Decided to post my stories from my secondary account-Kiki Kendall-here, since I was having trouble signing into my GMAIL account to answer emails and pms without having to go directly to the site, which is frustrating with two accounts. So posting them here too. Here's A Dark Gift, with a few corrections, here and there. Enjoy!


October 2015

I sat on the couch of my living room, listening to my young cousins squabble about which of the Lost Boys was cuter. We had just finished watching the movie, them for the first time, and I reminisced about having the same conversation with my older cousins when I was the age these girls were now.

"What do you think, Aunt Madison? Which one of the Lost Boys do you think is hottest?" one of the girls, Molly asked. I smiled at the familiar title. In our family, if you weren't part of the younger generation of cousins, you were "Aunt", no matter which sibling or cousin you were related to.

"Well, truthfully, I find them all attractive in their own way," I replied, as I began to gather up soft drink bottles, bowls still half-full of chips, pretzels and popcorn. There were candy wrappers strewn about, and bottles of finger nail polish littered the table top. The girls were rolled up within their blankets and sleeping bags, Molly on the couch. She'd won the coin toss the five of them competed in to win pride of place during our monthly movie nights.

It was a fun little outing I'd started when the girls were about six or seven: once a month I'd take them off everyone's hands so that their parents could go out and have a night to themselves. I was the only one without children due to medical issues, but the girls' parents allowed me to have them once a month, spoil them rotten, and then send them home. They understood that since I couldn't have any of my own, my nieces/cousins were as close as I would get to having children.

"Would you have saved them from the Frog Brothers and Sam, Michael and Star if you could have, Aunt Maddie?" asked my youngest niece, Alexa. She was cuddling with my silver-and-black German Shepherd, Annie.

"You know, I always wanted to, when I was your age. I'm too old for adventures now!" I said, laughing.

The girls all laughed too. "You're young in heart, Aunt Madison! Besides you're only 33!" Addie and Layla commented as they looked up from rereading the cover of the Lost Boys dvd for the twentieth time. Jenna nodded in agreement, making me smile. I looked up and saw that it was past one in the morning.

"Alright girls, time for sleep. Don't forget, we have brownies and cookies to bake tomorrow for your school bake sale!" I said. The girls whooped and hollered, followed by sighs and groans as they slithered down into their blankets and said good nights. I kissed them all on their foreheads, a task that was greeted with giggles and hugs from having it become our ritual over the years.

"Good night, my girls," I whispered as I headed to my own bedroom.

"Good night, Aunt Madison!" they whisper-shouted back to me. I turned the lights off in all of the rooms except the open bathroom door in case anyone needed it during the night. I closed my bedroom door and walked into my en suite bathroom. I shed my clothes and climbed into the shower, after giving it a few minutes to warm. I washed quickly and wrapped a towel around myself, wrapping another around my hair. I looked at myself in the mirror.

My face didn't show much age, I thought, but I certainly felt old. Years of medical issues had taken their toll on my body. My eyes were a warm brown, and shone with a sparkle of amusement. I had to admit, I was more often than not, quite happy and content. I'd learned long ago, that with the pain of everything I'd endured, it was either laugh or cry. And I'd decided I'd much rather laugh than cry when faced with what I had to do to simply survive. My hair was long, reaching my hips. But where it had once been thick and a rich brown, it was now dull and thinning, even an area at the top of my head where a bald spot had begun due to one of my medications. I sighed and turned away from the mirror. I quickly brushed my teeth and walked back into the bedroom after turning off the light.

I pulled on a large, oversize tee shirt and a pair of cotton flannel pajama pants with a One Ring pattern from Lord of the Rings, a gift from Addie and Layla the year before. I slipped between cool sheets and sighed as my body started to relax and all my joints slowly began to pop as they released the tension of the day. I looked at the clock and groaned. Already past two o'clock and I prayed that I'd at least get a few hours in before I had to be back up at seven-thirty to start baking for the girls' bake sale.

I closed my eyes, thinking about the girls' question. Would you save them if you could? I had to admit that yes, yes I would. I'd always felt a strange connection to the Lost Boys. They could be cruel, they could be ruthless, but there was something about them that was strangely endearing and you just didn't want to see them die. I'd always hated Michael and Star for betraying them to Sam and the Frog Brothers. As I slipped under and into dreams, I thought again, yes, I'd save them.


As I dreamed I heard a strange voice. I opened my eyes to find a place of blank whiteness. There were no shadows, no darkness, only a blinding white light. "So, woman, you would save them?" came a voice from everywhere. I gasped and looked around me, seeking the source of it.

"I am nowhere and everywhere, woman. Answer the question. You would save them?" the voice asked again.

I gulped and nodded. "I would. I would want to save them."

All of a sudden there was a figure in front of me and it was beautiful. A woman with long golden hair in perfect ringlets. Her eyes were a deep blue and she was robed in a gown of pale blue. Her smile was exhilarating and made my knees weak, and I wasn't even into women! She reached out and placed a gentle hand upon the top of my head. "I am so happy to hear your agreement. I have a gift for you, child. Well, several gifts, truly. But the first gift that I will bestow upon you is he gift of an adventure. You will enter the worlds you have wished so often to join. You will have your chance to save my Lost ones. They need someone like you. Your love, your compassion, your heart and your bravery."

She paused before she continued. "Your second gift shall be the gift of music. I have watched all your life your envy and admiration of those who were able to create music with their voice and with instruments. You will quickly master instruments and you will remember any song you have heard in your old life and this new life before you. As long as you do not tempt fate by claiming them as your own works, of course."

"I would never do that, though," I said, without missing a beat. She smiled, as if that had answered her question without a question ever having been asked. "And that is why I bestow such a gift upon you. You do not take that which is not yours to claim."

"I will bestow upon you also a gift with animals. They will be drawn to you and will be soothed and calmed by your presence." I smiled at this, I'd loved animals all my life, but due to all the medical problems over the years, I'd only been able to have a pet during the last few years when I'd adopted Annie.

"The other gifts you will see as they come. Now, it is time." And with that, she gave me a soft kiss upon the forehead. I closed my eyes and was enveloped in darkness. I felt strange, sound was muffled, but I could hear a heartbeat. No, two heartbeats, besides my own. One thumped softly and regularly, the other in time with my own, fast like a hummingbird's wings. And suddenly there was pressure, and light, and cold. I screamed in confusion only to have it come out in a loud squall. I opened my eyes but everything was fuzzy. I was being held by giants! I tried to hear what they were saying, but there was another voice besides mine crying. I finally heard, "It's a girl!" called out.

I was wrapped in a warm blanket and it calmed me; I stopped screaming, trying to figure out what was going on. Then I was placed in a pair of warm arms and I looked up into a pair of warm blue eyes, another face beside it. "It's our girl Lucy! A boy and a girl. What are we going to name them?" asked the voice above me. A man, his eyes a sparkling grey, his skin and hair a soft brown.

"Michael for the boy. For the girl...Madison. Hello, my babies," she said softly, tiredly. And so came the second time I was born.


If my parents ever noticed anything odd about me, they never spoke about it. Do you know how odd it is to go from being a capable 33 year old adult to an infant? It's absolutely ridiculous, that's what it is. Having to "learn" everything all over again. Though once I hit about three, I was good. I "learned" to read quickly. By two and a half I could read almost any young children's book and had started on books meant for grade school children. Truthfully, I could probably read much farther than that, but I didn't want to scare anyone.

As the glowing woman (Angel? God?) had told me, I was also very musically gifted. At four years old, I picked up my first violin. My second mother, Lucy, my second father, Patrick, and my twin brother, Michael, and I were in the park in Phoenix. Lucy was very busy with our baby brother Sam who was only a month old. I'd wandered away, drawn to the sound of someone playing beautifully. I watched, enraptured by a young black man playing the violin. I sat down Indian-fashion, my hands on my knees as I watched him. When he finished, I clapped enthusiastically and he smiled. "Well hello there! What's your name?" he'd asked. I had a good intuition about people and this man gave off sunlight in my mind, a good indication that he was a decent man.

I held my hand out to him to shake. "My name is Madison Marie Emerson," I said. He smiled and took my little hand in his, shaking it gently.

"Well, Miss Madison Marie Emerson, my name is Robert Ray Johnson. You've been eyeing my violin the whole time I played. Would you like to try it? It might be a bit big for a bitty thing like you," he said, but I was already up and standing next to him, holding the instrument as I'd seen him hold it.

"Like this?" I asked. He blinked in surprise and nodded.

"Yes, exactly like that, honey," he replied and showed me the notes to play. Within a few moments I was playing "Twinkle twinkle little star" without guidance. He showed me also how to play "Old Macdonald" and "Pop goes the Weasle" which made me laugh when I got to pop the string.

Too soon, I heard a harried, frenzied pair of voices, along with the wails of an infant. I saw Lucy and Patrick, Lucy holding Sammy and Patrick dragging a tired-out Michael behind him. I raised my hand, still holding the bow and waved at them. "Over here, Momma!" I called and she sighed in relief as she spotted me. She knelt in front of me, still clutching Sammy.

"Madison Marie, you had me scared out of my wits! You know better than to go off wandering alone!" she said.

I teared up instantly, both in anger and in sadness. "I'm sorry, Momma. Robert was teaching me how to play, see?" I said, and showed her the three songs he'd shown me. She looked up at Robert then back at me.

"You learned all that in fifteen minutes?"

"She surely has a gift, Ma'am," Robert said, nodding at me. "You should get her signed up for lessons as soon as possible so that she doesn't lose her love for it like so many kids do when they're her age. Let her learn it now when she's fascinated and loves it, and she'll love it all her life," he said.

Lucy and Patrick agreed with Robert, and while I never saw him again and never got to thank him, it was due to him that I was signed up for violin lessons that very weekend.


As the years passed, and I felt less bereft of my first life and family, I became closer and closer to Lucy, Patrick, and my brothers. Michael and I were so close as twins to often share thoughts and dreams. Once, when we were eight, I fell out of a tree and bruised my tailbone. He felt the phantom pain of it and we both had trouble sitting properly for weeks. We often completed each others sentences and until we were pubescent, had a language all our own. Nightmares were doubled, we would often both wake screaming, only one of having actually had the dream, the other only picking up the fear and images from it. Of course, this caught Lucy's attention and she did a ton of research about twins and their connections. I felt bad that Sammy didn't have a twin too, but he was enough of a bother all by himself, when he wasn't completely endearing.

Michael and I looked a lot alike, we both had the same blue-gray eyes and wild hair, though his was a darker shade than mine. My own was closer to Lucy's red, but with streaks of gold and copper running through it. My skin was a shade or so lighter than Michael's, but still had a hint of tan. I wasn't a model by any means, but I'd remembered a lot of the health and weight issues I'd had in my former life and had made sure that this time around, I ate healthier and exercised more. I wasn't a stick figure, but I didn't suffer from the obesity that had made my life a living hell the first time around.

Besides music, I'd also been signed up for several other classes over the years as I took an interest in them. Dance, gymnastics, and karate to name a few. Sadly, they were only passing fancies as it turned out that even in this life, I couldn't walk across a flat, stable surface without tripping over my own two damn feet. The only exception to the rule that we'd found was when I was on the beam in gymnastics, for some reason. I could balance perfectly fine on it...or while walking along the top of a fence or banister which I found myself doing often, though I don't have any idea why.

When puberty hit, I cursed whatever power had brought me here. Like going through it once wasn't enough. The whole awkward stage of getting boobs, hair in places it wasn't before and getting your first period all over again could definitely be considered cruel and unusual punishment, I thought. Not to mention dating. Which I refused to do, at all in Phoenix. Lucy said I was an old soul, and she was right. Thirteen to sixteen year old boys were just too immature for me to take seriously.

When Michael and I turned seventeen, it was a grand birthday celebration, up until Lucy discovered Patrick having sex with her best friend Diane in a closet. We spent the next year in a limbo of hell, while Lucy and Patrick divorced. When the dust settled, we were left with no money and no home, so Lucy decided to move us all to live with her dad. I didn't remember Grampa very well from personal memories, but I still had a vague remembrance of him from the movie as being slightly gruff but very funny.

So we all packed our meager belongings, my violin getting pride of place with my stuff in the back seat, as it was an expensive instrument. We clambered into Mom's truck and off we went, down the roads towards Santa Carla, California.