Vicki was waiting in the infirmary, with a nurse beside her. She was happy to see Charlie. 'Mama' she said, raising her hands to be picked up.

The nurse smiled. 'She's all right Mrs. Wainright'.

Charlie gathered Vicki up into her arms and smoothed her hair away from her face. A butterfly band-aid covered a small cut on her forehead. A light bruising radiated out from it. She pulled Vicki close and breathed in her scent.

'You ok baby?' Vicki nodded.

Charlie looked over at the nurse. The nurse anticipated the question. 'Just a scratch on the forehead. You can take her home for the rest of the day.' Charlie pulled Vicki away from her and onto the bed, with its blue hospital issue blanket, then stood up and straightened herself. 'Come on Vicki, let's go home.'

Vicki hopped down from the bed and took her hand. The nurse opened the door. 'Don't worry, they do these things.'

Charlie scowled. 'Not to my daughter they don't.' the nurse stepped back to allow them through.

Charlie and Vicki walked down the centre of the main hall. Light came through the windows of the classrooms, passing through the filter of children, paper cutouts, streamers and science projects until it merged with the downdraft of light from the skylights.

Charlie looked for the colorful dragon she had helped Vicki make. The dragon was still high on its perch on a corner of the ceiling, guarding an empty classroom.

Charlie stuck her head in through the open door and checked anyway. 'Great. They throw stones and then they go out on an excursion.' Charlie made a face. Vicki made a face back. 'Ms Putnam will just have to get a piece of my mind a bit later, won't she?'

The principals' office was ahead, just before the exit. Charlie thought about which particular piece of his ass she would remove. It made her twitch. She took a deep, calming breath.

The door at the end of the corridor burst open and the Principal came running down the corridor. Charlie's first thought was to ball her fist and pop him one, but as he ran towards her, she saw him looking past her. He was white; sweating white. Mrs. Miller, the secretary came bustling out after him. They ran past Charlie & Vicki without a glance.

Charlie watched them as they passed. 'I'm not that scary.' she thought. She looked down at Vicki, who gave a yawn. 'Let's go home.'

They walked down the stairs and out into the assembly area. Most of the leaves had relinquished their hold on the trees, making them seem taller. Charlie checked to make sure Vicki was rugged up and warm, doing up the last two buttons at her neck.

'There. All done. Got your mittens on?' Vicki held out her hands for inspection and they began walking towards the car park. 'You didn't tell me there was an excursion today.'

Vicki shrugged. 'Maybe they went to the lake.'

More people were running out from the building now. Mr. Goff from 5C came scrambling down the stairs and past them.

'Hey, Mr. Goff!' Charlie called as he ran. Mr. Goff didn't see or hear them. He ran to the car park and jumped into his car.

Charlie and Vicki followed. As they reached the car, Charlie stopped to listen. Sirens. Charlie opened up the car and lifted Vicki up and onto the backseat, fastening the seatbelt. Something crossed her mind. 'Why did they go to the lake Vicki?'

Vicki played with her mittens. 'Grandpa Ben told me if the boys were mean to me they could all go jump in the lake, so I told them to.'

Charlie stopped moving. Her breath froze. 'You told them to go jump in the lake?'

Vicki nodded. 'Even Ms Putnam went.'

Charlie bit down on the nausea. 'Ok baby. Let's go home' She closed the car door.

More sirens now. The cold, clear air carried them to her.

Inside the car, Vicki was fogging the window with her breath and drawing smiley faces.

--

Cynthia found Charlie sitting on the porch, staring out into the darkness, rain beating down about her unnoticed. Cynthia scolded 'You'll catch a death' and dragged her unwillingly into the house.

Charlie tried to shake her off. At least outside the summer storm hid the sounds of her crying.

Cynthia looked into her face and found a glimpse of the small girl she had first met. The lost and searching eyes of a ten year old.

'It never ends' mumbled Charlie. 'It never ever ends.'

Cynthia's heart ached for her. As helpless as she could be, she hugged Charlie until the dampness spread through her own clothes and rolls of thunder from outside near the lake shook the wooden house. She raised Charlie's arms over her head to help her out of her wet clothes, as if she'd been playing out in the summer storm; time was running backwards tonight.

Charlie raised her arms robotically as Cynthia pulled her shirt away and began to towel her down.

"Now you don't worry yourself, we'll find some help…' Cynthia soothed.

Charlie grabbed Cynthia's arm. 'Don't you understand? She's got it. She's cursed. Just like me.'

Cynthia felt a warming from Charlie's grip. The moisture from the rain was evaporating quickly, steam rising from around Charlie.

'Charlie!' she gasped in rising panic and jerked her hand away. Charlie watched numbly as she clutched at her arm. Cynthia was scared of her; again.

'Cynthia, I'm sorry, let me get you some ice.' Charlie rushed to the chest freezer. The ice packs were still stacked in piles. She grabbed an ice pack and cloth and placed it over the reddening handprint on Cynthia's arm.

Cynthia dropped onto the couch, looking pale. Charlie sat beside her, looking for signs of shock. Cynthia took a deep breath and moved the icepack. 'Just like old times huh?' Charlie laughed, the tension escaping.

Cynthia smiled and put her good arm around her. Charlie clung to her adopted mother and cried uncontrollably. Cynthia hugged her. 'We will find help Charlie, somehow we'll find help. Ben'll know what to do.'

--

The nurse admitted a pretty young mother in to see the Doctor, a short, balding and bespectacled man in a brown suit and tie so long from fashion it had become trendy once again. He rose to greet her.

'Miss Charlie, your father has spoken so much about you' he said, giving a white toothed smile. 'Please, take a seat'. Charlie sat, putting her purse onto the second chair.

'Both of my parents are dead. Ben is my…grandfather.' she lied. It was the same lie, so aged and repeated it had become truth.

The doctor shook his head. 'Ah. I am sorry to learn.' he said, fussing through his papers for a notepad. 'He has said you have some behavioural troubles with his grand…great grand daughter.'

Charlie drew in a breath, then opened her purse and showed the Doctor a photograph of Vicki 'She's 5.'

The Doctor pushed his glasses back up the bridge of his nose and looked at the photograph. 'She's a very pretty girl, your daughter. What sort of trouble are you having?'

Charlie looked around the office. 'You've been a Doctor for how long?'

Dr Chandrasekhar frowned. 'Miss Charlie, I am sure you do not mean to be rude, but this is a strange question for me.'

'Please.'

The Dr shifted in his seat. 'To answer your question, I studied in Mumbai in India over thirty years ago, served with His Majesty's forces and...'

'Why did you settle here?' Charlie asked.

Dr Chandrasekhar studied Charlie's face for a moment. 'You are very diligent Miss Charlie, perhaps my story will make you more at ease. I too love my family, especially my daughters. When they were admitted to university in America, it was proper I should follow. Their mother, my great love, had passed away also when they were young. She blessed them with her great beauty and her great intelligence and so I knew she would want me to do this.'

He smiled wistfully for a moment. 'They are long since graduated, and married, and now I can see my grand children. It is a small price to pay for living so long outside my homeland.'

He concluded with a clap of his hands. 'Now you have heard my story, you know why I am here. I also know your grandfather as an excellent bowling partner. He has confessed his deep concern for your daughter. He has also told me' he said, leaning gently forward and speaking more softly, 'That you have had a very troubling childhood and that you find it hard to trust.'

He shook his finger at her scowl. 'Don't be mad with him. He answered as I asked. Would I be a good doctor if I did not consider that it may be you, not your daughter, with the difficulty? I must be open to such possibilities.'

Charlie gave a wry smile. 'I have my own problems Dr, but I've made it this far with them. But Vicki.' Charlie shuddered as if a cold wind had blown over her. Dr Chandrasekhar looked about involuntarily to his closed window.

Charlie fought back the tears.

'What is unfair?' Dr Chandrasekhar asked.

Charlie looked at him in panic, as if he could read her thoughts.

The doctor shook his head. 'You said it is unfair. What is unfair?'

Charlie sucked a breath in, tamping down her rising terror. The Doctor took her hand. Charlie jerked it out of his grasp. Undaunted he tried again. 'Let me help Miss Charlie, if it is within my abilities.'

Charlie let the breath out in a ragged sob. 'We're cursed.'

The Doctor gave a short barking laugh, in spite of himself, and immediately started to apologise. Charlie's face hardened and the room warmed.

'I am sorry' he said. 'Even as I was brought up in a 'non christian' background as people do call it, I am not a believer in curses, witchcraft or voodoo, so I cannot accept your problems are a curse. There is always a rational explanation.' He said and waited for her to respond.

Charlie looked at him, through him, outside.

'Dr, I have a rational explanation for our curse, but it's' she coughed. 'hard to take.'

'You will tell me and I will see if I can take it.'

Charlie looked around the surgery. 'Do you have anything in steel, tweezers, anything?'

The Dr opened his mouth, closed it again, stood and stepped around the table. He picked up a steel speculum from a tray and placed it on the desk.

'I must say, Miss Charlie, this is quite the strangest meeting of my day.'

Charlie grinned, picking up the speculum. 'You aint seen nothin' yet doc. Its about to get a lot weirder.' She turned the speculum over in her hands. 'Do you know the melting point of steel?'

He shook his head. 'No.'

Charlie rubbed the steel. 'It's around 2500F, slightly less than raw iron.'

The doctor shrugged in agreement. 'If you say.'

Charlie smiled. 'I know a bit about the melting points of metal, it's what I use for my art.'

'Miss Charlie, I am not sure that this has any bearing on…'.

As Charlie looked at him, the speculum began to glow bright red, holding its shape for a moment before collapsing into a puddle in her palm, smoldering and burning with yellow flame.

The Doctor jumped. 'Miss Charlie!' he exclaimed.

Charlie turned her hand and ran the molten liquid into her other palm. 'Open the window' she said. 'Dr, please open the window.'

The Doctor turned the latch at the top of the window and flung it open.

Charlie carefully cupped the liquid steel and turned her palms out over the snow.

The steel sprinkled out into the snow and dropped through it, hissing. Dr. Chandrasekhar grabbed her wrists and turned her palms upwards. He peered at them, then put his fingers to her palm and rubbed it in disbelief.

'The metal melts away before it touches my skin.' Charlie explained.

The Doctor gaped. 'You are a practical joker with your grandfather, you should be ashamed..' he said, turning bright red.

Charlie plucked the gold coloured pen out of his coat pocket, held it up in front of his eyes and pressed her finger into the metal, pushing easily through the pen, leaving valley in the side.

The Dr muttered an unforgotten prayer from his youth and sat down heavily in his chair. Charlie faced him squarely. 'There may be a rational explanation for this Dr, but neither you or I will find it. A long time ago, some people did something to my parents, before I was born. When I was a child, these things started happening. It got stronger as I got older. Once, I almost burned our house down.'

Dr Chandrasekhar's brown skin had gone a light chocolate color. Charlie recognized it as shock. 'Do you need me to show you more?

The Dr quickly shook his head. 'This is incredible. Impossible.'

Charlie grinned. 'Not impossible Doc. Just weird.'

'And this, this is happening with your daughter, this 'impossible'?'

Charlie's brief feeling of control departed rapidly and she deflated into the chair opposite him. 'No. She doesn't have what I have. She inherited something far worse. She inherited my fathers curse.'

The Doctor started to write on a piece of paper; Charlie leaned forward and it burst into light and floated upwards as a piece of ash. 'No notes Doctor.'

The Doctor jumped backwards. 'Miss Charlie!' he exclaimed in fright.

'The people that did this are still out there somewhere Doctor, helping us could make you a target too. Keeping records is bad.'

The Doctor looked at the divot of her fingerprint in his pen and out it down. 'Very well. Tell me about this 'curse'.

Charlie narrowed her eyes, waiting for him to order her and her crazy story out of the surgery. 'My father died saving me from the people who gave us this curse. They wanted him because he could tell people what to do and they would do it. He used to call it the 'push.'. It didn't always work and it caused him a lot of pain. Sometimes he'd bleed from his nose, or his eyes.'

The Doctor reached for his pad to take notes, caught himself mid reach and sat back with an apologetic look. 'So he hemorrhaged when he did this 'push'.

Charlie nodded. 'Headaches, vomiting. One time, when we were caught…' she paused. 'When we were kidnapped by the bad people, they drugged him so much the 'curse' went away.'

'Was that a good thing?' said the Doctor.

Charlie shrugged. 'It came back. He used it to help me escape.'

'And you suffer from Headaches also?'

'Not one. Ever, and my curse was stronger than his and its never gone away.'

The Doctor nodded thoughtfully. 'So you say your daughter has this 'push' curse also?'

Charlie nodded numbly.

He gave her a smile. 'You have rare gifts.'

Charlie looked miserably up at him. 'Doctor, I have a five year old girl who can force anyone, anyone to do exactly what she tells them. When I was a little older than her, I burned three men to death who came to hurt my mom and my dad. But I knew what I was doing; I knew I had to save us from them. But Vicki? Vicki's a five year old, like any other tantrum throwing five year old, except that when she tells someone to jump off a bridge, they walk calmly to the nearest, highest bridge and step off.'

'My God' he said.

Charlie hurried on. 'its only going to get worse as she gets older and I wont be able to control her. And one day, they'll either come for her, or she'll become, she'll become'

Charlie broke down and sobbed.

'A monster' the doctor finished silently; but she was doubled over and couldn't see his lips. The Dr stood and put an arm around her.

--

Vicki fidgeted restlessly. 'But I don't want to stay here' she complained. 'I want..' Charlie put a finger to Vicki's lips, silencing the child as she felt the force of the words washing around her. 'It's only for a moment honey, then we can go outside and play.' The Doctor approached.

'This is Doctor Chandrasekhar. He's come to help you.'

The Dr gave a warm smile. 'You must be the very pretty granddaughter of Mr. Ben.' Vicki brightened at the mention of Grandpa. 'Can we see Granpa Ben?'

'He'll be at the park when we go there Vicki, I promise.' Charlie said, hushing her.

The Dr opened up a pen light and showed it to Vicki.

'Do you know what this is Miss Vicki?'

The girl nodded. 'It's a torch.'

The Dr gave a smile. 'Very good. And this? He held up a mirror.

'It's a mirror silly' Vicki said, her curiosity piqued.

'We shall play a very good game with this pen and this mirror, do you know it?'

Vicki shook her head, her curls settling around her face.

'I shall teach you. It's a very fun game.'

'Can mommy play too?'

The Doctor nodded. 'She can play also. First, I shall put this mirror onto my hat, like this' he said, attaching the mirror to his headband until it fell in front of his eyes. 'What do you see, Vicki?'

'I see me!' she trilled.

'Very good. Now, look at this light, see if you can follow the light with your eyes,'

The Doctor made the light dance in front of her eyes.

Vicki followed it, entranced.

'Very good, let's begin. Follow the light, down, down, deeper and deeper, can you see anything Vicki?'

'I see a girl' Vicki answered slowly.

'This is good Vicki, we are going to speak to that girl, can you tell her something important?'

'Yes' Vicki replied, slowly.

The Doctor looked at Charlie. Charlie rose and shut the door. 'Look into the light Vicki.'

--

Later, Vicki played outside, rugged up in her puffy jumper, making holes in the snow.

Charlie and Doctor Chandrasekhar watched her play.

'It is like a Dam, Miss Charlie. I cannot say how long it will last, or whether it will work. We will wait and see.'

'It has to work' Charlie watched her daughter flap her arms to make a snow angel, like any other normal child. 'It has to work.'