A World Apart:
An Annie Fan Fiction.
Author's Note:
This story is dedicated to the memory of Maria Villa, who, before her untimely death, often collaborated with me on various writing projects. Annie crossing dimensions and finishing up in the world in which the nation of Orfanishkarah is located, a parallel of Earth where things are very different from the way they are here, is an idea she, her fiance, and I had been throwing back and forth for a number of years, but other projects finished up getting ahead of this story being begun. Some of the story elements are hers, some are her fiance's, some are mine. I only hope that I do her justice whilst writing it as a solo project.
I first began toying with the idea in the late 90s after tossing various ideas back and forth with her fiance, whom I've known since I was six years old, but got nowhere with it. When Maria and I first became friends, I told her about the ideas I was playing with,and she helped me, over a period of years,to flesh out the world, give it its own unique culture,and even come up with a history for it. as I began work on the story, I realized that it, like a lot of my other writing, is indirectly tied in with Stephen King's dark Tower cycle, as well as my own Multiverse series inspired by King's work, as well as the work of C.S. Louis. Some may think that Annie plus Dark Tower plus Narnia is an impossible combination, but I'm hoping to do Annie, the Chronicles of Narnia, and the dark Tower justice.
This story treats, as cannon, the events of the 1982 film version of "Annie", its made for TV sequel "Annie A Royal Adventure", as well as some events from the original Little Orphan Annie comic strips and at least one children's record produced in the early 80s, but the times of said events are compressed to fit the timeline of the story, which begins in the summer of 1934, just a few months after the events of "royal Adventure". The 1999 and 2014 films have, for the purposes of this story, been disregarded, as have those of the Broadway stage play.
Prologue:
Origins.
In the beginning, the macroverse was void. Nothing moved. Nothing was.
For billions of years existence held its breath, as the Prim, the raw force of creation, gathered itself. From the Prim was formed the Dark tower, the center of all infinity, a living embodiment of Gan himself. Following the formation of the Tower, the Prim spun six beams from the tower to bind it in place. Anchoring the beams and the tower was the first world, known in after ages as All-World.
The tower spun all realities from itself, universes diverging to form a multiverse consisting of eleven dimensions, each containing an infinity of universes, all linked by a hub known, by at least two visitors, as the wood between the worlds. In the first, and oldest, dimension, the planet Miria and its dominant life form came into being. Also in that dimension, the tyranical empire of Charn would one day rise, becoming the terror of all who encountered it. In another nearby dimension, almost as old, an infinite multiplicity of planets Earth were formed, occasionally sharing moments with each other, but most times selfcontained and unaware. Major events on many Earths were mirrored time and again, but each was different in a variety of ways, some differences being minor, some major.
On many Earths, history proceeded in tandem, but on one in particular, the divergence was larger and longer lasting. On this Earth, history proceeded along a different path. A small, seemingly unimportant, nation began gaining in power, knowledge, and territory. The expansion of this nation seemed endless, and eventually, it had taken possession of every available bit of land on the planet's primary continent.
For tens of thousands of years, whilst many Earths were still in their primitive stone ages, the divergent Earth advanced at break neck speed, under the guiding hand of an, at first, benevolent royal family, always presided over by a queen, for unlike many Earths, this one had developed a matriarchal society.
As time passed, the queens grew less benevolent as their power grew and their longevity of life increased into the hundreds of years. The common people were stripped of their freedoms bit by bit as the queens gained more and more authority, and the civilization faced eventual degeneration.
In the seventh generation of the time of the queens, the royal family was placed under a curse thanks to the seventh queen violating an ancient holy sight, the curse manifesting itself as a homicidal madness which, every five years, would overtake the female members of the family, and in the tenth generation, most of the civilization was brought low by an insect-born sickness known as the Mind plague, which left its victims with all their former intelligence, but no memory of their pasts.
As knowledge was regained and the advancements of the civilization were recovered, an indirect descendant of the queens took power, and for a time, the monarchy prospered. But as time passed, corruption once more surfaced. During that time, many creatures that would, on some Earths, have been considered mere myths, entered the world. The chief amongst these were the beings known as type one vampires. Although,unlike the vampires of legend, these beings, although they fed on human blood, were not agents of evil. Contrary to the activities usually attributed to them in other worlds, they cohabitated with humans, granting their partners and children endless life, but also the ability to move about during daylight hours. The vampires and their families spread to every corner of the nation, eventually making up nearly a quarter of the population, a development that would, eventually, spell the difference between life and death for the redeveloping civilization.
Colonies of the shape shifting creatures known by some as werewolves also took up residence in the wilder areas surrounding the cities, eventually combining into a force more than a match for any potential invaders. And other, even more unusual creatures also became the norm in some places, including undead creatures known, by some, as zombies. But these were also unlike the zombies popularized in other worlds as creatures of pure murderous instinct.
During the time of the fifteenth queen, a mysterious figure first appeared and installed herself as an adviser to the royal family, bringing about the second period of misrule. This adviser seemed never to age, remaining in her position throughout the times of the sixteenth, seventeenth, eighteenth, nineteenth, and twentieth queens, all the while manipulating the once benevolent monarchy closer and closer to becoming a nation of slaves presided over, not by the queens, but by their mysterious adviser, whom some began to speculate was not only a dark sorceress, but not human as well. Some who spoke against her openly vanished in the night, others were taken to a structure built outside the capital during the time of the seventeenth queen known as Hopeless Tower. Once inside Hopeless Tower, a prisoner's existence was forgotten by all who knew them, and the prisoners themselves were eternally trapped in a timeless state, unable to die, but also unable to truly live.
In the twentieth generation of the time of the queens, a revolution toppled the royal family, resulting in the disappearance of the Adviser and leaving only one member, a baby girl, alive. This child vanished from the palace and from that world, spirited away by an unidentified group of strangers immediately before the world was plunged into an ice age which, according to prophecy, would only end when a descendant of the vanished royal child returned to claim the throne and title of queen.
For four-thousand years, the world remained frozen, its once proud civilization living deep beneath the surface in natural caverns, overseen by tribal leaders, each leader being bonded to a type one vampire. Stories were passed down, from mother to daughter, to keep the old knowledge alive.
The subterranean tribes quickly became accustomed to hardship and grew strong, developing a culture which could endure anything nature, or anything else, could throw at it. always they awaited the return of the future queen and the end of the ice age, awaited the time when they could once more walk beneath the open sky.
As generations passed in all universes, the descendants of the royal child passed the centuries on another of the infinite Earths. At first the history of the family was passed from generation to generation, but as time went on, the past was forgotten and the family blended in completely with the society around them.
In the year 1922, seven years before the great Depression, the last two adult members of the family left their baby daughter, whose name was Annie, on the steps of the Hudson Street Orphanage, Girls' annex, in New York City. Their intension was not abandonment, but to prevent the child from starving with them, as they had fallen on hard times and had barely enough to keep themselves alive, let alone themselves and a child. Some would have said that their leaving her was abandonment, but if they had kept her with them, those same people would have then accused them of neglecting her. With the child, they left half of a silver heart shaped locket, and a note, promising to return and claim her. "Please take good care of our little baby. Her name is Annie. She was born on October the 18th. We have left half of a silver locket around her neck and kept the other half, so when we return, she'll know that she is our baby." Soon after their return to New Jersey, their home state,they were burned to death in a fire, leaving the child as a true orphan.
Eleven years passed for Annie in the orphanage. The first few years were in durable for her and her six fellow orphans, Pepper, THE eldest of the girls, who had spent the first few years following the death of her parents running with the girls' gangs of New York before being brought to the orphanage, Kate, who was a year younger than Pepper, who served as a surrogate mother to the other girls, July, an extremely shy child who hardly ever spoke, Tessie, the most timid and nervous of the six, Duffy, who, regardless of the three year difference and their ages and their size difference, was best friends with Pepper, and Molly, who almost immediately after being brought to the orphanage, became a sort of surrogate younger sister to Annie. The girls hardly ever had quite enough to eat thanks to the New York Board of Orphans, as Pepper called the company, never sending enough money to the orphanage, but they were never malnourished, and they usually were warm in the winter time, even if the coal burned in the furnace in the orphanage basement was low quality.
But with the stock market crash of 1929 came the end of the comparatively good times. The orphanage wardeness, Agatha Hannagan, sank into a deep depression brought about by the worsened financial situation confronting her, combined with the responsibility of taking care of seven children whom no one seemed in any hurry to adopt, and she attempted to self medicate with alcohol, but since prohibition was in full swing,the only alcohol she could obtain was the extremely dangerous combination of medical alcohol and juniper referred to commonly as bathtub jinn. With the start of her descent into almost constant drunkenness, the abuse and neglect began. all seven children were put to work making clothing that Miss Hannagan sold, only to spend the money on alcohol. The quality of the food the children ate grew worse and worse. The orphanage itself fell to partial ruin. And there were some days, and more than a few nights, when the furnace was not lit at all.
. Time and again, Annie ran away from the orphanage, attempting to locate her parents, not knowing that they had died when she'd still been a baby, and time and again she was returned to the orphanage by Weasel, a local beat cop who was, thanks to the great Depression and alcohol prohibition, as corruptible a specimen as could be imagined.
Immediately following her final escape attempt, which began with her persuading the other six orphans to place her in a laundry cart and cover her with sheets (an orphan sandwich on white, one could say), during which she rescued a stray dog from a group of hoodlums, Annie caught the eye of grace Farrell, the secretary to billionaire Oliver Warbucks, who had been sent by her employer to select an orphan to spend a week with him in order to boost his public image. She was taken to the Warbucks mansion and eventually won the heart of its owner, who intended to adopt her.
When Annie informed Oliver Warbucks of her search for her parents, he attempted to aid her, offering a fifty-thousand dollar reward for any information leading to their location. Hundreds of couples responded to the offer, but none of them knew about the locket, the existence of which had been kept secret by Warbucks in order to identify the one real couple and to weed out any and all imposters. But Miss Hannagan's brother Daniel, known in criminal circles as Rooster Hannagan, the man responsible for the fire that had taken the lives of Annie's parents, and his girlfriend Sady Algonquin, known to the criminal underworld as Lilly St. Regis, persuaded the weak willed orphanage wardeness to help them kidnap Annie and gain possession of the reward money. Miss Hannagan informed them of the deaths of Annie's parents and that the police had brought their remaining belongings to her, including their half of Annie's locket. Armed with this information, Rooster and Lilly intended to pose as Annie's parents, and do away with her once the check was in their hands.
A short time later, they arrived, in disguise, at the Warbucks mansion, identified themselves as Ralph and Sherlie Mudge, presented not only the other half of Annie's locket, but her birth certificate as well, and convinced Warbucks that they were, in fact, Annie's parents. Annie accompanied them to their truck and got in, only for the vehicle to stop at the foot of the mansion's driveway to admit another passenger. Miss Hannagan!
But the other six orphans, who had overheard the scheme from beginning to end, escaped the orphanage and informed Warbucks of the deception whilst Annie herself escaped her kidnappers' clutches and destroyed the fifty-thousand dollar check. Enraged at this turn of events, Rooster attempted to do away with Annie by throwing her from the top of a raised drawbridge and into the river below. Annie was rescued by Punjab, Oliver Warbucks's Indian bodyguard, Rooster and Lilly were arrested, and Miss Hannagan, who had attempted to save Annie from her brother, was brought, along with Annie, back to the Warbucks mansion and took part in that year's fourth of July celebration.
Shortly after her adoption, Annie was abducted by a gangster called Mister Mack. Warbucks rescued her and took Mack and his gang into custody, contacted a local Senator who owed him a favor and persuaded the politician to use his influence with the judge and make sure the trial went their way and that Mack and his men got their just desserts. Annie questioned the use of such methods, but concluded, "With all the crooks using pull and money to get off, I guess about the only way to get 'em punished is for honest police like Daddy to use pull and money and gun-men too, and beat them at their own game."
Warbucks became much more ruthless following another attempt to kidnap Annie in March of 1934. After catching the second gang of kidnappers he announced, "I wouldn't think of troubling the police with you boys".
Six months after Annie's adoption, she and Oliver Warbucks repaid Miss Hannagan's saving of Annie's life by thwarting a duo of criminals attempting to steal the orphanage's Christmas money, money that did not, in fact, exist, and concluded matters by inviting all in the orphanage, including Miss Hannagan, to spend Christmas at the mansion, restoring the wardeness's faith in humanity. And four months after that, Annie, Molly, and Hanna, a new arrival at the orphanage, accompanied Oliver Warbucks to England, where he was to be knighted. But almost immediately, the three girls inadvertently finished up matching wits with Lady Edwina Hogbottom, who intended to destroy Buckingham Palace, wipe out the royal family and set herself up as queen of England.
Immediately following her return from England, Annie was kidnapped from her hotel room by a wanted war criminal from eastern Europe who checked in under a phony name with a fake passport. Although Warbucks enlisted the help of all law enforcement agencies worldwide to find her, he began to resign himself to the very strong possibility that Annie most likely would not be found alive. He was unfortunately unaware that Annie was still alive and had made her way to Guatemala with her captor, known simply as the "Butcher of the Balkans". Although Annie wanted to be let go, the Butcher informed her that he neither would let her go nor kill her, for fear of being captured and because he would not kill a child despite his many political killings, and added that she had a new life now with him.
Warbucks eventually contacted detective Dick Tracy and in listed his assistance in finding Annie. After three weeks of fruitless detective work, Tracy received a letter from Annie and determined her location. The name of the kidnapper was revealed to be Henrik Wilemse. He was tracked to the city where he was holding Annie against her will and was made to disappear.
July of 1934 was to spell the beginning of another adventure for Annie, one that would last her entire life. As is the case with all great events, this one began very simply. It began with a dream.
Chapter 1:
The Summoning.
Annie floated among the stars. Darkness lay all about her. She knew, immediately, that she was dreaming, but was unable to awaken. After what seemed like an eternity of silence and darkness, she noticed that the darkness was becoming less intense. A soft golden light was illuminating her surroundings, but she saw that she was somehow floating in nothingness. All was still around her. No breath of wind stirred her hair, no sound reached her ears.
The light grew brighter, revealing a tall, golden skinned figure that appeared to be half human, half avian. It was slimmer than a human and stood taller, and in place of hair, its head was covered by feather-like growths. It stood upright like a human, but large, multi-colored wings grew from its shoulders like those of an incredibly huge bird.
Annie eyed the figure, wondering for a moment if she was seeing an angel.
"Who, and what are you?" she asked,"Are you an angel?"
"No," the figure replied in a voice that lent the words an almost musical feel, "I'm no angel. You've never heard of my kind before, but we know of you. I am a Miriana. My name is Yuon."
"A Miriana?" asked Annie, "What exactly is one of those?"
"You'll learn of us, eventually," Yuon answered, "but now is not the time. Now is the time of summoning."
Annie looked at the being with a mixture of confusion and disbelief. She had no idea what it was talking about.
"You are Ann Marie Mudge," the being said, "last descendant of the Orfanishkaran royal family, and it is your destiny to return there to fulfil the ancient prophecy and give new life to that world."
Annie's disbelief increased and she said, "I don't know what you're talking about."
"Not yet," Yuon responded, "at least not consciously. The knowledge is buried deep in your mind. As it has been in the minds of all your ancestors, dating back to the time of the great revolt and the beginning of the age of ice. It remained hidden until the time was come round. I am here only as a messenger, and to awaken the knowledge within you. But there is danger."
Annie gave the being an inquiring look.
"Your journey won't be without opposition," the birdlike being continued in response to Annie's look, "there are those whose best interests would be served if Orfanishkarah remained forever locked in ice. Beware the Dark Lady, she who bares the mark of disgrace. She who was cast from the world of the doubled sun. She who has turned the Khtanni and the metal-winged Túrkhlaenen to her side."
Annie's first image, at the speaking of the name Khtanni, was of tall, skeletal creatures, encased in cloaks of black and auras of decay, from beneath whose hoods pitiless eyes of beautiful, evil colors burned with a flameless madness. Her second, at the uttering of the name Túrkhlaenen, was of great, dark, majestic creatures, great birds whose feathers gleamed so sharp in the sun that the lightest brush of their tips would easily slice armor in half.
"Who is this dark Lady," she asked in a trembling voice.
"She is old, old as the stars, old as the very void of darkness itself. She is beautiful and terrible. There is no means with which to describe her. But she is dark and gives off such terrible cold. To be in her presence is to wade in fire and ice and adamantine blades. To hear her voice is to hear the command of Death. To speak her name is to invite her interest. She takes the form of a human woman, short of stature, with dark eyes and black hair. Once long ago, she set herself up as adviser to the Orfanishkaran royal family, crushing all opposition beneath her heel. And she seeks Orfanishkarah's ruin. The one who tried to kill you last year was an agent of hers, all be it unknowingly. And she will make further attempts, either on your life, or to prevent you from achieving your goal. Beware the Dark Lady."
The Miriana reached toward Annie and embraced her, gently rubbing her back with its wings. before she could move or respond in any way, Annie awakened.
The lights of New York City were still shining through her bedroom window, Sandy, her dog, was sleeping at the foot of her bed, and the Warbucks mansion was deathly quiet. No sound reached her ears from within the mansion except the ticking of the grandfather clock in the drawing room on the floor below, and closer to hand, the ticking of the alarm clock on her night table.
She reached for it, held it up to the light coming through the window, and saw that the time was 3:00 in the morning. She returned to bed and attempted to go back to sleep, but was unable.
She got up, crossed to the writing desk by the window, sat down, took up a pen, found a blank sheet of paper, and began writing out her dream before it could fade from her memory. She sometimes kept a dream journal, and the dream she had just awakened from was the most unusual one she'd ever experienced. She had to guess at the spelling of the names the Miriana had used, but in a relatively short time, had completed the entry, after which, she placed the paper containing the entry into a folder which was filled with similar papers.
"Orfanishkarah," she thought, "that's what the thing said. But what or where is that?"
At exactly 3:00 that morning, all eight orphans, Pepper, Kate, July, Tessie, Duffy, Molly, Hanna, and Peaches all awoke at the same moment. They had each had dreams, but none of them could recall what they had been. Pepper suggested that they might have had something to do with the ghosts purported to haunt the orphanage basement. Kate contributed her belief that they had had something to do with the incident a year ago during which Rooster Hannagan and Lillie St. Regis had attempted to kidnap and do away with Annie, regardless of how Peaches and Hanna hadn't even been present when the incident had taken place. Duffy put in her two cents worth, claiming that the dreams had to be about Miss Hannagan suddenly rediscovering the joys of bathtub jinn and once more becoming the terror of the orphanage. Hanna gave her opinion that the dreams had to have something to do with Lady Hogbottom's attempt to blow Buckingham Palace and everyone in it to the moon, to say nothing of the snake filled dungeon she, Annie and Molly had been locked in for a time during that particular adventure, regardless of how only she and Molly had accompanied Annie to England and the other orphans hadn't even seen either Hogbottom Castle, or the dungeon that lay beneath it.
Before anyone else could make a contribution to the conversation, Miss Hannagan entered the room. For a moment the six girls who remembered all too well the times without number during which Miss Hannagan had entered the communal dormitory hung over and in a bad temper prepared for either harsh words, blows, or both, but then they relaxed, as they noticed that the woman was perfectly sober and that the only things she currently carried were a lit cigarette and an ash tray. She crossed the room, entered the communal bathroom, muttered something concerning the state of the plumbing which included more than a few harsh words directed at the "no account repairman" who "couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a flashlight", pounded on a couple of faucets to try and stop their continuous dripping, attempted to readjust a shower curtain, which promptly became disengaged and landed, together with its accompanying support rod, on top of her, resulting in a string of swear words that made Pepper grin broadly, disengaged herself from the curtain, attempted to re hang it, only for the rod to snap in half, earning even more rough language. She flung the useless curtain and rod into the corner for later disposal, checked the drains of a couple of sinks, swore some more at one of them that had developed a clog, reentered the dormitory, approached Molly's bed and checked the sheets.
She then left the dormitory, but returned a couple of minutes later and seated herself on the foot of an unoccupied bunk, a cup of coffee near to hand.
"I figure it's not a coincidence that we're all up this early," she said.
"We all had dreams, Miss Hannagan," piped up Molly.
"Yeah, dreams we can't remember," added Pepper, "but they woke us all up at the same time."
"It's something about Annie," Miss Hannagan said after a long thoughtful silence, "I don't remember anything else, but it's something to do with Annie."
"Rooster?" Pepper inquired, clenching her fists. The fifteen-year-old had wanted a piece of Rooster ever since he'd manhandled her into the closet, together with the other orphans, and locked them in, immediately after Molly had informed her, partially by use of a mop, that Annie had been in danger.
"Not Rooster, thank god," Miss Hannagan answered, "That piece of dog droppings is still in jail. At least I hope he is. He's gotten out before, but I think he's still behind bars, thanks to Warbucks."
"There was a big bird person," Tessie suddenly said, "it was saying things, but I couldn't hear it too good."
"Couldn't hear it very well," corrected Kate.
"that too," Tessie returned.
"we gotta go see Annie," said Molly.
"Not now," returned Miss Hannagan, "it's the middle of the night and everyone in the Warbucks mansion's sleeping. we'd be liable to get chased off by that big guy,what's his name?"
"Punjab," offered Pepper.
"yeah him," Miss Hannagan said, "I don't want that guy mad at me. He looks big enough to tear a telephone pole in half."
"Don't you mean a telephone book?" Pepper asked.
"No, I mean a telephone pole," replied Miss Hannagan, "he was probably tearing telephone books in half when he was Molly's age."
Pepper, who was usually the one to tell the others stories about what may or may not be hanging around in the orphanage basement, showed her imagination and her ability to make things up on the spot by saying, "Na, he was tearing telephone books in half when he was still in diapers. He was tearing telephone poles in half when he was Molly's age. Now they hire him as a car crusher in the scrap yards when the machinery breaks down."
Duffy burst into laughter, nearly falling off her bunk. Pepper reached for her, caught her around the shoulders, and aided her in keeping her balance until the laughter had subsided.
"Well," Miss Hannagan said, "I don't want him to demonstrate his car crushing abilities on me, so we'll wait till a time when it's actually light outside and there aren't a gang of criminals hiding in the nearest alley, just waiting to club us all over the head and take us who knows where."
"or bash our skulls in and take our money?" offered Duffy.
"What money and what gang of criminals?" Kate asked, "the only gang around here is that girls' gang Pepper used to hang around with, but they don't club people over the heads and kidnap them, nor do they bash people's skulls in and take their money."
"No," Duffy contributed, "they just beat hell out of gangs of criminals who are out to bash innocent people's skulls in and take their money."
"Too bad they didn't beat hell outta Rooster," piped up Tessie, "I hear he bashed the widow Davis's skull in and took her money."
"They were somewhere else that day, unfortunately," Pepper replied, "or they would have done it. And who the hell's the Widow Davis?"
"Just some innocent person Rooster decided to bash the skull in of," Tessie replied, "right before he took her money."
"Would they have left anything of him?" Duffy asked interestedly.
"I don't think so," Pepper answered, "they don't like his kind, whether or not he bashed the Widow Davis's skull in and took her money."
"How about that toehead who was with him?" Duffy asked.
"That Lillie?" Pepper asked, "I don't know what they'd have done with her."
"Maybe they'd have put her in the cellar with the ghosts," offered Kate.
"She'd just have tried to con the ghosts out of their money," contributed Peaches, "since they have no skulls to bash in.
"Ghosts have money?" Kate asked, a disbelieving look on her face.
From there, the conversation turned to what ghosts used for money, what they used said ghost money to buy, where they went to buy said items, why living people didn't see them purchasing said items, and who actually took the ghosts' money during said shopping expeditions.
In the alley that ran alongside the Hudson street Orphanage, a shadowy figure moved among the deeper shadows cast by the orphanage and the building across from it, which had been a shop before the crash had put a great many establishments out of business. The figure resolved itself into a shortish woman wearing dark clothing. The woman's face, or what could be seen of it in the darkness, was sharp-featured, almost birdlike, with cold dark eyes which peered into the blackness as if to pierce it and see beyond it.
"Things are in danger of going wrong," she thought, "the descendent must never reach her goal."
But she couldn't see the descendent herself, couldn't identify which was her, or if she was even present in the orphanage. The observing figure existed outside of time, and as a result, sometimes reentered the material plane either too early or too late to influence events, and she feared that this was one of those times. She knew the descendent had been there, but now there was a vale over her sight, as if something were shielding the descendent from her.
"No," she thought,"mustn't happen."
She moved deeper into the alley, relaxed against one of the outside walls of the orphanage, closed her eyes, and sought for minions. She had many thousands of minions in unnumbered worlds, and the task of locating the descendant must fall to them. She was troubled by the knowledge that she hadn't even a name to pass on to those whom she would task to find the descendant. This lack of information troubled her because, normally, she could pluck knowledge out of unnumbered minds at will, but this time, it was as if a conscious effort was being expended to frustrate her attempts. After a moment, she relaxed her concentration, and faded from sight.
"Still time," she thought, "still time to insure that the descendant's life ends here in New York."