Chapter 1
Sarah wearily leaned back into the drivers' seat, reaching her hand up to the radio to crank the music up. She was exhausted, and she should've been in bed. If it hadn't been for her wanting to keep her promise to Toby that she'd take a break from school and work this weekend, she wouldn't be here, driving to her parent's house at 3 in the morning.
Yawning, she shook her head to keep from drifting off. But working one full time shift, one part time shift, and going to school full time as well, she was barely functioning, let alone good for driving long distances.
As Sarah stopped at a red light, she thought back to why she was in her current situation.
After returning from the Labyrinth, she gave or sold away all her toys and costumes that Toby didn't want. She started focusing more on school, though as hard as she tried her daydreaming continued. She began spending more and more time with Toby building a very special connection with him. Her father and Karen never noticed because of the fact that they seemed to forget that they even had children to take care of. When Toby got old enough to start speaking, his first word had been 'Mama' and it had been directed at her. That's when Karen started noticing something was wrong. Whenever she even tried to get near Toby, he would start screaming and cry for his mama and after a couple weeks of that, Karen talked her father into kicking her out. Or in their words, that she was old enough and she needed to stop depending on them.
Sarah rolled her eyes thinking about her stupid shrew of a step-mother. That was 2 years ago; she was going to be 19 in a couple months. With a mild sigh she rubbed her eyes lightly. So that was that. She moved out. Talked and saw Toby when she could, without Karen's knowledge. 'They don't even know how special he is.' Sarah thought to herself sadly.
Finally pulling up to her old house, she stopped the engine and just sat there looking at it. She hadn't been back in a little over 6 months, yet everything still looked the same as it was years ago.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw something bright fly past her. Jerking around in her seat, she opened the door and got out of the car, looking this way and that.
After looking for a good 10 minutes, she closed her car and locked it, before looking at the rising sun with an expression of exhaustion. 'You're just imagining things Sarah.' She shook her head aggravated with herself, she'd only been here for a few minutes and already she was thinking about him. Proceeding to walk up the pathway to the front door, she stopped mid-step, now wide awake.
There, where she was about to step, was a white owl feather.