Chapter 1: No Happy Endings

Anna felt alone and scared most of her life, especially when she faced the world outside her secure cocoon at home. When she was little, and living in Worthington Falls, Ohio, with her mother and grandparents, she knew nothing could ever touch her. There was no danger. There was no evilness, no bogeymen, no death or sadness. Though she was often a lonely child, she laughed a lot, was happy, protected, and was never left wanting. She had daydreams filled with fairies, sunshine, make-believe, and happily-ever-after. Then one by one, every member of her family died, and her life was never to be the same.

It started with her mother’s death. She died in a tragic ferry accident upon the Ohio River when Anna was nine years old. Water represented death and fear to her, because she almost drowned with her that day, although someone pulled her from the wreckage and set her upon the shore. She never saw who it was, and, more heartbreaking, she never saw her mother again. The only injury she sustained was a broken leg, which eventually healed. Anna’s broken heart was another story. Sitting all alone in her hospital bed back then, after having just heard from her grandparents that her mother had died, she only thought one thing … there was no such thing as happily ever after.

She cried and cried and cried until all her tears ran dry. She recalled rocking back and forth on her hospital bed, repeating one sentence, “I’m all alone, I’m all alone.” It was a disheartening aspect back then, even though it wasn’t exactly true, and it was no less scary now that she was grown, and it was true.

Sitting by herself in her hospital bed back then, Anna made a decision that would change her life forever. Since there were no more happy endings, there was no reason to open her heart to love again. It hurt too much when it was taken away. And more importantly, since there were no more happy endings, there was no reason for her to try to feel happiness. There was no reason to feel anything at all. She would stop showing all emotions, including sadness as well as happiness. She would be strong. She was tired of crying. If she could stop crying, she would, but that was one thing she couldn’t stop … tears. She still cried all the time. At least she had the power to stop crying in front of people. She cried only in private, as if it was a painful, shameful secret.

After her mother died, she went from being a bright, vibrant child, to a scared, sullen child. She went from laughing all the time to crying all the time, even if it was in private. She went from feeling like she belonged, and like she was special, to feeling like she was different and alone.

Sitting in a wheelchair, which was too large for her, staring out her hospital room window after her mother died, and on the verge of tears once again, she began to imagine a steel breastplate of armor growing over her heart. The more she imagined it, the more real it became, and soon, the armor became so real, so strong, and so impermeable, that before long, she no longer felt like crying. In fact, she no longer felt anything.

It felt right at the time. The only place she ever let down her armor was in her small closet in her grandparents’ home. When she hid in that closet, she would once again feel, and she would cry, and daydream of fairies and magical places far, far away. She would read the old book of Irish fairytales that her mother left her. She would wear a silver bracelet that once belonged to her mother. She would wrap her mother’s silk scarf around her neck because it smelled like her. She would feel, but only inside her closet. Her closet was her refuge; the outside world was her prison.

Now that she was older, she wasn’t so certain she made the right decision. She wanted to feel everywhere again. She just had forgotten how.

Even though she had her grandparents when she was little, and they loved her very much, she still felt very much alone. Before her mother died she didn’t know who her real father was. Her mother never talked about him. Anna didn’t even know if he was alive or dead. She wondered about him all the time. Who was he? If he was alive, how would he find her? Why did he leave her and her mother in the first place? Did he love her?

She would ask her mother questions about him, and her mother would always say the same thing: “Someday I’ll answer all your questions.”

That someday came the day of her mother’s funeral in the form of a handsome stranger who walked up to her in the graveyard and introduced himself to her as her father.

She was being carried away from her mother’s coffin by her grandfather, due to the cast on her lower leg, when they were stopped by a tall, dark haired man. He stopped in front of them, and her grandfather placed her on the ground beside him.

Her grandfather seemed to know the man, but he didn’t greet him. The man merely nodded to Anna’s grandfather, knelt down on one knee, on the muddy earth before her, and he reached out and touched her arm.

Then he said, “Hello. My name is Ethan Morgan, and I’m your real father, Annaliese. I’m so very sorry about your mommy.”

She looked up at her grandfather, who was frowning. He never frowned. She looked back at the stranger and she wanted nothing more than to throw her arms around his neck, call him ‘Daddy’ and cry upon his shoulder, but she was afraid. What if she decided to love this man and he died just like her mother?

She looked up at her grandfather again, and he nodded at her and said, “He is your father, Anna.”

The man continued to smile. It was a happy, open smile, and it confused her. She had to fight the continual, undeniable urge to run to his arms and stay there. He replied, “I want you to come back with me, to my home in West Virginia. It’s your home and I want you to come live there. I want you to meet your family. If you don’t want to live there, you could at least visit for the summer.”

She looked back to her grandfather, and then over to her grandmother, who by this time had gotten out of the car, and she said to him, “Can we leave now?” She was about to cry. She couldn’t allow herself to go with this man, or to love him, because something bad might happen to him, too, and she especially didn’t want him to see her cry.

But then, the handsome man, who claimed to be her father, stood up and reached down for Anna’s small hand. He held it in his own. She looked up in his eyes, and saw only warmth and love. She was afraid of that type of love. “Are you certain you don’t want to come for at least a small visit, Anna? Maybe for the summer, or for at least a week or two? You have a family that would love to meet you.”

She glanced back up at her grandfather, beseeching him to say something, and he did. He told the man, “We’ll let her come for a visit, but you can’t keep her there. We can protect her better here, and you know it. She’s better off with us. Remember, you can’t keep her. You have to bring her back in two weeks. Don’t let anyone know she’s there. Don’t let her mother have died in vain.” Those words confused her when she was young and, later in her life, she thought of them often, but soon they were forgotten in the wake of her father’s handsome smile.

And just like that, it was all decided. Anna lost her mother, and found her father.

Within days, she had a suitcase packed, filled with clothes, her doll, her mother’s bracelet, and her book of old fairytales and she left Worthington Falls, Ohio and was on her way to Glenn Briar, West Virginia.

They traveled throughout the night. She slept the whole way. Her father woke her the next morning by a gentle shake of her shoulder and saying, “We’re here, sweetheart.” He carried her from the car, up a long drive, to one of the biggest houses she had ever seen in her life.

Her father’s house was a large, three story white house with green shutters, and it looked like something from one of her fairytales. It was prettier than any house she had ever seen. There were roses climbing arbors, a large front porch with pillars that went all the way to the second floor, and a circular brick portico in the front. The house sat high up on a mountain, and was the only house for miles. There were other buildings … a barn, a shed, a carriage house, a large garage, but Anna couldn’t see any other houses. What she could see, as her father lifted her from the backseat, (since she still wore the cast on her lower right leg) was a view that stretched for miles and miles, and a valley below the property that looked like a scene from a picture book.

He carried her up the many steps, across the large porch, through a red door. He called out, “We’re home.”

He set her down on her feet, holding onto her shoulder. Three boys came from all four corners of the house, loud, laughing, greeting their father as they came near. She cowered behind her father’s trouser leg.

The oldest one, who was dark and good looking like their father, and who seemed already like a grown-up to her, though he couldn’t have been more than 16 or 17, leaned forward and said, “Hello, Anna. My name is Alec. I’m your eldest brother. The last time I saw you, you were a tiny little baby, and you were bald. Now you have long, blonde hair. Lord, you look so much like her. You’re so beautiful. I knew you would be.” He smiled so kindly at her that she couldn’t help but to smile shyly in return. She didn’t ask who he thought she looked like … she assumed he meant her mother.

Anna felt such peace and happiness at seeing ‘her family’ in the face of all her pain that she was confused, at first, by the multitude of emotions raining down on her. She gasped, and held her hand to her chest. The youngest boy, with hazel eyes and sandy brown hair, walked up to her, held out his hand and said, “My name’s Colin. I have to admit that I don’t remember you at all, but why would I? I was only four when you went away, but, judging from pictures, you do look just like her.”

“You think I look like my mother?” Anna asked, which were the first words she had spoken since arriving. Anna’s mother was beautiful, but Anna wasn’t, though if this boy said it was true, maybe she was at that. The youngest boy smiled at her and held out his hand. She couldn’t help but to smile back. She reached out and touched his hand. It was warm, and a tremor of happiness radiated from him directly to her.

Before she realized it, the other young man pushed his way into the foyer as well. When he didn’t offer his hand to her, her father motioned to him to come forward. “That’s Brendan. These are my three sons, your brothers.”

“You have three sons?” she asked, shocked. She had three brothers. She had a family. A real family!

He smiled. “Yes, and you have three brothers.” He laughed, and reached out to stroke her hair. The oldest boy laughed as well.

Anna looked at the one named, ‘Alec’ and said, “You said I look like my mother. You knew my mother?”

“She was our mother, too,” the one named Brendan interjected with a frown. He hadn’t offered his hand, and he looked sullen and mean to the young Anna. He had black hair, darker than the rest, and his eyes were just as black. “She left us when we were little, and took you away when you were a tiny baby and we never saw her again, and, yes, you look just like her.”

Anna backed up, away from that young man, her hand out in front of her. She wasn’t even aware she was doing it. It was as if she were ‘warding’ them away, protecting herself with a mere hand held high, telling them that they needed to leave her alone. What did he mean by that statement?

She felt hot, and overwhelmed, and lightheaded. Her mother was the mother of these boys, too? If that was true, it meant that she left them when they were little, just as surely as she left Anna when she died. The thought that the mother that she loved, revered, and missed more than anything, had done something as reprehensible as to leave her own children, causing them anguish and pain, and not because she died, but out of choice, well, it was too much for her to take.

If she were a different sort of girl, she might have openly started to cry. Since she never cried in front of anyone any longer, she turned to her father and said, “I’m tired. Please, take me to my room.” He carried her up a grand staircase, all polished wood. She looked down upon the boys as they ascended the stairs. Two were still smiling, one was not. Her father took her to a large bedroom on the second floor. The one named Alec carried her belongings up a little while later. As soon as everyone left, she scooted off the bed, found the closet, her new sanctuary, and cried, and cried, and cried.

Hours later, her father opened the closet door, found her on the floor, picked her up, held her in his arms, and said, “My poor little girl.”

She spent two weeks there that first year. She learned that her father was kind, loving and firm. He was a physician, and he sang to her every night. He told her stories, the same stories that were in her book of fairytales. He made her laugh. She asked him why her mother took her away from him all those years ago, but he told her someday he would explain. After that, she didn’t ask him any other questions. If he wanted to tell her something, she assumed he would do so.

Her brother Alec was serious but sweet. The first year she was there, he was just learning to drive, so he drove Anna in an old beat-up pick up truck, all around the farm as well as up and down the mountainside. Since she still had a broken leg, he would carry her out to an old quilt under a tall pine tree and read to her, or he would read to himself while she played with her toys. He would make up stories and they would watch the clouds go by. He made her a crown of daisies. She pressed it in a book, to save it forever.

On her second day there, Colin, the youngest, called her a baby because she was afraid of a spider. She held back her tears, though she wanted to cry. That night, after Alec carried her to her room, she wobbled over to the closet, climbed in, and began to cry. Colin’s room was right next door. He slipped in her room, opened the closet door, saw her tears and asked her why she was crying.

“Because you called me a baby,” she reasoned through her tears, embarrassed that he saw her crying, realizing it made her even more of a baby.

He stood by the closet, staring down at her, and finally he told her he would never make fun of her again. He saw her tears, and they caused him to cry. He told her that the next time she saw a spider he would kill it, and then he made her promise never to tell their older brothers that he cried, or that he made her cry. He promised that he would never make her cry again. During the rest of her stay, he played all sorts of games with her and since she couldn’t walk or run, they played checkers, backgammon, marbles and chess.

The middle brother never tried to get to know Anna that first summer. He kept her at arm’s length. He was guarded with her. He seemed bothered by her. One afternoon, he was charged with watching her when his father had to go to an emergency. The fourteen year old boy’s idea of watching her was to carry her to the top of the hayloft, give her a sandwich, a bottle of water, and a book, and then tell her to be good for a few hours while he went on a hike in the woods.

She was scared in the loft, so high, so alone. She sat beside the swinging loft door, stared down at the ground, and because she couldn’t see another living soul for miles, only trees, the valley, and more mountain peaks, she figured she was alone, so she felt no remorse for crying. Therefore, she began to cry. She wanted to go home.

A tall blonde boy walked up to the barn, looked up and while shielding his eyes from the sun with his hand, he inquired, “Who are you?”

Anna was embarrassed that someone heard her crying. She quickly dried her tears, backed away from the portal in the top of the barn, and peeked down below. She didn’t answer. She could barely see the boy down below. The sun was shining down upon him, masking his face, his features.

“Hello, I saw you up there, you know. I heard you, too. I asked you a question. It would be impolite not to answer me,” the boy repeated.

Anna looked down. “My name’s Anna.”

“Oh, right, the long, lost little sister returned. What are you doing up there, Anna?” he asked.

She thought his first question would be, ‘Why are you crying?’ She was glad that it wasn’t. “I’m stuck up here and I can’t come down. My brother put me up here instead of babysitting me.”

“Why would you need babysitting?” He laughed. “You don’t look like a baby. Climb on down, if you aren’t content up there.”

“Didn’t you hear me say I was stuck?” she asked, exasperated. “I have a broken leg.”

He chuckled and said, “Feisty little thing, aren’t you. I can see your dilemma.” He shook his head, his long, shaggy blonde hair going every which way. “I had a broken toe once. It hurt like the dickens. Does your leg hurt?”

“Not really,” she answered. She moved closer to the opening of the hayloft. She could see him better. He was beautiful, she thought. It was that simple. “How did you break your toe?”

“I kicked a very big rock,” he said, smiling. “How did you break your leg?”

She shrugged and said, “I don’t know. It broke in the river somehow when my mommy died.”

The boy brought his hand up to his eyes again, glaring up at her, shielding his eyes from the sun, and from her gaze. He didn’t respond. He looked up at her for a long time, and then said, “I’ll come up and get you.” Instead of climbing up the ladder inside the barn, he found a ladder to the side of the shed, brought it to the hay opening at the front of the barn, propped it against the building, and climbed up. She moved to the side. When he reached the top, and smiled, Anna thought he was the most beautiful boy she had ever seen. It dawned on her, even as a child, that if only she still believed in fairytales, then he could have been her Prince Charming, climbing up a tower to save her.

Too bad she didn’t believe in that sort of thing any longer.

When he reached the top he said, “I’m here to rescue you, Little One.” Seeing him up close, face-to-face, and watching a gentle smile creep upon his lips, and a laugh reach his eyes, Anna knew she would hold this boy in a special place in her heart for the rest of her life.

He maneuvered her so that she was on his back, threw her book and other things to the ground, and then climbed down the ladder. Once at the bottom, he continued to carry her on his back until they reached the back porch. He placed her on a large, white swing and said, “Your brother is an ass. Don’t tell anyone I said that word in front of you though, okay? If you were my little sister, I would never put you in the top of the hayloft. I’ll go find him and tell him so, okay?” He cupped her cheek and kissed the top of her head.

She fell a little bit more in love with him after that.

After the two weeks were over, her father told her it was time to take her home. She kissed all three brothers goodbye, even Brendan, though he stiffened under her embrace. She knew she was going to miss her new family, so she willed herself not to cry. She was so tired of tears.

Her father asked her if she wanted to stay. She did, but she lied and said no. She was afraid to stay, fall in love with him and this place, and then have it all taken away from her. He waited until she fell asleep that night and then he drove her home.

That was how it was each year after that. Each summer he would come for her, always driving her straight through in the middle of the night. She would spend two weeks with him at his farm. She never left it. She never saw the village of Glenn Briar. She never met any of their neighbors, or any of their relatives. She didn’t even get to meet the good looking blond boy again, until her very last summer there, the summer she turned twelve.

Chapter 2: Fairytales are Real

The summer she was twelve was the summer that changed everything. For one thing, her father had gotten married a few months before to a woman named Maureen. When she arrived at her father’s house that summer, she found that her pretty bedroom on the second floor had been changed to a sewing room for Maureen, so she now had a small bedroom on the third floor, with only one window under the eaves. The room had faded, old floral wallpaper, dirty and torn. The cold, wooden floor splintered and had knot holes, and worst of all, the bathroom off that bedroom only had an old claw foot tub. Anna never took baths, only showers, ever since her mother drowned. She saw the tub, without a shower, and she almost asked to be taken back to Ohio right then and there.

The room was terribly hot during the day, and at night, when the wind blew, which, up on the mountain, it did every night, the whole room seemed to rattle and shake. She was so scared at night that she couldn’t sleep at all. There wasn’t even a closet. There was only an old wardrobe, and it was locked, so there was no place for her to climb into so that she could cry, not that it mattered, because no one would hear her crying all the way up there on the third floor.

Her father was very busy that summer and he spent very little time with her, but he told her that her new ‘mother’ would spend time with her. Instead, her new ‘mother’ resented the fact that she had a stepdaughter, and she made sure the twelve year old Anna knew it from the start. She criticized everything Anna did, everything she wore, everything she ate, and everything she said and even everything she read. She made fun of her for reading the old book of fairytales, and called her a baby.

After the second day, Anna figured out that it was best if she spent all day either sequestered in her bedroom, or away from the house, so that the woman wouldn’t have to see her.

Her father’s new wife didn’t like Anna for one simple reason … she looked too much like the man’s first wife, whose portrait still hung in their music room. Even though Anna’s brother’s shared the same mother, the woman didn’t seem to ‘blame’ them; after all, they looked like their father. Anna was blonde and green eyed like her dead mother, and that alone was enough for a grown woman to hate a young girl.

Anna heard her father and Maureen arguing two nights after she arrived, because Maureen had put Anna up on the third floor. He told her that come the next morning he expected her old room to be prepared for her, but the next morning at breakfast Anna made a point of telling her father that she liked the third floor room, even though she didn’t. She thought that would make Maureen happy. It seemed to make her angrier.

Maureen treated Anna’s brother’s like they weren’t there. She treated Anna like she was diseased. One day when they were alone, Anna made the mistake of telling her that she was happy to finally have a ‘stepmother’. Maureen slapped Anna so hard across the face that Anna saw stars. The woman hissed, “Never let me hear you call me your mother ever again. I would never have a daughter like you!”

Anna started to believe in fairytales once more that summer; because she knew that evil stepmothers were no longer a myth. One evening at supper, her father asked her if she had a nice day with her stepmother. Anna lightly mentioned, “I’m not allowed to call her that.” Maureen openly laughed to her husband, made a joke, but then she pinched Anna so hard under the table that she winced in pain. When her brother Colin asked her what was wrong, her stepmother lied and said that she must have burnt herself with the soup.

Her brother Alec was away at college that year, but Brendan and Colin were there, but neither noticed the fact that Maureen was mean to the young girl. Maybe they didn’t want to notice. When Colin drove Anna down the mountain and back in his father’s new car, Colin got yelled at by Maureen because of how dangerous it was, and because he left the farm with her. Anna got spanked with a wooden spoon and was told that she was an ‘evil’ young girl and a bad influence on her older brother.

When Brendan finally showed Anna his first act of brotherly love by having her help him make homemade ice cream, the moment was ruined when Anna accidentally spilled the sticky, sweet, homemade dessert all over her hands. Maureen grabbed her arm behind her back, pushed her up three flights of stairs, and then made her take a bath that was so scalding hot that she burnt her skin badly enough that it blistered.

For the first time in three years, Anna cried openly, for everyone to hear. She cried the entire time. She didn’t cry because the water was hot, even though it was hot enough to burn, nor from humiliation, even though she was twelve and embarrassed for the woman to see her nude. No … she cried, screamed, bawled, wailed, because she was afraid of drowning, even in a bathtub. The woman didn’t seem to care. She forced her in the tub, scrubbed her skin until it was raw, and, through Anna’s tears, told her that she was an abomination and a sin against nature.

Both her brothers sat on the stairs to the third floor, listening to her deep wails and sobs. They were powerless to help her, because their stepmother had locked the bedroom door.

After the punishment was rendered, Anna curled up in a ball, covered in only a towel, on the cold bathroom floor. Maureen walked out of the small room, then out of the bedroom, past her brothers on the stairs, and said, “Do not go to her. She’s being overly dramatic. Leave her alone. When your father gets home, you aren’t to mention a word of this to him.”

Colin told Brendan it was his fault and he went to his sister anyway. Brendan ran out of the house, yelling at the top of his lungs that he hated his stepmother and he cursed the day that his sister was born. Colin helped her to her bedroom, tucked her under a sheet, though even the feel of the cotton was rough on her tender, raw skin. She continued to cry, ashamed to show her brother her tears, but when she saw tears on her older brother’s cheek, she decided that perhaps it was okay to cry sometimes, especially since this was the second time Colin had cried with her.

When her father returned that night, he asked his wife why Brendan and Anna weren’t joining them for supper. Maureen told him that Anna had a stomachache, even though the truth was that the little girl’s skin hurt so badly she felt as if she had a sunburn. She told him that Brendan was staying with a friend, though the truth was she had no clue where he had gone. Colin was so disgusted with both of them that he left the table.

The next morning, Anna left the house very early, before her father woke, and decided to try to find a way back to Ohio. She only made it as far as the end of their long, gravel drive. She knew she wouldn’t be able to get home by herself. She could barely walk down the incline of the driveway.

She found a cluster of pine trees at the end of the driveway and hid within their hanging boughs, their branches offering her a cloister, a sanctuary. Within their asylum, she rocked back and forth and cried some more. She was tired of crying. She had cried more that summer than she had since her mother had died.

Her face buried in her arms, lying on the ground beneath the pines, she cried until her throat ached, and her chest was sore. She cried until she could no longer cry.

The blonde boy who rescued her years before, now a young man, came upon her. He didn’t ask her what was wrong. He didn’t comment on her overwrought state. He knelt beside her, sat down, and pulled her onto his lap, holding her close as if she were a small child. He rocked her back and forth, his hand rubbing circles on her back. He cooed soft things to her such as, “It’s alright, Little One,” and “Someday things will be better.” Finally, he picked her up, carried her toward the house, and said, “You have pine needles all over you.”

As he walked with her in his arms toward the house, she asked, “Please don’t let my father’s wife see that I’ve been crying. She already thinks I’m weak.”

“You’re not weak. You’re strong, and don’t worry, she won’t see you if I don’t want her to, and I won’t let her ever hurt you again. The next time you come here, she’ll be gone. I promise.” She looked up at his face, thankful for his strength, his warmth, his protection. He had rescued her again, just as he had ‘rescued her’ from the hayloft when she was nine. He smiled down at her, and then walked her through their back door.

He met her brother Brendan at the back stairs. He passed her to him. She didn’t want to leave the safety, the harbor of her savior’s arms, especially to be passed to the arms of someone who she thought hated her. However, Brendan thanked the other young man, then looked down at the face of his sister and said, “I’m so sorry, Anna. Forgive me for not protecting you. You have no idea the power that the woman holds over Father. You have to tell Father that you want to go back home today. You can’t stay here anymore, and please, don’t come back until you’re older and stronger. Someday you’ll be stronger than them all.”

She didn’t understand his words back then, but she understood the feeling of not being wanted, of not belonging, and of being weak and not feeling safe. She complained of homesickness later that day, told her father she missed her grandparents, and by nightfall he drove her back to Ohio, against the backdrop of night, a week earlier than expected.

When they were getting ready to leave that night, she asked him why he always drove her to and from Ohio at night. He claimed he drove her at night so that he could spend as much time with her as he could, but Anna was no longer certain that was the truth. Right before she left, and out of earshot of her father, her stepmother told her that her father was embarrassed by her and that was why he drove her at night. Anna rather thought that might be true and that he was ashamed of her, and that he didn’t want his friends and neighbors to see her. What else would explain the fact that he never took her into their village, or invited anyone to come to their farm when she was there?

After the long car ride back home, he took her up to her grandparents’ front door and asked her if she had a nice time. He had asked her that each year since the first year she had visited with him when she was nine, right after her mother died. Each year she told him the truth. She told him that she loved it there and she wished she could live there someday.

Anna didn’t lie this year, either. She said no, she didn’t have a good time. She said she never wanted to come visit him again. Even though her mother was dead, she said that she didn’t want another family. She only needed her grandparents.

Her father was shocked, aghast. He asked her why. Before she could answer, her grandfather, who was standing by the door, said another bizarre thing, which again, struck her as peculiar. “There you have it,” he told her father. “If she doesn’t want to be with you, you can’t force her to go. You know that. It’s part of the old magic. She’s free to stay with us now. She doesn’t want you, and until the time she decides to call that place home, she won’t ever return.”

Her father looked hurt and despondent. Anna tried not to look up at his handsome face, so that she wouldn’t betray what she was thinking. She felt anger toward him, for allowing that woman to hurt her, whether he was aware of the pain Maureen had inflicted on young Anna or not. She also felt remorse, because she didn’t want to cause her father any pain, even though he hadn’t done anything to spare her any pain in return. She also knew that she was going to miss him terribly, but that she had to be strong and protect herself, since he could no longer defend her.

She hugged her grandfather around the waist while he spoke to him, and when he finished, she didn’t even tell her father goodbye - she ran by him, into her house, and up to her bedroom. She ran right to her closet, threw open the door, and stood there, debating whether or not to enter.

Anna wanted to explain to him that she loved him, but that her life was hard enough without having to face two weeks a year with a grown woman who hated her. She felt he should have known what was going on in his own house. He should have protected her. She closed the closet door, sat on her bed, and felt stronger than she had in a long time.

She also didn’t see him again until after both her grandparents had died. Her grandmother died first, when she was just fifteen.

Her grandmother, who was often seen as a stern woman, but who seemed to love Anna very much, died of breast cancer two months after Anna turned fifteen. Anna knew she was ill, but she didn’t know what was wrong, or how serious it was. The day she died, Anna came home from school and her grandfather met her at the door and told her that her grandmother had died, and, just like that, Anna was once again left feeling scared and alone, and without a mother figure.

Her grandfather told her that everything would be fine, that he would take care of her and protect her. Anna ran to her room, and though she had long forgotten the imagined piece of armor around her heart, she tried in vain to visualize it once more, and though it slowly began to grow back, she felt it bend to the brink of breaking, so she did something she hadn’t done for years. She climbed into her closet, crawled into the familiar hole near the back, among all her winter clothes, and then and only then, did she let the armor shatter. She cried and cried and cried. She cried for the loss of her grandmother. She cried again for losing her mother. She cried for her grandfather, who seemed so sad and lost, and she cried for the brothers and father that she had just started to love, and who were taken away from her by an evil stepmother.

That left her alone with her grandfather, and for the next four years they were happy, but then six weeks ago, when Anna was nineteen years old, her grandfather, strong, handsome and kind, was diagnosed with liver cancer the first day of March and he died twenty five days later. Half of their town of Worthington Falls, Ohio, attended the funeral.

Anna was in a fog during the entire funeral. She wasn’t even aware that her father and three brothers came to the funeral until they showed up at her front door after the service. They came to the house, knocked on the door, and asked to speak with her. Her grandfather’s brother, her great-uncle James, answered the door, and he told them that that Anna would be staying there, with him and his wife, and that she didn’t want to see them.

She sat on the stairs and listened, wanting to call to them, alert them that she was there, tell them that she DID want to see them, yet was afraid to do so. She was so afraid of opening her heart to them. She knew they had the power to love her, but they also had the power to hurt her, and she wouldn’t allow anyone to hurt her again. She had never told anyone how her stepmother had mistreated her that summer she was twelve, and now that she was older, she knew that the older woman could no longer hold such power over her. However, she didn’t know if she were strong enough to face something so evil, both an evil known and unknown, in this world so cold.

She didn’t stay on the stairs to hear what transpired between her father and her great uncle. She was too afraid. Instead, she went upstairs to her bedroom, familiar, recognizable, real, and she crawled into her closet, vowing it would be the last time, and cried a new set of tears, for a completely new reason. She had lost yet more people, her grandfather and now she probably lost her father and brothers, and it was her own fault that she lost them, and that hurt most of all.

Chapter 3: The Train:

Looking in the mirror above the sink in the woman’s washroom at the train station, Annaliese Gray Morgan, better known as Anna, saw nothing special about her appearance. She saw nothing of consequence, nothing to set her apart, or to make her different from anyone else. Everyone always told her how pretty she was, but to her, they were just empty words, because she always felt so very different from everyone else. She remembered when she was a very little girl, her mother used to tell her how special she was, and how someday something important would happen to her.

Sometimes, Anna thought that day would never come.

She went into one of the bathroom stalls, locked the door, and slipped a piece of paper out of her pant’s pocket. Only then, when she was alone in the tiny stall, did she let herself cry. As she cried, she read the words on the little scrap of paper.

It read:

Ethan Morgan
1009 State Route 23, North
Glenn Briar, West Virginia 25504
(304)555-2535

It was the name, address and phone number of her father. Funny, she had gone there several times while growing up, but she never knew the address, not until two weeks ago, when her brother, Colin, wrote to her. He told her that they all loved her, missed her, and wanted her to come live with them. He said that their father didn’t want to upset her by asking her to come, but that he didn’t mind upsetting her, and could she please, please, come home.

She didn’t know what that meant. Perhaps her father was angry with her. She didn’t know. She should have gone with him after her grandfather’s funeral, but all her emotions were too raw, too real, like an open wound without a scab. That was two weeks ago. She had healed some since then, and she had come to the conclusion that since she had no where else to go, no other family, that she might as well go somewhere, anywhere, and there was as good a place as any other place, even if her stepmother was still there.

She wasn’t a small child any longer. She would no longer allow that woman to hurt her. This felt right. She needed her family. She needed a home. She needed her father.

Therefore, she packed all her truly important possessions, mostly books, into trunks and boxes and moved them from her room on the second floor up to the attic of the only house she really ever considered home. She knew her great-uncle would be living there now, and everything would be safe until she could send for them.

She didn’t need to take much with her, some clothes, personal effects, and some small mementos … a cross that was her grandmother’s, some family photos, and the solid silver bracelet with Celtic symbols that her mother gave her right before she died, as well as her mother’s bible and the book of Irish fairytales that her mother used to read to her at night when she was little.

Stuffing everything into two suitcases, one large tote, and a large handbag, she bought a train ticket for the closest town to Glenn Briar, West Virginia, which was a small hamlet called Millersville. She decided not to tell anyone that she was coming, in case they didn’t want her. She didn’t tell anyone she was leaving either, in case they didn’t want to let her go.

Then, while veiled in the darkness of dawn’s early shadow, she snuck out of her house, got into a taxi, and never looked back. She bought a train ticket, and now she was waiting on her train, which was detained.

She opened the door of the little stall and went back out to the sink in the woman’s room, and splashed cold water on her tear-stained face. Her luggage was right where she left them. She looked back in the mirror and tried not to remember the way she felt the last time she was at her father’s house seven years ago, knowing that would cause a fresh tide of tears to fall. The sound of the bathroom door opening brought Anna out of her melancholy.

A woman walked into the dirty bathroom with a little girl in tow. The little girl was crying. Her mother paid her no mind, no attention, as she went into one of the stalls. Anna smiled at the little girl. She felt bad that she was crying. She knew what it felt like to be small and sad.

“Why are you crying?” Anna asked. The little girl reminded Anna of herself.

The girl said, “I don’t want to leave my home.”

Anna understood that sentiment completely. “That can be scary. Where are you going?”

“My mom is taking me to my aunt’s house. I’m going to live there a while. My mother is going to someplace called rehab.” The little girl began to cry a new wave of tears.

Anna felt that old familiar armor around her heart begin to bow, though it didn’t break. She was in public, so she couldn’t show her emotions, since she only let them out in private, but still, she felt badly for the girl, and a bit envious, because the little girl could still openly show her ‘feelings’ and Anna hadn’t shown feelings for a long time now, but still she said, “It can be scary leaving home. I’m leaving the only place I’ve ever lived, too, and I’m a grown up, and I’m scared. It’s okay to be scared. It’s okay to cry. It’s okay to show people what you feel. I know it is. It doesn’t make you weak, it makes you strong.”

When the little girl didn’t respond, Anna bent down, touched a silver necklace, which the little girl wore around her neck, and told her, “That’s a pretty necklace.”

The girl sniffled, and smiled. “My mom gave it to me.”

Anna smiled and held up her arm. “See this bracelet. My mother gave it to me. When I miss her, I look at it and I remember her and it makes me miss her a bit less. Perhaps that necklace will do the same thing for you.”

“What’s your name?” the little girl asked her.

“My real name is Annaliese, but usually people call me Anna. My middle name is Grey. I used to like my middle name, because I thought it described how I felt, but I no longer feel gray, so I don’t like it any longer. Isn’t that a funny middle name?” Anna tried to make the little girl smile with her joke, and she succeeded. She held out her hand, and shook the little girl’s hand. It reminded her of that time, long ago, when she first met her father, and he had held her hand in a similar way.

The mother came out of the toilet stall, shot Anna a hateful glare, grabbed the little girl’s hand and pulled her out of the bathroom, rebuking her for speaking to strangers.

Anna didn’t mean to get the little girl in trouble. She merely wanted to talk to someone. She hadn’t spoken to anyone in days. She grabbed her two bags, her tote, and her large purse and heaved everything upon her shoulders and in her hands, and went out to wait for her train.

She saw a familiar face as soon as she walked out in the lobby. There was no use trying to hide in the bathroom, for he had already seen her. She walked up to the man and said, “What are you doing here?” It was her grandfather’s younger brother, James.

“I think that question is better directed at you, young lady,” he chastised. “Why are you doing this? It’s madness. These people don’t even really know you, and they sure as hell don’t know you’re coming. You haven’t seen them in seven years! How do you know they’ll accept you?”

“I don’t,” she admitted. “But really, what else am I supposed to do? I’m an adult now, so I can’t really live with you, you know that. I won’t have access to my trust fund until I turn 21, so I can’t live on my own. I’ve never even thought about going to college. Most of all, I’m tired of being alone, Uncle James. I feel empty inside, and I’m tired of living this way. I feel old, and I’m only nineteen. I want a real home and a real family, and I felt as if I have nowhere else to go.” Tears began to well in her eyes, and she blinked them away. It would do no good to let her great-uncle James see her cry. He would never let her go if she did.

The thought that she was alone was a daunting one. Annaliese Morgan had turned nineteen years old last July, and, at nineteen and three quarters, she was totally alone in the world. Her mother was dead, and now both her grandparents were dead, so she was heading to a place where she wasn’t even sure she would be welcome, and she didn’t even know if she belonged there.

She had her father’s address clutched in her hand when she saw her uncle James. She sighed and slipped it into her pants pocket.

He said, “You left me a note telling me that you were moving out, and would I mind if you leave your things in the attic, oh and by the way, you’re going to go live with your father. I mean, come on, Anna, I’m taking you home, to your home.” He took one of her suitcases from her left hand, and pulled on her arm with his other hand. She wrenched it from his grasp.

“That’s not my home any longer and I want to do this,” she pleaded.

“Do they even know you’re coming?” he asked.

“No.”

“How long are you going to stay?”

“I don’t know.”

“Why, Anna? Why?” he begged.

She gazed at him for a long time and said, “I told you, because I have nowhere else to go. Because I have a hole in my heart that desperately needs to be filled. I know there has to be more to living than merely surviving day to day, living a life in a void or vacuum, without feeling a single drop of true life. I may be young, but I know that if I continue living this gray life that I’ve been living, I’ll soon fade to black and cease to exist. And most of all, because I think it’s the right thing for me to do. I need this … I need them.” Then she did something she hadn’t done in a decade. She began to cry … in public, with people all around.

In the end, her tears convinced him to let her go. They were never really close, anyway. He gave her a stiff hug and then he told her that if she needed anything she only needed to call him, then he stuffed some money in her pocket, as if she didn’t notice. He reminded her that he was the administrator of her trust fund, and that someday her grandparent’s house would belong to her. He promised her that her belongings would be safe, and ordered her to call him as soon as she arrived.

She promised him she would, even though she knew she wouldn’t.

Now, hours later, sitting on the train, she felt everything was right. She felt that for the first time in her life, she was doing the right thing. In an odd way, she felt as if she were going home.

She was anxious, but not afraid. She wasn’t afraid, even though she had never traveled on a train before. She was slightly afraid of the path she was taking, because she knew her life was at a crossroads, a proverbial fork in the road, and there were really only two paths stretched out before her. One was safe and familiar. It was straight, but narrow, stifling, but undoubtedly secure. It was one where she had to hide in a closet to cry. It was one where she had to pretend that she could fly so that she could feel free.

The other was unknown, and it seemed steep and unsteady, and filled with things and people unknown, and, only a year ago, she would never have dared tread on such an unfamiliar path, but now it felt right. She knew that on this new path she could finally face her feelings again, and she could cry anywhere, anytime she wanted, and it didn’t make her weak, it made her strong.

She looked out the train window, smoke blocking her view of the rolling countryside. She had been traveling for hours over familiar terrain, the rocking of the train had caused her to sleep, and when she awoke later, the familiar scenery changed before her to something unfamiliar, and totally magnificent. Her eyes were met with a multitude of colors: gold, green, purple, and blue. There were mountain peaks, and streams, tall ancient trees, and a deep, endless cerulean blue sky. She had never seen such beautiful, vibrant colors. The landscape resembled a painting, or a dream. Did this dare to be real? It was all so familiar; she had seen it all before, but never like this, up close, in broad daylight. She smiled, because she knew it was real, it was. It was the perfect day to go home.

She caught her reflection in the window by her seat. She didn’t look anything like her father. Anna took after her mother in looks—hair the color of winter wheat, flaxen blonde, pale and slightly curly, which she wore long, and usually pulled back into an unruly ponytail. Her eyes were such a bright, emerald green that everyone meeting her for the first time always remarked on them first. Her mother had the exact same eyes, the exact same hair, but her mother was beautiful. Anna always felt she was plain.

She was a bit too smart, too bookish, and even at her private school, she didn’t fit in. She never dated; in fact, she had never even been on one date in all her nineteen years. She figured it was because she wasn’t popular enough, not that it mattered to her. People always told her she was beautiful, but she couldn’t see it. She thought she was plain, ordinary, and nothing special. She always felt as if she didn’t belong anywhere, anyway, not that it mattered. She didn’t need to be special. She just needed to be needed.

The train lurched forward, and then stopped. Anna grasped the seat in front of her. She looked back out the window. She wondered why the train had stopped. She wasn’t sure she cared, because the scenery that greeted her struck her with an overwhelming sense of continual awe that she was happy to have a few moments to enjoy it. The hills of southern Ohio and southern Pennsylvania were replaced with actual mountains, blue and green, with tall pines and other conifer trees. It was early spring, but there were still patches of snow on the ground … in April!

A man walked down the aisle of the train and Anna asked him, “Are we in West Virginia yet?” She had only ever crossed these mountains at night, in a car, and she always seemed to be sleeping.

He smiled and motioned toward the window. “Look at those mountains, young lady. You’re in the Potomac Highlands. Those are the Allegheny Mountains.” Anna looked back out the window, her hands on the glass. She counted seven purple mountain ranges, each one taller than the next. Along the trail, near the track of the stopped train, she saw large rhododendron bushes, hemlock groves, and she thought she even spied a wild turkey. There was a mother deer and her two babies eating newly formed grass shoots from the ground. This was nature at its purest form, and she was a part of it. This was where she belonged. This was nothing like Ohio. The train lurched again, and it started moving once more. She continued to stare out the window.

The man sat down in the seat across the aisle and said, “This is the Monongahela National Forest. It stretches across over 900,000 acres.”

Anna felt such wonder. She had never had a special affinity for nature before, but something about this place seemed different to her. She had always held it in high esteem, and she wasn’t sure why until now. Now she knew…it was because it was special. “Wow,” she said, feeling that was an understatement. She was embarrassed at her monosyllabic response to the man, so she turned back to him and said, “I’ve never seen anything so beautiful in my entire life. I can scarcely believe it’s real. It feels like a dream. I mean, I’ve seen some of this before, but not so much, so open, so free. It’s like something I could only imagine in my mind, or something out of a fairytale.”

“Have you been here before, Miss?” the man asked.

“A few times when I was younger, but I don’t recall it looking like this,” she answered truthfully.

“Are you here on vacation, or sightseeing?” he asked.

She sat back in her seat, bit her bottom lip, looked back out at the scenery as it rushed by … the large rock formations, the streams, the tall trees that never reached the sky, the white-tail deer, the green foliage, and she smiled for the first time in a long time, feeling totally overwhelmed by emotion, and with her hand coming up to her mouth, she said, “No, I think I’m finally coming home, to stay this time.”

Chapter 4: Nobody’s Perfect, but Some are Very Close

Anna was never an impulsive person. She never did anything without giving it a lot of thought and careful consideration. She was a planner. She made lists. She usually made a lot of lists. Sometimes she even made pro/con lists. She never did anything without carefully planning it ahead of time, considering all possible outcomes and knowing exactly what to expect.

Except this time. She had decided to buy a train ticket at the last minute. She didn’t tell anyone she was coming. Then, when the train stopped a moment ago, the man beside her told her that she should get off here, instead of at the depot in Millersville, because this was the mail drop off and it was closer to Glenn Briar.

The old Anna would never have done something as reckless and careless as to listen to a complete stranger, or to get off at an unknown destination, but the longer she was here, the less she felt like the old Anna and the more she began to feel like a new Anna, one that was trusting, carefree, and adventuresome.

When she bought her ticket this morning, and was told that there was no train to Glenn Briar, but there was one to a town close by called Millersville (only ten miles away), Anna didn’t worry about the details … she just bought her ticket and hoped for the best. If she had gotten off in Millersville, perhaps things would be slightly better.

However, things certainly couldn’t be much worse. She got off at the little depot, which was really a mail drop off, between Millersville and Glenn Briar, all alone, and realized what a fool she was. This little train station was really nothing more than a little stone shed and an old wooden platform. There were no people working at the station. There was no town close by.

She didn’t think about the fact that no one would be there to meet her, or about the fact that she wouldn’t be able to catch a taxi to drive her where she wanted to go.

She didn’t consider the fact that the drop-off point would be in the middle of nowhere and that she would be all alone.

She didn’t worry about the fact that she didn’t even know where Glenn Briar was in relation to Millersville, or in relation to this small platform.

For once, Anna did something impulsive, and now she was filled with regret.

She was the only person who got off at this small station. The conductor helped her with her bags, and then the train whistle blew and smoke came out of the engine, and the train was gone, leaving her alone on the platform in the middle of nowhere.

Where in the world was Glenn Briar? For that matter, where in the world was Millersville?

She walked down the stairs, one suitcase in her hand, her tote bag and pocketbook over her shoulders, her larger suitcase dragging behind her clutched by its handle with her other hand. She took the well worn path through the dense wooded area toward what had to be a road.

Once at the end of the road she looked right, and then left. She saw nothing but trees and an endless road on either side of her.

Forget about Glenn Briar; forget about Millersville … where in the world were all the people? Where was she?

She felt a bit of trepidation, but she would not be deterred. She looked in both directions again, and then followed her instincts and started walking left. She walked and walked and walked. While she walked, she wondered about her father, her mother, and this place. Why would her mother leave her father, and her other children, and take only Anna with her when she left? She didn’t stop to consider that, perhaps, she had a good reason. Perhaps her father was abusive to her mother, or forced her to leave somehow, although Anna found both prospects unlikely. He had always been kind and loving to Anna. She had only spent a few weeks of her life with him, but she knew he wasn’t a mean and cruel man.

This made her question the motives of her mother. Why would a woman leave three children behind, taking only one with her, while she forged a new life for herself? Why would her grandparents never question the fact that their grandsons were left behind? How could any of this be true? She only knew her mother to be a compassionate, sweet woman. She loved children. She used to tell Anna that she wished she could have had more children, yet she had had more, and it never appeared to Anna that her mother missed them at all. How could she not have missed her children? She couldn’t reconcile that one flaw with everything she knew about her mother. Her mother loved her very much, so she had to have loved her other children, too.

Speaking of love, would her family come to really love and accept her as one of their own? That was another thought that was in the forefront of her brain. The few times she had met her brothers they were kind to her, but she wasn’t sure she felt love from them. Did they resent the fact that she had a mother for nine years of her life, while many of them grew up without ever having known her? Colin would have been very young indeed when Kathryn Morgan left this place with her baby, Annaliese, by her side.

What kind of man was her father back then? Why hadn’t he insisted on seeing her throughout the years? Why had he waited until her mother died to contact her? Was his wish for her to come live with him someday a sincere wish? Would she feel a warm welcome from him when she arrived? What would Maureen think? Anna shuddered to think of it. Was it utter madness that she thought she could just come here, without their knowledge, and be accepted?

She wanted to be accepted. She never felt as if she belonged anywhere, and yet here, among nature at its most primitive, she finally felt an inkling of belonging—a foreign feeling, to be sure. She continued walking and she took in every sight, every sound, and every smell. It was colder here, and the air seemed thinner, and she was having trouble breathing due to the elevation, and the fact that she was lugging two large suitcases behind her. She could hear the wind rustling through the trees. The trees here were taller than any trees she had ever seen before. The forest surrounding the road was dark and somewhat ominous. What sort of creatures lived in the forest?

If this was one of the fairytales that Anna loved so much as a child, she would say that there was a wild animal, or perhaps a large wolf, lurking through the trees, spying on her as she walked by. She imagined her fairy prince waiting for her around the bend, waiting to protect her, love her, and cherish her. Of course, perhaps her evil stepmother was also waiting for her. She winced and thought that she was certainly glad that she no longer believed in fairytales.

She stopped walking to look up at the massive trees, tall, proud, reaching upwards toward the heavens. She was never into nature, but this primordial forest called to her as a guiding light, telling her that she was finally home. Coming here wasn’t a mistake. It was just what she needed.

After a half hour, she was sweating slightly, even though she was cold. Her arms ached, the leg that she broke as a child throbbed terribly, as it often did, and she had a headache. She was second guessing her decision to come here. She put her hair into a messy ponytail, and shifted the weight of her luggage into different positions, to make the load easier. It was apparent she was not heading toward any town, Glenn Briar or Millersville, because surely she would have seen some signs of life by now … a person, a car, a building. Perhaps she should have turned right when she left the station, since all she saw walking in this direction were more trees.

She continued her trek, but the road was steep and curvy. She contemplated throwing one of her bags down the deep ravine that flanked the opposite side of the road, just so she wouldn’t have to carry it any farther, but she didn’t. She stopped on the side of the road, where the road met the hillside, to rest. The other side of the road was a drop off to places unknown. She saw a yellow road sign that showed a black truck on a black triangle with the phrase, ‘9 percent incline’. Did that mean she had to climb more hills?

She couldn’t do it. She just couldn’t. She took out the crumbled piece of paper with her father’s address and phone number. Though she wanted to surprise them, she would have to call for help. She reached in her other pocket for her cell phone. Flipping it open and turning it on was easy. Calling someone was going to be the hard part, because there was no service in this godforsaken place.

Great. Maybe this was a mistake after all.

She should have planned this better! She probably wasn’t even heading toward Glenn Briar! Goodness knows the only time she had ever driven there was in the middle of the night! The man from the train told her there were black bears and mountain lions in these mountains. What would she do if a mountain lion came toward her? She could always throw one of her heavy suitcases at it, and that way, her load would be a bit lighter walking up these hills … of course, the mountain lion might decide to eat her, and then it wouldn’t matter how light her load was.

With slight physical weariness, she started walking on the road again, up the incline, dragging both suitcases behind her, the tote bag tied to the lighter suitcase. When she left Ohio, it had been a balmy 67 degrees. Up in these mountains, it was probably twenty degrees cooler. She only had on a white button-up shirt and a lightweight red cardigan with a hood. Her twill slacks came mid-calf. She wore white tennis shoes which were already covered in dirt and mud.

She thought she might hate West Virginia right about now. If she were a bird, she could fly away, high above the trees, and not worry about the climb, or the rocks, or the creatures of the forest. She would be free and safe and above reproach. She wouldn’t even have to be a bird … anything with wings would do. She could be a fairy … with wings like a butterfly, and a beautiful gown of gossamer silk, and she could fly above all the dangers down here on the road. If only she could fly. If only.

Unfortunately, she had two legs instead of wings, and one of them hurt terribly due to the injury she suffered as a child.

Blast it all, she couldn’t walk one more step! She was about to throw both suitcases in the gully to the side of the road when a black sports car drove by on the opposite side of the road, heading in the direction she had already come. Anna waved her arms and yelled at it to stop.

It kept right on going. That was rude. Fine, she would throw herself down the gully with her luggage and let the bears eat her, or perhaps all the foliage would grow over her and she could become part of the landscape. At this point, anything was better than walking. She knew she was being dramatic, but in her mind she was the star of this little fable, so she could do anything at all that she wanted to do.

She dropped the handles of both suitcases, kicked one of them for good measure and threw her purse on the ground. This was the most anger Anna had felt in a long time, and it was aimed directly right at her! Usually, her ‘anger’ was pushed back by the armor around her heart, along with ‘love’ and ‘happiness’ and other useless emotions, but something about this place was making the usually impervious armor around her heart crack so that it was beginning to feel again, because at the moment she felt a whole host of things: anger, fear, sadness being just a few.

She sat on one of the suitcases and forced herself not to cry, even though every fiber in her being told her to do so. What would be the harm if she cried out here? She cried in the bathroom at the train station earlier today, and there was less likelihood of someone seeing her out here than there was back there. Even though this place was massive, she was as alone as she would have been if she was hiding in her closet back home.

She was about to give in to the tears when she heard the sounds of a car again. She wondered if she should try to stop it. It probably wouldn’t stop either, and really, would it be safe to get into a car with a stranger anyway? Wasn’t that rule number one that was taught to all children when they were young? DON’T GET INTO CARS WITH STRANGERS! The car passed her, on her side of the road this time, heading in the same direction that she was going. It was the same black sports car and it failed to stop again. She didn’t even have a chance to wave her arms about in a ridiculous fashion this time!

She saw the car turn around near the horseshoe bend up ahead and finally it came close enough for her to see it, but then it flew by just as quickly, again going in the direction of the train depot. What was this person’s problem?

It was a small black sports car. Sleek, shiny and black. Anna wasn’t one of those people who could tell what type of car something was just by looking at it. Some people could tell the make, model and year of a car just by looking at it, but to Anna, she always described cars by their color and how many doors it had.

Therefore, this was a black, two-door, sports car, and it went by her so fast each time it flew by that it made her head spin. A few moments later, it returned. He must have turned around to come back for her, and then turned around again to face the same direction.

It stopped right in front of her. She stood apart from the suitcases. The passenger side window came down in one smooth motion. She leaned over and peered inside the dark tinted window. She couldn’t make out the driver. She knew it was a man, because she saw the sinewy muscles of his arm, wrist and hand as it held the steering wheel, and that was about it.

The man gruffly said, “Get in.”

Anna stiffened, stood up, and backed toward her belongings. She felt another instant emotion, one of which she was very used to feeling … fear. She barked, “Not likely.”

He backed the car up several feet and this time the passenger door opened. He repeated his order, “Get in the car, please.”

Okay, he said please this time, but Anna still wasn’t going to get in his car. Actually, she was about to scream, not that it would do any good, since there was nothing around her but trees and she was certain they wouldn’t come to her rescue, but still, she opened her mouth to scream, when the man opened the driver’s side door as well and stepped out of the car. He walked around the back of the car and stood facing her.

She closed her mouth when she saw him, immediately deciding not to scream. The reason she decided not to scream was because she was utterly speechless. The man in front of her was one of the most beautiful men she had ever seen. He also looked achingly familiar. He was older, but she would know her ‘Prince Charming’ anywhere. This was the face of her dreams. This was the face of her fantasies, her every imagination. He was older, better looking, and though she had only ever seen him twice, she knew it was him.

Men weren’t often described as beautiful, but this man was, in a purely masculine way. He was now in his late twenties, over six feet tall, had hair a shade darker than hers, wavy, layered, and a bit long since it almost touched his shoulders. He wore lose fitting jeans and a t-shirt under a blue dress shirt, but she could tell he was fit.

His light blue eyes, which were only moments before covered with dark sunglasses, were etched in her memory. She recalled how they sparkled and shined and how they seemed to hold more happiness than pain, and more knowledge about her than she was ever willing to admit. He removed the sunglasses while walking toward her, and she thought that his eyes appeared to be smiling even now, though his mouth wasn’t. His eyes were crystal clear, shiny, and bright blue, almost silver. He perched the sunglasses on top of his head, to hold back his long hair.

She backed up as far as she could, but there was a hillside behind her, so she didn’t have far to go. She knew she couldn’t outrun him if she tried, though she instantly knew she was safe.

Then he finally smiled, and his whole face lit up. It was really him.

She might have gasped. She wasn’t sure. He said, “Excuse me for being so rude a moment ago. I wasn’t ordering you to get in the car; I just thought you look like you needed a ride.”

“I’m fine,” she lied.

“Really?” He gave her a half smile and said, “You look lost. Where are you heading?”

“It’s none of your concern,” she answered. Was this real or was she dreaming?

“Gee, you’re not a polite one, are you? But then again, if I recall, you never were,” he smirked. “That’s alright. I don’t particularly care for niceties. Never been described as nice myself. Charming, yes, polite and nice, no.” He reached down for the handle of one of her suitcases.

She reached out for it as well, and said, “Leave my things alone!” She didn’t know what he thought he was doing, but she didn’t like it. She felt overwhelmed in his presence, his charm and charisma as blatant as his good looks.

He ignored her and opened the trunk of the car and placed the heavier of her two bags inside. He walked around her, the same idiotic smile on his face, and picked up her other bag and her tote and threw them in as well.

Then he faced her. “Do you need a ride? I’m taking your suitcases, so you might as well get in the car, too.”

Anna now felt intense anger and annoyance. She wasn’t sure what it was about this place that caused all her emotions to return so strongly, but she didn’t like it one bit, and she didn’t like the asinine, grinning, beautiful man before her!

“Get away from me, and give me back my suitcases!” she ordered. The thought of being alone in a car with him terrified her. She wasn’t afraid of him, but of being alone with him.

“Ah, little Red Riding Hood,” he said, reaching out for the top button of her red cardigan. She tensed up when his hand touched her sweater, and his knuckles brushed her collarbone as it went around to the back of her sweater to touch the hood in the back. He withdrew his hand and asked, “Do you think I’m the Big Bad Wolf? Are you afraid of me? I promise you, I won’t eat you for dinner. I hear fairy princesses don’t taste very good this time of year.”

“I’m not a fairy princess, and not afraid of you, I’m just not getting into a car with someone who’s almost a perfect stranger!” she huffed.

He continued to smile, a lazy smile, where only one half of his mouth went up to the side. She thought it made him even more beautiful. “While I can’t deny that I may be perfect, you and I both know that I’m not a stranger,” he said with a lazy drawl. He leaned against the side of the car, his long legs stretched out before him. “We’ve met before. Surely you remember me.”

“I don’t think I do remember you,” she returned, though she didn’t know why she said it. She recalled both meetings with this man, when he was a teenager and she was a girl, as if they happened yesterday. She remembered him, and dreamed about him, and thought of him almost daily.

He pushed away from the car and circled around her. She turned around so that she could face him. He said, “Yes, we’ve met, three times actually.” He held up his hand, three fingers extended. “I’m sure you only remember the last two times. The very first time we met, you were only four months old, I was six, and I picked you up and then I accidentally dropped you. I didn’t think I hurt you back then, but perhaps there was some brain damage, since you seem a bit rattled now. Who knows?” He shrugged and reached for the bag that was on her shoulder.

When his hand touched her arm she shivered. His touch was electric. “Are you cold?” he asked, throwing her purse in the front seat. “Isn’t your sweater warm enough for you, little Red Riding Hood?” He reached around her, his hand skimming her shoulder, her hair, and he touched the hood of her sweater again. She took a step back.

“You said we met three times. When were the other times?” Anna demanded. Did he remember?

“The second time you were a maiden fair, stuck high in a tower, placed there by a dark knight, and I rescued you. The last time I saved you from an evil witch.”

If only he had rescued her all the other times she had needed rescuing. She used to dream of her fair prince rescuing her from her sadness and sorrow, yet he never did. “Who are you again?” she demanded. She had always wanted to know. Oh, she remembered his name. She spent her adolescence fantasying about this man, and she used to write his name on her notebooks, in her diary, on little scraps of paper, but she knew nothing else about him.

“The better question would be, who are you? Since you’re obviously too rude to reintroduce yourself to me, to make sure I’m not collecting the wrong girl, I’ll have to take a stab in the dark and say that you’re Anna Morgan, right?” Without allowing her to answer, he slammed the trunk closed and walked back over to the driver’s side. He placed his arms on the top of the car and said, “Well? Am I right? Are you Anna Morgan, my maiden fair?”

“You obviously know that’s now who I am, but you haven’t told me who you are yet. Reintroduce yourself to me! Tell me your name!” she said. “And kindly give me back my luggage! I’m not going anywhere with someone I hardly know!” Could this beautiful, perfectly rude stranger really be the young man who haunted all her daydreams from the time she was nine until perhaps last night?

He shrugged again, which she found annoying, and said, “Oh, as I said, how rude of me, but since you’re rude as well, I’m not sure it matters. I’ll remind you that I’m Ian Corrigan. I was told that Anna Morgan was arriving today by train, and I went to pick her up, but she wasn’t at the depot in Millersville, so I thought I would check if she got off at the mail drop off, which seems like something foolish someone with brain damage might do. I assumed you were her. You look like what I remember she looked like, but if you’re someone else, oh well, as I said, my mistake.” He got into the car and slammed the door shut. He reached over to the passenger door, peered up at her shocked face and said, “I could still give you a ride.”

“Who told you I was arriving today?” she demanded.

“Get in the car and I’ll explain on the way to your father’s house,” he replied confidently.

The old Anna would never get in the car with a stranger. Everything inside Anna told her NOT to get in that car with the man. Somehow, though, she slid inside and shut the door, because she knew she wasn’t the old Anna any longer, and she didn’t think she liked that thought any better than she liked him.

Chapter 5 - A Conversation of Sorts

With the windows rolled up, the only sound that could be heard inside the car, besides the low hum of the motor, was the rasping of Anna’s breath. There was absolutely no other sound. At first, Anna was having trouble breathing, even trouble focusing, because of the silence. Then she began to hear her own breathing, which was troubling enough, but she could not hear a sound coming from the man beside her, not even the shallow intake or exhale of a mere breath, which also concerned her. This thought alone, along with the silence, caused her to breathe heavier.

She wondered if the man beside her could tell that she was nervous. She was certain her erratic breathing was betraying her outward appearance of self-confidence, because, on the inside, she was a bundle of nerves. The man sitting beside her was silent as a stone. She slanted her eyes in his direction; he seemed completely at ease. One hand on the steering wheel, maneuvering the curves effortlessly, sunglasses back on his face, and his other hand on the clutch: he was a paragon of ‘calm and collected’.

She had to tell herself that he had no clue that she had harbored feelings of infatuation toward him all these years. He looked just as she recalled, though older, wiser, better looking. This man was real. The memory in her mind was not. It was almost too much for her to take. She needed to say something, anything, to break the awkward silence, but all she could do was continue to breathe, and even that was difficult.

He turned toward her and gave her an easy, affable smile. Suddenly, she sensed his calmness. He seemed to send a wave of serenity toward her, which she felt just as surely as if someone had splashed her with warm water.

She knew she should ask some sort of question … How did you know I was coming? Does my family know I’m here? Do you know what you do to me? Did you know I once thought I was in love with you? But now that she felt tranquil, and her breathing had relaxed, she really didn’t want to disturb the quiet. She felt peaceful, and dare she think, happy.

She already decided that this man was unusual. For one thing, no man should be this beautiful. He almost seemed otherworldly. She wanted to ask him about himself, but no words would form. She was concentrating on the scenery whirling by her instead. Floating on a sea of uncertainty, the sensation that this man beside her was different than any man she had ever met wouldn’t go away. Questions that she knew she should ask drifted in and out of her consciousness, along with the feeling that she should feel more cautiousness, but she felt no sense of panic, no real fear. She almost felt at peace, and though the silence was slightly awkward, it wasn’t panic inducing.

Driving up the narrow mountain road, she remembered feeling this same serene feeling before, a long time ago, when she was a child. Heaven help her, the last time she felt this much at peace was right after her mother died, when she was last with him. Before that, it was when her mother was alive. Why was that? A peace engulfed her, along with happiness … happiness at her decision to come here, happiness at her decision to get into this car with this stranger, happiness to finally leave the pretense of being ‘the perfect Anna’ behind. She pushed on the button to lower the window, the smell of springtime rushing inside carried on the cool air, honeysuckle and goldenrod, as well as the sharper scent of pine, and it felt refreshing. She found that she didn’t mind the silence after all. Her head fell back to the headrest and she smiled.

Was this how things were to be from now on? Was she going to be able to relax, stop pretending to be something that she wasn’t? She had been putting on a charade, a show, a farce, since the day her mother died, and she was so very tired of it. She pretended she no longer felt anything, for so very long, that it wore her down. It was emotionally draining to act as if she didn’t have emotions. It was one constant lie. She didn’t want to lie any longer. She wanted to feel again. She closed her eyes and breathed in, listening to the air leaving her lungs, and she was happy for the silence, because it gave her the chance to ‘feel’, if that were possible.

Apparently, he wasn’t happy with the silence, because finally, after only a few moments more, he spoke. “Do you like it here so far?”

She wasn’t sure how to answer. “I wouldn’t know. I haven’t been here long enough to decide. I know it’s beautiful. I’ve never seen nature at its most basic form before. This is how things are supposed to be. It’s primitive, but awe inspiring. I’ve never really been an outdoor girl, usually I stay indoors with my nose in a book, but I feel a real affinity with this place, like a longing, and yet a belonging. The few times I came here as a child, I only ever saw my father’s farm, and the top of the mountain. He never took me anywhere else.” She felt slightly embarrassed by her ramblings, so she turned in her seat and asked, “How did you know I was coming? How did you know to come pick me up?”

She was blushing, and he thought that was endearing. He thought everything about her was endearing, but a bit false. He hadn’t yet figured her out, but he would eventually. One thing was certain, she was beautiful. She looked just like her mother. Her mother was known as a very beautiful woman, and this girl looked exactly like her. He wondered how others would feel about that.

She was a beautiful, albeit an awkward child. No one was ever to know she came here when she was young. It was a highly guarded secret. Of course, being best friends with her brother Brendan, Ian was privy to this information. He remembered rescuing her twice when she was little. Once was a bit of fun, and once was a very serious matter indeed. She seemed so scared, so fragile. He remembered the second time he ‘saved her’ he thought if he touched her too roughly she might break. She was as fragile as a butterfly wing, or a petal of a flower.

He remembered that she stopped coming after that summer she turned twelve. That was the same summer that Brendan asked Ian if he could stay with him until she went home. He asked Brendan why and Brendan would only say that it was because he could no longer protect her. He didn’t understand. He didn’t like that answer. He looked over at her now. She looked like she still needed protecting, though she probably didn’t know it. Someone had to protect her, but it wasn’t going to be him.

He thought it was amusing that she would get into the car with him, no questions asked. He could sense her fear in the beginning, though she tried hard to hide it. He could always sense other people’s emotions, and though this girl tried to relay the fact that she felt ‘nothing,’ he knew that deep down, she felt more than most people, and that thought intrigued him. Sensing her apprehension and fear, he tried to send her a sense of well-being, and he knew he succeeded. It was good that he could manipulate her feelings. It might come in handy someday.

He finally answered her question and said, “You’ll find out that I know everything that goes on around here, and I probably already know everything about you.”

“What an asinine answer,” Anna retorted, rolling her eyes.

He snorted a small laugh and said, “Again, you aren’t very polite, are you?”

“Most people only pretend to be polite because they think it’s expected of them,” she regarded. “However, I’m a very polite person, usually. You, on the other hand, kidnapped my luggage, and now you won’t answer my questions. You’re the impolite one.”

He smirked. “And yet, you got in the car with me. What does that make you?”

“An idiot?” she suggested. “Fifty percent of all people who get in vehicles with people they don’t know end up missing or dead.”

He looked over at her, shocked. “What?” he asked. “Where do you get your statistics, Little One?”

She shrugged and looked back out the car window. “I’m just saying I hope I don’t become a statistic,” she responded flippantly.

“You’re already something, I’m just not sure what,” he mumbled, more to himself. “Do you always spout off unfounded facts?”

She crossed her arms over her body and then smiled. “Yes. I did just make up that statistic. It’s probably not that high. I tend to talk too much when I’m nervous. Seriously, I do remember you, but how did you know I was coming? I didn’t tell anyone.”

He suppressed another smile. “I’m a neighbor to your family, if you recall. Your brother, Brendan, and I are best friends. Apparently, your great-uncle called your father’s house to inform them that you were on your way. The problem is that none of your family’s home. Your eldest brother’s getting married this weekend in another county. That’s why I took it upon myself to collect you.” He waited a full ten seconds and then said, “Do I make you nervous?”

Anna didn’t know how to reply to that, so she didn’t say anything.

Instead, she thought about her family, and how she was imposing on them. They weren’t even home, and Alec, whom she hadn’t seen in years, was getting married, and she hadn’t known it—of course, why would she? Was it a mistake to come here without telling them first? She felt another wave of uncertainty wash over her, along with fear and dread. What if her family was only being polite when they visited her after her grandfather died? What if they didn’t really want her to come back here? What would her stepmother think?

A knot formed in her throat, a choked cry, but she had worked hard all these years to keep her tears at bay, so she turned to look out the window, swallowing her strangled sob, and asked, “Do you know when they’ll be home?”

He could feel that she was on the brink of tears, but that she was keeping them in check. He tried empathetically to send her a sense of calm again, but this time he felt her blocking it. Interesting. No one had ever been able to block him before now. Why would the news that her family wasn’t home make her want to cry? He definitely needed to get to know this girl better. He quickly answered, “No clue,” and then added, “Their housekeeper’s the one that asked me to collect you.”

“You’ve said that twice now. Collect me,” she repeated. She didn’t like how that sounded, yet it was the second time he had used that phrase. “I didn’t know they had a housekeeper. When I used to stay with them, they never had any help at the house, not even farm help, which I thought was odd, because the house and property were so large. I thought for sure they must have a cook, a housekeeper, or something, but I never saw anyone but the family when I was there. The only person I ever saw that wasn’t family was you.”

He didn’t find it odd that no one was ever around when she used to stay as a child. Her father always made sure the household staff, as well as the farm hands, were gone when she came. There was no way he could explain the reasons why to her right now.

She knew she was rambling again, but she felt nervous, and when she felt trepidation, she tended to rambling on nervously. She was on the fringe of crying, so she took another steadying breath and asked, “Is there a hotel nearby where I might stay? I can stay a night at a hotel, make a better plan, buy another train ticket, make a few of my famous lists, and then decide in the morning what I should do. Maybe I’ll stay for a few days and take in the sights.” She stopped planning things in her head when she heard him laugh.

She was still talking, and he found that endearing. Did she even know she was talking aloud … talking about staying at a hotel, buying another train ticket, and such? What a silly woman. He threw his head back and laughed. “Little One, there are no hotels around here. There are a few resorts that cater to skiers during the winter months near Millersville, but that’s back in the opposite direction. We’ll be in Glenn Briar in another twenty minutes, but there are no hotels, motels, inns, or even a Bed and Breakfast. We don’t get very many visitors. We get some passing tourist now and then, but no one stays. There’s not even a campground of any kind near Glenn Briar. Let’s see, what have I left out?”

“I get the jist,” she interjected. “There’s no place to stay, in other words, no room at the inn.” She began to wonder what she would do now. Would he turn his car around and take her back to the train station?

He looked over at her, and she was frowning. She was also twisting and pulling on the seatbelt across her chest. She was one bundle of raw nerves. “Glenn Briar is a close knit community, and it doesn’t allow outsiders,” he said enigmatically, suddenly serious.

“Fine, turn around and take me back to the train station,” she said tersely. “I don’t want to go where I’m not welcome or where I don’t belong. I shouldn’t have come, anyway.”

She had an idea he wanted to laugh again, because he was biting back a smile. “You aren’t an outsider, so today’s your lucky day. You can stay.” He winked at her, which made her frown deeper, and then he said, “In other words, you’re welcome.”

“I can’t stay if my family isn’t home,” she pouted. “I really can’t stay at their house if they aren’t there. My father’s wife wouldn’t like it.” She crossed her arms in front of her and stared back out the window. She pushed on the button of the window to open it more, so that more air rushed in toward her. The air stung her eyes, and dried the tears that threatened to spill.

He glared at her for a moment. He noticed the bracelet on her arm when she reached over to push on the button to open her window. He wondered if she knew the significance of that bracelet. He imagined that she did not.

Reaching over her to push the button that would raise the window back up, she flinched and leaned as far back against the seat as she could when his arm brushed against her folded arms, sending a tremor shooting down her spine, and goose bumps to form on her arms. He observed, “The fact that your family didn’t know you were coming didn’t keep you from coming, so don’t talk about leaving so soon. They won’t mind if you stay at their house without them, and who cares what your stepmother likes or doesn’t like. She doesn’t matter in the least. Oh, and keep the window up, you must be cold. You keep shivering.” He placed both hands back on the steering wheel. He noticed that she was influenced by his touch. That was good. That made him happier than it should have.

Anna never liked being told what to do. She also hated to be touched. Even the lightest of touches made her uncomfortable. She remembered the last time he touched her, when he comforted her under the pine trees, and carried her back into her father’s house. That might have been the last time another human being touched her, outside of her grandparents.

She looked at him quickly, suddenly wanting him to touch her again. To avoid such errant thoughts, she moved her right hand to the window button, pushed it slightly, moving the window down a fraction. “First, Mister, don’t call her my stepmother. I was never allowed to call her that, and I hardly know the woman, and what I do know, I don’t like. Second, I’m not cold, so leave the window alone. Also, I’d mind if I was them. I wouldn’t want someone in my house who wasn’t invited,” she answered quickly. “I simply can’t do that. It would be too awkward. They hardly even know me.”

“Mister? You called me ‘Mister’?” He shook his head incredulously, a chuckle escaping his mouth. “Fine, I know you. You’ll stay with me, and leave the window alone, because I said so.” He reached across her again, reached for the button on the door that would push the automatic window back into place. This time, she moved her arms up and away from his and he compensated by dipping low, brushing against her sweater above the flatness of her stomach.

She felt heat bloom in her chest and her mouth ran dry. What was this man doing to her?

“I can’t stay with you,” she barked, giving him a dirty look.

She reached back for the button with her left hand, but he grabbed that hand, pulling it away from the window. He kept it tightly in his and laid both their hands on the console between their seats. Her eyes flew up in surprise and she wrenched her hand from his. She turned her face away from his, folding her hands tightly together, and placing them on her lap.

He chose to ignore the incident, even though he knew how his touch had affected her, precisely because it had affected him in the same manner. He shrugged and said, “Then you’ll stay in your father’s house, whether or not they’re there. The housekeeper’s there and she’ll make you comfortable.” He said it, but he didn’t mean it. She couldn’t stay there alone.

She shook her head; her arms crossed on her chest. “I told you, I just can’t stay there if they aren’t there. That would be inappropriate. They might not like that. They don’t really know me that well, and they haven’t seen me for years. I guess this was a bad idea, coming without letting them know.”

“Then once again, you might be in a conundrum,” he said with a slight grin. He removed his sunglasses and looked at her closely. She was a conundrum, he decided. She was a mystery that he wanted to unravel. He thought she was pretending to be something that she wasn’t. He wanted to know all about her. He threw the glasses in the backseat and said, “Tell me a bit about yourself, Anna Gray Morgan.”

“You don’t have to call me that,” she fretted.

“Do you prefer Little Red Riding Hood?” he asked. “I like that nickname. Actually, I like what I called you a second ago, Little One. I’ll call you that. That’s what I called you the first time I met you, if you recall.”

“Call me plain, old Anna,” she suggested.

“No,” he said.

“What do you mean, ‘no’?” she asked, appalled.

He shrugged again. “I don’t want to,” he said coolly. “Besides, I have a funny feeling that you’re not that girl any longer. You’re no longer plain, old Anna.”

She didn’t understand this man. He made her uncomfortable on so many levels, yet he put her at ease on many others. He was too good looking, he was constantly grinning and smiling, as if he were enjoying an inside joke. Most of the time, she sensed that he was making fun of her. She also had the undeniable urge to hit him right now, and she never wanted to hit anyone. Why did she want to hit him? She also found that she wanted to kiss him, as crazy as that seemed. He brought out emotions she had long ago buried, and she wasn’t happy about that.

How dare he assume to say that she was no longer the old Anna? Even if she felt that way, what did he know about anything?

What would he say if she told him that she buried ‘plain old Anna’ ten years ago, when she decided to stop feeling? What would he say if she told him he was also right in his assessment that ‘Anna’ was fading away, and that someone else was resurfacing, along with all her feelings, and she didn’t know why, or how, and she didn’t like it at all?

What would he say if she told him all of this? He said he wanted to know about her, but did he really?

She decided that he didn’t. He was probably only asking to be gracious. She finally said, “Fine. Call me whatever you want, although for the record, I’m not that little any longer.”

He looked at her again, just as they made a harrowing turn, and too fast. She grabbed the dashboard and bit her lip. He grinned, another wicked grin, and said, “You’re still a bit on the small side, plus something about you seems small, lost somehow, like a little girl lost, hence the name, Little One. It’s an appropriate name. I like that.”

“Call me whatever you want, but I reserve the right to do the same to you, Mister. Now, what do you want to know about me?”

“I know how old you are, so tell me, are you in school?”

“You mean college?” she asked for clarification.

He nodded.

“No.”

“Do you work?”

“No.”

“What do you do?” he asked.

“Do?” she repeated.

“With your time, for a job, for entertainment, etc, etc, etc,” he waned. “I already know you read, you don’t like the outdoors, and you visit relatives without an invitation. You like to have fresh air on you when you’re in a car; you like to pretend you don’t have feelings and emotions when you really do. So, tell me something else that I don’t know.”

How had he guessed her secret about her feelings? She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of responding on his observation, so, with a stubborn frown, she returned, “I had an invitation, and I don’t want to talk about myself.”

He pursued, “Why? If you don’t do it, who will? No one else knows anything about you, and you have to realize, everyone around here will be curious about every little thing regarding your whole life.”

That thought disturbed her. “I hope not.”

“I’m afraid so, Little One. From the moment your mother ran away, taking you with her, you became the talk of our community. Everyone’s going to be fascinated that you’ve come back. No one knew you used to visit when you were young. You’ve got to be prepared to answer a lot of questions about yourself, because people are going to want to get to know you,” he affirmed.

He could tell her more, much more, but it wasn’t his place. He could tell her that her mother took her away for a very good reason, although few knew of that reason. He could tell her that she had been in danger when she was here as a baby, that she was in more danger when she was a girl, but that at least she was far away, and that now that she had returned, she was in even greater danger still. He could tell her these things, but he wouldn’t—not yet. At this stage, she was too fragile to hear any part of the truth. He didn’t think her mother had ever told her anything about her heritage, her people, or the magic of this place.

She looked back out the window again. The thought that the people here would be curious about her scared her. She really hoped that he was exaggerating. She hoped they wouldn’t care to know her. She dearly hoped so. What was there to know? As her short conversation with him showed, she wasn’t comfortable talking about herself, nor did she have much to say. She told him so. “There’s not much to say. I’m very uninteresting, bordering on boring. Ninety percent of all people who talk about themselves are really very boring people.” She also hoped he would buy that statement.

He didn’t respond for a second, but then suggested, “I rather think you’re part of that ten percent, if your numbers are indeed accurate, which I doubt. I don’t think you see yourself clearly. Few of us rarely do. I think I see you better than you see yourself, and I’ve only just met you. I also think you’re a poor statistician, so you should stop spouting percentages that mean nothing. Tell me something about your childhood. I’m sure that was interesting. Tell me anything at all.”

She didn’t respond to his inquiries regarding her childhood. It was something she rarely thought of, and never spoke of, so they were quiet again, but this time she felt the silence thick and heavy between them. This silence wasn’t calming, so she began talking, not even aware of what she was saying. “When I was little, I used to love to lay in the grass in my back yard and stare up at the birds and butterflies. Sometimes I would imagine that I had wings, just like them, and I would soar around the rooftops, and through the clouds with them. I could stay outside for hours, just watching the birds, imagining I was one of them. It felt so real. One time, when I closed my eyes, I actually felt as if I were a monarch butterfly, flying over the rosebushes. I could smell the roses. It felt so real. I think that’s why I’ve always loved stories about fairies and birds, because I’ve always wanted to fly.”

He didn’t look at her until she said that last sentence. At that, he looked at her and said, “Of course you have.”

She looked over at him and for one very special and sacred moment, they stared into each others eyes, and she knew that he really did understand, and that thought scared her more than anything else scared her that day. Then she felt her face tinge with another blush, and she looked away. She placed a hand upon her cheek and said, “I’m sorry. You must think I’m silly, talking about flying and fairies and such. Sixty-seven percent of all men who listen to women prattle on about flying end up killing themselves.” She smiled at her little joke.

He didn’t comment. He merely smiled in return. They began to cross a very long, high bridge that closed the gap between two hillsides, and hung over a rolling river below. He slowed the car considerably as they crossed the old, rusted, iron bridge. Anna instinctively rose up to look to see how high they were. She hated bridges, especially when they were over large bodies of water. She gripped the dash in front of her as she rose in her seat to peer out the window. The water below her was dark, ominous, surging over rocks at an alarming speed, due to the snow melting on the mountain tops. She felt a lacerating, constricting pain in her chest at the sight beside and below her, and she knew that even if she closed her eyes, she would still feel the water’s presence.

Water was always a foreboding, shadowy darkness over her past, her present and her future. The fear of water gripped her with its icy hands and threatened to squeeze her heart until it burst out of her chest. Just the sight of water made her feel as if she was drowning. She opened her eyes, and saw that they had safely passed over the bridge. She looked back once, looked down, saw reeds and brush beside the bank of the river being pulled into the water’s churning depths and she almost cried out as another wave of fear reached out to her.

Her interest and fear in the river and at crossing the bridge didn’t go unnoticed by Ian. He watched her intently. He recalled that her mother died in water, and that she almost died as well. When they crossed the bridge, he stopped the car, pulling it onto the side of the road. He saw her open her eyes slowly before he volunteered, “That’s the Blackwater River. It’s pretty rapid and high this time of year.”

She nodded, clutching the seatbelt tightly across her chest with both hands. She wasn’t even looking at the water, or the bridge. She was staring intently out the front window.

He asked, “Do you want us to get out of the car to take a closer look at the river? It’s really beautiful.”

She whipped her head around to him, shocked. “NO!”

He was completely quiet for a heartbeat, and then he nodded. “I’m sorry. I understand.” He shouldn’t have suggested that, but he had to be certain of her fear. He started the engine again and drove on.

She closed her eyes. Why did he keep saying that he understood? Did he understand? She didn’t even understand. She hated water. She hated rivers, lakes, ponds, streams, creeks. She didn’t even like swimming pools. She didn’t even like baths, so she always took showers. She didn’t even know how to swim. When they took swimming in school, her grandparents had to write an excuse to get her out of it.

He spoke again, which she was thankful for, for it brought her out of her dark thoughts. “Up ahead is the town, Glenn Briar.”

“Tell me about it, please,” she asked in a sweet, soft voice. “Tell me anything. Talk to me, just keep talking.” He sensed that she needed her mind to be distanced from the river they had just traveled over.

“Sure, I’ll give you the grand tour, at least, I’ll tell you about it, though it’s a boring little place.” Ian turned onto a one way street. “The town was formed three hundred years ago, long before West Virginia was a state. It was formed by Irish immigrants, and most of the inhabitants are still related to those seven original families who came to stay.”

She smiled at him and said, “My mother used to tell me a story almost identical to that when I was a child. It’s from an old book of Irish fairytales.”

“Hmm,” he mumbled, “you don’t say.” He knew to which book she referred, and he also knew it wasn’t really a book of fairytales, as much as it was a history of their people.

He drove by a row of interconnected buildings, all different colours, some brick, some stone, some clapboards, all connected with overhanging eaves and an old stone sidewalk and he said, “The town proper consists of two main streets. This street is called Lower Twin Road and goes into town, east to west, one way, with buildings on one side, as you can see, and the river on the other.”

At the mention of the word ‘river’ Anna perked up in the seat and looked out her passenger side window. He promised, “The river is down so far on the right hand side that you can’t even see it from the road, and there is a high fence, too. There’s a path down to it, but, believe me, you can’t see it from here.” She trusted him for some reason. She turned back to face the front of the road, looking to her right with her peripheral vision. She couldn’t see the river. She could only see the hillside on the other side of the river and green trees. She sighed with relief.

He knew that he had reassured her, so he continued to drone on, which he knew she found comforting. “On the small street that connects the two streets, and which has roads that lead up to the two mountains, sits our only grocery store and our little stone post office.”

He parked the car nose first, in front of a red painted storefront that had a large wrought-iron bench in the front. He pointed out the window and added, “The road above this is called Upper Twin Road, heading west to east, one way, with the road below on one side and shops and businesses on the other side, with the mountain behind them. Oh, and we have two small churches, one Catholic and one Presbyterian, quite a few little tourist shops, a gas station, two restaurants, a coffee shop, and a bank. Not much else, but its home. Most of the people live on the outskirts of town, or up on the mountain.”

He stopped his car, and turned to face her. Ian grinned, “This concludes our tour. Fifty percent of people who take my tour leave me a tip.” He held out his hand.

She smiled and then laughed. “Thank you for the tour. I’ll leave you a large tip later, I promise.”

He reached over and moved a strand of hair from her shoulder, her heart hammered wildly against her chest. He revealed, “I hear thirty percent of all people leave a twenty percent tip or better and ten percent leave only a kiss,” he joked, making fun of her. She could only smile back at him as he continued, “But in your case, no tip is necessary. I have a feeling I’m going to get to know you better, Little One, whether you want me to or not. I also think I’ll like you. Welcome home.”

She nodded and continued to smile. She felt an instant reprieve from her former gray life just from his simple ‘welcome home’. Could it be that simple? Was she home, really home? “I have a feeling there’s not much to know about me, but still, thanks, it’s good to be home.”

Chapter 6 – Little Girl Lost and Found

Ian Corrigan got out of his car and walked over to the other side. He looked through the front window at the young woman sitting in his car. What was he going to do with her? He couldn’t let her go to her father’s house when none of them were there, although she didn’t seem to want to do that anyway. She looked up at him and caught him staring and he thought she looked sad and misplaced. He thought she seemed like a little girl, lost and forlorn, who was longing to be found. He smiled at her, to put her at ease, but she didn’t smile back. It appeared he was losing his ‘charm’ with her already.

He smiled to himself at that thought, hiding his grin. He was well known as the best ‘charmer’ in these parts, yet his ‘Little One’ seemed immune to his charms already. What an ego deflating thought. If only she knew that he was from a long line of actual ‘Charmers’, but then again, she probably didn’t even know what that meant. He opened the passenger door for her.

“Is something wrong?” she asked, stepping out of the car.

“No, not at all, Little One, though I was going to ask you the same question,” he said, looking back at her face. He had the undeniable urge to touch her, ease away her pain and fears, even to kiss her, but he knew he shouldn’t. He quickly said, “I need to go inside my store and check on a few things before I take you wherever it is you decide you want to go. Do you want to go in with me, or would you rather walk around and explore our quaint settlement?”

She looked up at him expectantly. “Which is your store?” She walked hesitantly around him and the car door, stepping upon the stone hewn sidewalk. He sensed that she was stalling, avoiding his question. Was she afraid to walk around the town by herself? He figured she’d be safe for a little while if she didn’t go far.

He nodded his head toward the red painted, antique store in front of them. “It’s really just a ruse. I don’t need to work, I’m financially wealthy, you know.” It was the truth, but he said it as if it were a joke.

She looked back at him and cocked one eyebrow in the air. He gave her another one of his half smiles. She didn’t know if he was telling the truth, but she imagined that he was. She walked up to his store, cupped her hands to the glass and placed her face inside her hands to peer inside. The store looked dark and deserted. “It doesn’t look like a ruse. It seems like a very nice store, from what I can see of it. What kind of store is it? What do you sell? ”

He concluded, “I told you it’s not a real store, so I don’t really sell anything, although I do have some antiques inside that I’ll part with occasionally. I merely need a place to go everyday. I’m working on a history book about our people and this area, so I come here to work and sometimes someone will come in and buy something, or bother me with a problem, making some kind of demand of me, in some way or another. Someone constantly wants something or some kind of service from me.”

She was going to ask him what services he meant, but he walked behind her, placed one hand on her back, and looked inside as well, and all thought left her brain. Her back felt warm under his hand. She turned to face him, he smiled once again, and she felt blinded by his smile. She also felt that surge of electricity (or was it sexual awareness?) that she felt every time he touched her.

Stepping away quickly so that he would have to drop his hand, she decided, “I think I’ll explore.” She thought she needed some time away from him, to clear her head. He made her feel bewildered and frustrated and completely on edge. She stepped away from the window and pointed down the street. “That way?” He nodded.

“Meet me back here in fifteen minutes, won’t you?” he asked. “If not, I’ll be forced to come collect you again.” He cocked his head to the side, as if he was speaking to a child.

She sighed openly and frowned. “Collect,” she repeated. “One hundred percent of men who claim to collect women live to regret it.”

He laughed at her and made a waving motion with his hand. She merely waved him away in return, and started walking along the old, cobblestone sidewalk, toward the other buildings on the lower road of the town.

“Now that one I believe,” he declared, if only to himself, as he watched her walk away closely.

When Anna walked into the next open store, Ian walked up to his shop, took out his key and unlocked the door. Then he opened the door, stepped inside quickly and practically slammed the door shut. Leaning against the wall, eyes closed, he heaved a profound sigh. She was definitely going to be a difficulty. He wasn’t ready for this. He didn’t feel prepared. This girl had become everything he had ever thought she would become, yet she wasn’t like anyone he’d ever met. Her presence here was going to present serious problems. It was inevitable, he knew. His own mother predicted that this day would come. And he knew that she had no clue as to who she was, or more significantly, WHAT she was, or what any of them were, and that was even a bigger problem.

When Ian Corrigan drove his black sports car along the narrow mountain roads earlier today, he did it with great speed and with no thoughts to the dangerous curves and bends in the road. They were second nature to him, having grown up in these mountains. Besides, he loved to go fast, whether he was driving or running. When he went fast, he could leave the world behind. He didn’t have to think about anything but the exhilaration of the wind in his hair and the scenery whizzing by him. He drove so fast at first that he passed the very person he was sent to ‘collect’.

Annaliese. His ‘Little One’. His little princess … all grown up. One of their brethren that were watching her told him that she would be arriving today. A man from another clan apparently convinced her to get off the train at the mail depot, and then he called Ian and informed her that she was here.

If they heard she was coming here today, their enemies might have heard as well. It was a smart move to have her get off at the mail depot so that the lesser clans wouldn’t get a heads up that she had arrived. Ian would have to thank the man later for his loyalty.

Why was she here? Everyone knew she would probably come eventually, now that her mother and the people whom she assumed were her grandparents were dead, and there was no one left in Ohio to protect her. Nevertheless, why did she come all by herself, without telling her father or brothers?

She didn’t know the risk involved, of course. She didn’t know her fate. She didn’t know the history of their people. Well, now that she was here, she would learn everything sooner rather than later. It was all set into motion the moment she left her home. There was no way to stop it now. The prophecy was coming true. The fairy princess was coming home. There would be many people who would be happy with the news and rejoice, and many more who would be angered by it, and who would try to stop her.

Ian wasn’t sure which he was. He didn’t know if he was happy or not that she had returned, but he knew one thing, she wasn’t meant for him, no matter what was written before they were born. She was good and sweet and all that was right. He wasn’t any of those things, and he never would be. There was darkness in him. Darkness that rarely came out, but it was there all the same.

He remembered her clearly as a child. She was so fragile. She was beautiful, timid, but ever so feisty. He recalled that she was special, even back then. He could tell that she had great power within her. It was one of his gifts, the ability to ‘see’ others as they really were, or what they might become, and he knew from the moment that he met her that she was the one for whom they were all waiting.

He was known as a ‘charmer’, a fairy who can easily bend the will and emotions of others to fit their own. When she was little, and so very sad, he tried very hard to influence her emotions and feelings, to make her happy, although even back then she was able to block his charms to a certain degree. His charms were known throughout their people as some of the most powerful, but if she were able to resist his charms, it wouldn’t bode well for his ego, because almost no one, especially women, ever resisted his charms.

He followed her closely over the years, as did other watchers and protectors, always from afar. She grew into a beautiful woman, which was to be expected. Her mother was beautiful, too.

He didn’t know what to think about that. He still thought of her as a small girl. A small girl who needed his help and protection, except now she was a grown woman who needed it even more, although she didn’t know it.


Now he had to try to get a hold of her father and brothers again. He wasn’t equipped to watch her all on his own. After he was told she was coming, he tried to call them, to no avail. If he couldn’t get a hold of them by phone, he would send someone to find them. He ran his hand through his long hair, flipped on the lights, and walked over to the old wooden counter at the end of the store.

He looked back out the front window. She was no longer out there, but he felt her presence. She seemed just as she did when she was a little girl, yet different than he imagined. She was so quiet and reserved. She seemed so sad. She appeared so emotionally empty and unaware, but he knew that was an act, a fallacy, subterfuge. She almost seemed indifferent, yet he sensed great emotion in her, though it was deeply buried. He sensed that she had long ago learned to suppress her feelings. He also knew all of that was about to change, for better or worse. It was odd that he was able to influence her in the beginning, and then, only a short time later, she was able to suppress his charms. No one was ever able to resist his charms before this girl. That alone made him uneasy.

Moreover, she was beyond beautiful, though she didn’t seem to know it. When he saw her walking today, he purposely drove by her several times, even though he knew who she was, because even from afar her sheer, physical beauty took him aback.

He could tell she knew nothing about her background, or heritage. The people who raised her must have hidden everything from her. At least they managed to keep her safe all these years. It would be an intimidating task to reveal the story to her, but it wouldn’t be his task. That duty would belong to her father. Her father should have found a way around the magic of her mother years ago, and brought her to live here permanently when she was young, so that she would have been brought up with her own kind. He could only imagine how the girl would take it when she found out the truth, fragile as she was.

She revealed to Ian that when she was little, she used to want to fly, just like a fairy.

What would she say to him if he told her that fairies were real? What would she do if he told her that SHE was a fairy? Would she understand the meaning? Would she believe in the ancient magic? Would she be shocked to learn that some of them could change forms? Her father and his clan could change into birds. The Corrigan clan changed into large predators, mostly cats, some wolves and coyotes. The people of this place came from the fairies of the air, the earth and the water.

Her own mother came from the fairies of the water, yet Anna was afraid of water, which made no sense given the background of her mother’s people. On the other hand, given the way her mother died, and the fact that she almost died that day, too, it was understandable. To this day, the people of this village talked about the fact that Kathryn Morgan could never have drowned, given her background. It didn’t make any sense. They all considered it murder, murder that was inevitable, given the fact that she took Anna away when she was a baby.

This girl had an innate sense of what she was, given the story she told him about how she would imagine flying as a child. Again, that made perfect logic given the background of her father’s people - fairies of the air.

He exhaled another breath he hadn’t even been aware he was holding and thought again how gorgeous she was, yet she either didn’t know it, or didn’t care. He sensed it was the first. She honestly didn’t feel she was beautiful, even though she was perhaps one of the most stunning young women he had ever seen. Not that it mattered to him. She wasn’t destined for him. She would be better off with another. As head of their people, he could claim her if he wished, but he would never do that, would he? What kind of trouble would that cause?

He pulled out a large phonebook, yellowed with age, and opened it to the right spot. His finger moved over the page until he found the name for which he was searching. He called the person with the phone on his desk. It rang so many times that he almost hung up, but finally someone answered. He said, “This is Ian, and everything’s finally coming into place. Anna Morgan has come home. Send someone to find her father and brothers, and you need to tell the others that it’s begun. Tell all the clans that it’s begun.” There was a pause, when the person on the other end spoke, and then he said, “No, I’ll protect her until they come, but they have to hurry.”

He slammed the phone down harder than he intended and decided to go find her. This town probably wasn’t a safe place for her, hence the reason her mother took her away all those years ago. He started out of his store, but turned back to reach for a very old, tattered book. To an outsider, it would look like a simple book on Irish folk and fairytales. To his people, it was so much more. She liked to read. He smiled. He would give it to her to read. She didn’t have to know the significance of it … yet. He closed up his store, threw the book in the back of his car, and went to search for her.




Anna felt Ian’s gaze upon her and she felt hot and troubled by it. She decided to go into the first store that was open, though most of them seemed closed, just to escape his stare. Anna walked along the sidewalk, looking into shop windows, feeling very conspicuous. There weren’t many people walking along the sidewalk, but the few who were out walking stopped to stare at her. She assumed it was because she was a stranger, and Ian had mentioned in the car that this town rarely had strangers.

Nonetheless, they all stared at her as if they knew her, albeit that was a crazy thought. For all they knew, she could be a tourist. These people didn’t know that she wasn’t.

She finally found a shop that was open. Brown brick, it was connected to the same row of buildings as Ian’s store, and had a large picture window right in the middle of the building. She stepped over a fat, yellow cat sunning itself on the stoop by the threshold. When she pushed the door open, an old shopkeeper’s bell chimed above her.

The store was some sort of artisan shop. All around her was homemade jewelry, artwork, handcrafted furniture, beaded handbags, books and clothing, among other items displayed. The aroma of homemade candy and sweets filled her sinuses and she inhaled deeply, closing her eyes and smiling. Anna wondered how places such as this store thrived in a town where there weren’t many visitors or tourists.

She began to meander around the store, touching beaded handbags, hand-painted postcards, wooden toys, and hand-blown glass. She picked up a round sphere paperweight, marveling at the blue swirled glass with a streak of red inside, and almost dropped it when she heard a woman come into the store from a door in the back. The woman had straight black hair and beautiful blue eyes. She was older than Anna by at least ten years, but Anna thought she was beautiful. She smiled at Anna first, and then her smile quickly faded. Anna looked around the store, and then realized that the frown was directed at her. She placed the sphere back on the shelf and walked toward a shelf that had books.

The woman walked up to her, this time with a pasted on smile and said, “May I help you with anything?”

“I’m only looking, but thanks,” Anna replied.

The woman started toward the front of the store, where the counter was, only to pause and stare back at Anna again. She actually stopped and said, “Are you sure I can’t help you find something?”

“No really, I’m just looking,” Anna repeated. She had a feeling that the woman didn’t want her in her store, so she started back toward the front. She felt odd, being the only customer, and she knew that the woman was staring at her. What a peculiar place this was.

She decided to leave, so she headed back toward the door. The woman stopped her by saying, “May I show you this silver bracelet?” She walked up to Anna, and placed a silver bracelet identical to the one that was on her wrist right in her hand. Anna gasped audibly. She looked down at her wrist, her own bracelet hidden by her blouse and sweater, and she felt that it was still safely on her wrist. Strange, then, to be holding its twin in her hand.

She turned the identical bracelet around in her hand, the recognizable symbols and glyphs so familiar to her, embossed in her brain just as surely as they were embossed on the bracelet on her arm, and the one now in her hand. She felt a frisson of a memory, something tangible yet unnerving, more than just a memory of her mother, something ancient and yet unknown, holding this bracelet. The one on her wrist was her only true connection to her mother, until she came to this place. Now she had this place and these people to connect her to her past, and here was another bracelet as well.

She tried to hand it back to the woman, confused and bewildered as to why the woman handed it to her in the beginning, but the woman walked behind the counter and asked, “Do you like that bracelet?”

“It’s very pretty,” Anna answered flatly. She placed the piece of jewelry on the glass countertop and backed away slightly. Without meaning to reveal anything, she told the other woman, “My mother had a bracelet exactly like that one.” She picked the bracelet back up and began to examine it closely again. Yes, the symbols and markings on the bracelet were exactly the same as the bracelet that was on her wrist.

Anna’s hands trembled, though she tried to hide it. She continued to move the bracelet around in her fingers, each small symbol as memorable to her as they were strange. She never knew what any of these symbols meant, but she knew each by heart. Her mother wore it everyday of her life, except on the day that she died. On that day, she had given it to Anna to wear. Anna almost felt as if the bracelet saved her life that day. She used to sleep with this bracelet under her pillow every night after her mother died. She would often pull it out and study it when she was sad or afraid. She never wore it again until the day she decided to come here, because she never felt as if it belonged to her until now. It belonged to her mother, and apparently, it also belonged to this place.

She started to hand the new bracelet back to the woman a second time, but the woman shook her head no and said, “Please, accept it as a small token of welcome.”

“Welcome?” Anna asked.

“Because you’re finally home. You are Anna Morgan, aren’t you? The daughter of Dr. Morgan?” the woman asked.

Anna was puzzled. How would this stranger know who she was? Ian had warned her that the people of this small village would be curious about her, but he also should have warned her that the people here were strange. How did this woman even know who she was, without Anna telling her? Anna placed the bracelet on the counter without a response.

“Would you like to know the significance of the carvings on the silver?” she asked Anna, pointing toward the bracelet.

“Maybe another time.” Anna knew there wouldn’t be another time—she wouldn’t be coming back here, but the woman didn’t need to know that. She started toward the door. She felt slightly nauseated and overheated again. There was a loud clanging, a whooshing, and crashing wave sound in her ears. She backed toward the door slowly.

The woman walked back around the side of the counter and handed her a small, red, leather-bound book. “Here, at least take this, as a welcome present to our town.” The woman thrust the book in her hand. “It tells all about the symbols on this bracelet.”

“No, thank you.” Anna placed the book back on the counter, next to the bracelet, opened the door, turned quickly and tripped over the fat cat that lay across the doorsill. She fell over the cat, head first, and caught herself with her hands. She fell on her knees, and cried out.

The woman ran to the doorway, but before she could approach Anna, a young man ran down the sidewalk toward her. He gave the woman a reproachful look and said, “Did you push her out the door, Kara? That’s no way to treat customers.”

Anna looked up at the young man. Just like the woman from the store, he had dark hair, wavy, worn over his ears, and he, too, had striking blue eyes. Was everyone from this town beautiful as well as bizarre? The young man knelt down to Anna as she sat on her backside, and he asked, “Are you injured?”

“Nothing but my pride,” she mumbled, embarrassed. There was a hole in the knee of her jeans, and she knew she had cut and scraped it, and both hands stung with cement burns. She looked at her hands, and then at her knee. He walked behind her and placed his hands under her arms and pulled her to a standing position, shocking her at his forwardness.

“Thanks,” she said, discomfited. She brushed her hands on her jeans. She looked toward the doorway, where the woman from the shop stood, holding the offensive cat.

“Did you try to kill the new girl, Kara?” the young man asked with a laugh. He cocked his head toward the dark haired woman and said, “My sister always was a bully. Forgive her.”

Anna frowned slightly and shook her head. “It’s not her fault. It’s either the cat’s fault or it’s mine.”

“My name’s Kevin McBriar.” He held out his hand. She looked at both of her hands, scraped, bloody, and then back at him apologetically. “Oh, right, you’re injured. Let’s get you fixed up. I work down the street at the coffee shop, The Red Umbrella. You can wash up in the restroom there.”

He took her elbow and ushered her down the sidewalk, down a few steps, past the bank, and then up on another sidewalk, this one cement instead of cobblestone. The buildings here weren’t covered with awnings, but were still joined together. As they walked, he continued to speak amicably to her.

“Are you visiting someone, or merely stopping through?” he asked. She sensed that he was escorting her quickly to the coffee shop.

“I’m visiting relatives,” she answered, unsure why she didn’t tell this young man the same thing she had said to Ian … that she was coming home.

“Who are your relatives?” he asked. They had almost reached their destination.

“The Morgans.” She hesitated before she answered, again, not certain as to why, but finally she decided to be honest.

His smile returned and he said, “Colin Morgan and I are very good friends. He’s one of the sons of Dr. Morgan. You aren’t by any chance his little sister, Anna, are you? I thought you had to be. He used to talk about you all the time!” His demeanor changed slightly, to one of relief and satisfaction. He placed a hand on her shoulder, almost in possession or defense, and then he looked around the street slightly, before settling his gaze back on her.

She cocked her head to the side, shrugged with one shoulder and said, “Guilty as charged.”

He tightened his grasp on her arm slightly and said, “By golly, I thought that’s who you might be when I saw you sprawled out on the sidewalk by my sister’s store. You look just like your mother, you know. There’s a portrait of her in the music room at the Morgan’s house. When I was a little boy, I had a small crush on her, and I only knew her from that portrait, but she was so beautiful. Wow, Anna Morgan. I always wondered if you were real.” He laughed and she joined him.

They had already arrived outside a purple and blue clapboard building and he said easily, “Here we are.” He opened the screen door and ushered her inside, one hand still on her shoulder. His touch didn’t make her feel warm and uneasy like Ian’s touch, but she didn’t feel threatened by it either. She felt protected.

She looked around the outside first, commenting, “The place is purple and blue.”

“Just because it’s called The Red Umbrella is no reason it should be red, don’t you agree?” he said with a crooked smile and a wink. She smiled back. She liked this man. He motioned that she should walk in before him, so she did. Only when they walked inside did he let his hand drop from her arm.

The interior of the place was a combination of 1950’s ice-cream parlor and old 1930’s farm house. There were old tintypes on the walls, old vintage signs, throw and rag rugs on the floor, old hats hanging by strings from the ceiling, and making perfect sense, a large red umbrella, opened, upside down, hanging in the middle of the ceiling like a chandelier.

“The bathroom is through there.” He pointed toward a dark hallway past a small raised stage area. She thanked him and walked into the woman’s room. She used the facilities first and then she washed her injured knee and hands. She looked at her reflection for a long time. Did she look like her mother? Did she look enough like her that all these people immediately recognized her? Anna wasn’t so sure. She looked closer. Her hair was the same color. Her eyes were the same color, but were these things enough for strangers to make such outlandish remarks about a woman who had been gone for 19 years?

Removing her hair from the messy ponytail, she brushed it out, and splashed cold water on her face. Then, starting toward the door, she faltered. Her hands went up to her face and she rubbed her eyes. They burned with unshed tears. She couldn’t wait to be alone so she could cry. She wouldn’t cry here in this bathroom, but she needed to cry, but why? Something about being here made her miss her mother more than ever. It even made her miss the father she barely knew. It made her fear a stepmother that she disliked immensely. It made her long for her childhood fantasies of a dashing, prince charming that would protect her from evil.

She needed to get away from everything unfamiliar, and scary. Could she face another stranger today? She was thankful her family was gone, because even though they were familiar to her, they were still strangers, and she wasn’t up to meeting them today.

Walking out of the bathroom, she noticed there were only two customers in the shop, not counting Kevin McBriar or the young girl behind the counter. One, another handsome man reading in the corner, did not even look up from his book as she walked out into the main room, for which she was grateful. The other person was Ian. She had never been so glad to see someone in all her life.

Ian Corrigan strode toward Kevin, completely ignoring Anna at first. The girl behind the counter instantly smiled and said hello to him. The man in the corner dropped his book and did likewise. Anna wondered what it was about this young man that drew other’s immediate attention and respect. Kevin greeted, “Well, hello there, Ian. Guess who I have here in my store?”

“I bet I know. The long lost Morgan sister.” Ian still didn’t look at her. She felt invisible, which was a godsend, because the girl at the counter was staring daggers at her, and the man in the corner had finally placed his book on the table and he too was staring at her as if she were something unique or foreign. She looked over at him and thought for a moment that he seemed recognizable, but then tried to push that notion aside. There was no way she had ever seen him before, yet she couldn’t get that thought out of her mind.

Sensing her quandary and her attention to the third man in the room, as well as his attention to her, Ian moved so that he stood on the other side of her, blocking her view of the man in the corner. He moved with grace and agility, and she was unaware that his movement was intentional.

Kevin McBriar, however, noticed the movement acutely. He looked over at her and then back toward Ian and reasoned, “Ah, I should have known that nothing escapes your notice. You know everything that happens in this town, as you should.” It was then that Kevin realized Ian had his hand reaching out toward her. He noticed it before she did. However, as soon as she noticed it, she walked up to him and placed her weary hand in his. It felt reassuring to hold his hand, this man; she had only reconnected with an hour ago. His touch was just what she needed.

Kevin looked at their joined hands, then asked, “Did you bring her here?”

Ian dropped her hand just like that and answered, “I picked her up at the station. She arrived just this afternoon, unaware that her family was away for the weekend. I’ve sent someone to tell them that she’s arrived.”

Anna looked up at him and complained, “I wish you hadn’t done that. I don’t want to ruin the wedding.”

“Believe me, they’ll want to know you’ve come,” Ian relayed.

The younger man, Kevin, said, “Ian, old man, what shall we do with her until they come home? It won’t be any sooner than tomorrow night, at least. You know that she can stay with my family and me. My mother would love to meet her. You know we would be able to accommodate her.”

He explained to her, “My mother was best friends with your mother growing up. She used to talk about your mom all the time. She missed her so much when she went away. She won’t believe how much you look like her.”

“There must be some mistake. My mother didn’t grow up here. She grew up in Ohio,” Anna corrected.

Kevin was shaking his head, ‘no’, about to refute her claim, when Ian, who seemed cross, said, “That’s very nice of you, and I don’t doubt your ability to accommodate her in every way, but I’m sure she doesn’t want to impose on you and your family, nor do I.” Ian knew Kevin would keep her safe, and never commit any harm upon her, but he felt something akin to jealousy at the thought of her going home with the younger man.

She responded quickly, “No, I don’t.” She looked beseechingly at Ian. She wasn’t sure why. Why was Ian fast becoming her lifeline, her anchor, her beacon in this unknown land? She wasn’t sure she liked that, and she knew he probably wouldn’t like it.

Ian’s jaw clenched. The motion was not lost on Anna. He seemed angry that the young man would make such an offer. He looked toward her and said, “I should get you home. You’re probably tired from your trip, and it’s well past lunch, close to dinner, so you must be hungry.” His hand went to her elbow. The heat of his touch almost scorched her, causing butterflies to zing around her stomach at the same time.

He just as quickly released her arm, and said to Kevin, “It’s already been decided that she would stay with me until her family comes home. Thank you for your kind offer, however.”

The younger man gave a quick, curt nod toward Ian and then turned his attention back to Anna. He smiled again. “I’ll see you soon.”

She felt nothing dark or sinister about the young man, so she held out her hand again. He shook it as she smiled tentatively. “I’d like that, thank you for the help when I fell.”

“Yeah, sorry about that, and I hope you weren’t hurt too badly,” he offered.

She turned to leave, Ian right behind her. Once outside, in the bright sunshine, she turned and asked, “Do you not like Kevin McBriar?”

“I have no feelings one way or the other with regard to him,” he answered flippantly. He had to admit, though, he didn’t like the way Kevin McBriar was looking at Anna, and he wasn’t sure why. Anna Morgan meant nothing to him, did she? He stopped walking and said, “You fell? Are you hurt?”

“Did you just now hear that?” she asked with a laugh. “Seventy-three percent of men over twenty-five lose their hearing when they wear their hair long, like yours, and it was nothing really. I just hurt my hands and my knees.” She tried not to laugh.

“You should know, one percent of all young women named Annaliese Morgan are likely to be kept high in an ivory tower, where they won’t be hurt, if they continue to fall over things. Let me see what you’ve injured.” He took a step closer, backing her against the brick wall of the empty store front near his store. He grabbed her hands in his.

She warned, “I’m terribly clumsy. I fell outside that brown artisan shop. I tripped over a fat, yellow cat.”

“Ah, Buttercup is a lethal animal,” he teased. “Did you get hurt?” He still had her hands in his. He turned them both toward his face to examine them closely.

She felt breathless, her chest tight, head pounding, merely because he held her hands in his. “I scuffed my knee, and, as you can see, and as I mentioned, scraped my hands.” He had her right hand in his left hand, her left hand in his right, and he held them to his face to examine them closely. She thought time stood still as he held her hands so dear. Her pulse raced and her throat tightened.

He almost brought her hands to his lips to kiss them, but that would be utter madness. He closed his eyes, willed himself to stop all romantic feelings for her, and he dropped their joined hands between their bodies and said, with more scorn than intended, “You need to be more careful. We can’t have you sequestered in an ivory tower, away from all harm, can we?”

“No,” she agreed, catching his gaze as it traveled from her hands back to her face. Her nerves were working overtime, as was her active imagination. She could picture him kissing her in her mind. His body was so very close. She felt heat radiating from him. She smelled his scent, all male. She looked at his lips, they looked so soft.

She tried to quiet her nerves before she made a fool of herself, before she kissed him, or said something really stupid, like cry or ramble endlessly again. She didn’t succeed.

She said, “If I was alone, up high in an ivory tower, away from all harm, and away from all people who might hurt me, I would also be away from all who might love me. There will always be an equal number of people who want to do me harm, who might want to love me. The universe is full of half of one thing, and half of another. Half of me wish to live a new life, in a new place, with new feelings spiraling out of me, bursting forth, seething across the universe, across space and time. The other half wants to hide in the closest closet, bury myself behind clothes and boxes, and cry until there are no tears left.

“Life is so short and so very precious, isn’t it? It’s too short to live in an ivory tower, away from everything, and all alone. I would wither away and die if I had to continue to be alone. The way I see it, we’re all connected, one to another, each living thing, through a series of songs, and dances, and lives, and emotions. Life is a passionate rejoicing of that joining.” She looked down. He still had her hands. “I’m not making sense, am I? I’m rambling on again. I’m terribly sorry, and I’m so embarrassed.”

She raised her eyebrows and mumbled, “It was a stupid accident. That’s all.”

He didn’t think that was all. Her eyes were a brilliant emerald green, and glistened with tears. He placed their joined hands on her chest, above her heart. He felt it beating. He felt humbled by her. He felt privileged to be with her. He was witnessing her complex awakening, and it was a wonder.

“Your life is full of sadness right now, Little One, but I promise you a future of love, and happiness and inner peace. There’s no darkness in you, only light. That’s a precious, precious thing, and you need to hold onto it, Anna.”

She wanted him to kiss her, and she wagered he wanted it too, but the moment passed and he sighed, saying, “And we can’t have you involved in any more stupid accidents.” He let go of her hands and willed himself away from her. He pushed away from the wall and practically ran to his car. When she reached it, he said, “Your hair is down.”

“You’re very slow to notice things,” she joked, before she asked, “And is there a law against that in this town?” He so confused her, but then again, she found her own thoughts and actions confusing since meeting him.

How could he tell her that with her hair down and long, curling on her shoulders, he had to fight the urge to run his fingers through it? That he wanted to smell it, bury his face in it? He pointed toward the passenger side door and just as he did earlier, he ordered, “Get in.”

“Does that mean it is against the law?” She grinned.

“If I wanted it to be, it would be,” he replied with a smile, mystifying her completely with what she considered a foolish answer, though he was perfectly serious.

He opened the door, but before she would enter, she met his eyes and asked, “And just when was it decided that I would stay with you until my family returns?”

“Oh, did you just hear that part?” he teased, as she did to him earlier. “I decided it the moment McBriar offered you the hospitality of his home,” Ian answered honestly. “Do you have a problem with that?”

She knew that she should. Though she was quiet and sometimes demure, she was also very stubborn and strong. She was afraid of many things, yet she kept her fear to herself, openly showing courageousness, even if it was a paradox of sorts. She wasn’t going to let Ian tell her what to do, yet it was apparent that since she didn’t plan this thing out very well, she had nowhere else to go.

So she agreed. “I don’t have a problem with that, but I’ll wear my hair any way that I wish, and you might come to regret meeting me, Buster.” She ducked into the car, and pulled on the seatbelt. He looked down at her with a fleeting odd expression crossing his features, and then he grinned, threw his head back and laughed again.

“Buster?” he repeated, with a large smile. “First it was ‘Mister’ and now it’s ‘Buster’. Goodness, I think I’ve already come to regret it, Little One. You are a funny, little, complex, but amazing thing. A funny, funny little thing and I’m sure you, too, will come to regret meeting me.” He slammed her door shut and walked around to the driver’s side. He turned to look at her and said, “And I like your hair like that, so the new law is that you have to wear it long.”

“My mother always wore her hair long. I think that’s why I always wore mine pulled back,” she divulged. “I guess I’m not comfortable with people comparing her and me.” She bit her bottom lip and reached inside her purse for her brush and a rubber band. She started to pull her hair back again, when he reached over, pulled the brush right from her hand, and he threw it in the backseat with his discarded sunglasses and the tattered, old brown book.

“Didn’t you hear me… new law … you have to wear it long,” he said provocatively, his hand going down the outside of her long tresses. It stayed there, the other hand on the steering wheel.

She turned to see if she could reach her brush, decided that she couldn’t, so she placed her purse back on the floor by her feet. Then she tried to pretend that she wasn’t troubled by the fact that his hand was in her hair, even though her heart was beating a mile a minute.

“Does it bother you for people to tell you how much you look like your mother? I’ve seen her portrait many times, and I would be lying if I said that there wasn’t a resemblance. Even people who’ve never seen her before here will probably tell you how much you look like her. I was just wondering if that might bother you.” He turned slightly in his seat, removed his hand from her hair, and waited for her answer.

She leaned her head back and swallowed before she answered. She closed her eyes, not to block out the pain, but to focus her memory. She looked out the passenger side window, though she wasn’t focusing on anything in particular, and said, “Sometimes, I have trouble remembering what my mother looked like. I can look at her photo, and it will just look like a photo, not what I remember her looking like at all. Sometimes I’m afraid I’ll completely forget everything about her, the way she looked, the way she laughed, the way she spoke, the way she loved me.”

She began to fiddle with the bracelet on her wrist. He looked down at it, too. “I already can’t recall what her voice sounded like. I can’t recall what her laughter sounded like. My mother used to sing to me, but I don’t recall any of the songs. I can barely recall a single thing about her. I think that’s sad.” She turned to him and asked, “Why can’t I remember?” She looked right in his eyes; he stared back, though he didn’t try to answer his question. He couldn’t. She didn’t expect him to.

She turned back toward the window and she added, “I’ve tried for so long to not think about what she went through when she died, but being here, somehow, makes it fresh again, and it’s all I seem to think about. I still dream about it at night. I have terrible, unimaginable nightmares about what I saw, and what she went through, yet I don’t recall what I went through at all.”

She held back a tear, taking deep, gulping breaths. “I’m sorry. I’m usually not so emotional, it’s only that it tears me up inside to know how scared she must have been at the end, not knowing if I was safe. Were her last thoughts about me? Did she try to save me? Someone saved me. Sometimes, I wish they hadn’t. I didn’t deserve to live, if she deserved to die.”

“Gee, Little One,” he said, trying to sound glib. “I only asked you a simple question. You didn’t have to give me another damn soliloquy.”

She looked over at him in shock, appalled at his brashness, but then he reached over and cupped her face with his hand, so warm and sweet upon her cheek, and he smiled, an utterly charming, delightful smile, and she knew he was only trying to make her feel better, in the only way he knew how.

“I really can quote an actual Shakespeare soliloquy, and if you make me angry enough, I just might do it,” she threatened. “Or I might quote you my favorite poem.”

He moved his hand slowly off her cheek, and she felt the loss of his touch as an instant bereavement. “Probably something by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, right? Something painfully romantic, full of love?”

“No thank you. It would be something by Walt Whitman or Thoreau, thank you very much.” She gave him a ‘so there’ nod.

“Well, will wonders never cease, my Little One has depth that I know not?” He reached down, gave her hand a squeeze, and said, “Yet, the question still remains, to be or not to be, Little One, my darling. Yes, that will always be the question.”

Chapter 7: A Familiar Book and an Unfamiliar Place –

“What do you think of this place so far, in the light of day?” Ian made a right turn onto a narrow road that led up the mountain as soon as they drove out of the small village, turning slightly to her to ask the question.

“I think there are a lot of trees,” she said with a grin, “and I think the people I’ve met so far are physically beautiful but somewhat strange. Yes, beautiful, but strange.”

He didn’t turn back to look at her but he said, “So in other words, you think the people are strange.”

She laughed nervously. “Not in other words, and I did say beautiful, too.”

Ian wanted to tell her that all fairies were beautiful, at least on the outside. The inside was another story. “Am I beautiful?” he turned to flash her a wide smile.

“Not in the least,” she lied. She knew that he knew he was beautiful, so she wouldn’t tell him so.

He tried to bite back another laugh. “Am I strange?”

“Oh, yes,” she answered quickly and — this time — honestly. “You might be the strangest of them all.” He laughed loudly at that. She smiled, too and then to change the subject asked, “How high are we?”

“Well, the town’s at about 3000 feet elevation, and the very top of the mountain is about 4400 feet. I can’t tell you how high we are right now,” he answered.

She continued to look over the side, and then asked, “Has anyone ever driven off the side of the road?” The view out her window showed a gorge so deep that she couldn’t see anything but the tops of the trees and the blue sky.

“Sure, during winter, and at night these roads can be treacherous. However, you’re with me.” She turned to look at him and he continued, “So you’re perfectly safe. No one ever gets hurts with me … unless I want them to, and I usually don’t.”

“What?” she asked confused.

He smiled again and said, “Nevermind. You aren’t afraid of heights, are you, because my house happens to be on the very top of the mountain?”

“I’m not afraid of heights. Water, yes, heights, no.” She turned away from him and looked out the front of the window. He really was very strange sometimes. Strange and beautiful. Those words described him exactly. In her heart she reflected that they described her as well. “My father lives on the top of the mountain, too, if I remember correctly.”

“Yes, his land borders mine. We’re the only ones at the summit.”

“Do many people live up on this mountain?” she asked.

“Sure, there are a few houses on the way up, but most of them are pretty far back, on long driveways, so they’re well hidden,” he expounded.

She continued to look out at the scenery as they went along, the road getting narrower, the trees thinner. “Does this mountain have a name?” She looked over at him expectantly, waiting for the answer.

“Briar Lyn Mountain,” he answered. He slowed down considerably as they made a very tight turn.

“Does the name come from the town, Glenn Briar?” she asked. He merely nodded, as he was paying close attention to the road, which continued to climb upwards. “What do you do when you meet another car coming from the other direction?”

“Pray,” he joked. “You should see these roads in the winter.”

“Yes, I bet this little car does great in the winter,” she said with derision. In truth, she was somewhat nervous, though she felt as if she could trust this man. She looked in the small backseat. “It really is very small, but maybe that’s better on these roads, since it has more room. The only time I’ve ever been on these roads was in the dead of night, and I was usually asleep,” she mentioned offhanded, looking around the small car. She reached for her brush again, but spied the book of fairytales instead. She reached for it. He noticed right away. He was glad that she had seen it.

“What’s this doing here?” she asked, holding the book in her lap.

“I thought you might like to read it,” he said, shrugging. “You said you like reading, and it’s an old book of Irish fairytales. It’s rare, and I dare think it might be the only one in existence, so I can only let you borrow it, not keep it, but I think you’ll like reading it.”

She studied the book and then him. She seemed confused. “No,” she mumbled, moving her head back and forth, her hands holding the leather-bound cover tightly. He glanced at her quizzically.

“NO?” he retorted.

“No,” she repeated, “when I asked what it was doing here, I meant, what is it doing out of my suitcase?”

“Now I’m confused. What do you mean?” he asked. “This book is from my store. I thought you’d like to borrow it,” he lied.

“You mean to tell me this isn’t mine?” From the outside, this book looked exactly like her book.

He looked at her again and frowned. He slowed the car down, pulling to the side of the road, on the narrow shoulder where the road dropped off to the side and shut off the engine. He turned to her, his eyes meeting hers and then dropping to the book. “That book belongs to me. It came from my antique store, though it’s not for sale. It’s quite old, and it’s been in my family for several generations. Supposedly one of my ancestors wrote the thing.”

She moved the book around in her hand, shaking her head slightly.

“This copy was my great-great-grandmother’s book,” he continued to lie. It was, in fact, centuries older than that. “I had it at my store because I’m using it for a reference for the book I’m writing on our people and this place, and, before I left the store, I spied it on the desk, and brought it thinking you might like to read it. It’s the only one in existence, so it’s rare, and you said you like to read,” he explained, watching an array of emotions play across her face. He was trying to feign indifference, but he was pleased that she seemed somewhat interested in the book, though ‘interested’ might not be the correct word; she actually seemed almost upset. She was also under the misrepresentation that the book belonged to her.

If the prophecy came true, someday it would be hers, as his family was only keeping it safe for the return of the true fairy princess.

He took it from her hand, his fingers purposely brushing against hers, thinking that perhaps he could calm her with his touch. She stared up at him as her stomach lurched. He opened the book and said, “See, just a very, very old book, but it has my families’ name on the inside.” It was more than a book of fairytales. It told the history of their people. He was writing an easier to access, newer version, one which anyone might be able to have. This copy, however, had to stay in his family. Someday, if the prophecy came true and the new queen came into being, the book would then belong to her, but until that time, he was considered the protector of the book. He handed it back to her.

She opened the door of the car before he could stop her. She almost slid down the side of the hill in her haste to get to the back of the car, her foot slipping on the dirt and pebbles marking the edge of the narrow road and the plunging landscape below. She caught herself on the door, rushed to the back and insisted, “Open the boot.” He turned to look at her first, but then he opened his car door and followed her to the trunk of the car.

He was curious, so he popped the trunk and watched as she took out the smaller of the two suitcases, opened it, and removed a book that was identical to the one she left in his car. It had been lying on top of her clothing. It was in slightly better condition than the one he had handed her, but, in all other ways, it was identical. Now he was baffled. This simply could not be the same book! There was no way there was ever another copy! He lifted the book from the unzipped suitcase, held it in one hand, pointed it toward her and demanded, “Where did you get this?”

“My mother gave it to me when I was a child. She said that it belonged to her great-grandmother. Your copy can’t be that rare if she had a copy to give me.” She took it from his hand, and started to open it when he snatched it back. He opened it and flipped through the pages. It was the exact same book, with a few exceptions. The first story that was in his book was absent in this one, as was the very last story, but in all other ways, it was the same. It was impossible for her to have a copy! Only one copy was in existence, and, as head of their people, he had the only copy, and it was in the backseat of his car!

This girl didn’t understand at all. The real book was written many, many centuries ago and merely reprinted and rebound only two hundred years ago to resemble a book of fairytales to help protect the true identity of their kind in a world that was losing its ability to believe in magic and all creatures magical. It was really called ‘The Book of Modron’ and it was considered not only their history, but it prophesied their future, and there should only ever be one in existence, as was tradition. The book was to be kept by the ‘Prince of the Clans’ and that was him. Her mother should never have had a copy. He was to keep the book, the only copy, until they found the true ‘Princess of the Clans’.

He grasped the book by the binding and shook it in her face, backing her against the fender of the car. “Tell me where you really got this book! Who gave it to you? What sort of black magic is this?”

“Black magic?” she repeated, confounded. “What are you talking about? It’s a stupid book of children’s fairytales!” She pushed him slightly away from her, because he was so close, so angry, and almost seemed threatening. She felt flustered and exposed on the side of a mountain alone with a man whom she barely knew, and who seemed so irrational regarding a silly book.

He seemed beyond angry, his face red. She watched the muscles in his jaw clench and his eyes narrow. His chest was heaving explosively and he seemed to radiate a darkness, an energy that was profound and which scared her. She had nowhere to go, so she leaned as far as she could against the back of the car.

“Listen, Anna, I don’t believe your mother gave you this book. Someone here gave it to you since you’ve arrived, and I want to know who, right now. You have to tell me!” He closed his eyes slightly, and then opened them slowly.

The anger that was in his eyes was briefly replaced with incredulity when she argued, “You’re being irrational! I’ve only met like five people today, including you! I told you, it was my mother’s book and she gave it to me when I was a little girl. She used to read it to me every night before bed. I have most of the stories memorized, I know it so well.”

He dropped the book inside the opened trunk and grasped her shoulders. Standing in front of her, at his full imposing height of well over six feet, anger surging down his spine, he shook her once and said, “And I told you, I don’t believe you. Someone else gave you this book, someone from this place, someone since you’ve arrived, and I want to know who it was and I want to know now! I just want to protect you!”

She felt genuine fear from him for the first time, though she also knew in her heart that he wouldn’t hurt her. She wondered if the fear she felt was his, or hers, or theirs combined. She knew one thing; she feared the uncertainty of his wrath, and the confusion he was causing inside of her.

“I don’t know why you won’t believe me, but I don’t lie.” She felt her voice hitch before she winced softly, “And if you want to protect me, protect me from you, Ian, because you’re really scaring me right now. Please, stop it.”

She placed her left hand on his chest. She wasn’t even aware she had done so. She did it to calm him, and to calm herself. She couldn’t recall the last time she had felt this much at odds with her own emotions. She felt an array of them all at once … fear, (he wouldn’t hurt her, so what was there to fear?) annoyance, (he called her a liar, and that irritated and angered her), apprehension, (was it a mistake to come with him?), and a raw physical attraction that she had never once felt in her life. Her heart was at war with her head. Her nerve endings were frayed, but on fire. Though on dry land, she felt as if she was drowning. She was alone with this man, in a strange place, and she didn’t know what to do.

She pressed her hand firmer against the hard muscle of his chest. She looked down at his chest, watching the rise and fall of his lurching breaths. Was it due to his anger, or did he perhaps feel even a small fraction of what she felt for him?

The touch of her hand, the whisper of her words, the longing in her eyes, along with the play of light and shadow from the sun through the treetops on her face, that beautiful face, with the gleaming green eyes full of fear and something more … all these things helped him to rein in his anger. If he were ever to show her his true anger, his true form, he really would scare her. Little did she know that fairies could sometimes be as ugly as they were often beautiful. He might even scar her permanently, especially before she knew what they were.

This poor girl had been scarred enough in her life. It was not his intention to hurt or scare her. His head dipped to her shoulder. He took in the scent of her, the essence, the goodness and the light, his face covered in her hair, and was able to harness his fury as he released her shoulders. Clenched fists went to his sides as he backed away slightly. He looked down and noticed that one of her hands still rested on his chest. Her hand was the reason for his composure. She was calming him, just as surely as he calmed her earlier. Did she have the same ability as he? Did they share abilities? Would they someday share so much more?

Putting his hand on top of hers, he removed it from his chest, keeping it in his grasp, bringing both their hands down to their side. “I’m sorry, Little One. I never want to scare you. You just don’t understand. I’m a bit confused. There should only be one copy of this book, you see, that’s how rare it is. One of them must be a forgery, because I know I have the real book.”

She didn’t know what he meant when he said that one must be a forgery. How could a book be a forgery? It was a real book! Then, she understood. “I see, but my book really is an old book. You can look at it and see that, and my mother really did give it to me. She said she inherited it from her great-grandmother, and she wouldn’t have lied, and I’m not lying.” Taking another moment to think, she added, “I see now, since my mother’s family isn’t from here, you’re afraid that your book isn’t as valuable as you thought, now that you know it’s not one of a kind. Is that it?”

He shook his head. She didn’t understand at all. “That’s not it.” He sighed openly. Her mother WAS from here, but her book didn’t make any sense. “Don’t worry about it. Please, just get in the car. It gets dark early in the mountains, and I’d like to get you to my house before we lose the light.” He let go of her hand, stared hard at the book lying on her opened suitcase in the trunk, and slammed the trunk closed. He breathed a ragged, deep breath and walked behind the car and looked down the slope side of the hill. Two more steadying breaths were necessary to calm him down before he was able to think about getting back into the car.

This was a true mystery. This didn’t make sense that she should have a copy of this book. He would have to examine it later, and see if the stories were the same. If they were, at least she knew ‘the history’ of their people. He looked back over at her quickly. She was wandering around the car. He had a feeling that she was debating whether to get back in the car with him. He could tell that she was slightly anxious, although what she was afraid of was another thing.

He opened the driver’s side door. “Anna, please. I didn’t mean to scare you. Get in the car. There’s no reason to be afraid. Let’s go home. ” There actually was reason to fear. He felt it the moment he let go of her hand. There was something, or someone, watching them. He knew it was too much to hope that they could get to his house undetected. As soon as she entered the town, their enemies must have been informed. The hair on the back of his neck stood on edge and Ian knew there was no time to waste. He urged once more, “Get in the car.”

She didn’t like the way he was always ordering her to ‘get in the car’. It was irritating. She also wasn’t so sure that she should no longer be afraid. She was no longer afraid of him, but oddly enough, she felt that he was afraid of something.

“Is something wrong? Are you …” she paused, not wanting to offend, “afraid of something?”

He looked at her with narrow eyes and questioned how she could tell that he felt afraid. This ability of hers to feel his emotions would not do at all. He couldn’t abide it! He tried to shake off all feelings of dread, replacing them with feelings of peace, and he said, “I merely want to get you home before dark. Is that too much to ask? I know you’re tired, as am I.”

She wanted to laugh aloud. How right he was that she was tired, and that she wanted to go home. The want and desire to go anyplace called home was stronger than any feeling she had ever experienced, and he wanted to take her there, but now she wasn’t so certain. Anna walked a bit beyond the car, to stand at the side of the road, facing the slope side. It was clear to her that this man was complex, almost as complex as this place. He scared her, excited her, and caused her heart to ache, and her belly to feel as if it were on fire. She wanted to go with him, but she WAS afraid. Not of him, but of CHANGE, though change was at hand and it was inevitable.

Everything was about to change for her, everything she held dear would change forever. Things that she took for granted would be no more, things that had a certain texture and meaning would soon have another. Things that she held holy, dear, in deep and sweet communion, would soon be nothing more than memories and then they would soon disappear.

It was part of growing up. It was part of discovering her place in the world. It was part of discovering her past and her future, making acquaintance with her present self, giving away one sort of freedom for another.

She wasn’t prepared for any of this. She didn’t know what any of it meant. She looked over her shoulder at Ian as he stood idly by the front of his car. He didn’t beckon for her to return or question why she was wandering away. He seemed devoid of feelings right now, and that scared her more than anything else. Why couldn’t he see that she stood on a great precipice, and she had no choice but to jump off, and face the consequences, whatever they may be? She wanted him to catch her as she fell, yet she had just met the man.

She threw her arms around her, holding herself, willing herself to turn back around to face this man and her future, because she knew that she would make any sacrifice necessary to belong to this place. She knew in her heart and her soul that this was where she belonged. She had amputated herself from her old life, and it was quick and painless, and she had no choice but to go forward with this new life.

The past was gone. There was nothing beyond this moment. No matter what challenges lay ahead, she would face them. Hesitation would not impede her, nor would fear. She longed to cast aside the weariness that had seeped into every pore of her body, laying claim to it for so long, and which continued to try to surface. It would lay dormant no longer. She would remove it as surely as if it were cancer, blight, evilness in her soul. She would be transformed. She would continue with this final road, this commitment, this journey, this peace.

Turning, she looked at him again, and noticed that he held out his hand. Just as he did in the coffee shop earlier, he was beckoning to her, but also offering her an anchor, a link to her new life. No longer void of emotion, and no longer emitting fear, he radiated a perfect peace, which she sorely needed.

She ambled slowly back toward him, her fear abating. Warmth came back into her body, but just as she started to take his hand, she instead left his hand empty and alone, when she noticed movement high in the tall trees above him. She pointed in the air, with the hand that was to take his, and whispered softly, “Ian.” It was all she said. Just, “Ian.”

Ian immediately rushed to her side, before he looked to where she pointed. Then he heard it … an odd cawing radiated from the woods, reverberating eerily on the wind, against the tops of the trees. Another caw, more like a scream, and then another. Birds! Ian looked up and saw at least five or six large birds. She ducked her head, her arms around it, as a multitude of large birds swooped down upon her. He knew right away these were no ordinary birds. Usually, he would welcome the sight of his brethren, especially as her father and brothers could transform themselves into birds, but he knew their form, and they only ever became hawks or falcons. These birds were all black. They were ravens. And they weren’t of their people, or her clan!

One of the black birds disengaged from their aerial assault to swoop down low. He heard himself scream, “Anna, no!” just as he saw her raise her arms to keep the bird from attacking her. He watched her arms flail above her head and suddenly she was gone, falling off the edge of the road and plummeting down the slope side of the mountain. Before he could turn back around to her, she lost her footing, and she was gone, slipping down the side of the hill.

His hand was still in the air, reaching for her, though she was already gone … gone quickly, before he could save her. Something incoherent and faint shivered through his mind and made his blood cold seeing her fall down the side of the hill, because there was a flooded ravine only fifty yards from the road.

She screamed, and her scream echoed and rebounded off the rocks and trees, mixing with the macabre caws of the birds overhead. The traitorous birds continued to swoop down, but Ian would not be distracted. He changed to his other form and sprinted down the side of the hill to keep up with her.

She continued to slide down the muddy hillside, hitting rocks, trees, branches and brambles. She cried out, calling his name. “IAN!”

She reached for a shrub to stop her fall, and the sleeve of her sweater caught in the twisting vine. Her momentum was slowed by the catch of her sleeve, and valuable time was afforded by the snag so that she could reach up and hold onto the precious vine, but then one of the black, large birds swooped toward her and she screamed again, her arm instinctively rising to shield her face from the bird’s talons and she let go of the vine. She rolled under the canopy of the tall, ancient trees, the rugged terrain tearing at her clothing, her body already bruised and bloodied. Right before she rolled off a large rock into a ravine below, she reached once more to hold onto a small tree limb as it jetted out of the crest of a large rock, but it was no use, she fell that last little bit, on her back side, no longer aware of the pain, only the fear, because it was only then that she saw the brown, muddy water rushing over rocks and reeds just a few feet from her.

She slipped over the smooth rock and landed with a splash before she fell deeply into darkness of devastating horror.

She was underwater, though only for a moment. It wasn’t deep, but that didn’t matter. She felt the worst fear of her life as she bobbed to the surface. She screamed louder than she had ever screamed in her life. She called out his name. She called for Ian.

Unknown to her, he had rushed down the hillside along side of her, having shifted into the form of a mountain lion. To the human eye, his transition was quick and seamless. To him, it was second nature, but never easy or without some pain and discomfort.

When he shifted, he could feel his muscles lengthening and stretching tightly over bones that elongated and drew rigid inside his body. He felt the rush of wind flow over skin that morphed into fine, buff color fur. His eyes changed color and shape. His senses became more acute. When he became ‘the beast’ he was always conscious of the man and everything around him, but sometimes he had trouble reining in the more basic animalistic emotions when he shifted to his cat form. He might put her at risk shifting into a dangerous cat in front of her, but he felt he had no choice. He feared he wouldn’t be able to reach her quickly enough if he had stayed a man. Now, staring down at her as a mountain lion from the rock above, he contemplated how he would rescue her without her seeing him in this altered state.

Chapter 8: Water, Fear and Stories of Old

Ian saw the ravens right after Anna did, and then he saw her slip down the side of the mountain screaming his name. He morphed into a mountain lion, risking that she might see him, in the hope that he might reach her quickly, but before he could reach her, he heard a splash as she hit the water that filled the creek bed. Then, he heard another horrifying scream.

She was clutching reeds at the side of the gully, holding on for dear life. He bound out of sight. He had to change back before he went to her, or she would be even more frightened. At least, for now, she was alive. He stepped over to the side of the embankment, and saw that she had fallen between several boulders, which made up a sort of cliff, down another mud soaked hill, and landed into a ravine that was swollen with ice cold water from the melting snow of the mountain brought about by the warm weather of spring. She was holding tight, trying to keep her body from being washed away in the rapid current of the makeshift waterway.

He knew she wouldn’t drown, but she seemed paralyzed with terror, and he knew it was due to the way her mother died. She didn’t seem to hear him as he called down to her. He would have to go to her, now.

Anna was exhausted from her fall, in unfathomable pain, and in the throes of debilitating fear because of the water. Forgotten was the fear of the birds shrieking overhead still, the panic of her fall, and even the shock of spying some large beast that rushed by her while she fell. The only thing she was afraid of was losing her grip on the shrub that was in her hands. If she let go, she would drown. She knew she would. She couldn’t let go, no matter what. This was the very thing she dreaded the most. This was the thing her nightmares were made of … water, darkness, drowning, alone. She closed her eyes and prayed.

Ian changed back to human form and went running down the last part of the muddy incline, calling her name. She was still grasping at the side of the traitorous waterway. The fast moving current was pinning her against the rocks, its indomitable power beating at her poor struggling body. He could see she was having trouble holding her head above the water. Before he could reach her, however, another went to her instead.

A large black panther stood between Anna and Ian. Anna seemed to realize it was there, because she was staring at it. Through her fear she called out to Ian. “Ian, no, stay away, there’s some sort of mountain lion here!”

The panther paced back and forth on the muddy bank in front of the frightened girl, before it leaped at her. She screamed again, and let go of the bush. It grabbed the sleeve of her sweater just as she did, and with her arm in his vise-like jaws, it held tight until Ian came closer. Ian stepped right around the large cat he knew he had nothing to fear, and he reached down and took her from the large cat’s hold. “I have you now. You’re okay. Let go.”

She didn’t seem to hear a word he said. She was in too much pain, too deep of shock.

He lifted her from the water as if she didn’t weigh a thing. She leaned against him and tucked her head into his chest. She shook with fear, and looked up in time to see Ian ‘nod’ to the panther before the large cat ran away. She couldn’t process the oddity of it all. She felt forlorn and defeated. She also felt like a fool.

“I’m sorry,” she said, pushing against his chest to stand, before she practically slipped to the ground. He pulled her against him and said at almost the same time, “Don’t apologize.” He picked her back up and started up the treacherous hillside. He willed her to close her eyes and relax, so she wouldn’t see how easy the climb was for him. He couldn’t waste time going at a normal, human speed. He had to get her back to the car before she froze to death, and before the birds returned, therefore, he would have to use some of his inhuman strength and speed, without her being aware.

She leaned her tired body into his and he could tell she was overcome, and unaware of how quickly he maneuvered the climb back up. She was almost limp in his arms. He leaned down and kissed her cheek, and promised her they would be back to the car soon. She would be safe, and away from harm.

The same couldn’t be said for the birds. When he found out who they really were, they would be dead.

He wondered why he cared so deeply for a woman he had only just met again. The few meetings they had when she was young aside, he didn’t know her, yet he felt as if he did, and he knew that he didn’t want her to come to any harm.

Reaching the car sooner than he should have under normal conditions, and hoping she wouldn’t notice it in her state of shock, he opened the passenger door and placed her inside. He reached across her, started the car, and turned on the heat. He raced to the other side, and that was when she opened her eyes. She saw the oddest thing. He was once again looking right at the large cat. He seemed to be ‘talking’ to it. Had it followed them up the hill? Perhaps she was hallucinating. Perhaps all of this was one massive nightmare. She closed her eyes again and forced herself not to cry.

Before she knew it, he had pulled into a large, circular driveway. She opened her eyes and saw an enormous, modern house, glass and cedar everywhere, the middle a large A-frame, with wings off each side. In the front of the house were more impressive trees. The back of the house, which was where he was parking his car, had one of the most breathtaking views she had ever seen of the valley below.

He parked outside a detached garage and ran around to her side of the car. He pulled her into his arms. She had been chilled by the water, and by the fright, and she seemed disjointed and disoriented. He carried her up a set of wooden steps to a great covered deck. He leaned her against one of the outside glass doors as he reached inside his pocket for keys.

He noticed that she was holding his arm tightly with both of hers as if she feared falling again. Her eyes were pale and her face ashen. The wind was whipping her wet hair around her face, and her cheeks were mottled. She was cold and her teeth chattered.

“You’re freezing,” he said, though it was a meager observation. She made no reply. Her eyes filled with tears and she closed them. No one must see her cry.

He turned away, avoiding her tears. He regretted his cowardness, but he hated to see her cry. He hated it when she was little, and he hated it more now. He was to protect her, and yet she had once again come to harm. What other harm awaited her here?

He opened the door, and swooped down to gather her up in his arms, but she pushed away from him and walked inside by herself.

She stood on his expensive looking wood floor, dripping water in a small pool by her feet, gazing out the wall of windows, aching to be anywhere but here. She could see farther than the trees from here, past the valley, to the other mountains ranges and beyond, and she longed to be somewhere else. She just didn’t know where.

This place was a wonder. Would her loneliness and heartache cease now that she was here, at this place? Why did she have to grow up? Why did she have to have needs and wants? Why did she have to have freedom? She didn’t want any of it. What if the only thing that was waiting for her here was more loneliness and fear? She shuddered to think.

He ran back outside, and entered with her things. He ran up the stairs, leaving her in her small pool of water by the door, staring aimlessly out the window, her arms still wrapped around her, her teeth still chattering.

Finally, he came to her and stood before her. He placed both his hands on her cheeks and said, “Tell me Anna, are you badly hurt?” He moved one hand across the planes of her forehead, sweeping back the wet curls that stuck there. He wanted to kiss her and tell her everything would be better, but he wouldn’t lie to her. He also knew he had no right to kiss her.

She shook her head no and said, “Believe it or not, I don’t think I’m badly hurt. Just sore, and banged up. What happened back there?” She placed her hands on his wrists and moved his hands from her face. She kept his wrists tightly in her hands, her fingers wound as tightly as they could be, because if she let go, she felt she might falter, and fall, or leave, or scream.

He felt her disjointed emotions. He pushed tranquility and serenity toward her even as he asked, “Anna, are you in shock?”

A sense of calm washed over her. He knew it immediately. She was much more open to him when her emotions were threadbare and close to the surface. He asked once more, “Do you think you’re in shock?”

“I wonder something, Ian,” she whispered in return, releasing his wrists.

He took her hands in his and moved his briskly over hers. “What?”

“If a person is in shock, do they know they’re in shock, and if another person should ask them if they’re in shock, would they be aware enough to know the answer to that question?” she asked.

He gave her an odd look, but then a smile reached the corners of his mouth. “Well, my educated guess would be no. And I would further surmise that since you’re being an all around sarcastic little thing with me, that you’re no worse for wear, though it’s a wonder after that tumble that you took.”

“I could have drowned,” she stated.

“No,” he disagreed, though he knew she probably could have. “The water was rapid, but not high. You would have been fine.”

“No,” she repeated his sentiment. “I almost drowned.” She stared at him and repeated firmly, “I almost drowned!”

“But you didn’t,” he countered, trying to keep his tone light. He wouldn’t let her dwell on that. He knew it was something that was constantly in the back of her mind. He could sense that intensely. Instead, he thought to change the subject. “Let me show you to your room. You probably want a hot shower, and to change clothes. I’ll fix you something to eat, too. Are you sure you don’t need a doctor?” He began to pull her across the large Great Room.

She pulled back and ordered, “Stop.” Everything was out of control. She needed everything to stop. She needed to examine what had happened. She wrenched her hand from his and held it out in front of her.

He turned to face her. She rubbed her hands across her face and repeated, “I almost drowned! Don’t you understand? Just like my mother, I almost drowned! I almost drowned when I was little, and I almost drowned again today! I have nightmares about that all the time! It makes me feel weak and scared, and I don’t ever want to feel that way again!”

He heard the panic rise in her voice. He approached her slowly; calm seeping from every pore, offering her his peace as a benediction, a blessing, an act of contrition. In his mind he repeated one phrase, ‘it’s alright Anna, it’s alright,’ but aloud he said, “I know you had a tumble down the hill, and you fell into some cold, fast water, but you’re fine, so let’s not get overly dramatic. If you need a doctor, I’ll get you one, or else you can go upstairs and clean up and have a nap.”

She seemed genuinely confused by the way he was acting. Confused and angry. She felt he was being condescending to her, when the truth was he merely wanted her not to worry.

“Don’t talk down to me! I almost drowned, and I think that was the intent! I need answers,” she insisted. “Those birds were no ordinary birds. They were out to get me.”

He waited a few moments and to respond. He wanted to say, ‘Yes, you’re right, I know,’ because he knew if he lied to her he would forever forfeit her trust, but he didn’t feel it was the right time to tell her everything yet, especially since he needed some answers for himself. He said, “You’re right. They weren’t ordinary birds. As I said before, I think they were ravens.” Would that pacify her?

“No, no, NO!” she said, with a slight stomp of her foot. She was still freezing, still dripping water, her lips were blue, but she was taking the time to argue with him. “They purposely tried to knock me down the hill, then while I was falling I saw some other type of beast running along side me, and then you communicated somehow with that black mountain lion, which, by the way, saved my life!”

He waited a few more moments. To deny what she was saying would be to lie, and Ian tried hard never to lie, so he didn’t know how to respond to her. He walked closer to her and stared deeply into her eyes. She was blocking his attempts to pacify her again. She would prove difficult. He decided to be contrite. “First, it wasn’t a mountain lion, but a panther that pulled you from the water. There’s a slight difference.”

“Oh, well that makes more sense, then, of course you would communicate with a panther!” She frowned. “I think the other thing I saw was a mountain lion. Did you see it, too?”

“No, thank goodness. And as far as communicating with the panther, all I did was scare it away. The birds, well, Anna, they were just birds. You slipped and fell. You already proved you’re a clumsy little thing,” he relayed. He hated hurting her.

She looked beyond angry. She walked up to him and pushed him, hard. He was taken aback by her anger, though he barely moved. “Don’t lie to me! Something strange is going on here! I’ve always felt this was a strange place, and meeting the strange people here today, along with the murderous birds and the heroic efforts of a panther, proves to me that this place is strange!”

“Gee, that word is getting old,” Ian said, trying to sound bored, if not sarcastic. If he continued to argue with her, perhaps she would concentrate all her emotions on her anger, and forget about her questions. “Couldn’t you find another word that would work just as easily?”

Anna held out her hand and ticked off on her finger, “Odd, bizarre, outlandish, weird, peculiar, take your pick. All of them are fine words to describe this place and you!” She poked him in the chest.

“You are in shock,” he said sternly. He folded his arms in front of him. “Either that, or you’re a hysterical female, who happens to be dripping all over my expensive wood floor!”

“One hundred percent of all men who talk down to me gets slapped in the face, buster!” she cried.

“And one hundred percent of ‘Little Ones’ who tries to slap me in the face, even though they’ve been through a harrowing experience, will greatly regret threatening me! Believe it or not, I’m not used to it, and I will retaliate!” he shouted back. He pushed his hair behind his ears, and then pushed her so hard that she landed on his sofa.

On a chair by the fireplace was a grey wool throw. He picked it up and threw it at her. It landed right over her head. She pulled it down so she could see. He turned on the gas fireplace, and said, “I have things to do. Stay here, stay warm, or go upstairs and change into dry things and shower. I don’t frankly care which you do, but make sure you stay indoors. If you go upstairs, it’s the third bedroom on the right!”

He stormed away.

Anna sat and stared at the golden embers of the fire, frown upon her face, shivering. She wasn’t crazy. Those birds purposely attacked her, and then she was highly certain that she saw a mountain lion bounding down the hillside beside her, and then she knew with one hundred percent accuracy that a black panther saved her from drowning! She wasn’t hysterical, she wasn’t in shock, she wasn’t prone to hallucinations, or lying.

Feeling suddenly warm and overwhelmed, as well as slightly nauseated, and without another thought, she slipped into a welcoming blackness as she collapsed to her left side, curled up in a ball, and closed her eyes. Soon, she fell asleep.

Ian came back into the room, knelt beside her, placed his hand upon her wet brow, and brushed back her hair. She was breathing well, but her color was pale and pallid. He assumed she was in shock and had fallen asleep due to the shock, their argument, and the strain of falling into the water.

He mumbled, “I’m so sorry, Little One. It’s just begun, and it’s already too much for you. How will you ever be able to fulfill your destiny?” He picked her up easily, holding her still and wet body against his chest. He watched the gentle rise and fall of her chest, counting her breaths in his head, one … two … three. She was going to be okay. He carried her up to one of the spare bedrooms, the third door on the right, on the third floor of the massive house.

When she woke, she was under a pile of heavy quilts. Ian had apparently removed her shoes, socks, and sweater. Everything else was left on, thank goodness. If he had removed her blouse, slacks and underwear, she would have been completely mortified! She blushed merely thinking that he had removed what he had.

She sat up and looked around the bedroom. It was a nice, but small room. It was sparsely decorated, with only a bed, a bedside table with a single lamp, a small dresser, and a desk and chair. There was an attached bathroom. Her suitcases were by the door. There was a tray with fruit, crackers, cookies, cheeses and juice on the desk.

She stood from the bed and walked over to her suitcases. Kneeling on the floor, she opened her smaller suitcase to get a change of underwear and a change of clothes when she noticed that her book was missing, but somehow her brush was back in her suitcase. She would worry about that later. She stood to go to the bathroom, clean clothes in her hand, when she noticed something else.

There was a note on the bedside table. The note told her to get a warm shower, eat her snack, and then to please join him downstairs. She decided to eat the food on the tray first, because she was starving. After she ate, she went to the bathroom off the bedroom and showered and changed into a pair of jeans, an old t-shirt, and a pair of warm socks on her feet. She combed out her curls, but kept her hair long. Once out of the bathroom, she debated on whether or not to try to find him. She peered outside. It was dark, but she had no clue as to the time.

She decided to seek him out. She wasn’t a coward. She wanted to face him, because she wanted some answers. She wanted to finish their argument from earlier. Opening the door slowly, Anna looked out into the hallway. She saw the curved stairwell only a few feet from her bedroom door. She padded softly, in only her stocking feet, to the landing and looked over the banister to the main room below and then out toward the windows in front of her, which covered the entire wall opposite, and which were two stories high. There were no covering of any kind of these massive windows, not that it mattered since he had no neighbors. The only thing behind the house, and beyond these windows, was an expansive deck, the other side of the mountain, trees, and the valley below. There was no light coming in the windows, only an all encompassing blackness which made her feel isolated and alone, but somehow extremely safe.

Walking slowly down the stairs she took in the main room of the house, which was one large, open area. The massive great room was divided from the foyer by the oak, circular staircase. The wall opposite the stairs housed the impressive windows, which only moments ago she had stared out of; the area to the other side of the stairs was the foyer, with a large red front door, a wooden deacon’s bench to the right, a ski rack to the left, and a closet beyond that.

She walked all the way down the stairs and once at the bottom she noticed for the first time that there was a dining area and then an open, chef’s kitchen. There was a tiled hallway to the right of the room, with a small bathroom being the first door, the second and third doors both closed. She walked around the main area, calling his name softly. She didn’t see him, and he didn’t hear her. She refused to snoop around the rest of his house to look for him.

Noticing another set of stairs off the kitchen that led down, she was hesitant to go down there. She walked down three steps, called his name again, and when he didn’t respond after a few seconds, she walked back up the stairs and back into the main room to wait for him. Hopefully, if he had left, he would be back soon.

She went over to the couch, where she had fallen asleep, and picked up the gray wool throw that he had placed on her earlier. As she was folding it, she spied her book on the oak coffee table, next to his book. Seeing them side by side, they still looked almost identical, only her book looked slightly less used. She wondered why her book was there. Had he been looking at it, comparing it to his?

She placed the throw on the sofa arm and sat down, then picked up ‘his’ book and held it in her lap. She felt odd holding a book that was so familiar, yet so foreign. She opened it, and began to finger through the pages. Immediately, she knew there was a difference between this book and hers.

Entranced, she slipped down to the rug on the floor between the couch and the coffee table, and with the heavy book on the low table, she opened it slowly, almost reverently, when she realized that this book was very different from her own. For one thing, this book started with a different story than hers, but that was only one small difference.

The centuries old book looked as if it was handwritten in an almost ancient looking, baroque style handwriting. The paper was brittle and thin. She would guess that it was perhaps vellum, made of either calf or lambskin. The heavyweight pages crackled under her fingertips. The color of the parchment had a yellowish hue, almost the color of cream. Each page was delicate and fragile, and had an almost frail texture to it. The pictures in this tome were different from the pictures in her book, too. The pictures were on one page, the writing on the opposite, separated by a slender, onionskin, translucent piece of paper, which resembled a piece of tissue paper. Each drawing seemed to be hand painted, as intricate and ornate as any oil painting she might have seen in a museum.

Fascinated with the smell, feel, texture and sheer power radiating from the ancient book, she grabbed the throw from the sofa arm again and eased it around her shoulders, opened the book back to the first page, and with the heavy volume now resting on her knees, she began to read.


The very first story caused her breath to hitch and her back to straighten. It was about an ancient sect of people, the very first king and queen of Ireland, who were fabled to be fairies. The story told of their descendents … descendents with names that were achingly familiar to Anna, and who also had the ability to change and morph into animals. They also had other magical abilities, such as the ability to sense the emotions of others and to force their emotions on others.

She sat on the floor and continued to read. She knew she had never read this story in her book. She had that book memorized, start to finish. This story told of an ancient king, named Manahan, who was cast out of the land of the fairies because he had a fascination with the mortal race. He came to Earth and fell in love with the ancient land that was now Ireland, and decided to become its ruler. There, he fell in love with a good witch, called The White Shee, also known as Modron. He was able to transfer his powers to her, and she transferred her powers to him, and they became one ruler, with identical, shared powers.

Other fairies and mystical creatures began to join the new king and queen in their new land. Soon, they began a family. Their first three daughters, triplets, were named, Corrigan, Morrigan, and Merrow, in order of their birth. Corrigan became the fairy of the woods, and all wooden creatures became her subjects, and answered only to her. Morrigan became the fairy of the air, and ruled over all winged creatures, both birds and insects, and Merrow became the fairy of the water, governing over all creatures of lakes, rivers, and waterways.

The early settlers and followers of the fairy king and queen were called The Tuatha de Danann. There were as many mortal as there were fairies in the beginning, but soon, the mortals began to outnumber the fairies, though they didn’t live as long. Though most of these humans had fairy ancestors, the king didn’t want his daughters to marry any of them. He wanted to keep their bloodline pure.

He went back to Fairyland and brought with him three fairy men, called “Charmers” for their three oldest daughters to marry. Their mother and father declared that their offspring would have magic surpassing all others. They would have the ability to change into the creatures they ruled … Corrigan’s offspring could change into creatures of the forest, Morrigan’s offspring could change into creatures of the air, and Merrow’s offspring could change into creatures of the water. Also, since Corrigan was the oldest of the triplets, her descendents would always be heir to the throne, the line passing down on the female line.

The next two daughters born of the king and queen were called Aine and Aeife, and were white witches, like their mother. Because the king feared returning to Fairyland, he ruled that these daughters must marry half fairy men, called “The Fetch”, who were known to be ‘half shadowed’ and could only be seen at night, though at midnight, they were completely invisible. They also possessed great magical abilities, though they did not possess the ability to change into animals. Because these daughters were white witches, like their mother, their descendents could do great magic, but only for good, never for evil. Their descendents became the healers, the storytellers, and the magicians, as well as the musicians and the artists.

Two more daughters were born of the fairy king and queen. One was O’Hanlon, and the last one, the youngest, and the favorite by far, was called Gwynlyn. Since there were no more fairy men or half fairy men for these two to marry, O’Hanlon married a creature called the valkyriur. The valkyriur were known as evil creatures from the Nordic area that would seduce mortals. O’Hanlon’s parents forbade her from marrying this creature, but she did anyway. Because of her betrayal, the king and queen banished most of her line from the kingdom. It was from her line that banshees, changelings, and tempests were formed. Others from her line, such as leprechauns, and other mischief makers, were allowed to continue living among the rest of the clans. Not all of her descendents were outcast, although most of them were.

The last sister, Gwynlyn, married a mere mortal, but she was blessed by her parents, and it was believed that the mythical line of ‘King Arthur’ was descended from the last sister’s line.

Anna took in everything she read with awe and wonder. She was amazed at the parallels between this ancient story and things that were in her book of fairytales, as well as things that had to do with this place.

For instance … the names were eerily familiar. Ian’s last name was Corrigan. Her last name was Morgan, which was very close to ‘Morrigan’. Also, when they first arrived here, she had mentioned that those birds weren’t normal birds, and neither was the panther, and though Ian didn’t confirm her suspicions, neither did he dispute either of those claims.

This was madness! These were silly folktales, old stories, and none of them could be remotely true. She looked up from reading and saw that it had grown completely dark outside. She placed the book back on the coffee table next to her book and decided that she needed to find Ian Corrigan to ask him just what sort of folly he was trying to get her to believe when he said he wanted her to read this book!

Chapter 9: Meeting a Panther for the First Time

Wandering around Ian’s house felt wrong, on so many levels, yet Anna felt compelled to do so for she really had to find him. Normally, she wasn’t brave enough to explore an unknown place on her own, but in this case she had no choice, as Ian seemed to have vanished. Also, there was something else about this place that made her feel different. Her guard was down. Her façade was melting away, and for once, she felt like she belonged, she felt real, and true, and she began to think that perhaps fairytales might be real after all. Most importantly, she didn’t feel silly for thinking that.

She walked all along the main floor and called out his name. “Ian?” She walked through the adjoining dining room, into the open modern kitchen and called his name once more. “Ian?”

Off the kitchen was an enclosed porch. She opened the door and stepped inside. There was no covering on any of the windows, which made up three of the walls. Wrought iron furniture filled the room. Touching the cool metal scrollwork of the loveseat, she let her eyes look out one of the tall windows into the ever darkening evening. That was when she noticed that there was a door off the porch that went out to the elevated deck.

She hesitated before she went out the door, but then opened it and walked out on the high deck. The air was cold and smelled of rain. Noticing the deck wrapped around three sides of the house, she looked to her right and then to her left. The main part of the house was ground level in the front and two stories high in the back. Therefore, the deck in the back was very high off the ground, and was even with some of the treetops. She leaned over the wooden balustrade and peered down into the woods, down the side of the hill, and decided to call his name once more, though she said it softly, almost in a loud whisper.

“Ian? Are you out there?” The house had a lower level, and there was another room off the other side of the great room. She would go back inside and explore the rest of the house, and if she didn’t find him, only then would she come back outside.

Still facing the woods, she felt the hair on the back of her neck instantly stand on end as she registered a presence. Her breath caught in her throat. She turned slowly … it was not the person she sought. It wasn’t a person at all.

A low moan, resembling a cry, came out of her mouth between ragged breaths, when she saw a massive black panther on the deck, blocking her safe passage back into the enclosed porch.

She began to shake; her eyes darted to and fro, trying to figure out a means of escape. She was about to scream, when the large cat calmly sat down in front of her. It merely sat down and stared at her.

“Okay,” she said out loud. She wondered if this was the same cat that had saved her, and figured that it had to be. The story she had read moments before flashed in her mind. What if this wasn’t just a cat, but a person that had ‘morphed’ into a cat? That still didn’t mean this particular cat was a friend.

She decided to walk around the cat. What other choice did she have? She started to walk around it, when it stared at her and growled. She walked backwards to find the stairs that she knew led to the circular driveway. Maintaining eye contact, she took three slow steps backwards. She knew the stairs were only feet away. The predator idled behind her, forcing her back upon the deck.

Its eyes were yellow and large, the pupils mere slits. His fur black as the night, and sleek, almost wet looking, as if it was made of oil. The head of the large cat was larger than her head. Her eyes darted down to its feet, and the width and spans of its paws surprised her more than anything. She blinked hard, swallowed again, and silently prayed for help.

Mountain lions were indigenous to this area, but were panthers? Frankly, she always assumed they were the same thing. She admitted to herself that she didn’t know anything about them, and didn’t care, and didn’t have the time to worry about it. She also wasn’t sure this was a regular old panther. The story she had read earlier was still ruminating around her brain … fairies … morphing into animals … and as frightened as she was, she knew in her heart that she believed the stories from that book and that this was the panther that saved her earlier.

“Fine, you want me to stay on the deck, I will,” she said to the cat. “Are you the cat that saved my life earlier?” After she asked that question she said to herself, “You’re going insane, Anna. You’re asking a large cat if he saved your life, when he probably wants to have you for dinner.” She swallowed hard and added, “Plus, it’s not like he’s going to answer me, are you?” She was trying to hold a conversation with a large cat! With large, pointed teeth, and if she was wrong in her new beliefs, she probably really was going to be the cat’s nighttime snack!

A rustling sound behind her, in the woods below, caught her immediate attention. She looked over her shoulder for a split second and the cat bounded forward. She turned back, stared at him, covered her hands over her head, and screamed. The cat leaped past her, not on her, over the railing, and then it seemed to chase something out of sight.

She collapsed on rubbery legs, sinking to the floor of the deck, shocked. Where was Ian? Hadn’t he heard her scream? She knew she had to get back into the safety of the house, but she found that she couldn’t stand. It was too late, anyway. The cat was back, having leapt back up the stairs, and it was ambling slowly toward her, from the far end of the long deck, its tail twitching.

She pushed back against the wooden banister, her back rubbing against the railing. She pulled her knees up to her chest, placed her face on her knees, her arms around her legs, and she began to cry. These tears came easily. They were borne from fear, and weren’t forced or contrived. Holding back the tears the best she could, she waited for it to strike. Finally, without looking up, her face still tucked into her knees, she begged, “Please don’t eat me.”

“You don’t look like you would have much meat on your bones anyway,” a voice responded.

Beyond shocked, she looked up. A man was standing in front of her. It was the same man she had seen earlier at the coffee shop, who had sat in the corner reading, when she arrived. His weight was shifting from one foot to the other.

Still shaking, she said, “Who are you? Where did the panther go?” The man was young, although she would guess that he was older than Ian. He had shaggy dark hair, a bit of facial hair, but like every other person she had met so far, he was extremely handsome. Why was everyone so beautiful here?

He knelt beside her, and then sat down next to her. He moved with grace that often was attributed to men such as him. He looked over toward her and she noticed his eyes. They were brown, but they had a ring of gold around the pupils, similar to the panther. He extended his hand toward her and said, “My name is Keenan. Why are you outside?”

Still breathing hard, she replied, “I was looking for Ian. Did you see the panther?” She ignored his outstretched hand.

“What panther?” he asked. He pulled his hand back to his side with one sleek movement.

She stared at him for a full two seconds and then incredulously said, “There was just a panther up here with me! You must have seen it!”

“Really? Must I have? Are you alright?” he asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

She shook her head and said, “Yes, yes, it didn’t hurt me.”

He laughed once and said, “I meant, are you drunk, delusional? Should I fear for my safety? I mean, you’re obviously seeing things. There wasn’t a panther here.”

She frowned. “Yes there was!”

“I would have seen it, wouldn’t I?” he asked.

“Maybe you are the panther,” she deduced, pointing at him. As soon as she said it, she felt stupid. She even felt more ridiculous when he started to laugh.

He laughed and laughed. “Do I look like a panther? My hair is getting a bit long, but no, I’m a person, just like you. Are you in shock or something? I imagine something’s wrong with you, if you think you saw a panther, and if you think I’m your phantom panther, then maybe your eyesight merely needs checking.”

She frowned, pointing at him again with more anger before she shouted, “My eyesight’s fine, thank you very much! There was a large, black panther sitting right where you are, and then it jumped over the railing, and then it came back! And don’t you dare say I’m delusional again!’’

He grinned. Seriously, she thought he looked like a cat even when he grinned.

“Can I call you insane?”

“NO!”

“Tired?”

“No -well, yes- I am tired, but I’m not imagining things.”

He shrugged. “I hear you’ve had a bad day. Perhaps that’s enough to make you see things.” He smiled and followed it with a wink.

She stared at him and then she couldn’t help it, she smiled back at him, even though she found him infuriating. “Yeah, I’ve had a weird day, to say the least.”

“I broke a shoelace today,” he said. He pointed toward one of his shoes. “That’s always a bummer. Can you top that?” He smiled at her again.

“Well, gee, no one can top that,” she began, wanting to sound sarcastic, although she was beginning to like this man. “You win. Breaking a shoelace beats walking a mile from a train station, falling over a fat, yellow cat, being attacked by a bunch of birds, almost drowning, losing my host, and then having a panther jump over you. Oh, and leaving your only home for places unknown.”

“Exactly,” he agreed, still smiling. “And you haven’t lost your host. He had things to see to, as he often does. He thought you would have slept longer. He assumed you were out for the night. He asked me to look in on you, so here I am.”

“Where is he?”

“As I said, he had some people to see, some places to go, so he asked that I watch out for you. I wasn’t aware that meant I would be babysitting an insane person who sees things.” He reached over and surprised her by touching the end of her hair. Again, he moved so fast that she didn’t have time to register what he was about to do. He felt her hair between his thumb and forefinger, and then pushed it off her shoulder.

She grimaced. Maybe she didn’t like him that much. “I’m not insane!” Then she almost whined when she asked, “Did you truly not see the panther a moment ago?”

“No. I truly didn’t see it.” He stared at her with a look that said he didn’t believe her. The problem was, she didn’t believe that look.

“I’m not lying, I swear.”

He grinned, leaning toward her and said, “It’s not nice to swear. Tell you what, princess, if you say there was a panther, I believe you. You don’t look like a liar, and you really don’t look insane. I’m just sorry I missed it. It must have been a sight. I’ve never seen a panther before.”

“A black panther,” she clarified.

“Imagine that. I thought Black Panthers were a thing of the past, gone with hippies and flower children.” He stood suddenly, bounding to his feet, and then offered his hand to her. “Perhaps we should go inside. If it comes back, I might be afraid. You’ll have to protect me. I hate cats. I have allergies.”

She looked at his face, then his hand. She stayed where she was. “What’s your last name?”

“Why should I tell you? You haven’t told me your name yet, although I already know it. Ian said you were rude, but I had no clue you were without any manners at all.” He sat down again, this time opposite her, with his back against the outside wall of windows near the door to the enclosed porch. “But don’t feel bad, since I already know who you are, I’ll overlook your rudeness. My last name’s O’Reihle.”

He moved again, quickly, so that his legs were out in front of him, crossing his feet at his ankles. Every movement this man made was made with cat like grace, and speed. Anna didn’t care what anyone said, she knew he was her panther.

“Yes, well, I would say it was nice to meet you, but I find you’re a bit irritating, and I think you’re hiding something from me. Also, I’ve had a bad day, hence the reason for my demeanor,” she said flippantly. “I’m usually not rude. This place brings out all sorts of buried emotions, or so I’m finding. By the way, how do you know who I am?”

“Everyone does, but Ian’s already told you that, didn’t he? Let’s go inside, Princess Rude,” he said as a joke. “I think that will be my new nickname for you.”

She glared at him, pushing slightly away from the railings. “Stop calling me princess. I can’t believe you think I’m rude. You’re the rude one.” She pushed up from the floor and stood. He remained where he was. She started past him to go in the door, and he reached out and grabbed her pant leg.

She looked down at his hand and then straight to his eyes. He held tight. He looked up; his eyes were dark and predatory. “Don’t go away angry, Princess Rude. Like you said, you’ve had a bad day, and I’m sure your temperament improves when you’ve had a good day. Also, if I was a cat, and I needed a snack, you’d definitely be the first person I’d seek out. You have just the right amount of meat on your bones.”

Anna kicked out at him to remove her pants from his hand. He laughed and stood quickly, catching her off guard. She stumbled backwards and would have fallen right over, except he caught her easily. He was agile, quick and lithe, just like a cat.

Pressing her hands against his chest, she ordered, “Let me go.”

“If I do, you’ll fall over,” he replied, smiling. “You might hit your head, causing more delusions, or you might fall on that cute little behind of yours on the floor. I might have to kiss it to make it feel better.”

Ian walked up the stairs from the driveway. He sighed openly and said, “Keenan, get your paws off her.” He walked closer and asked, “What in the hell are you doing outside with Anna?

“She came outside by herself, and all I’m doing to her is tormenting her, flirting with her, teaching her manners: take your pick,” he replied, glancing over his shoulder. He still held her over his arms, at an awkward angle. She grasped his arms tightly. He gazed down at her and said, “Either that or I’m considering whether or not she’d make a good kitty treat, since she’s accused me of being a panther. Also, if I let her go, she’ll land on her behind.”

Anna hit his shoulder with one fist and said, “Let me go!”

“But as I said, you’ll land on your pretty behind,” he repeated with a slight purr.

Ian walked toward them. He seemed tired. He placed a hand on the other man’s shoulder and said, “Stop tormenting her immediately. Leave her alone. She’s not up for your teasing.” He stood close, very close. The other man raised Anna up and pushed her toward Ian. She stumbled slightly, but Ian steadied her with a hand to her back.

“Shall I go?” Keenan asked, his long body leaning against the wall of windows again. Ian placed Anna behind him.

“I think Anna would say you’ve worn out your welcome, and I’m back now, so yes, go,” Ian said, without preamble.

Keenan moved a bit to the side to look at her and said, “Oh, I don’t know about that. We’ve only just met, and we’ve already become fast friends. She’s not tired of me, are you, Princess Rude? I think she’s decided that she likes me. I think my animal magnetism has attracted her to me.” A low rumbling laugh started in his chest. He reached over and patted her cheek.

She reached around Ian and slapped the other man’s hand away. To her shock, he slapped her hand in return. She slipped around Ian and in a fit of rage (where it came from, she would never know), she went for him. Ian grabbed her around the waist, to hold her back, as shocked as she was.

The dark haired man laughed a loud, boisterous laugh. “Hell, Ian, she’s a little wildcat herself. Hold her back, and I’ll slip out of here. Meow, princess.” He patted her cheek again.

She tried to hit him in return, but Ian pushed her around his back again. “Go, Keenan, or I’m going to let her at you.”

The man laughed the whole way off the porch.

Ian turned and looked at her with eyes full of pride. He laughed and said, “Seriously?”

“He’s horrible, and rude, and sexiest, and I think he’s awful, even if he might have saved my life as a panther!” Anna shouted. “You should have let me hit him again.”

“I promise,” Ian started, swinging his arm around her shoulder, “next time you see him, you can beat the crap out of him, but I’m too tired to referee a fight tonight.” He pushed her through the door of the porch and then locked it behind him. He suddenly realized that she had mentioned that she thought Keenan was the panther that saved her; the fact that she was correct in her assumption was one thing, the fact that she said it with ease, as if she really believed it, was another. He didn’t know if he should remark on her comment or not.

They walked back into the dining area off the kitchen, and he sat down on one of the chairs. “How long have you been awake?”

“Long enough to read most of your book,” she said plainly.

He had left it out on purpose. He half hoped she would wake and seek it out to read the first story. He knew it was a coward’s way of explaining the history of their people, but he also knew it would open her up for the conversation. However, right now, he was too tired to speak. If she truly accepted the stories as fact, it would be a miracle.

“We’ll talk about it in the morning,” he announced. He stood, locked the door from the dining room to the porch, and then went to the couch. He closed the book and took it to the room off the other side of the foyer.

She waited for him, but when he didn’t return, she walked through his house and opened the door he entered minutes before. The room was dark and dim. No light came in from the wall of windows across from the bed, even though they had no curtains or coverings. The sky was dark beyond the windows, and the outline or trees and the black sky was painted across the glass like a landscape.

The only light afforded the room she assumed was his bedroom was the light from the main living area, sneaking in because she had opened the door. She saw him in this soft light as he lay back on the bed, one arm thrown over his eyes, his feet still on the floor. She felt sorry for him, for some strange reason. He seemed extremely tired, and older than his actual years.

She also knew she was tired, almost as tired as he.

“Where did you go earlier?” she asked.

“Your father and brothers are home,” he said by way of answer. He moved his arm from his face to stare up at her, although he remained on the bed.

“Am I to leave now?” she asked softly, moving into the room. “Are they coming here to get me, or something?”

He sat up, stared right into her pretty green eyes and thought of how much he wanted her to stay with him. He didn’t want her to go. Ever. That was a dangerous thought. “Do you want to go there tonight? I told them you were sleeping, and I’d take you over in the morning. Don’t you think that’s a good plan?”

She continued quietly into his room, her shoeless feet padding softly on the wooden floor before she sat beside him on the bed. Her shoulders sagged. He watched her intently as her fingers moved over a design on his quilt and she remarked, “I’m afraid to go there.” Looking up slowly she asked, “Is Maureen there?”

Ian reached for her hand to stop the movement over the bedspread, and held it tightly in his. Butterflies flew around her stomach at his touch. Never before had a man, a boy, anyone, made her feel this way. She wasn’t even sure she could describe what she felt. She felt anxiety, hope, want, need, longing and desire.

She stared at the top of his head, because his gaze was intent on the palm of her hand, which he had turned over in his, cradling it in one of his hands. With his other hand, he took his index finger and traced patterns on her palm just as she had traced patterns on the counterpane. She thought she might melt into a puddle. His touch was electric, fire, yearning, hope, security, love, lust—and everything in between. The touch of his finger sent a wave of passion from her hand to her heart, down her spine.

She wanted this man. It wasn’t merely his physical being, his beauty, his warmth, his kindness that she desired. It was everything all together, taken as a whole. Was this what it was like to finally feel like a woman, instead of being a girl?

The butterflies in her stomach continued to zing and fly around, moving from her stomach to her chest to her throat. She wondered if he had heard her question about Maureen, and was about to ask again, when, without looking up from his task, he said, “She’s not there any longer. Your father isn’t married to her now. You don’t have to fear her ever again.” He looked at her face, but she was now looking at their hands. He kept her hand in his, and with his free hand, he brushed his fingertips down the side of her face, tracing the soft line of her chin, lowering it to lightly dust the curve of her neck.

She shivered. Goose bumps formed on her arms. He leaned forward, his hand moving to the back of her neck, to pull her closer. He wanted to kiss her. Showing ultimate restraint, he placed his forehead next to hers. “Do you want to stay here tonight?”

She moved her face slightly to peer in his eyes. “HERE?” she said in a strangled voice.

He knew she had misunderstood as soon as he heard her raised voice. He meant at his house, not in his room. He wouldn’t laugh at her innocence, though. He found it refreshing. He craved it. He had been so cynical, and had felt so old for so long. He felt so much older than his years.

He brushed her hair behind her ear. Smiling, he rephrased his question, and whispered in the same ear, “Would you like to go back upstairs to the guestroom, and get a good night sleep, before you face everyone tomorrow morning?”

She nodded quickly. He stood up slowly and pulled her to her feet. He kept her hand in his and led her out of the room. He looked down at her. She still seemed pensive and uneasy.

“Anna?” he asked. He placed his hands on her shoulders. Being who and what he was, he sensed her unease. He sensed her apprehension. He didn’t know the cause of it, but he knew it was there. There was nothing he wanted more than to comfort her, reassure her, and keep her from harm. “You’re safe here, you know. You really are.” He couldn’t promise her that she would always be safe, but at least she was tonight.

She stared at the third button on his blue shirt. It had a thread hanging off it. She kept her gaze on this button, not able to look up into his eyes while her stomach still fluttered. “I know.” Then she swallowed the lump in her throat.

“Then what are you thinking of?” he asked, although he knew. He knew.

“I thought you were going to kiss me,” she answered honestly.

Urging her face upwards with one hand under her chin, he smiled at her. “I was. Maybe I still will. What do you think of that?”

She thought that she wasn’t safe here after all, and, stealing a glance up at Ian, she couldn’t have cared less.