Chapter 2

She had never been sick before, Melody thought, coughing from deep in her chest, her lungs ripping in pain with each rough heave. But since arriving in America her life had been very different.

It had been months, and winter was harsh for a lost homeless girl in such a big city. She was often too cold, too hungry and too scared. Melody missed her Mummy and Daddy terribly, but she knew she couldn't and wouldn't see them for years and years. This was 1970, she had been taken from her Mummy and Daddy in 2018. And if she was honest with herself, she wasn't really sure if it mattered anymore.

It had been such a long time since she'd eaten more than half-rotten scraps she'd foraged from trash cans and dumpsters, longer still since she'd been protected from the snow, rain and over all cold. One kind old lady she had met within her first week had told her she'd catch her death on these streets. Melody was beginning to think she was being very much proved right.

Coughing again, her small arms wrapping around her middle, Melody knew she was dying. It didn't scare her as much as she thought it should. She felt that somehow she would be okay. Maybe she would go to heaven, like her Daddy once told her. She didn't think so. She felt like... She felt like she could fix this somehow. And that's exactly what she told the concerned man ahead of her in the alley; that she was dying, but she could fix it.

It was easy, she thought, watching as her hands began to glow. It was very pretty too. If only her Mummy could see her. Melody's arms flew wide, like she did when she used to spin in the park, and she felt her skin, her whole body explode into fire, burning her, hurting so badly. But she laughed, because she was getting better, she was fixing herself and it was amazing.

When the fire vanished and the pain was gone, Melody realised she was smaller. Her clothes were far too big, which she thought was a very good thing indeed, those clothes had been getting painfully too small for her, her legs had been getting longer, making her skirts higher, and her feet had gotten bigger, so her shoes had started to pinch her toes. Now her clothes could keep her a lot warmer, make her feel safer.

The man had run away, she saw, frowning as she realised her shoes were also too big for her now, almost twice the size of her feet. Melody didn't understand why she was so much smaller, but she wasn't surprised by it. Nor was she surprised by the change in her complexion. She had been a very pale child, like her Mummy was, but now her skin was dark, like the old lady she'd met, who'd been worried about her living on the streets.

Melody didn't really understand why, but she didn't grow up like she used to. Years passed and yet she stayed the same height and weight, never growing physically older. Mentally, however, was another story. She had always been a lot smarter than most her age, but these days she would sneak into libraries during the day time, hiding away in low, tucked away corners to read encyclopaedias and text books alike. She read of science and religion and history, devoured classics of Dickens, Shakespeare, and anything else she could find. Her favourite though, were the medical books. It hadn't taken her long to realise that along with her new size, colour and physical age she had gained a heart, something that ensured she steered clear of any and all doctors. Instead, if hurt, she'd treat herself. Remembering how her Daddy had taught her once upon a time, reading and remembering the thick books cover to cover.

She remembered everything she read. She remembered most things, actually.

Along with her vastly growing intelligence, Melody got better and better at stealing. She would steal food and money mostly, but sometimes, if she was lucky, she could get a warm blanket, or a coat. She became quite the pick pocket, and discovered all the best places to hide away if ever she needed to sleep. She didn't sleep a lot, not even before, when she had had a home and a bed and her Mum and Dad, but she slept even less now. Spending her nights instead with the stray cats and dogs, the only friends she could safely make, anyone else would question why she didn't age. But that was the good thing about being a homeless, apparently orphaned black child on the streets of New York City in the 20th century; she was invisible.

Until one day when she tried to pick-pocket the wrong person, and found herself lying easily through her teeth, putting on a British accent without a second thought and crying, telling the man who'd caught her that she'd been on holiday with her parents, but they'd died and she'd been left alone on the streets, forced to steal to survive until she could find her way back home to her grandparents in England. A week later she was on a plane to Heathrow, still incredibly unsure how she'd managed to convince them her story was true.

Once landed and transported to London Melody escaped children's services easily. She still looked to be a child, she thought perhaps four years old, but in reality, though she often lost track of dates and days in her head, using the behaviour of those around her to calendar the passing of time, she knew herself to be thirty-five. She also knew this to be the year 1997 and quickly decided she wanted to find them again, her parents.

A little too easily, she stole clothes from charity bins, feeling herself growing rapidly until she was at least eight in appearance. That certainly surprised her, after so many years of never aging at all and within one day of arriving in England she was suddenly twice the physical age. She simply shrugged it off though, it was hardly the strangest thing about her, and it made a lot of things much easier. For one, she knew the police and children's services to be searching for a toddler, not a child. Another was it was much easier for her to travel without suspicion. She found herself enough money to catch bus to Leadworth, telling the curious driver a lie about visiting her cousin, found herself a seat and waited.

tbc...