Life is Like A Bowl Of Cherries
Chapter 3 Serenity Sea (Serenity_Sea@yahoo.com)
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Otto Halliwell stared at the young girl before him and wondered how in the world he let her slip away. As her godfather, he should have fought harder, made his surrogate son stay in Long Beach - at least in the state - so he could help raise her and see what type of woman she would grow up to be. Now, though, her metamorphosis was almost complete and he had missed all of it.
"Sage," he opened his arms and she flew into them with a childlike innocence. His arms wrapped tightly around her, and she smelled faintly of the familiar combination of citrus and gasoline, and he had to smile.
After one more squeeze, she pulled back to look at him, the attitude seeping out of her and her unusual green eyes lighting up with a smile. "I can't believe it's you. I thought I'd never see you again."
Otto smiled in return and put an arm around her shoulder. "Well, we couldn't have that, now could we?" She shook her head wordlessly and he guided her over to the steps so she could sit and he could take in her appearance.
Sage's hair had darkened considerably since he'd last since her - though that was nearly five years ago, and to be expected - and she'd grown into tall and slender frame. She was quite thin - which worried him, because the last person he'd seen that thin had been her mother before she disappeared - but her eyes had remained that same, silver-green with a trace of sadness her new attitude hid well.
She looked like a carbon copy of her mother.
When her mother had had darker hair and had first joined up with their crew.
Way before Kip had been involved and Atley had been injured, and still with them. She changed it after Memphis left, thinking that she could change the past if she changed her present, and when she left the business a year later, it was still same the pale blonde, twisted in dreadlocks, that they'd come to associate with her name.
Still smiling, he asked, "When did you get into town? Assuming, of course, that Mirror didn't kidnap you from another state." A slightly admonishing gaze was thrown his way but Mirror just smiled easily and quietly left the room.
"A little under a month by now, I guess. It's flown by pretty quick- I'm surprised my father hasn't called you yet."
Otto noticed her tone cooled considerably as her eyes had shuttered over with some emotion and knew that the relationship was strained between father and daughter. His heart went out to both of them and hoped that it could be worked out even as he stifled the immediate reaction of anger that Memphis had been in town for such a time and neglected to mention it.
"Ah, well, he wouldn't," Otto replied, knowing that it was high time she knew the truth about. *all of it.* "He's given up his past and everything with it."
Intrigued, Sage leaned her elbows on her legs with the same intensity her mother had when learning about some new exotics and murmured, "Do tell."
He had to blink several times to clear the image of her mother that had super-imposed itself on top of her and cleared his throat. "Why don't we get something to eat first. You must be starving."
Her stomach growled audibly and they laughed.
* * * * *
"I'm tellin' you, man, it was weird. It was like starin' at. *her* all over again. She's a friggin' clone." Two faces looked up at him with a tolerating look and he groaned. "You just wait. When Otto brings her in here, you'll see what I'm talking about."
He took his seat at a long table next to a stoic-looking man and elbowed him in the side. "You believe me, right, Sphinx?"
The Sphinx gave him a chilling look that clearly stated, "Get your elbow out of my *bleeping* side before I shove it up your ass. Backwards."
Mirror Man shrugged, too used to the man's stares by now to be intimidated. "You'll see," he repeated quietly, reaching for a piece of pizza.
And they did see.
He had the satisfaction of watching them-even Sphinx-drop their pizza on the plate and jaws drop open in shock when Otto guided Sage through the doorway.
"Come now, fellows. You don't want to scare Sage off, now, do you?"
With an effort, they closed their mouths and looked at each other in shock before directing their gazes back to her.
A raven-haired young man with dark eyes was first to speak. "Sorry that we're all starin' at you. It's just that. well, you look a hell of a lot like someone we used to know."
Her gaze immediately met Mirror's, remembering his earlier statement and the previous incident. "Don't mind Freb, there. He has a tendency to speak up even when he's not supposed to."
She looked inquiringly at the younger-looking man next to Freb. "And you are?"
He blushed and she found it refreshing. "Uh, Toby."
A smile curved her lips. "Mirror, Toby, and Freb. That's a catchy group you have."
For some reason, it sounded unbalanced, even to her ears, and she grew uncomfortable with the fact that her uncle and Tumbler had probably known them at one time. Then her gaze settled on the grim, silent man sitting next to Mirror and involuntarily took a step back into Otto, who steadied her by the shoulders.
Mirror grinned at her reaction and nudged The Sphinx again. "Dude, I *told* you. Turn down the glare when we have company." He looked up at Sage with a grin. "This here is Sphinx. And don't take offense to the fact that he doesn't talk back. It's not you. It's just the way he is."
Sphinx's eyes slid up glaringly and Mirror moved away with a tentative smile. "I'm just gonna go sit over here and grab myself a beer."
She looked to Otto for reassurance, who nodded, and started to sit down next to the scary looking Sphinx. She had gotten one leg over the picnic bench when voices came from their right.
In strolled two men, a tall black man with closely cut hair and a warm smile and a shorter man with a gimp and slicked back hair that put Otto's to shame. She stared at the shorter man, trying to place him, and when she couldn't her gaze went back up to the black man.
They'd both stopped dead in their tracks upon seeing her and she took that opportunity to climb out of her place and walk over to them.
Squinting up at the tall man, "Donny?"
Something in his face lit up and he picked her up and twirled her around. "You *do* remember!" She leaned in close to him and squeezed her arms around his neck the way she had when she was younger. When he finally set her down, she politely turned her attention to the other man.
"You must be Atley."
He nodded quietly and her eyes widened. "Please tell me you can talk. I can only take one Sphinx."
Everyone laughed, Sphinx even smiled and Atley smiled. "You must be Sage Raines."
She shrugged a slim shoulder. "So everyone keeps telling me."
"You doubt it?"
Her expressive eyes glanced at him before she folded her arms defensively and mumbled, "I don't know what to think anymore."
A hush filled the room and Atley put his hand on her shoulder, steering her out the way he and Donny had come in to get some air. and to talk.
Which left the rest of them with the image of Sage's expression and how much of her mother she had in her.
* * *
"So what's this all about, then? Seems to me like you've got a good head on you shoulders-you seem to know who you are."
Sage breathed in the crisp night air and watched the moonlight ripple in a puddle at her feet. "I thought I knew. But everyone I've met had *that* reaction to me tonight and I feel like I've missed the joke. Who was she?"
Even though he knew who she was talking about, he needed time to gather a response. "Who was who, darlin'?"
Something flickered in those eyes of hers and he recognized it as irritation. "The person I remind everyone of. Who was she?"
Sighing, Atley reached into his pocket for a cigarette and lighter. His hands shook slightly, but she didn't notice. Inwardly, he wondered if he had the right to tell her this; if Memphis had wanted her to know, he would have told her by now, for sure, and then he wondered how the job of disclosing bad news had fallen to him. First Kip, now his niece.
"She was your mother." He answered simply, and blew out a stream of smoke, watching her reaction.
"You knew my mother?"
Atley nodded. "We all did. She used to be one of us." He didn't expand on whatever they were, and she didn't ask. She was still too busy trying to absorb the facts, as things clicked into place.
"That's why he hates me so much, isn't it?"
"Who?"
"My father." She laughed bitterly. "Because I look like her. And-" She broke off as her throat closed with emotion.
He put his arm around her comfortingly and she reluctantly rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm sure he doesn't *hate* you, Sage. He's your father. No parent could ever hate their child."
Sage lifted her head briefly and sent a chilling look down his spine. "Then you obviously haven't seen him in action. He won't look at me unless he has to, and he certainly didn't raise me. 'Dad' is merely a title, because if you want to know what's really been going on, Kip and Tumbler have taken care of me since I was five. I guess that's when I started looking like her."
Atley wisely remained silent, letting her have her time to get used to the information that had been dumped on her.
"You want to know something pathetic?"
He looked down at her. "What's that?"
She looked away, her eyes locking onto the black-covered car that she'd seen before, and absorbing the familiarity of it. "I don't even know her name." Atley cursed before he could stop it and she nodded. "I know."
By his figuring, he could at least give her that. There was no harm in letting a daughter know her mother's name, right? "Her name was Sara."
"Just Sara?" She asked, fishing for a last name.
For now that would have to be enough. "Just. Sara." He knew it was bad lying to her, that she'd been lied to enough her entire life and she more than deserved some truth, but that was a line he wasn't sure he could cross. Things were obviously bad between Memphis and his daughter now, and telling her more would only make it worse. Plus, it wasn't his decision to make. If she was anything like her mother, and it was unquestionable that she was, then she was going to attack Memphis with all the determination of a bank robber, demanding answers.
But it felt weird. Calling her by her given name instead of the one she'd responded to for all those years. He wondered where she was now and what she was doing; the rumor among the group was that she was dead. But he knew her and he knew that she wouldn't allow anything as mundane as death to happen to her. She was probably out there, lurking, just waiting to make her entrance into their world again.
"She's dead." Sage mentioned abruptly and he had his answer.
"Do you believe that?" he asked, carefully keeping the speculatory tone to himself.
With an effort, she pulled herself together and looked him in the eye. "*No.*"
He saw her shutting down and he knew he had to stop it some way. "Why?"
"Why not?" She shrugged. "He's lied to me about everything else. Why wouldn't he lie about this?"
"Why would he?" Atley countered calmly.
This made her pause and some of the fire went out of her eyes. Possible thoughts ran through her mind until she settled on one that had the green in her eyes up and blazing. "Because he was ashamed of rejection."
And that pretty much hit the nail on the head. Memphis never hid from anything unless he was uncomfortable with it. It was unsettling how much she looked like her mother just then, with the fire in her eyes and the dead-on depiction of her father.
"She loved him." He offered quietly, hoping to assuage some of the anger towards her father.
"Then why did she leave him?" She retorted, and it occurred to him that the anger might not be directed at Memphis at all.
* * *
"I can't find her."
Tumbler looked at Kip. "We'll find her."
"Tumbler, we've been up and down these streets for the past two hours. She's not here, and she's not at home. She's missing, and we're going to have to tell Memphis."
"Maybe she's at a friend's house?"
"She would answer her cell."
"What if it's dead? Or broken?"
"She would have called to let me know."
The bulkier man rested in the soft leather seat of Kip's Porsche. "I'm out of answers."
"Good."
Tumbler rolled his eyes. "You're such a drama queen."
Kip turned to him with angry eyes. "No, I'm not a drama queen, I'm just worried that my 16-year-old niece is out missing, or lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I'm also worried that if her father finds out she's gone, he's going to do something stupid and let people know that we're back in town before we're ready."
Startling them out of their misery was the sharp trill of Kip's cell phone. Caller ID showed it was Memphis and he looked out the window stubbornly. It rang a few more times and then stopped, only to pick up again, on Tumbler's phone.
He glanced at Kip, who nodded ever so slightly and answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Do you know where Kip is?"
"Yeah," he stared at his friend, replying vague to stall for time.
"Good. Do you know where my daughter is?"
Just then, Kip's phone rang again and they jumped. The caller ID was unavailable and they could imagine all-too clearly what could be on the other end. It rang promisingly once more and before the note could end, Kip had it opened and answered. "Hello?"
Memphis repeated in Tumbler's ear, "Do you know where Sage is?" But Tumbler was too focused on the color draining out of Kip's face and seeing him swallow convulsively.
"I'm gonna have to call you back," he promised Memphis, closing the phone against his protests and watching as Kip ended his own call and started to turn the car around.
"Was that her?"
Kip took a deep breath. "Not exactly."
"It wasn't a kidnapper, right? No one kidnapped her?"
"It wasn't a kidnapper."
Tumbler waited for more, but that was all he wanted to share. Then he noticed they were driving on the outskirts of town and got confused. "Dude, where are we going?"
It was a full minute before Kip answered him; Tumbler counted. "To Otto's. Mirror picked her up on the way home from school and brought her there."
* * *
I am such a devious little writer-person. Stop me.
About the whole Sage/Jesse storyline. don't rule that out just yet. We're laying down the groundwork for this and so we'll get back to that in chapter 4 or 5.
Chapter 3 Serenity Sea (Serenity_Sea@yahoo.com)
* ~ * ~ * ~ *
Otto Halliwell stared at the young girl before him and wondered how in the world he let her slip away. As her godfather, he should have fought harder, made his surrogate son stay in Long Beach - at least in the state - so he could help raise her and see what type of woman she would grow up to be. Now, though, her metamorphosis was almost complete and he had missed all of it.
"Sage," he opened his arms and she flew into them with a childlike innocence. His arms wrapped tightly around her, and she smelled faintly of the familiar combination of citrus and gasoline, and he had to smile.
After one more squeeze, she pulled back to look at him, the attitude seeping out of her and her unusual green eyes lighting up with a smile. "I can't believe it's you. I thought I'd never see you again."
Otto smiled in return and put an arm around her shoulder. "Well, we couldn't have that, now could we?" She shook her head wordlessly and he guided her over to the steps so she could sit and he could take in her appearance.
Sage's hair had darkened considerably since he'd last since her - though that was nearly five years ago, and to be expected - and she'd grown into tall and slender frame. She was quite thin - which worried him, because the last person he'd seen that thin had been her mother before she disappeared - but her eyes had remained that same, silver-green with a trace of sadness her new attitude hid well.
She looked like a carbon copy of her mother.
When her mother had had darker hair and had first joined up with their crew.
Way before Kip had been involved and Atley had been injured, and still with them. She changed it after Memphis left, thinking that she could change the past if she changed her present, and when she left the business a year later, it was still same the pale blonde, twisted in dreadlocks, that they'd come to associate with her name.
Still smiling, he asked, "When did you get into town? Assuming, of course, that Mirror didn't kidnap you from another state." A slightly admonishing gaze was thrown his way but Mirror just smiled easily and quietly left the room.
"A little under a month by now, I guess. It's flown by pretty quick- I'm surprised my father hasn't called you yet."
Otto noticed her tone cooled considerably as her eyes had shuttered over with some emotion and knew that the relationship was strained between father and daughter. His heart went out to both of them and hoped that it could be worked out even as he stifled the immediate reaction of anger that Memphis had been in town for such a time and neglected to mention it.
"Ah, well, he wouldn't," Otto replied, knowing that it was high time she knew the truth about. *all of it.* "He's given up his past and everything with it."
Intrigued, Sage leaned her elbows on her legs with the same intensity her mother had when learning about some new exotics and murmured, "Do tell."
He had to blink several times to clear the image of her mother that had super-imposed itself on top of her and cleared his throat. "Why don't we get something to eat first. You must be starving."
Her stomach growled audibly and they laughed.
* * * * *
"I'm tellin' you, man, it was weird. It was like starin' at. *her* all over again. She's a friggin' clone." Two faces looked up at him with a tolerating look and he groaned. "You just wait. When Otto brings her in here, you'll see what I'm talking about."
He took his seat at a long table next to a stoic-looking man and elbowed him in the side. "You believe me, right, Sphinx?"
The Sphinx gave him a chilling look that clearly stated, "Get your elbow out of my *bleeping* side before I shove it up your ass. Backwards."
Mirror Man shrugged, too used to the man's stares by now to be intimidated. "You'll see," he repeated quietly, reaching for a piece of pizza.
And they did see.
He had the satisfaction of watching them-even Sphinx-drop their pizza on the plate and jaws drop open in shock when Otto guided Sage through the doorway.
"Come now, fellows. You don't want to scare Sage off, now, do you?"
With an effort, they closed their mouths and looked at each other in shock before directing their gazes back to her.
A raven-haired young man with dark eyes was first to speak. "Sorry that we're all starin' at you. It's just that. well, you look a hell of a lot like someone we used to know."
Her gaze immediately met Mirror's, remembering his earlier statement and the previous incident. "Don't mind Freb, there. He has a tendency to speak up even when he's not supposed to."
She looked inquiringly at the younger-looking man next to Freb. "And you are?"
He blushed and she found it refreshing. "Uh, Toby."
A smile curved her lips. "Mirror, Toby, and Freb. That's a catchy group you have."
For some reason, it sounded unbalanced, even to her ears, and she grew uncomfortable with the fact that her uncle and Tumbler had probably known them at one time. Then her gaze settled on the grim, silent man sitting next to Mirror and involuntarily took a step back into Otto, who steadied her by the shoulders.
Mirror grinned at her reaction and nudged The Sphinx again. "Dude, I *told* you. Turn down the glare when we have company." He looked up at Sage with a grin. "This here is Sphinx. And don't take offense to the fact that he doesn't talk back. It's not you. It's just the way he is."
Sphinx's eyes slid up glaringly and Mirror moved away with a tentative smile. "I'm just gonna go sit over here and grab myself a beer."
She looked to Otto for reassurance, who nodded, and started to sit down next to the scary looking Sphinx. She had gotten one leg over the picnic bench when voices came from their right.
In strolled two men, a tall black man with closely cut hair and a warm smile and a shorter man with a gimp and slicked back hair that put Otto's to shame. She stared at the shorter man, trying to place him, and when she couldn't her gaze went back up to the black man.
They'd both stopped dead in their tracks upon seeing her and she took that opportunity to climb out of her place and walk over to them.
Squinting up at the tall man, "Donny?"
Something in his face lit up and he picked her up and twirled her around. "You *do* remember!" She leaned in close to him and squeezed her arms around his neck the way she had when she was younger. When he finally set her down, she politely turned her attention to the other man.
"You must be Atley."
He nodded quietly and her eyes widened. "Please tell me you can talk. I can only take one Sphinx."
Everyone laughed, Sphinx even smiled and Atley smiled. "You must be Sage Raines."
She shrugged a slim shoulder. "So everyone keeps telling me."
"You doubt it?"
Her expressive eyes glanced at him before she folded her arms defensively and mumbled, "I don't know what to think anymore."
A hush filled the room and Atley put his hand on her shoulder, steering her out the way he and Donny had come in to get some air. and to talk.
Which left the rest of them with the image of Sage's expression and how much of her mother she had in her.
* * *
"So what's this all about, then? Seems to me like you've got a good head on you shoulders-you seem to know who you are."
Sage breathed in the crisp night air and watched the moonlight ripple in a puddle at her feet. "I thought I knew. But everyone I've met had *that* reaction to me tonight and I feel like I've missed the joke. Who was she?"
Even though he knew who she was talking about, he needed time to gather a response. "Who was who, darlin'?"
Something flickered in those eyes of hers and he recognized it as irritation. "The person I remind everyone of. Who was she?"
Sighing, Atley reached into his pocket for a cigarette and lighter. His hands shook slightly, but she didn't notice. Inwardly, he wondered if he had the right to tell her this; if Memphis had wanted her to know, he would have told her by now, for sure, and then he wondered how the job of disclosing bad news had fallen to him. First Kip, now his niece.
"She was your mother." He answered simply, and blew out a stream of smoke, watching her reaction.
"You knew my mother?"
Atley nodded. "We all did. She used to be one of us." He didn't expand on whatever they were, and she didn't ask. She was still too busy trying to absorb the facts, as things clicked into place.
"That's why he hates me so much, isn't it?"
"Who?"
"My father." She laughed bitterly. "Because I look like her. And-" She broke off as her throat closed with emotion.
He put his arm around her comfortingly and she reluctantly rested her head on his shoulder. "I'm sure he doesn't *hate* you, Sage. He's your father. No parent could ever hate their child."
Sage lifted her head briefly and sent a chilling look down his spine. "Then you obviously haven't seen him in action. He won't look at me unless he has to, and he certainly didn't raise me. 'Dad' is merely a title, because if you want to know what's really been going on, Kip and Tumbler have taken care of me since I was five. I guess that's when I started looking like her."
Atley wisely remained silent, letting her have her time to get used to the information that had been dumped on her.
"You want to know something pathetic?"
He looked down at her. "What's that?"
She looked away, her eyes locking onto the black-covered car that she'd seen before, and absorbing the familiarity of it. "I don't even know her name." Atley cursed before he could stop it and she nodded. "I know."
By his figuring, he could at least give her that. There was no harm in letting a daughter know her mother's name, right? "Her name was Sara."
"Just Sara?" She asked, fishing for a last name.
For now that would have to be enough. "Just. Sara." He knew it was bad lying to her, that she'd been lied to enough her entire life and she more than deserved some truth, but that was a line he wasn't sure he could cross. Things were obviously bad between Memphis and his daughter now, and telling her more would only make it worse. Plus, it wasn't his decision to make. If she was anything like her mother, and it was unquestionable that she was, then she was going to attack Memphis with all the determination of a bank robber, demanding answers.
But it felt weird. Calling her by her given name instead of the one she'd responded to for all those years. He wondered where she was now and what she was doing; the rumor among the group was that she was dead. But he knew her and he knew that she wouldn't allow anything as mundane as death to happen to her. She was probably out there, lurking, just waiting to make her entrance into their world again.
"She's dead." Sage mentioned abruptly and he had his answer.
"Do you believe that?" he asked, carefully keeping the speculatory tone to himself.
With an effort, she pulled herself together and looked him in the eye. "*No.*"
He saw her shutting down and he knew he had to stop it some way. "Why?"
"Why not?" She shrugged. "He's lied to me about everything else. Why wouldn't he lie about this?"
"Why would he?" Atley countered calmly.
This made her pause and some of the fire went out of her eyes. Possible thoughts ran through her mind until she settled on one that had the green in her eyes up and blazing. "Because he was ashamed of rejection."
And that pretty much hit the nail on the head. Memphis never hid from anything unless he was uncomfortable with it. It was unsettling how much she looked like her mother just then, with the fire in her eyes and the dead-on depiction of her father.
"She loved him." He offered quietly, hoping to assuage some of the anger towards her father.
"Then why did she leave him?" She retorted, and it occurred to him that the anger might not be directed at Memphis at all.
* * *
"I can't find her."
Tumbler looked at Kip. "We'll find her."
"Tumbler, we've been up and down these streets for the past two hours. She's not here, and she's not at home. She's missing, and we're going to have to tell Memphis."
"Maybe she's at a friend's house?"
"She would answer her cell."
"What if it's dead? Or broken?"
"She would have called to let me know."
The bulkier man rested in the soft leather seat of Kip's Porsche. "I'm out of answers."
"Good."
Tumbler rolled his eyes. "You're such a drama queen."
Kip turned to him with angry eyes. "No, I'm not a drama queen, I'm just worried that my 16-year-old niece is out missing, or lying dead in a ditch somewhere. I'm also worried that if her father finds out she's gone, he's going to do something stupid and let people know that we're back in town before we're ready."
Startling them out of their misery was the sharp trill of Kip's cell phone. Caller ID showed it was Memphis and he looked out the window stubbornly. It rang a few more times and then stopped, only to pick up again, on Tumbler's phone.
He glanced at Kip, who nodded ever so slightly and answered the phone. "Hello?"
"Do you know where Kip is?"
"Yeah," he stared at his friend, replying vague to stall for time.
"Good. Do you know where my daughter is?"
Just then, Kip's phone rang again and they jumped. The caller ID was unavailable and they could imagine all-too clearly what could be on the other end. It rang promisingly once more and before the note could end, Kip had it opened and answered. "Hello?"
Memphis repeated in Tumbler's ear, "Do you know where Sage is?" But Tumbler was too focused on the color draining out of Kip's face and seeing him swallow convulsively.
"I'm gonna have to call you back," he promised Memphis, closing the phone against his protests and watching as Kip ended his own call and started to turn the car around.
"Was that her?"
Kip took a deep breath. "Not exactly."
"It wasn't a kidnapper, right? No one kidnapped her?"
"It wasn't a kidnapper."
Tumbler waited for more, but that was all he wanted to share. Then he noticed they were driving on the outskirts of town and got confused. "Dude, where are we going?"
It was a full minute before Kip answered him; Tumbler counted. "To Otto's. Mirror picked her up on the way home from school and brought her there."
* * *
I am such a devious little writer-person. Stop me.
About the whole Sage/Jesse storyline. don't rule that out just yet. We're laying down the groundwork for this and so we'll get back to that in chapter 4 or 5.