Prologue: Miranda's Life Changes Forever
Seattle, Washington
Ever since she could remember nine year old Miranda Chester loved going to the theatre with her mother Eve when she performed. After a while, she would practice the plays lines out loud since she had heard them so many times before. She loved saying the lines of some of the characters or even whole scenes that stuck in her memory because of having heard them many time previously. Miranda's favorite play to say lines from was a Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. This was the play her mother was currently performing in as it was the Christmas season, and one of her favorite time of the year. Miranda loved watching her mother perform on stage, sometimes she would even watch from backstage in the wings. Most of the time though Miranda spent the evening in her mother's dressing room upstairs while her mother performed. Usually after the end of a performance her mother would come back to the dressing room, and the two of them would go home or to their hotel depending if her mother was doing a local play or a play that traveled.
A week before Christmas
One day about a week before Christmas, Miranda and her mother were at the theatre and just like she always did while her mother was performing, Miranda was in her mother's dressing room saying the lines from the play the Christmas Carol along with what was going on stage. All of a sudden Miranda could not hear anything coming from the loud speakers above her, she did not know what had happened. Meanwhile, below on the stage as Eve Chester was performing she fell over in the middle of her monologue and no one could stir her as she had suddenly without warning passed away. A few minutes later Miranda came rushing down from upstairs in her mother's dressing room to the stage to see what had happened to her mother the only parent she has ever known so far. Her mother never told her who her father was, but what Miranda did not know was that her mother had sent her father a letter explaining her situation and that had specific instructions if anything were to happen to her. When Miranda learned that her mother had passed she was so hurt, upset, and became unhappy. She did not know where she would go now, but for the time being one of her mother's friends took her home with her until something more permanent could be arranged. After her mother passed it was then that Christmas became a holiday that Miranda no longer enjoyed and or celebrated, but nine year old Miranda hoped that would change someday once she felt she was comfortable and ready again.
Carlton Heath, Vermont: Celebrating a New Year
James Whitecomb and his family were finishing up the end of their holiday celebration. James had just gotten home from his most recent acting gig the week prior. When he got home it was then that he learned that an actress he had known about ten years earlier had just passed, and she left her daughter, their daughter with no family to care for her. He had learned he had a daughter from her after she had given birth in a letter that he kept. After hearing this news he decided to track his daughter down and to take her back home to live with his family. If he had to he would show the courts the letter the mother had written to persuade them to let him finish raising her. He knew her name was Miranda and she was about nine years old since that is what the mother eve had named her according to the letter. The only reason he knew he had a daughter was because the mother felt he should know in case anything ever happened to her and that he could find her if he wanted. He decided he would fly to Seattle the next day to search his daughter and to meet her for the first time once he found her. He knew Seattle was where they lived since the letter he had gotten from the mother ten years or so before had been sent from there according to the next morning he told his wife this news and explained to his family why he had to leave for a while, and he would not know how long it would take him, but her promised he would be back as soon as possible before leaving to finally search for his daughter he never met.