Episode 3
020
lonely child roams around
as someone else goes underground
all trying to make ends meet
trouble staring, is life so cheap?
all they wanted was love and affection
all they wanted was love and affection
broken dreams in the street
true sensations, the stories leak
sweet justice hard to find
can't simply speak my mind
-Clannad, Love And Affection
"Thank you," the Sister said, accepting a cup of tea from Gabriel.
Gabe sat down in the chair opposite her. "OK, can you explain any of what just happened?"
"Some, yes," the Sister replied. She shifted in her seat, "but I don't have all the details myself."
"Who was that little girl?" Mary asked.
"Her name is Sarah." The Sister paused, studying the flames dancing across the logs. "She and her mother were to come here to live. They were living just outside of Oakfield in western New York, but events left them without a home."
"What events exactly?" Gabe had a good idea what the answer would be.
"Sarah has a great power, far greater than anything I've seen in one so young before. She cannot control these powers. In particular, she can't control them when she dreams. The family's home was destroyed. Sarah's father and older brother were killed."
"Destroyed how?"
"It was ripped apart. The surrounding houses were heavily damaged, and there were several casualties. The local authorities blamed it on a tornado. Sarah was found in the center of the wreckage, unconscious."
"But how did you know?"
"Come now, Mary," the Sister admonished, "you should remember. Gabriel's talent isn't the only kind of Sight."
"The pond, " Mary said in a trancelike voice, as if her mind were in another place or time.
"Yes."
Gabe's thoughts felt molasses-coated. "So...how did you know what Mary and I saw?"
"I don't know exactly what you saw, Gabriel," the Sister answered. "I found Sarah in the dreamtime. I could not see what was happening around her in the physical world, only the shadows that Sarah herself perceived in her sleeping state."
"My brain hurts."
"Where is her mother?"
"I don't know...but I fear that she is dead."
"You think the little girl killed her," Gabe stated matter-of-factly.
"Yes."
"That poor child, all alone. We have to find her." Mary's voice was quiet in Gabe's thoughts. His guts tightened. He wondered if Mary's emotions were leaking into his consciousness or if he was getting soft in his old age.
"She was somewhere in Rosemont last night," Gabe said. "I recognized the police uniforms, but...."
"...how are we going to protect ourselves?" The Sister glanced at the rows of leather-bound books that lined the walls. "There are spells to keep her safe in the dreamtime, difficult to cast and even more difficult to maintain. Sarah's mother was once my student, a very adept one, but she lacked the ability to control her daughter's powers. They were coming here for help. With time Sarah can be taught to control her power. If we can find her."
****
Sunlight striking her face woke Sarah from a dreamless slumber. She looked around the bleak alley. Small patches of grimy snow hid in the shadows. Bits of charred debris skittered across the pavement, pushed by a freshening east wind. Her stomach growled. In her eight short years of life she had never been so hungry. It had been days since she had eaten, ever since she awakened from a nightmare to find herself alone. Tears washed clean streaks down her dirt-covered face. She sniffled and looked up at the blue sky overhead.
She sat there, softly crying as the sounds of traffic and passersby rose in time with the sun. No one walked down the narrow alley between two dilapidated warehouses. Sarah stood up and brushed the dirt and ash from her pants. She walked out of the alley onto a sidewalk beside a busy four-lane road. The traffic sat still more than it moved. Irate drivers honked horns in a discordant rhapsody. Sarah caught sight of a shopping center with a McDonald's down the street. Pulling the dirty hooded sweatshirt closer around her shoulders, the child shuffled forward.
No one noticed the scruffy little girl walking along the sidewalk. Drivers on the street cursed the car in front of them, or traffic in general. Occasional groups of pedestrians found some other direction to look in as Sarah walked by. She was alone.
****
One person, wrapped in several layers of tattered clothing, sat quietly against a utility pole just off the sidewalk. A battered, broad-brimmed hat and a dingy scarf pulled across mouth and nose obscured the person's face. Just one more homeless vagabond loitering on the roadside. Green eyes peered from beneath the broad-brimmed hat, watching as the grubby girl-child walked past. The girl did not notice the vagrant's stare. She continued walking toward the possibility of food.
****
Sarah stood outside the McDonald's entrance, afraid to talk to anyone. Desperately she missed her mother and the reassuring leg that she always hid behind.
"Are you lost?"
Sarah jumped, whirling toward the unexpected voice.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to scare you." A tiny, dark haired woman with brown eyes just beginning to show signs of tiny wrinkles around them smiled at the startled child Shoulder length brown hair stuck out from beneath the bright red ski cap that she wore.
Sarah studied the woman and took a half step backwards.
"Don't be scared," the woman smiled reassuringly as she spoke. "Where is your mommy?"
Tears welled up in Sarah's eyes. She fell to her knees. Wracking sobs convulsed her entire body. She had been alone so long. Warm arms wrap around her, a shoulder touched beneath her cheek.
"It's all right." The woman held the weeping child against her. With two daughters of her own comforting was a knee-jerk reaction.
She knelt and held the girl until her crying had subsided to little hiccuping sobs. Slowly the child's breathing returned to normal.
"What's your name?" she asked after the crying had subsided.
"Sarah," the girl answered in a quavering voice.
"My name is Laura," the woman answered as she gently wiped tears from the child's face. "Are you hungry, Sarah?"
"Yes."
"Well then, you can have breakfast with me," Laura said as she stood, taking Sarah by the hand. "Let's go in and eat. What do you like?"
"I like eggs and sausage," Sarah's stomach was turning summersaults at the thought of eating.
"Okay then." Still holding the child's hand, Laura led her into the restaurant.
****
A rag clothed vagabond wearing a broad-brimmed hat slipped to the edge of the McDonald's parking lot and sat quietly under one of the lampposts. Green eyes watched the restaurant's windows intently.
© 2003 Austin Hale
