbling to herself about the weight and led them out into a courtyard. It was relatively sparse, there must have been a dozen or so girls milling about, either sitting on the various benches dotted across the extensive green lawn or standing by the large fountain in the centre of the rectangular courtyard.

“These are just sixth form girls, they have a free period,” Florence said, “there are usually more people out but it’s cold so most of them are in the canteen or in their respective common rooms.”

Elara could feel the girls’ prying eyes on her as she marched through the courtyard with Florence. She ignored their stares and instead focused on the tight grip she had on her suitcase. Florence had not been joking when she said the walk to the dormitories from the great hall – which she’d told Elara was in fact called Our Lady’s Hall, or the OLH – would be quite long. It would take ten minutes, it should have taken half that time but Florence told her the part of the building they used as a shortcut was shut due to renovations. The headmistress wanted to add a bigger and newer library, much better than the creaky one in the East Wing.

The walk to the dormitories was cold and long but they eventually reached an outstretched lawn, decorated by rose bushes, naked oak trees and two elegant Victorian houses. There were separated by a thick hedge and sat atop a steep grassy hill. Elara was taken aback by the sheer grandiosity of its architecture, it was somewhere a member of royalty would have as their holiday home.

Florence noticed Elara’s amazed expression and laughed, “This is Pond and Blackrose House for junior students like yourself, aged between eleven and thirteen years old. You’ll be staying here at Blackrose House.” Florence pointed to the house seated on the right. It was red bricked, dark and mysterious like Dracula’s castle and there was a cobblestone path leading to the large wooden door with brass knockers.

Elara nodded, her eyes glued ahead as they walked up the stone steps to the houses.Florence opened the door to Blackrose House and stepped into the narrow hallway. It was quiet inside, dim but warmer than the icy weather outside. It smelt faintly of spices, the kind her mother would use in her soups. Elara’s chest tightened at the thought, barely even an hour at the school and she already missed home.

Florence continued to explain the different boarding houses at St. Catherine’s, unaware of Elara’s sudden longing for home. “The older girls, fourteen and up stay at Queen Towers, you probably saw them on your way in,” she said.

Elara recalled seeing tall, patterned stone towers looming in the distance, past two empty tennis courts. They did not look as appealing as the Victorian houses, if anything they reminded her of those towers princesses were imprisoned in fairy tales. She knew she would eventually live there for a couple of years when she was fourteen but she hoped they were not as cold and daunting as they looked.

Florence gave her a tour of the ground floor. The kitchen to the right, where the spicy smell was stronger and the house common room was spacious with two bookshelves on either side of the room, and a large fireplace all the furniture was facing. Elara spotted a dusty looking radio on the mantelpiece and she made a mental note to check if it worked later. Florence showed her the boot room, where all the coats and shoes were kept, and the house matron and housemistress’s rooms were opposite one another.

“Miss Llewellyn, the housemistress of Blackrose was the one who was supposed to bring you here, but she’s dealing with some troublesome second years,” Florence said, “so Mrs. O’Donnell asked me to do it instead, which I don’t mind, it means I get to miss P.E,” she laughed and gestured for Elara to follow her, “come on, I’ll show you to your bedroom.”

Florence then took her upstairs to the first floor of dormitories. She did not think to help Elara lug her heavy suitcase up the twisting stairs of the house, she merely continued talking, more to herself than anyone else.

“I’m in sixth form you see,” she said when they reached the top of the stairs and Elara was trying to catch her breath. Perhaps she should have left the suitcase at reception and collected it later like Mrs. Soltan had suggested, “I’m in my last year at Cathers, the sixth formers stay at Bank and Holland House, which are the newer, more modern buildings on the other side of the school.”

They walked down a long corridor with four doors on either side, each marked with a letter and a number until they came to another set of stairs.

“About forty girls live in Blackrose House,” Florence said as she hopped up the stairs to the second floor, yet again ignoring Elara’s struggle with her suitcase, it kept banging on the steps and hitting the heels of her feet. Elara was not as strong as she thought, “And the other forty live at Pond House. There are two floors of dormitories and six beds in each dormitory, so you will be sharing. When you move to Queen Towers in fourth year, you also share but it’s only with two maybe three other girls and when you’re in sixth form, you do have your own bedroom but there is also the option of sharing. Most people choose not to.”

Elara nodded once more. She wondered if she was nodding too much and not saying enough. No, she was definitely nodding too much, she had barely uttered a word and Florence had uttered thousands. The girl never stopped talking. Elara supposed that was not bad a thing, Florence did not notice her silence. On the second floor, Florence took to her the last door on the left. Elara entered the bedroom cautiously as if a dragon was lying in wait to devour her. It was a big room with six well-made beds, there were three on either side of the wall. The spacious aisle between them lead to the bathroom, which Elara thought she could hear running water. There were several arched windows on the left wall that allowed bars of sunlight to flow into the dim room.

“Well, this is where you’ll be staying,” Florence said, indicating all around her. She pointed to the middle bed to the right. “I believe that one is yours.” She clasped her hands together, “just settle in, sort your things out, rest for a bit and–”

She was interrupted by the sound of someone coughing. Florence and Elara turned in time to see the bathroom door open and a dark-haired girl step out. The girl caught sight of them, froze and blinked. Once. Twice.

“Can I help you?” she asked, her eyebrows began to furrow as her gaze skipped between the two. The girl looked tired and unkempt, she wiped her nose with the wad of tissue clumped in her hand.

Florence folded her arms across her chest, “why are you not in class?”

“I’m sick,” the girl responded, “Miss Llewellyn said it would be best in if I stayed in bed.”

“Right, well, this is Elara,” Florence said, “She will be your new roommate.”

The girl’s eyes snapped back to Elara, they narrowed a fraction as if she was trying to see through to her soul. She stared at her for the longest moment until Elara grew uncomfortable and she had to look away.

“Is that all your luggage?” Florence asked Elara.

She cleared her throat, “uhm, no, my father said he would leave the rest at reception for me to pick up.”

“Do you have your class schedule?”

Elara nodded. She had stuffed it into her coat pocket when Mrs. Soltan had handed it to her father, and then her father had passed it to her. The classes were the same as always, Maths, English, History, P.E and many others that were not very noteworthy. Although, Latin had peaked her interest as it was a subject she had never studied before.

“Right, I’ll just leave you to unpack and sort your things out. Lessons finish in about half-an-hour, then it will be break time.” Florence looked over at the dark-haired girl, “can you look after her for me? It would be nice of you to show her the ropes and what not.”

The girl shrugged and removed the tissue from her nose, “that’s okay, I don’t mind.”

“Great! Oh, Elara do remember to collect the rest of your luggage at break,” Florence said, “well, I need to go but I’ll see you later.”

Elara’s wave of goodbye was a little pathetic and very half-hearted. “Yes, uh, thank you.”

Florence spun on her heels and left. Once she was out, and a good five seconds of silence passed the girl chucked the tissue into the bin and leaned against the doorframe. She kept a watchful eye on Elara as she walked to her assigned bed. There was a small cupboard topped with a lampshade on the right and a tall wardrobe on the left. Elara placed her suitcase on the large wooden trunk that sat at the foot of her bed. She sat down and looked around the room, taking in the cream wallpaper and the arched windows.

The girl pushed herself off the doorframe and came to sit on the bed opposite her. She had plump apple red cheeks and a head of messy, chocolate brown hair framing her round face. Elara put down her dishelleved appearance to the cold or fever she was suffering from. The girl titled her head to the side, Elara could see the curiosity building up in her grey eyes.

“You’re not from around here are you?” she said.

Elara’s eyebrows knit together, “what – what do you mean?”

“I mean, you don’t quite look English, you look,” the girl paused as if searching for the right way to phrase her sentence, “…you look Korean or something.”

Elara was so startled by the girl’s brashness, it took her several seconds to respond. She’d hoped no one would ask about her heritage, only because that was all anyone seemed to fixate on. “Chinese.”

“What?”

“I’m Chinese,” Elara said, “actually, my father’s Chinese and my mother’s Scottish, but…I…I was born in China also, I grew up in London actually…so uhm…yes.”

She trailed off, not sure as to what she was trying to say. She stared at her hands as she fidgeted with the buttons on her coat. When she looked up some moments later, she was surprised to find the girl had held out her hand.

“I’m Rosemary,” she said with a quiet, confident smile, “Rosemary Devereux.”

Elara faltered for a second or two before she shook her hand. She was more than glad for the subject change.

“Elara Song,” she said, “pleasure to meet you.”

They let go of each other’s hands and Elara returned her smile. Silence rushed in between in them, until she broke it with another question.

“Are you from around here?” she asked.

“No, I’m from Fairspell,” Rosemary said and chuckled softly, “I doubt you’ve heard of it, it’s a small town in North Yorkshire. Very boring.” She paused, “Oh, and Elara?”

“Yes?”

“Welcome to St. Catherine’s.”

*

By the end of the week, the entire school knew of Elara’s arrival. Rosemary told her it was because she was the most interesting thing to happen at Cathers since, well, forever. They never had students like her. Elara would say, students like what and Rosemary shrugged and repeated, students like her. Elara would think this was an exaggeration but with the way the girls in her year and some in the years above were flocking to her, it became apparent Rosemary was telling the truth. Almost every lesson and every lunch break, girls would be crowding her, asking questions about her heritage, what it was like in China, if she’d been back since, if it was true she was only half Chinese and half Scottish. Elara suddenly regretted telling Rosemary anything.

“That’s absolutely fascinating,” said Wanda Harding, a chubby red-haired girl who had turned around in her seat to face Elara. It was Friday morning, they had English Literature with Mrs. Clemens but she was running late and in her absence, some of the girls had decided to entertain themselves by questioning Elara.

Gwen Cooper grimaced, she looked like she had just eaten something particularly sour, “so…what are you then?”

Elara blinked, “I beg your pardon?”

“If you’re not fully Chinese or fully Scottish, then,” Gwen shrugged, “what are you?”

Elara felt herself shrink and shrink until everything in the classroom was looming over her. She wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. She stammered for an answer. “I...I don’t –”

“Human,” Rosemary said.

Elara looked over at her. She was sat in the row behind her, two seats to the left. Rosemary frowned, her expression somewhere between boredom and irritation.

“Honestly Gwen, what a stupid question,” Rosemary rolled her eyes, “last time I checked people from China were human, and so were people from Scotland. What? Did you expect her to be a green-skinned alien from space?”

Half the class giggled and the other half murmured an agreement of Gwen’s absurdity. Gwen sputtered, a violent blush spread across her cheeks. She grit her teeth and glared at Rosemary, “Oh shut up. You know what I meant.”

Rosemary chuckled, “I really didn’t.”

It looked like Gwen was going to say something else but Mrs. Clemens entered the classroom and everybody fell silent.

A week after that, they found out she was from London and a new wave of questions came. It was too much. They were never ending and a barely month into her time at Cathers, Elara had grown sick and tired of the constant bombardment. She was not a museum exhibition, she was not something you could poke and prod for the sake of your own curiosity.

In the end, she began avoiding places like her house common room and the canteen where most of her interrogators lied in wait for her. She would slink off to the library, find a quiet, isolated corner and read. Nobody bothered her, or more accurately nobody knew she was there. Nobody except Rosemary that was, but Elara had grown accustomed to the northern girl. Some days, Rosemary would join her in her little corner and they would quietly chat about whatever trivial matter came up or they would do their homework together. More often than she would like, Elara would be sat by herself, with a book in her hand and silence as an unwelcome companion.

*

“You’re always here.”

Elara looked up from the book she was reading to find Rosemary Devereux standing on the other side of the table. It was Tuesday, eight days into December and ten days before they broke up for the Christmas holidays. Elara had been keeping a close watch on the calendar, she was more than eager to return home, to London, to a mother and father and a younger sister she missed dearly.

She stared at her, “I beg your pardon?”

“Nothing.” Rosemary pointed to the book in her hand as she pulled the chair back and sat herself down, “what are you reading?”

“Oh,” she said, “The Little White Horse by Elizabeth Goudge.”

As always Elara Song was in the library, the only place in the school she would not be bothered by the likes of Wanda Harding and Gwen Cooper. Not many people visited the library and if they did they only stayed for a few minutes before they skittered off. Elara supposed it was because of Mrs. Shillingham. The librarian was a shrewd, cold-hearted woman who frowned at anything and anyone. She made the library an insufferable place to be, the only reason Elara had survived for so long was because she avoided eye contact and she stayed well away from her. There were several rumours drifting through the school that Mrs. Shillingham was a witch.

Rosemary frowned as she folded her arms across her chest and leaned back in her chair. She scrunched up her nose, “I read that last year,” she said, “my mother bought it for me in the shops, it was frightfully boring. I didn’t like the ending and I thought Maria an idiot. ”

“Well, I like it,” Elara said. She did. She had started it yesterday and had not been able to put it down since then.

Rosemary unfolded her arms, she placed her elbows on the table and leaned forward. “I’ll tell you what you should read,” she said, smiling like she knew a secret. “Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell. It’s set in 1984, thirty years in the future. It depicts a dystopian Britain ruled by an authoritarian government. I finished it a few weeks ago, it was fantastic. Much better than the drab they’re forcing us to read in English Literature.”

Elara was not sure what dystopian or authoritarian meant – she would have to look it up later – but she’d heard of the book, even enquired about it to Mrs. Shillingham.

“I don’t think you’re allowed to read that unless you’re in sixth form,” Elara said.

“Oh I don’t pay attention to those kinds of things. I mean, if you ban a book for certain people, it will only make those people want to read it more,” Rosemary said, leaning back in her chair, “anyway, I have a cousin in the upper sixth, she has her own copy, so when I asked her for it she loaned it to me. I highly recommend you read it.” She brushed loose strands of dark brown hair from eyes, “You know with everything that’s happening with Cold War and the Soviet union, I don’t think the future Orwell depicted would be so far off.”

Elara stared at her, puzzled yet intrigued. Half the time she really did not know what Rosemary was prattling on about. However, she had discovered Rosemary Devereux was a curious thing, sharp-tongued, far too clever for her own good and possibly the only person at St. Catherine’s she could see herself befriending.