June 1940
Dreaming of White Sins

Prologue

I fell asleep at the park and had a most wonderful dream.

I feel I should be excused this innocent sin. It was late May, usually a time when the crisp eagerness of spring begins to give way to the heady balminess of summer, but I remember waking up that day and looking out the small portal of my window to a perfect blue day. Great billowy clouds gently sailed far above in the clear sky, a comfortable breeze complimented the sun's trickling warmth and so the day seemed like the beginning of spring and not its end.

Excited at the prospect of enjoying this gift of a day, I dressed hurriedly, rushed from my bedroom and, in a rather unusual act for myself, did not warn my adopted family that I was leaving on an impromptu excursion. I slipped out the back quietly, thankful for the weekend and that Anthony and Marie were heavy sleepers, hurried to the Bedford road and made my way to the county park.

And I spent the entire morning enjoying myself ambling along the riverbed, beneath the oakwood and walking amongst the flowering meadow. It was a spring day but some of the summer flowers had budded early and were beginning to bloom: pink peonies, pale lilac, white elderberry flowers the largest, white guelder roses—

Roses.

And I remembered being suddenly uncomfortable, although I wasn't sure why that should be so just then. In that perfect green meadow, with the breeze pressing against me sweetly and the fat clouds trailing their way like some vast celestial herd of grazing animals, I looked down at the little green bush with its poofy little white blooms and I thought, rose? Rose? No. It's just a name. I thought: not a real rose. No, it's just a fake. A filthy little fake. A pretender of nobility.

Real roses were stronger. More beautiful. Their thorns sharper.

I thought: real roses were red. Bright red. A bright red rose just for you. Red. Red, like... like...

(like blood bright red blood a bright red rose a bright red wound just for you)

And suddenly everything was spinning and it was all I could do to stumble away, out of the meadow and through the oak trees. I realized I wasn't breathing and dragged deeply into the air, bidding the dizzy spell to clear. But it was too late and everything that had seemed so perfect not seconds earlier had suddenly become so utterly wrong. The fair wind had turned icy cold, the morning sun suddenly scorching hot and the clouds above that had seemed to dance in their lull, they seemed darker and closer, beginning to circle above me like ridiculously bulging buzzards.

I closed my eyes and stumbled onto a park bench, nestled underneath a particularly large oak. I hit my hip against it and managed to turn my fall so I landed sorely on the seat.

Sitting there helped. I let the world rock and sway around me and I focused on breathing deeper and slower. I draped my arm on the bench and used it as a pillow, and I tasted the scent of the wooden seat I had discovered. It was an old, earthy smell. The nostalgic aroma that wood gets only from years of having been exposed to and weathered rainfall and wind and sunlight—shrinking and expanding and rotting, but enduring all the same. A favorite smell, it brought comforting nostalgia, although of what exactly I couldn't recall. But it soothed me all the same and so before I knew it, the episode of anxiety and panic had passed and my breathing came slower, peaceful.

I found myself being serenaded by the sing-song call of the warm season birds. I recognized dunnocks, house sparrows, robins, wrens, chaffinches, blue tits, willow warblers, blackbirds and even a single great tit. The whistles and chirps and toots and trills played around my like a natural orchestra, accompanied by the swish of leaves in the breeze.

And so it was I fell asleep at the park and had a most wonderful dream.

I can't say for certain, obviously, but I'm sure that other patrons of the park walked by me then. The early morning hours had passed and midday invited all to enjoy the peace of the river and garden grounds. Maybe a small family enjoying a weekend stroll. Maybe an elderly couple meandering arm-in-arm toward the small lake. And if they happened to walk by my bench, I'm sure I must have appeared quite an amusing sight just then. A nineteen-year-old girl carelessly napping her lazy Sunday away, a glistening line of drool trailing from her lips as she snored placidly. How lucky some are, they would think, to be so carefree!

And of course they would be wrong.

They wouldn't know that I was undeniably the unluckiest person ever born. They wouldn't know that I struggled with bouts of insomnia; with nights of crippling anxiety which seemed to never pass, with nightmares that seemed to never end. They would happily amble past my bench and only ever see the surface. They would never suspect the uncomfortable truth lying just beneath the facade. Easier to see only the illusion, only the lie.

(too late too late)

Only too late would they realize that they had known the truth all along. They had always, always known because the truth was always so terribly obvious and the only reason things had become so terrible was because it's always so much easier to accept pretty illusions and lies—

(than the rotting face of the truth)

Someone was watching me.

Try to understand, please, this was something of a special skill that I had developed long ago. It's not unusual to hear some people report having a queer sensation when being watched or spied upon, but for me it was something of a sixth sense. For as long as I can remember, I had always been capable of telling when I was being observed; when the curious eyes of another were upon me.

(the ravenous eyes of a predator)

Struck then by this uncomfortable sense, I begrudgingly roused myself and straightened from my sleeping position. I turned forward on the bench, hoping to catch sight of my intent watcher. And that's when I saw the dog.

It was standing under the shade of another oak, a ways off to the right. I froze in place, stilling even my breathing, not afraid that a sudden movement would scare it and send it running away as much as I was afraid that it would simply fade and disappear before my eyes. To the contrary though, the dog began slowly trotting toward me, stepping out of the shadows, becoming more and more familiar with each and every stride.

And then it was standing before me, mouth parted in its slight pant, gazing up at me.

A Labrador Retriever, its coat a mild honey ocher, and not at all the untidy mess often seen with uncared for strays. Its ears were big and floppish, its eyes were dark and deep (and sad). I found myself wondering at the remarkable similarities. You had never gotten a chance to reach adulthood, but... but if you had, I would have happily wagered that you would have been the splitting image of the dog that stood before me then.

Gingerly, I reached out to pet it, but I hesitated when I noticed the worn leather collar around its neck. It wasn't a stray after all. Probably got away from its walker. Your owner will be here after you soon enough, I thought glumly.

The dog turned its head away from me, and that's when I heard them laughing.

Off to the left, behind a fence was a rose garden in full bloom. It was too early in the season for it. Small buds and tentative flowers maybe, but the garden I saw there was in the feverish peak of summer, bright red in blushing bloom. And running and dancing amongst the bushes and petals that shouldn't be, two small girls frolicked gaily, giggling and skipping along; the very image of childhood innocence. One of the girls—the one in a white sun hat—reached out for the other's hand, and off they went, disappearing into the garden, leaving behind only their merry laughter to trail after them.

I watched them go with a smile. There were about a million things I wanted to tell them. To warn them. I wanted to scream after them, to hold them in my arms and never let them go.

But I didn't. Or couldn't.

I couldn't end their laughter.

By then I knew I was still dreaming. I'm the unluckiest girl in the world, after all.

I fell asleep at the park and had a most wonderful dream.

I fell asleep at the park and had a most terrible nightmare.

I expected it would be so, but the old sadness still churned in the pit beneath my stomach when I turned back and saw that you were gone.

And then a shadow fell across the park and I heard the ancient metal groaning of harried propellers and aching turbines. I closed my eyes and rose from the bench, and in the darkness of my mind I saw an old mansion building.

A darkened make-shift throne room and the children who ruled from atop it.

All innocent smiles and welcoming words. All glistening eyes and devilish grins.

Two of them share secrets in the darkness. Love. Betrayal. Hurt. Red kisses and smiles. Both of them tied beneath the bloody rose.

While the third watches from the darkness, alone. Always.

And yet another is so desperate to be wanted. So eager to be needed. So angry.

And there was laughter. Laughter and giggling and chuckling and sniggering and tittering.

And there were screams.

But mostly there was fear. And darkness. Lots and lots of darkness.

But I wasn't alone. I had you. I had a true friend. The only one who always was there for me. The only one who always was faithful and true.

And I betrayed you.

I let myself be tied down with ropes and cords that I twined and twisted myself. I let them rule me. I wasn't strong enough to protect you—I couldn't even protect myself.

Every tear I shed. Every drop I bled.

I opened my eyes then.

I was still in the park. I had fallen to my knees. And you—you had mercifully reappeared before me. I found myself desperately clutching at you, as if you were a floatation device and I was lost and adrift in some black ocean. And I suppose I was. A drenching downpour was storming down from the darkened sky and I found myself shivering, but not from the frigid cold or fear.

It was time.

I turned upward to face the grey sky. In the rain, my streaming sobs became nothing.

For too many years, I'd chosen the coward's way out. But enough was enough. I was tired of running and tired of being a victim. I would balk from this no longer.

I was the unluckiest girl in the world.

But I was alive. I owed it to them. I owed it to myself.

Would it kill me?

Perhaps.

Perhaps not. If I was strong enough. If I loved truly enough.

You would help me, I knew. You would help me through this hell.

It was time to finish the story.

It was time to remember.

And I began to speak: "Once upon a time, there was a precious little girl..."