So what do you think so far? Please tell me how you interpret this first section!

Andrea

            Chapter 2: The Muppet Show at midnight, and the Fountain of Youth in the morning.

            Sarah stirred when she felt someone pick her up and carry her up a flight of stairs then down a dark hallway. "Daddy, I want to stay up, I'm not tired…" she mumbled incoherently, and a soft laugh answered her. She knew she'd stayed up too late again watching the Muppet Show on tv, and she had school tomorrow. It was way past her bedtime. If she didn't get enough sleep, Mrs. Miller, undoubtedly the meanest teacher in the entire first grade, would yell at her for not paying attention.

            She felt herself carried to her bed, and laid down. She rolled onto her side as covers were pulled up over her, and gently tucked around her to keep her warm. A tender hand gently pulled a few strands of her chocolate brown hair back from her eyes and tucked them behind her ear, and she felt a pair of warm lips being pressed to her forehead. "Goodnight daddy…" she said, already asleep.

            A soft, high-backed chair was pulled across the room, and positioned closer to the bed. A pair of blue eyes watched her from it.

            "Goodnight, my beautiful Sarah."

            *****

            Sarah woke a few hours later, and opening one eye, looked around the room. Sunlight was just appearing through the curtains in the window, and Heather was nowhere to be seen. She must have fallen asleep last night while the girl had read to her. It wasn't the first time that had happened, nor would it be the last time she was sure, so Heather would have gone to her own room then. She was most likely still sleeping.

            Sarah was burying down under the covers again when more hair fell in her face. She sleepily brought a hand up to brush the strands out of the way and paused. What the? The skin on her hand was smooth and unmarred with age spots or wrinkles. A lone freckle dotted the back of her hand; that was all. The faded scar she'd earned from the neighbor's cranky tomcat when she was thirty-six was gone. She quickly looked at her other hand. The mark on the pinky from where she'd had a malignant bone tumor removed when she was fifty was also gone. Scars don't completely disappear overnight, she mused.

            She flew from the bed in an explosion of covers and ran to the full-length mirror mounted on the wall.

            She gasped at what she saw. A tall, brunette-haired woman dressed only in a thigh-length, spaghetti-strap nightgown reached one hand out towards Sarah's face. It wasn't until Sarah felt her fingertip hit the cold glass of the mirror that she realized she was looking at herself. She let her eyes fall over her form in the mirror. This was amazing, simply amazing. Her hair, completely devoid of any gray, was shiny and full of volume; nowhere in sight was the horrid, thinning mess she'd known for the last thirty years of her life. The crow's feet around her eyes were gone, and the slim hips she'd had at twenty-five replaced the full, grandmotherly figure she had at fifty. She ran her hands down the sides of the burgundy-colored silk nightgown and over her hips and let out a delighted squeal as she appraised herself in the mirror. Someone behind her laughed softly and she jumped, then quickly turned around to face this new noise.

            "Magnificent, isn't it?"

            She turned to find a man with a rather arrogant smile plastered across his face sitting on the back of a soft chair, his feet planted firmly on the seat of it. He had long, wild blonde hair, and sported a dark-blue vested coat over a white poets shirt. Blue pants that left nothing to the imagination and black leather boots completed his bizarre outfit. A pair of mismatched blue eyes met hers. While she had to admit he was very handsome in an unusual sort of way, she did not know this man.

            He had broken into her house.

            She planted her hands on her hips and stared at him as she realized he was letting his gaze wander over her lithe form approvingly. While she was surprised she had not heard the man enter the room earlier, she was not afraid. To the contrary, she felt her temper flaring up immediately. The Sarah of twenty-five had not been afraid of burglars. "What are you doing in my house?" she scowled. How dare this stranger break into her house, much less enter her bedroom. How dare he!

            The man laughed quietly. This woman was definitely still a handful; he could tell by that fierce stare alone. He met her brown eyes with his own, regarding her silently for a moment. When he finally spoke, she had to strain to hear his subdued tone of voice.

            "Whatever makes you think this is your room?" He shook his head slowly, his eyes watching her the entire time. "I'm sorry, my dear girl, but you are a guest in my domain," he said quietly. She opened her mouth to argue back, then looked around the room and belatedly realized that she was, indeed, not in her room. Where was she then?

            "Who are you? Where am I?" She saw something resembling a winged-monkey staring at her from the mantelpiece. It was a stone sculpture. She looked away from the horridly ugly creature and back towards the pale man before her. "And if you tell me the set of the Wizard of Oz I'll just scream." She'd tried for the role of Dorothy in a major play when she was twenty, before she'd given up acting, but they said she was much too 'strong willed' for the character. Strong willed indeed, she snorted.

            The tall stranger looked genuinely confused, but he answered her question anyway. Sort of. "You definitely are not on the set of the Wizard of Oz." He evidently thought that something was amusing, for one corner of his mouth slowly curved upwards in a feral smile, then quickly relaxed into a mask of feigned indifference as he arched one eyebrow. Sarah thought she saw sharpened canines in that flash of a smile, but she wasn't sure. Besides, what sort of freak would sharpen his teeth? He was an actor, that was it… He wore a funny looking wig and had artificial teeth applied to his own for his role; perhaps something with vampires? But what play was he from, she wondered. And more importantly, where was she? He still hadn't answered, and she felt her blood boiling once again.

            She turned back to face the man. He was completely ignoring her, concentrating instead on rolling a small crystal ball across the palms and backsides of his hands, sending it smoothly from hand to hand. It was amazing how he could do that, she thought, much less in gloves. She watched him for a moment, then forced herself to tear her eyes from the glass ball.

            "Well? Who are you? Where am I?" she repeated herself. This was getting old, far faster than she was.

            He suddenly stopped playing with the crystal and looked at her, his mismatched eyes meeting her brown ones. "You were afraid of me for so long," he said softly, "and you don't even remember me…" He unexpectedly threw the crystal to her and she caught it, though a bit awkwardly. "I offered you your dreams…" he continued wistfully.

            A crystal, nothing more… But if you look into it this way, it will show you your dreams…

            She shook her head, and looked down at the smooth glass object in her palm. Though she could tell it was not hollow, the weight of it was surprisingly light for its size. Something about the crystal seemed so familiar, but she could not put a finger on it. She glanced back up at the man, and looked into his peculiar eyes. "What do you want with me?" she asked softly.

            "You wouldn't believe me if I told you," he replied. "Not yet anyways."

            *****