CHAPTER TWO: An Unexpected Birthday Gift

                             — Chapter Two —

                                          

                                    An Unexpected Birthday Gift

For many people, May in London is one of the best times of the year; summer is just getting started, and all the shops are packed with tourists. The weather is usually the best it’s ever going to be. It’s very warm, bright, and sunny with only the occasional shower of rainfall cooling everything off and threatening to ruin the day — or help make the day even that much more interesting, depending on your point of view.

   From Piccadilly Circus to the London Eye, from Wimbledon to Hyde Park, Leicester Square or Tower Hill, going to a haughty club at night, seeing a musical, or just cycling through one of the great parks that the city has to offer, London always has been, and always will be, a city full of wonder, history, mystique, glamour, and excitement. 

   There are so many sights, sounds, and smells to keep your interest that there is always something to do even for the most well-shopped shopper, most toured tourist, and the most well-traveled traveler. And for most anyone, London is one of the most inviting and exciting cities on earth.

   Day and night, the streets are all a hustle and bustle, filled with all kinds of people speaking all sorts of languages from all around the world, living their everyday lives, going to and from work, on holiday, or just up for the weekend from the country.

   Everyone who lives in or visits London (even if it’s just once in a lifetime) is moved, awed, inspired, and impressed by its elegant grandness and historical monuments.

   One cannot help but let themselves be enveloped by its rich culture, friendly people, relaxing venues, and international sensibility.

   A bustling metropolis, there are few cities on earth that rival London, and there are only a handful that could ever be named, and even still, there simply is no other city that has quite exactly what London has to offer.

    Its unique character has a charm all its own. More than just an English city, it is a city of the world, and its inhabitants citizens of the world who are as much a part of London as London is a part of them.

   Deeply cemented in its long history and ancient architecture, which are constant reminders, there are artistic echoes from the past that are not too soon forgotten.

   Alongside ancient gothic spires of stone are steel and glass giants battling for dominance over the metropolitan skyline and ever-growing multicultural cityscape.

   Always changing and moving forward, progressing at a rapid rate, the height of modernism and cosmopolitan brilliance. Always a city deeply etched in both past, present, and future — life in London is always on the move.

   But even in this cacophony of wonder and lights and noise, to someone visiting for the first time, London can also feel very much like home.

   Being in London can be a fanciful experience, as well as a very moving private one for there are more places and things to do in London than any one person has time for, and it would take more than one lifetime to do them all anyway.

    It’s been said that London is all things to all people, and if you are tired of London, then you must be tired of life.

   And so not too far from all this excitement and activity, across rolling hills and lush green and yellow meadows, beyond deep moors and small brick houses that litter the quiet countryside, just a few miles outside of the industrious city, is a little village called Bruxton, and just a few miles down the road from that, beyond an area of woodland, sits a small harmonious-looking yellow house. But all within is not as well as it seems.…  

BANG! A door violently flies open, then slams back against its frame. A thin young girl burst out onto the porch. A terrible thing has just happened, her greatest hope has just been shattered into a billion pieces, and she knows deep down that it can never be put back to rights again.

   Sprinting down the front steps, she clears the house, running as fast as she can, rounding a long white picket fence that unevenly follows a winding path away from the house.

   Not caring at all about what happens to her, dirt and mud splatter her white trainers and blue jeans as she goes headlong down the little dirt road, tears beginning to well at the corners of her eyes, blurring her vision. The true horror of what has just happened is starting to sink in. But even though distraught and half blind, she knows the way and keeps going.

   She picks up pace, pumps her arms, straining the small muscles in her legs as she pushes them farther and faster.  

   There, she thinks. There. They won’t be able to find me. Not for a long, long time.

   The thought flashes in her mind but she only registers it for a brief instant. Adrenaline rushing through her, blood pumping, she’s driven now more by instinct and fear rather than by choice, the fear driving her to hide and the instinct the only thing keeping madness from overtaking her mind.

    Past the end of the fence she continues her grueling pace, following the dirt path as it curves around a bend of tall grass and a line of great green tall trees comes into focus.

    Then to one side, the trees start to fill up the landscape and a huge forest begins to dominate the scene. That is her destination; she intends to lose herself in a maze of wood and leaf, vine, bush, and mire. If only she could lose herself, hide from her own memory just as easily as she knows she can hide from them. Right now, more than anything, she just simply wants to cease to exist.

    That single thought invades her mind, but she knows it’s no good to dwell on such bleak notions and pushes it back out again, trying but knowing she will never be able to forget what just happened only a few moments ago.

     If she’s going to think at all, she’d rather think of —

    But why, why is this happening to me! she screams within her mind.

     It’s not fair!   

    “WHY? WHY? W-why is this happening?” she sobs, choking the words out. It was her birthday! Her eleventh birthday! Her first step toward being a teenager, and that special moment was ruined! Marked by — by this!  

    Birthdays are supposed to be special, wonderful things, not terrible, not awful, and certainly not horrific! Now gone forever….   

    This was supposed to be her first great birthday in her brand-new life, in a brand-new town with a brand-new school, and brand-new, loving, wonderful parents.

    If only she could go back, she thinks, turn back time for one single solitary day, then everything would be okay again — everything would be as it should be.

    Turning into the woods, she leaps over a half-decayed tree trunk that had fallen long ago and ducks between two more trees that had fallen into each other, creating a natural archway.

    She pushes aside hanging branches with heavy leaves like curtains; she knows this entrance into the woods well — it had been her own private little secret ever since she had come to live here.

     Under the wide roof of the tall trees, the sunshine can barely penetrate; shafts of light pierce through in brilliant streams, but still she runs, not really recognizing the haunted beauty she passes through.

    Purely by chance, she misses tripping roots and strangling vines; she runs through stinging branches that catch her clothes and scratch her face, arms, and legs like little whips, but still she doesn’t care. Whatever happens to her now she feels she rightly deserves.

    For what she’s done, for what she must have done.

    It must have been her — she realizes now — and that thought is almost more than she can stand.

    The fact that she might have been the cause of it —

    NO! She shakes her head hard, trying to force the memory out; fresh tears stream down her cheeks, and she keeps running, not knowing or caring where she might eventually end up.

    Recent memories come flooding back to her. The last few months seemed so wonderful, so right, so perfect … now all but ashes, and just when she was so close to such a long-cherished dream, it all came crashing down.

    So she runs, and as tree and leaf and branch rush by in a blur, she remembers what it felt like, but now it seems like it was ages ago, another lifetime. But in reality, it was only just yesterday when everything had been all right, when …   

    … she had been sitting at a small wooden table in a corner behind a large pile of books in an old bookstore, trying to decide which one she should buy for herself. She was so excited that tomorrow was her birthday, and for once, someone had remembered that it was her birthday, and, even better, she wouldn’t be spending it all alone.

    Just moments before, when she had walked in, she headed straight for the fiction section; scanning over the words on the spines, she found a plethora of dog-eared treasures.

   Even though the bell had chimed when she had first walked in, the proprietor hadn’t seemed to have noticed her, and she sighed. Adults rarely seemed to ever pay attention to her. It seemed to be a talent she had, but then while she was going through her heap of books suddenly they started moving — she groped for them, and said, “Hey!”

   For the first time, the proprietor saw her and was so suddenly startled he nearly jumped; he hadn’t even realized she was there and had tried putting the books back on their shelves. After five minutes of arguing with her, he grudgingly went back to his sales counter without so much as a by-your-leave, and sat there disgruntled, every few seconds peering at her from behind a newspaper that he pretended to read.

    The girl tried to ignore him and went back to the business at hand of sampling.

    After some time of reading bits of the various volumes, trying to decide which one she might find herself most engrossed in, she found a particularly intriguing one and became lost in the story. It was about a prince and a showgirl and just when she was getting to an interesting part, a rude noise woke her from the fantasy.

   There was suddenly a loud banging from the other side of the store, and she heard the proprietor’s gruff voice exclaiming, “Young lady! Young lady! Miss?” 

   Annoyed, she looked up over the top of the book to see him there, a creepy, crotchety old codger who was bone thin with papery skin and long fingers.

   Nearly just a skull already, loose skin and hair barely hung off from his nearly bald head, and in the center of his face were two large yellow lamplike eyes (like those of a cat’s) that strained and bulged out of their sockets as he shouted.

  She didn’t think he had any teeth to speak of, and what hair there was, was slicked back, a sickly yellow-silver in color, long in back while being all but completely bare on top.

   He had a rather large nose, with a lot of gray hair poking out from the nostrils, and little rectangular spectacles.

   His clothes, although neatly pressed, looked as though he had been wearing them every day of his life for the last fifty years, and even from where she was sitting (which was on the other side of the store), she knew that he stank. He had the smell of being old about him; she had gotten a strong whiff of a stale odor coming from him or was it maybe the store when she had walked in? They seemed to smell the same, as if he had been sitting in this store with all these books and dust surrounding him for ages.

   She thought on the whole he was really rather odd and unseemly, and coming from her, that was saying quite a lot; his whole character invoked images of an old Nazi who was in hiding and who had escaped the war and was now trying to avoid discovery and punishments for war crimes. He even had a weird little accent that she couldn’t quite place that sounded neither British nor German but was tinged with maybe a touch of French. 

   As for his attire, he wore a bowtie, a plaid waistcoat, and a yellow shirt neatly tucked in, which, oddly enough, was almost the exact same shade as his skin; a weird chill ran through her just looking at him, so she decided to stick her nose back in her book.

   WHACK! The sudden noise jolted her, making her jump an inch off her seat — he was waving a crooked wooden cane in his right hand, brandishing it like a weapon.

    She looked at him and returned his piercing stare in kind, but it was he who spoke first.

    “Young lady!” he repeated while he continued banging his cane against the counter for emphasis — WHACK! WHACK! “This is not a library, it’s a bookstore!” he said, sounding extremely upset. “Kindly refrain from reading all of the books before purchasing them!”  

   He stopped, holding his cane in midair, raised one eyebrow as if waiting for an answer, but all the girl did was blink, swallow, and fix him with that same piercing gaze.

   She sighed and quietly said, “Yes sir,” in a defiant tone, then, as an afterthought, gave him a little mock salute.

   “Eh,” he said, straining to hear what she’d said, but she wouldn’t repeat it; she merely smiled and went back to reading the book. He gave her a sneer, then took out his newspaper and started to pretend to read it again, all the while grumbling to himself under his breath, saying things here and there, which she only caught snatches of.  She didn’t care about the majority of his mutterings, but every so often, he would raise his voice slightly, and she could hear him saying things like “stupid” and “bothersome” and “kids” with a scathing tone, and something that sounded very much like “having no business in bookstores.”

    Hmph, she thought. She’d already read all the bits and pieces she wanted from her pile, it would serve him right if she did just get up, not having bought anything, and went on her way out the door. But instead, she got up from the table and started putting the books back on the shelf one by one; his wide eyes narrowed, following her suspiciously all around the store, watching her every move with an expression of wanton disdain.

    She had half a mind to actually do it, walk straight out of the store, but she did want to buy something, and this was the only bookstore in the village — it was just that all the books she found that she had liked were a little too costly for her budget. She only had a few pounds on her, but she wanted to buy something for her birthday.

    The owner rolled his eyes, cleared his throat to show his annoyance, and with a sharp SNAP! he straightened out the paper in his hands and kept up his pretense of reading.

    The old proprietor must not be used to people staying in his store for long periods, she supposed. Bruxton was such a small village, but not a tourist town — maybe he was quite used to the regular customers who came in for the odd book or even a short chat. But she imagined if a stranger popped in for a quick question, asking for directions or such, surely he would act just as ill-tempered with them as he was now doing with her. Or maybe it was that he just didn’t like kids.

   Whatever his problem, for the first half hour she was in the store, he kept asking her if she needed any help. Then when she was looking through the books and she had put the ones back she didn’t like, he would go over and obsessively rearrange them on the shelf as if she was deliberately creating chaos and making mayhem by merely looking them over.

    She had stood there, with what she imagined may have seemed agonizing to him, scrutinizing over each volume, looking for that as-yet-undiscovered treasure that might whisper to her, saying, “Take me home, I’m the one for you.…”

    Then when she had picked out her pile and sat down, he must have forgotten that she had even walked in, probably in the vain hope that she had left the establishment.

    She had perused through all the shelves, examining each one, looking for that special something that might pique her interest but that she could also afford.

    To her, books were a gift, and the stories in them treasures beyond simple monetary value. Only, tell that to an old man who might own a bookstore and be trying to turn a coin or two!

    She had pored over many of the books since entering the shop, but as it was, so far not even one tattered piece of text that she could afford had leapt out and declared itself.

    She had found many books that she had fancied straightaway, but they had proved too new and therefore much too expensive, so to her extreme disgruntlement, she had put them back and began her search anew.

   Now as she continued looking, it was her turn; she had grown paranoid of the old man. She eyed the proprietor with equal contempt. He was still sitting at the front of the store behind his counter, at that moment, it seemed, not paying her much mind, but still pretending to read his newspaper.

   She knew it wasn’t true, but he didn’t seem to know she was there at all now, something she was completely used to.

   Most adults never seem to realize she was around unless she went right up to them and asked them a question, and then they would act startled, as if she had been invisible to them the entire time and would say things like, “I didn’t see you!” Or “Where did you come from?” Or even worse, push her aside and say, “Get out of my way!”

   Yep, that was her — the invisible girl.

   She sighed to herself and went back to browsing.

   Standing there, you wouldn’t have known it to look at her, but much like the covers of the books she loved and the stories she so admired, there was something more to her than just how she appeared.

   On the whole, she might have looked rather plain, but if you took the time to look closely you could see she was anything but; people always say, “Never judge a book by its cover.”

   And as the girl herself well knew, that saying is truer for people than it had ever been for any book, and so it was for her as well.

   A thin pale girl, and for the moment all of ten years old, she wasn’t much to look at. Her skin was fair, and she had a light spray of freckles across a slender nose.

  Wavy chestnut-colored hair cascaded down, framing the sides of her face, and ended sharply just above her shoulders. She had a skinny neck, full lips, and straight teeth with more of an overbite than she cared for, but it was her eyes that were what really stood out.

   Large and piercing, she couldn’t help but stare, and she blinked a lot when she was nervous, but the strangest thing about them was not their shape, or their size, but their color.

   They were not subtle, but a bright and sharp shade of violet, and when she looked in the mirror, she was reminded too much of the fact that she had never seen another pair like them in her entire life.

   Constantly she sought them out, always vigilant, always searching — seeking another pair of eyes just like hers — but she had never once found them, and it was her curse to always have the question hanging over her head; from what parent did she derive them? She was always wondering from whom she had inherited them — her mother or father? She had never known either of her parents, or ever even known if she had had a brother or a sister.

   She had grown up quite all alone, not ever knowing a thing about them. Not a solitary thing — not even their names — and she hadn’t a single clue as to what they looked like except in her own reflection.

   Whenever she met someone new, she looked at them expectantly to see if they shared the same violet eyes or not, but she was always disappointed.

   And she had seen every shade of every color out there — green, gray, brown, blue, hazel, black, and mixes of everything in between, but never had she seen anyone with eyes of bright violet like her own.

   Sometimes she found herself sitting in public, watching people as they talked, ate, argued, or laughed, but whatever they were doing at the time, when they finally noticed she had been staring at them they tended to turn away rather quickly, as if they couldn’t stand to look at her for very long.

   None of them ever had violet eyes, nothing even close, and when people caught her looking at them they really didn’t seem to like it at all, and it happened so often, and she herself had gotten so used to it that after a while, she ended up turning away almost at the exact same moment on instinct.

   She knew she was a bit odd, and always felt as though she was just a bit out of place, out of tune with everyone else, but could never really ever explain why.

   All in all, she was pretty happy about herself, as much as anyone who had never known their parents could be, she supposed.

   She never had much money to speak of and knew she wasn’t very beautiful either, but by all accounts, she was not an ugly girl. She did consider herself unique and was, if nothing else, interesting. She figured at the very least, she wasn’t boring, and that was something.

   So in a word, she had character! But mostly, she was just simply … herself.

   Alternatively, her attire was another story entirely, and when people did notice her, they usually were a bit put off by her unique sense of fashion.

   Her favorite things were a pair of scuffed-up old white sneakers, faded jeans with patches that she had awkwardly sewn on herself, mismatched socks, which she wore on purpose (though she’d never admit it), and a brown corduroy jacket.

   The best blouse she owned was white with puffy sleeves and a wide collar with strings that tied up a peek-a-boo hole in the front.

   On a cold day (which was more than common enough in England), she’d add a longer coat, an old pair of gray mittens, and white fluffy earmuffs that she owned.

   But the best things from her wardrobe were also the oldest, and most curious of the lot. When she was just a baby, she had been found with only two items — a long, thick scarf that was striped with all the colors of the rainbow and a slightly tarnished very old-looking pocket watch, which was silver and had stopped working long ago.

   The hands of which were frozen at half past midnight.

   No one she had ever shown it to could ever figure out how to fix it, so not knowing what else to do with it, she often wore it round as a necklace.

  Above all, these were her most cherished possessions for they were also the only clues as to her true identity.

   Never having known anything about her parents, who they were or might have been, never having spoken with them, or even seen their picture, it had always been a large question mark — the question mark hanging over her head.  

   In truth, she didn’t even know their names. In fact, she knew nothing about them at all and supposed she never would, because the place where she had grown up and spent most of her life so far, no one there ever seemed to know anything about them either.

  The only thing that anyone had ever really told her about being found was that there had been a really awful storm that night, and she had been left all alone on the doorstep in front of the place where she had, for the most part, called home.

   At the moment though, she lived in a house only a few miles from the village. She had been there for a few months’ time, having been adopted by a very kind and caring couple.

   They owned a nice cozy little yellow house out in the country near the woodlands. They didn’t have much money, but it seemed they were able to do what they could in life.

   After the adoption had been made official the girl had spent her first few weeks proving she could be a good adoptive daughter. She helped cook and clean as best she could, although admittedly, she didn’t have much experience in any of those areas. Her expertise lay mostly in daydreaming, in reading, and in taking long walks throughout the countryside which was a far cry from her upbringing in Central London.

  When she met her new parents, they had immediately hit it off; the three of them had all gotten along marvelously, and after a few visits, they decided to put ink to paper and go ahead and adopt her.

   Of course, for the time being, she was living with them on a trial basis, to see how it would go, them getting used to her and her getting used to them, but the trial period was almost up and so far, it had turned out great. The three of them had seemed a good fit, and the little house and surrounding area was like a dream compared to the orphanage and her previous life.

   Tomorrow would be her eleventh birthday, and they had given her a five-pound bank note, just enough pocket money to buy a small present for herself. And more importantly, they had given her something else: their trust.

   Having grown up in London, they trusted that she could find her way into town and back home again without getting herself into any trouble.

    So being new to the area, she accepted their trust and went into the village to purchase something.

   Being in the country was something very new to her and after spending so much of her life in the heart of London, this was like a blissful gift. For the life that she had had thus far, this was all too good to be true, and later she would tell herself she should have known that it was all too good to last.

    She went back to looking — all the books were crooked, stuffed together awkwardly, but nothing jumped out at her until … there.   

    Finally one book had stood out among the rest, one she hadn’t noticed before. She pulled the book from the shelf, turning it this way and that, trying to make out the title. It was a bit ancient-looking and dust-covered. Turning the book over, she quickly read the description on the back.

    It advertised itself to be about friendship, love, tragedy, excitement, danger, and wonder — a stirring escapade filled with all manner of magic, exciting beasts, and interesting characters.

   It seemed like a grand adventure, she thought. And these were her favorite kinds of stories!

   They were the kind that she enjoyed most, and she relished each new story with an ardent joy.

   She looked at the price and …YES! It was within her modest means. She reached into her pocket, produced the crumpled fiver, and laid both book and bank note on the counter and cleared her throat to give sign she was there.

   The proprietor raised his eyebrows and poked his head out from behind his paper (as if he hadn’t already been watching her the whole time.)           

   “Finally find something, hmm?” said the bookkeeper with just a touch of sarcasm and sounding thoroughly annoyed.

   “Yes,” she said simply, satisfied. She smiled and beamed up at him expectantly.

   He handled the book with long wrinkly fingers, turned it over, and peered at the price, puckering his lips, which were very dry and strained with lines. He smiled rather eerily and said, “This is a good book. Good investment. A rarity — five pounds,” he said and smiled wickedly.

   “It says three,” she said, starting to feel annoyed herself.

   “Ah, so it does, so it does,” he said, handling the book. “But, it’s been sitting here a long time, and the value has surely gone up.”

   She looked down at the book; it didn’t look particularly valuable to her, but it was the only one she liked, and it was within her price range — barely. She knew the old goat was trying to rob her, and when she looked at him, there was a spiteful little twinkle in his eye.

    She returned his glare with a smirk that said, “You have got to be kidding.”

   “Five pounds,” he repeated, looking at her seriously.

    She sighed. For the briefest of moments between bookshelf and counter, she fancied buying the book, then purchasing a small snack with the leftover funds. That dream now punctured, she handed him the crumpled note, which at the moment was all the money she had in the world. He took it greedily, handling it sharply, and held it up to the light, turning it over, scrutinizing it as if he was trying to find any excuse to declare it a counterfeit.

    He adjusted his glasses and squinted, then, apparently satisfied, deposited the money in a very old-looking push-button register, which had a bell and rang loudly when he closed the drawer.

   

One moment and another bell ring later, she was out of the bookstore and happily making her way through the center of town with her prize in hand. The receipt, which she intended to use as a bookmark, protruded from the pages.

   As she headed home out of town, walking on the edge of a long black road, a horn sounded. Just as she looked up, she felt the wind kick up from a couple on a black motorbike racing by. As they sped on unaware of her dilemma, she coughed and waved the exhaust away. She cleared her tousled hair from her face and stuck her nose back in the book and walked along the outer edge of the road with every step taking her farther and farther away from the township.

   It was only a few miles from the village to the house. Occasionally she would pass by a farmer, and once a man tending to his gated garden, but most of the houses were much too far away, with little dirt roads leading away from the main thoroughfare.

   It was a lonely road, with a long narrow ditch on either side; great fields of grass stretched on and on in every direction.

   She was quite all alone on the highway, and as her feet carried her onward, she turned her attention to her birthday present and immersed herself in the beginnings of the tale. As she continued to read, the wind kicked up a bit more, and the scenery changed a little, but she paid neither any mind.

   Time passed, and she saw she was coming to a woodland area — this meant she would be back with her foster parents very soon; their house was on the other side of the wood from where she was now.

    It was good she was close because the sun was near setting, and her new mum had told her to be back before dark. She had maybe an hour, and if she cut through the woods, then she would be back in half that time.

   She didn’t think they really wanted her to go into the forest, but she had been in there plenty of times already, exploring.

   She made a decision and veered off the path and into the woods.

   When she finally arrived back at the house, she realized she had spatters of mud on her shoes and on her clothes.

   “Uh-oh,” she said to herself, pulling a face.

   She tried to wipe as much of the mud off her shoes as she could before going on, and then she slowly crept up the front steps, hoping to sneak in and change before they noticed.

   No such luck.

   The way to the dining room lay between the door and the stairs to the bedrooms. Mrs. Baker, her new mum, had just started laying plates filled with food on the dining room table while Mr. Baker sat in the front room with a newspaper, smoking a pipe.

   The girl stood there in the doorway for a few moments, hesitating. The Bakers were the nicest couple that she had ever met; both were lean and well matched. Mr. Baker worked in an office in London as an assistant to an architect.

   He was a simple man, modest and gentle. He had light brown hair, a thin face, and blue eyes, and the corners of his mouth crinkled when he smiled.

   Mrs. Baker was a sweet woman who stayed at home, cooked, cleaned and was often found out back tending her garden. She had beautiful medium-length honey-blonde hair, soft hazel eyes, pretty features, and a bright, sunny disposition.

   When the girl had first met them, she had been a bit cautious at first because every other attempt at being adopted had for one reason or another ended in disaster.

   Her other adoptive parents, for various reasons, just did not take. She remembered specifically the Bolenders who were a supposedly devoutly religious couple who already had way too many children and adopted yet more children as a way to garner money from the government. She had blown the whistle on them with social services and then been sent straightaway back to the orphanage.

   Other foster parents had been, for the most part, fine people, but weird things always seem to happen around her. People just didn’t seem to like her violet eyes, or the way she looked at them, but she couldn’t help it, could she?

   After all, how can you help what color your eyes are or how people feel about you? But Kevin and Roberta Baker had been different, and the three of them had taken to each other almost straightaway.

   After about a second of reminiscing, she soon decided she might as well come clean.

   “Er — hi,” she said, trying to sound as innocent as possible.

   “Well, hello there, stranger,” said Mr. Baker. Mrs. Baker looked up, and her eyes went right over to a clock on a nearby mantelpiece. “A wee bit late aren’t we?”

    “Just a bit,” the girl replied, biting her lip and trying to maintain the innocent demeanor.

    “Is that mud I see?” Mrs. Baker said softly, but firmly.

    “Uh, yes, ma’am,” the girl said, looking downcast. The lady insisted the girl go straight up, change and wash, then come back down and join them for dinner. Not wanting to disappoint, the girl obediently ran up the stairs.

    In her room, she placed her book on a dresser and stripped off her mud-spattered clothes. Soon the lady knocked on her door, came in, and waited for the girl to hand the garments over to her for the laundry.

    After supper, she took the bath, then changed into her nightdress and sat in bed reading her book until the lady of the house told her it was time for her to turn the light out, but the girl was still too excited to fall asleep right away.

    Tomorrow it would be her first birthday as part of a real family, and she wanted nothing to spoil it.

    She got up, went over to a large window on the other side of the bedroom, and looked out into the darkness beyond.

   Unhooking the latch, she opened the doors, and hoisted herself up on the ledge; she sat there on the edge of the windowsill breathing in the fresh country air, and slid her arms over her knees, pulling her nightdress down around her, and clasped her hands together.

    She looked out into the night sky — strewn across its velvety blackness like diamonds, the twinkling stars dotted the heavens.  

    Her bedroom faced the forest; with the light of the moon she could just make out its black uneven shape beyond the border of the white fence.

    She sat there thinking about the life she had left and the life she was now going to have, and it wasn’t just because it was her birthday.

   What she really considered was that this was a great and wondrous turning point, finding a family and maybe putting all the thoughts of her real parents to rest.

   Maybe she would never find out what had happened to her real family; that part of her life seemed all behind her now, and thankfully so was the awful orphanage where she had grown up. Unfortunately, before now, it had been the only place that she had ever truly called home.

    Just being reminded of the place gave her a slight chill … or maybe it was just the night; she couldn’t decide. But whatever it was and no matter what her past had been like she had everything to look forward to now.

    For a while, sitting there on the edge of the windowsill, looking up at the stars, she pondered it all, thankful for having met her new parents. Then at last, she climbed back into bed, drawing the covers close.

    Already her eyelids were growing heavy, and at last, she felt herself succumb to drowsiness. She closed her eyes, letting the darkness take her, but just before she fell fast asleep, she thought of the next day, and how different things would be for her.

    Tomorrow really was the first day of the rest of her life, and she couldn’t wait for it to start.  

She opened her eyes — everything around her was still black. She didn’t know how long she had been in the forest — not knowing what time it was and not caring.

   Many hours seemed to have passed since she first ran from the house; she had run until she had collapsed in a clear patch encircled by tall grass. Hidden well, she cried until she had fallen asleep from emotional exhaustion.

   Now she was awake again, but her situation had not changed for the better.

   The couple might be looking for her by now, but maybe they weren’t. After what had happened, she wouldn’t blame them even if they just left her out here in the woods to die. Her eyes were sore from crying, and she felt the many layers of dried tears down the front of her face. Sniffling, she wiped around her eyes.

   The night air was cold and fresh. She felt the ground beneath her body and the grass between her fingers, and she crossed her arms about her and listened, hearing owls hooting and little creatures crawling and all the obscure noises of the woods in the night.

   Then she felt, more than heard, something else — she sensed a presence. Then she heard breathing from not too far away.

   She felt certain that someone was there with her, in the dark. She lifted her head up to look around. Whoever it was was merely a few yards away from her, but it was so dark, and there were so many trees that she couldn’t see properly beyond the clearing of the grass, but she felt confident there should be someone there.

   Could it be the couple from the house already? No. It couldn’t be them, not after what had happened. Surely they would come looking for her eventually, but this person must have been out here before. For whatever reason, she didn’t know — just that they were waiting, watching her, and not making themselves known.

   Who was it? Maybe someone else who had lost their way, but why wouldn’t they just introduce themselves?

   It frightened her. She didn’t want anyone to find her yet, least of all the couple, but she knew eventually she would be found and have to go back.

   She looked all around, trying to make out who it might be.

   “I-is … is someone t-there?” she asked in a hoarse voice, barely able to get it out. Her throat was sore and choked from all her crying.

   “Ah … anyone there?” she asked again, feeling worried. Then she heard it. There it was, more breathing. Someone was there; the breathing sounded so close. Yet she still couldn’t see anyone.

    She cleared her throat. It was a little painful; she gave it another try; “W-who … whoever you are, please leave me alone!” she said, sobbing again.  

    Then she waited, listening intently, straining to hear, but there was nothing now, just her own frantic breathing, and the sound of her own beating heart.

    She didn’t hear anything anymore. The other breathing was gone. Whoever — or whatever — it had been had left. Maybe there had never been anyone there in the first place. Maybe she had just imagined it all.

    She wasn’t sure if she could rely on her own mind or senses, not anymore. Maybe she was going mad.

    Then in the distance, she heard shouts, and she could tell it was them. Between the foliage and the trees, she could see a bright yellow light searching, and then another light, and another, all came into view, bobbing in and out between the trees and the tall blades of grass.

    She heard them walking, modern man invading nature, treading on branches and twigs, not caring, just as she had done.   

    Soon they would find her, and she realized in a few moments, she would have to go back. And most likely, they would take her to where they’d gotten her; from now on, it would just be too uncomfortable to be near each other, and they certainly wouldn’t be able to look at one another.

    Back to the city she’d go, back to where she’d spent most of her life. She didn’t think she could bear it. No, she would have to go. As much as she might want to stay — need to stay — she couldn’t look either of them in the eye. Not ever again.

    As she lay there in the middle of the woods, surrounded by the grass and trees, thinking of the last few months of her life, she began to weep again. She had thought that maybe this time things would be different, maybe this time she had finally found people who would understand her. She thought maybe she had finally found a real family to belong to — but no, it was no good. Not now, not ever.  

    She was going back — back to the orphanage, back to being alone again. Back to being invisible….  

    They were closing in, more people shouting. It was faint, but she could tell they were getting closer every second.

   Then realization struck her; it was them. She could hear Mr. Baker’s voice calling after her, and others too. He must have enlisted help looking for her. But what of his wife, was she all right? The girl could not hear her voice, and a dread came over her, and she wanted to cry out. She put her hand over her mouth to keep from screaming. 

    Fresh tears began to stream from her eyes, and she began to shake. She tried to wipe the tears away again. Her eyes felt so sore now, and beyond her grassy enclosure, in the darkness, she could hear them getting closer and closer.

    It was so cold, and she hadn’t brought a jacket. So stupid, so stupid, she should have known they would find her.

    She hadn’t any money anyway, nowhere to go.

    She had just reacted, and now they were coming to get her. 

    Now she could hear them calling her name over and over, asking where she was, pleading for her to come back.

   She could hear the concern in their voices, but she knew that they didn’t really want her anymore. How could they?

   She heard the voices quite distinctly; they must have gathered many more searchers than she had first thought, most likely from the surrounding homes or maybe even from the village.

   Between the distant trees, between the blades of grass, she could see the beams of light slicing through the darkness. She knew they were searching for her, but still she did not answer. At the very least, she needed a few moments to collect herself.

   She swallowed, closed her eyes and tried to prepare for the inevitable.

   They were very, very close now. She didn’t want to, but she knew in a moment, she would have to answer them. And she could hear them calling her name over and over again: “CRESCENT? CRESCENT, WHERE ARE YOU! CRESCENT GREY!”