The warm night air sat heavily in the room. Taking off her socks, the child turned a few pages forward. Trailing a small finger over the ornate capital 'O' she read slowly through the memorized, but complex, words. "Once upon a time," she whispered. "Lived a girl named Cinderella." The large text flowed in short lines around the illustrations. A dirty girl bowed her head in the bottom right corner, scrubbing harshly at a dirty wooden floor, soapy bubbles coating her hands and sloshing from a full bucket.
Her eyes studied the pictures lovingly as they walked through the girl's harsh life and into her fairy-tale ending. But it was the ending scene that she stared at with longing. "And the step-sisters," she read in a quiet whisper. "Were forgiven." Her blue eyes gazed for a long time at that little illustration at the end. Amidst all the chaos - the smiling prince and white stallion - the small Cinderella, dressed still in her rags, hugged her step-sisters and raised them from their knees.
She wanted an ending like that. She wanted her life to be happy and whole. If only a prince could save her family from divorce and take her mother from her drink. A room away she could hear the heavy snores of her mother who'd stumbled up the stairs hours earlier cursing and raging. On the side of the room was her brother's empty bunk bed. She missed his tossing and turning throughout the night. But he'd gone to live with her father until the judge-man decided what to do. She didn't want to live with just her Dad or her Mom. Angry tears were quick to well in her eyes at the thought of what was coming. Running a frustrated hand through her hair she sat up, leaning her back against the wall.
Her shadow was a dark space in the middle of the room. She moved her hand to make a puppet on the carpet. The rabbit wiggled its ears. The coyote gnashed its teeth. But, they didn't distract her mind. She was too old for such things to work. Leaving the book at her feet, she stood. Careful of stubbing her toes on furniture, she walked carefully, but didn't worry about her footsteps. Her mother would be asleep until mid-day. That's how it always was when she drank at the bar and then made more empty bottles at home.
The door creaked as it opened, but the nightlight was reassuring in the dark house. She paced a few familiar steps towards the bathroom - that wasn't where she wanted to go. Turning she took the tight spiral stairs to the kitchen and out the back door. The screen shut with a 'clack' behind her.
Outside the air was just as still. A hot summer made for humid nights, but she was okay in her bare feet and nightgown. The white skirt was fun in the moonlight. Twirling on the prickly grass she danced for a moment and headed for the swing. She had always loved the mountains. Visiting the town Sister's was fun, and she liked her elementary school a lot, but spending the night at Sarah's was never as fun as Sarah spending the night at her place. The rope supports were quiet as she settled onto the faded plastic seat. Her dad had made it for her brother when he was five.
The movement made a warm breeze for her and she grinned as her hair fluttered a bit behind her. Pumping her legs she leaned back and looked for stars through the pine needle branches. Her mom had said she'd show her how to find the North Star that they'd been learning about in history class, but she hadn't remembered to yet. Frowning at the thought, she hopped from the swing. She didn't want to think about her Mom now. She didn't want to be upset.
Past the immediate back yard was an unfenced woods. They had played hide and seek in it many times as well as going camping and hiking and exploring. Her Mom had told her never to go too far alone - but she was sound asleep. And she wasn't going far. She knew she had to be back by sun up, and beside, she only wanted to walk long enough to be really tired. So squinting her way to the right she looked for the bike she thought she'd left by the start of the trail.
She found the bike before she saw it. With a cuss word she scraped her shin on the peddle. After glaring at the shadowed red bike for a moment, she found the trail just two steps away. Padding along the well worn dirt she danced in the splotchy moon light. The light cotton of her dress tickled her legs as it twirled around her. Throwing back her head she closed her eyes - and tripped over a rock. Rubbing her sore hands on her dress she embarrassedly pretended like it hadn't hurt. More carefully though she felt her way down the steep hill and around the twisty bends. Tip-toeing over invisibly berry vines she sought momentary relief on a bank of grass before spotting brighter light up ahead.
At a trot she hurried to the little stream and stuck her wounded feet into it's cold depths. Plopping down along its squishy banks she leaned back on her hands to look at the stars.
A few clouds speckled the otherwise perfectly clear sky. A full moon watched down from above. Splashing her feet in the whispering water she sighed, biting lightly on her lip. "God," she told Him. "I wish - please, just watch over my family. I know other people need more help that we do, and they're starving, and fighting, and really really sick, but if you have the time, I'd really like it if you could help make my Mom and Dad like each other again."
Nothing answered, and she didn't really expect anything to. An owl hooted in the distance, crickets chirped in the background and the water burbled around her feet. She lay back in the quiet and felt her eyes grow heavy. Her breathing slowed, her mind calmed, and finally she drifted off to sleep.
There was no warning when it struck. A shadow of power and fury slammed down into her stomach out of no where. Blades ripped across her torso and she was awakened by her own scream. Feet jerked numbly from the water to kick wildly at the thing. Small hands slammed out to beat it away. Claws were puncturing her skin. Pain was a white-hot presence in the back of her mind, but she was fighting. Struggling like a fish out of water, she slithered out of its clutches. The growling seemed to come from every direction, but its eyes glowed golden in the moonlight.
It was a wolf of some sort. Its huge canines poked blood-covered heads out the sides of it's clenched jaws. Grabbing the first thing she touched, she flung a rock at it. Then another. It snapped its teeth, but backed away a step. Wild eyes glared at her as it crouched to attack once again, but a well placed throw caught it in the eye. Yipping in pain it barked, a low, feral sound that sent goose bumps down her spine. Her whole left side was a mass of pain. Dirt was rubbing into the wounds as she struggled to back away. Her frantic right hand struck upon a stick behind her. She grabbed it just before it leapt.
Soundly she hit it like a baseball, straight across the face. Knotted wood and dry bark stabbed into its eye. It howled in pain staggering off to the side before bounding away. She screamed. "MOM!" she yelled. "MOM! HELP ME!" she yelled, but she knew it was a fruitless effort. Her mom would never wake up in time and the neighbors were almost a mile away. She was alone.
Blood was seeping from her chest in great rivers. Her left arm, too, was bit open, a chuck torn right off no doubt eaten by The Beast. She was sobbing in great, hitching breaths. Each movement sent stabbing pains to her heart so she lay there, defenseless and beaten, on the bank of the creek waiting for someone to find her.
The night was sleepless and it crept by at less than a snails pace. For the first time she watched the moon fall and the first pale fingers of the sun break the horizon and she wondered if it would be her last. A battered sunrise fought away the night in an array of bruised purple and swollen pink clouds and she wondered if she had asked God for too much. Had she been selfish? Or - her mind suddenly jumped - was God listening? Was she the problem in her broken family? Had he sent a demon to eliminate her and, by doing so, fix the problems? As the sun peeked over the tree tops and the birds started to chatter, she craned her head to look at her chest. It wasn't what she had imagined.
In the dark, terror of the night she had thought a hole had been made in her side. She had pictured white bone glistening wetly beside stringy muscle and clumps of fat. She had pictured blood pooling around her limp body and her arm hanging on by a thread. In the light of day she saw that was far from the case. Even the horrible pain she had pictured in the hallucinations of a sleepless night was all a fake. Sure a wide scratch stretched from her navel to her armpit, but the edges were merely a black and blue bruise and the deepest middle was only a long gash a quarter inch deep. It stung a lot to move, but she wasn't immobilized and she was far from dead. And her arm - a thin crevice on the side was all that existed of the huge missing piece she had pictured. Sure, her white night gown was irreparably ripped down the middle and tie-dyed with browning blood, but the actual damage to her person was minimal. If she hurried, her mom would never even know she'd disobeyed and wandered off again. She didn't want to be grounded during Sarah's birthday party.
So, stiffly, she pulled herself to her feet. Swaying for a moment she felt the world spin an lurch around her, but it steadied. Slowly she walked through the now-dodgible berry vines and up the much more navigable hill. Pausing beside her bike, she peered up at the house windows, but there wasn't a single light on. Panting a bit she limped across the back yard and stepped quietly through the door. The linoleum floor felt smooth and cool against her abused feet, and at the stairs she checked for dirt. Nothing but a slight path of dry dust marked her passage. Pulling herself up by the railing, she made it up the stairs and crossed safely into her room. Her overalls and a three-quarter sleeve shirt would hide the damage and a shower would erase the muck from her adventure. Stripping of the destroyed nightgown she stashed it beneath her mattress. She could sneak it to the trashcan later.
It was crazy simple. Her Mom would never know. Still, she sort of wished she would find out. After all, Sarah's mom would be awake by now.