AN: Yet another companion piece, read prequel, to Black Cat. It can stand-alone but it would make sense to read Black Cat either before or after. Part I is written from Jessie's point of view. Part II will be from JJ's point of view.

*** Jessie was JJ first. ***

AN2: Please bear with me; this is slightly more fantastical than my usual pieces, but it should be explained well enough that you don't need to have all the background information that I do. Thank you for reading. Please review.

AN3: For those of you who are interested, the little girl in the photo, cover page thing-y is supposed to be Alice Catherine Jareau.

Disclaimer: I do not own Criminal Minds, Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, William B. Yeats' poem The Stolen Child, Shakespeare's Macbeth or Romeo and Juliet. I do not own the Scottish ballad of Tam Lin, Robert Burns' John Barleycorn nor do I own Dante's The Divine Comedy. I do not own Homer's Ulysses, Elizabeth George Speare's The Witch of Blackbird Pond or Jell-O.

I do however own JJ's family: Alexandra (Sandra), Roger, Jessica and Alice Catherine. As well as Jessie's aunt and cousin: Charlotte and Tanya. And the White's, Sheriff Vaughn, Michael Alexander and Rafe.

Jessica's Story

PART 1.1

Having a sister is like having a best friend you can't get rid of.

You know whatever you do, they'll still be there.

- Anonymous

July 22nd, 1978

Four-year-old Jessica Jareau runs into the hospital room, closely followed by her Father. Jessie climbs up onto the hospital bed where her mother is resting, a tiny pink bundle cradled in her arms.

"Mama did you have the baby?" Jessie loudly yells out her question.

"Shh! Sweetheart, don't wake your baby sister," whispers her mother Sandra.

"My baby sister?" queries Jessie. She moves closer to her mother curiously.

"Roger pick JJ up will you? I want her to see Jennifer."

Roger, scoops Jessie up, bringing her level with her mother's face so that she can look down on the tiny pink bundle in her mother's arms.

"Well, what do you think little lady?" he asks with a proud smile on his face and happiness evident in his voice.

"My baby doll," Jessie says.

"No JJ, she's not a doll, that is your baby sister Jennifer," says Roger firmly.

"No, she's a baby doll," insists Jessie with a pout reaching out for Jennifer, "My baby doll."

Roger sighs, "I think she needs another nap."

Sandra laughs quietly.

I am the way into the doleful city,

I am the way into eternal Grief,

I am the way to a forsaken Race.

Justice it was that moved my great creator;

Divine omnipotence created me,

And highest wisdom joined with primal love.

Before me nothing but eternal things

Were made, and I shall last eternally,

Abandon every hope, all you who enter.

- Dante's Divine Comedy, Canto III

October 31st, 1983

The Catholic Church has offered several explanations on the origins of Faeries. One such account suggests that faeries were fallen angels who sided with neither God nor Lucifer, the light bringer, when Lucifer tried to take over heaven. When Lucifer and his Angels lost, God sent them to Hell. As for the neutrals, God cast them onto the earth rather than punishing them as much as the demons and casting them into hell.

In Dante's Divine Comedy, the angels who didn't chose sides are punished in an Ante-hell. Dante considers them cowards for not picking a side. Inside the gates of Hell but before the river Acheron are the souls neither good enough for heaven nor evil enough for hell proper.

In Ireland, it is believed that fairies are descendants of the Tuatha De Danaan or People of the Goddess Dana who were known to be skilled in magic. In the highlands of Cornwall and Wales, fairies are believed to be those who died before their time. They wait in limbo, the Underworld or Otherworld, until the time when they were originally supposed to die.

Okay Jessica Jareau, your essay is horrible. I give up. I have too much information and at the same time, I don't have nearly enough. I need to finish my essay for class next week but I'm stuck, I don't know what to say. Maybe I should pick a new topic, but this topic is important. The more I read about Faeries, the more I would like to meet some. I know that it's not rational, but I think it would be neat. I want to be able to tell my little sister Jenny, my baby doll, all about faeries. I wonder if I should go back to the library tomorrow and look up stories about faeries.

I have always called Jenny baby doll. Daddy says that when Jenny was first born, I thought she was a new doll for me to play with. I know better now, but the nickname stuck.

Tonight is Halloween and Jenny and I went trick-or-treating earlier. I was a knight and Jenny was a Princess. I think she looked cute in her tiny pink dress and tall pointed Princess hat. It felt wrong to have Jenny dress up as a Princess, I feel like there is someone else who should be with us and dressed as the Princess. I kept thinking that Jenny was supposed to be a knight like me.

I've been having these strange dreams for as far back as I can remember. There are always three of us in these dreams: Jenny, myself, and a tiny little girl. We look so similar that sometimes I think we are sisters, which is silly because I only have one sister. In these dreams I'm old, not old like mama but old like our babysitter Devon, she's in high school. Sometimes Jenny and I are playing with the Princess and sometimes we're just reading in Jenny's room.

Ever since Jenny started Kindergarten in September, she won't let mama or daddy read to her at bedtime, it has to be me. I don't know why she wants me to read to her but I don't mind. I love reading and I love reading to Jenny. I think I'm going to ask daddy for some bookshelves in my bedroom, I'm running out of space for my books on my desk. Tonight we started Roald Dahl's Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Mama used to read it to me when I was little. Jenny fell asleep before I could finish chapter three.

I open the door to my bedroom and silently creep past Jenny's room to the staircase. I walk down the stairs, careful to step over the creaky step at the bottom. When I get to the kitchen, I climb up onto the counter and open the cupboard door where the candles are hidden. Tonight is Halloween, the night when the veil between life and death, the fabric of reality is at it's thinnest. I want to light a candle to celebrate Samhain, the Faerie New Year.

Maybe I shouldn't just light one candle, it would be lonely. Oh, I know, I can light one for me and one for Jenny. No, two doesn't feel right either, three is better: one for me, one for Jenny and one for the Princess in my dreams, the one with the faerie eyes.

I bring up to Jenny's bedroom the tea lights, the matches and a small black pot to keep them safe in; I don't want to burn the house down. I set them down on her window seat and I am very careful in lighting them. I don't wake Jenny but I hope that she wakes up on her own. The flickering flames are hypnotizing and I don't notice how long it's been until they sputter out and I'm left in the dark.

I crawl into my bed exhausted, tomorrow is Tuesday and I have school. I wonder if mama will make us pancakes for breakfast. I think Jenny and I should try blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes. Chocolate chip is my favourite and Jenny's as well. I don't know how I know this, but I'm pretty sure that the faerie Princess likes blueberry pancakes best.

O I forbid you, maidens a'

That wear gowd on your hair

To come or gae by Carterhaugh

For young Tam-lin is there.

- The Ballad of Tam Lin

October 31st, 1985

Today is Halloween. I have been wandering around the house all afternoon reciting lines from Shakespeare's Macbeth like, "Double, double toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble." It bugs daddy because he thinks that I shouldn't be reading Macbeth already, he thinks I'm too young. I'm twelve now, that's not young at all. Jenny is only seven. She is young.

Jenny and I are going trick-or-treating in a few hours. Mama says we can't stay out late because we both have school tomorrow. Jenny and I are going out dressed as faeries. Not like Tinkerbelle, but real faeries from the Otherworld. I drew the pictures for our costumes and Mama made them: a flowing tunic made of three different greens, brown leggings and fake flowers for our hair but no wings.

I was so angry with daddy when he said Jenny and I were going to look silly as fairies without wings that I almost yelled at him. Instead I said "It's faerie daddy," my hands on my hips, "not fairy. And, the Sidhe (shee) don't need wings, only the tiny faeries do."

He actually had the gall to dismiss my explanation, "Alright pumpkin, whatever you say."

When we return home, our pumpkins filled with candy, Jenny and I get ready for bed while mama and daddy check our candy. Every year it's the same thing; before Jenny falls asleep I slip into her room with three tea candles a small black pot and a match. I set the candles in the black pot on the window seat next to me and beckon her over. Jenny throws off her blankets, climbs out of bed quickly and rushes over to me.

As I light the candles I talk to my little sister, "Tonight is Samhain Jenny. Tonight is the beginning of the new year."

She looks confused, "I thought New Year's was in January Jessie?"

I smiles down at her, "Normally yes, but we're celebrating the Celtic New Year tonight Jenny, the Faerie New Year."

She smiles up at me, "Okay Jessie. But why are you lighting a candle?"

"I am lighting three candles Jenny." I say in a teasing voice.

She pouts and pokes my ribs. Hey eyes beg me for a proper explanation.

I laugh quietly, "One candle for me, one candle for you and one candle for the Princess."

"The Princess?" Her eyes widen in excitement. "What Princess? Do I know her?"

"Not yet, but you will." I promise her. I am thinking about the Princess from my dreams and how much she looks like Jenny. She must be our little sister, a faerie Princess for two Faerie knights.

After we climb into Jenny's bed, I recite the ballad of Tam Lin. He was a prisoner of the Faerie Queen. I tell Jenny how Tam Lin's true love Janet rescued him by holding onto him even though the Queen kept changing him into different animals.

When I am finished reciting the ballad I look at Jenny with tears in my eyes. I have a feeling in the pit of my stomach that something bad is going to happen, "Don't ever let me go. Promise me Jenny."

Half asleep, she rests her head on my shoulder, "I promise Jessie."

"I love you baby doll." I say to her, smiling even though tears are streaming down my face.

"Love you too Jessie." She whispers.

Friendship is born at that moment

when one person says to another:

"What! You too? I thought I was the only one."

- C.S. Lewis

January 23rd, 1986

On our first day back to school this year, Mr. Jennings told my grade seven class that we're going to be pen pals with an American grade nine student who is living abroad. It is supposed to be a mentoring program. Which is crap because no one is going to open up to someone halfway around the world from them. It is also supposed to teach us about cultural differences. We have to write letters twice a month until the end of school. So I have to write about ten or eleven letters.

Today we received our first letters from our new pen pals. At least I got a girl. I would have nothing to talk about with a boy. My pen pal's name is Emily, she is fifteen and right now she lives in Italy. She goes to boarding school and she has two best friends, Matthew and John. Emily sent a picture with her letter. She's pretty, black hair, brown eyes and very pale skin. She looks fay, but a different kind of fay than Jenny and myself.

Emily says that she isn't overly impressed with the idea of writing to someone she doesn't know in a country where she has never been to school. That is kind of interesting. Emily also said that since she wants to pass English this year she hopes that I am interesting and can write back quickly. She seems rather sarcastic; maybe this assignment won't be so bad after all.

I show Jenny the letter when I get home and she giggles at the stamp, which is a map of Italy. Jenny asks me why there was a boot on my letter. Jenny keeps asking me questions about Emily and so I showed her Emily's picture so that she would be a little quieter. I have a really bad headache so I brush Jenny off when she wants to know more details about why I'm writing to Emily. I tell her it's for school. I could have been nicer. I should have been nicer. I'll explain it after I have a nap and I'll write my letter to Emily after dinner.

I should tell Emily about myself, maybe about the books I'm reading. I should probably send her a picture of me because she sent one of herself. I'll tell Emily about Faeries, maybe not just yet, I don't want to scare her away. I would like us to be friends beyond this class assignment. I spend so much time in my books and in my head that I don't really have any friends, it would be nice to have someone to talk to besides Jenny.

January 23, 1986

Dear Emily,

My name is Jessica Joy Jareau. My friends call me JJ. You could too, if you want, or you could call me Jessie, that's what my little sister calls me. I am twelve years old and I live with my mama and daddy and my little sister Jenny.

I feel I must confess, I've never had a pen pal before. Even if this is just for school, I hope that we can have decent conversations by your standards so that we don't fail English.

Is living in Rome wonderful? Is Italy gorgeous? I have never been very far out of Valencia (the tiny little hole in the wall where I live). We're supposed to visit Washington DC for the eighth grade graduation trip, but that is a year and a half away.

What classes are you taking? Do you like all your teachers? Do you like school? We have the same classes for the entire year so I'm taking: Music, Art, English, Math, Science, Religion, Study Skills, Geography and Gym. I like most of my teachers but my art teacher, Mrs. Vale, is really nice and a little strange. On the other hand, my Math teacher, Mr. Tromp, isn't very nice at all and he couldn't find another way to explain math problems to us if his life depended on it. I really like school, but I would much rather be at home reading as opposed to sitting in class, bored to tears while the teachers drone on. I have asked mama to home school me before, but she keeps saying no.

Do you have a best friend? My best friend's name is Raphael, Rafe. He sits next to me in all of our classes and at lunchtime too. He is even nice to my little sister Jenny. He always calls her Jennifer and asks her about school. Jenny adores him because he pays attention to her, unlike the rest of my friends.

I really liked your photograph, you've very pretty. I thought it was a brilliant idea, so I have included a photograph of myself from last month's Christmas celebration.

I will put this in the mailbox tomorrow because I have to get ready for bed now; it was nice to 'meet' you. Good night Emily.

Your pen pal/friend,

Jessica Jareau, JJ

AN4: The next section will be posted on June 19th 2012