We stayed in Galveston for nearly a month. It was a lonely time for us all. I called things off with Manny on the third day we were there. I told him I loved him, but things wouldn't last, I couldn't love him like he deserved. He was angry at first, understandably. He didn't talk to me for a week. It hurt terribly; I thought I had lost a friend for good. I probably it deserved to; I broke his heart.
But Manny wasn't much of a planner so to speak. When I did really want to marry him I kept nagging him about setting a date and organizing things and he never really got too enthusiastic about it. He said it was his fault for putting things off and maybe he wasn't ready to get married to anybody.
He asked me to keep the ring. It was still gift from him to me and we would always love each one way or another. So I still wore the ring as a gift from a dear friend.
One other incident kept the whole group of us from speaking on normal terms. It happened on our way to Veracruz. We "borrowed," as Manny would say, some horses and a map and rode mostly through small towns, but we eventually got lost out in the desert. We weren't as far from civilization as we thought, but the discovery we made perturbed us and would follow us back to the States.
The desert was silent, even quieter than Columbus. I started to miss it the noise of the camps, laughing, carousing, the sound of a guitar…
"I think you're reading it upside down, that's why we're lost, genius." Maria snapped at her big brother.
"Don't start bitching now Maria." Sammy pointed his finger and she ignored him.
"Shut up a minute, and we're not lost dammit."
"We're lost aren't we?" sighed Mary.
"Bloody hell." Bookie snorted.
My horse grunted. "You and me both." I whispered swinging my legs over either side of its body.
"We are not lost!" snapped Manny.
"Are too." said Maria.
"Are not." answered her brother.
"Are too."
"Are not!"
"Are too!"
"Are not!"
"Are too!"
"Oh shut up!" I moaned "And give me that." I snatched the map out of his hands. "Manuel you obviously don't know where you are, but we are not totally lost."
"We're not?" he asked me sincerely and stuck his tongue out at his little sister when he thought I wasn't looking, she did likewise.
"Well, if we're here," I pointed, "which is highly likely, then the next town on the way to Veracruz is only five miles to the southeast, which would be that way." I pointed again.
"Oh." was all he said.
"Well," I said, "I'm in charge now."
"Says who?" asked Maria.
"Says me, I know I got you all into this mess, but I'm getting you out too."
"What makes you qualified to be our leader, Dawson?" Bookie said trying to trip me up.
"Well, for starters I've survived under all sorts of conditions, I'm relatively well educated, I've broken two noses with my bare fist, I have the capacity for abstract thought, I speak three languages and that's not including Latin, and most importantly I seem to be the only one around here that knows how to read a bloody map!"
"Right then. Lead the way." he said.
We rode in silence for a few minutes until Mary pointed out the strange smell coming from the yonder brush we'd all been pretending not to notice.
"Alright, that's it everybody," she huffed, "what in God's name is that smell?"
"More like stench you mean?" said Bookie.
"That would be the one."
"It's probably just some rotting animal carcass." Sammy stated in his usual calm, matter-of-fact way.
"Let's go see what is." Mary said.
"Yes something stinks let's go poke at it and scrunch our noses!" Sammy mocked her. She just made a face.
"Rose you're our fearless leader, why you go check it out?" Bookie loved getting back at people at the right moments.
"Fine." I dismounted my horse and crept over the bushes, the smell got worse and worse. I found a piece of paper near, it was a symbol drawn in pencil.
"What is it?" Mary called and she skipped over to me to look at it.
"I don't know it's got some sort of symbol or character on it."
"Maybe it's Mayan or Aztec?"
"If it came from anywhere around here it's probably Aztec. The Mayans were over on the Yucatan Peninsula, it's southeast of here." I waved my hand motioning in some unknown direction.
"Shit! Get away!" Mary screeched as she practically jumped into my arms.
"Oh it's a snake." I observed. It slithered past us and on its way.
"What the hell it is doing here?"
"It lives here, you don't. Just when I forget you're from New York, you always manage to remind me."
"They're poisonous you know, you should be careful."
"Only if they bite you, and they only bite you if you bother them. It's just a snake."
"Oh God." Mary gasped.
"What?"
She covered her mouth and turned away. Bodies, five of them.
All men several days expired with all sorts of archaeological equipment on their persons. And it was obvious the desert hadn't killed them. These men were attacked, beaten, and stabbed.
The others joined us after we didn't answer them several times. After a very long silence I was the one to speak.
"I know that man." I pointed to the tall one with the big red mustache.
"Rose…how?" Manny asked.
"I met him once," I stepped over a tiny wall of bushes and knelt down to him, covering my mouth and my nose, "he knew my father, I met him at my house once when I was eight."
"Who was he?" Sammy whispered.
"Reggie Carnahan. He's a famous archaeologist from England, this symbol must be Aztec now, because that's his area. He's got a brother over in Egypt. They're quite well-known actually. Poor Mr. Carnahan. Who would've wanted to kill him?"
In the next town we reported the murders. They were a little suspicious of us at first, but couldn't find any evidence or reason against us so they let us go after two days. I still kept the piece of paper with the figure on it.
When we got to Galveston we stayed in a cruddy hotel provided by my "savings." It was the first time I dipped into Cal's money. I also used it to send wires. One to the Columbus post office, Fannie Prescott was still alive and well, most of the civilians were left alone even though the center of town was almost leveled and she sent us the all the money in Maria and Manuel's bank accounts. Another Mary sent to her people back in Manhattan telling them she was alive and in Texas. They were coming down to Texas. They being George, Danny, Emily, and Emily's boyfriend: Sonny Andolini.
Since Mary had been living without the man she loved for over a year she began to have extremely vivid dreams. In one she described water literally flowing out of a person's every pore, not shooting or spraying out of the body, but steadily flowing out. In another she picked up a rose and it began to bleed.
The last one she had was the most interesting. She describes it entering St. John's Cathedral in New York and it is completely finished. (It was relatively new back then and it is still not completed to this today, the transects have yet to be constructed.) But as she's entering it snow begins to fall from an opening spanning across its enormous ceiling, it gets deeper and deeper as she continues towards the front, and it gets harder and harder to continue. Once she reaches the alter the snow is waist deep. Then sunlight comes down through the opening and she can't breathe anymore.
If only the movies had the technology then to recreate such visuals. They sounded so beautiful, I wished I could see them too.
We finally met Mary's crew in Houston where we would all go up to Dallas and go our separate ways from there. Mary would go back to New York. Bookie would go with Mary and then catch a boat back to England to see his parents and his brother. Sammy would go to Santa Fe and from there go to visit his four sisters back on the Rez and try to get them to leave with him this time. Manny and Maria would go with Sammy to Santa Fe, then back to Columbus, and see if they could pull things back together, if they couldn't they would go see their cousin Sarita in San Diego. As for me, I had a destination set. This time, it was not by force or on a whim, I made my choice as soon as we all talked about moving on. I would go to Los Angeles. And not just any place in Los Angeles, I planned to stay in Santa Monica. I had a list of things I wanted to do there.
It was July by the time we got everything organized in Houston. We even started working at the hotel in Galveston for two months. But we finally left after the Fourth of July.
I was just arriving outside the station when a familiar voice came up behind me.
"Max?"
I turned around. "Calvert!"
"Oh call me George."
"Gosh I haven't seen you since I left the hospital."
"You're looking much better."
"Well thanks," I said, "you're going to take good care of our Mary aren't you?"
He blushed. He was rather funny to see such a strong looking man blush. "It's the only thing I've wanted to do for eighteen months. I'm just glad she didn't give up on me."
"I think she feels the same way."
"Of course I do!" Mary came up behind him and gave him huge hug. "I also am aware that you are very late." She smiled. She already had time to get reacquainted with her old friends.
"Sorry about that."
"Speaking of late," she turned to George, "where are the children?"
"The children?" I asked raising my eyebrows.
"Emily and Sonny. Danny's asleep on the train if you want to go surprise him." said George. "The other two have engaged a couple scruffy looking Frenchman in poker.
I think we'll have to drag them away soon."
"In a minute I think." I couldn't wait to see Danny again, but I desperately needed to see someone else first. I was going to go watch some poker.
"Take that frogs!" Emily slammed down a winning hand. "Royal flush!"
"I'm adopting her." Bookie immediately liked the kid after he heard her make several rude comments about the French.
"How much did you derelicts win?" Mary asked.
"Ten bucks," Sonny smiled, he was a pretty good looking kid, black hair, tan skin, save for the big nose, "which is good considering we started out with five, which wasn't even ours. We pinched it offa George-"
"Hey!"
"And Milkmaid here almost bet our tickets." He gave his girlfriend a little nudge. That was a common nickname of hers. She came to New York from the rural mid-west when she was nine.
"Emily!" said Mary.
"I didn't lose them so it's fine. Oh fucking hell." Emily noticed the tear by the hem of her skirt. "How did that get there?" She did have mouth on her all right. Very strange to look at this young pretty little girl and here the crudest things come out.
I took this time to carefully examine her. A jaunty, skinny girl of seventeen, not very tall with a slightly torn skirt as she pointed out, she wore big, black boots instead of regular shoes, long dark brown, almost black curls tied half way up and the rest spilled over her blood red blouse and framing her pale face, and she had flashing blue eyes that seemed to dart everywhere poking at every other pair they met.
She may have been a week shy of seventeen, but she looked like she was only fourteen or fifteen especially with that goofy little smile of hers.
There I caught my first glimpse of the girl called Emily. At that moment in time her only significance to me was her family blood, the simple facts of name and history, and the story she deserved to hear.
I could not have but known that within four years time she would be the center of my universe. She'd be my sorrow, my joy, my guilt and my burden, my relief and repentance. My damnation, my redemption, my light and my grief. She'd be the thorn in my side and the warmth on my shoulder. A sister, an enemy. She drove me to the edge and pulled me back more times than I can remember, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.
With the great frustration and great affection she made me feel, she will forever be in my heart and follow me wherever I go (and I do mean *follow*), like the playful little imp she always was inside.
You may think it tactless in storytelling to tell you all this now and then make you wait, but she's something very special.
I love and have loved others just as deeply, just as strongly, but so few broke and built foundations the way Emily did.
I was forever changed by that devilish and mischievous angel. She is one of my heroes and I am proud to be one of hers. I love her.
I had been waiting to meet her for so long, not just from hearing all of Mary's stories about her, but something else. Maybe I shouldn't flat out tell you even though I like getting to point, but this story will explain her as a person a little better…
***
July 14, 1899
Maggie screamed as all her lower body convulsed again. She had been on that bed since the crack of dawn; it was now almost dinnertime.
"Just keep pushing, Maggs, it's almost over." Her husband, Joe, tried to calm her, but she just screamed at him.
"YOU TRY DOING THIS!"
"Alright Margaret, not long now." Said the town doctor, Dr. Burke.
Below them, in the kitchen, Maggie's older sister Hannah paced back and forth, she hoped her husband, Peter, also Joe's older brother, and their son wouldn't get back soon, she had him take the six year-old out so he wouldn't have to hear his aunt while she was in labor.
"Hannah your men are home! Baby yet?" Peter got home early on purpose he felt bad about hanging around town while his niece or nephew was being born. And they had also been out for eight hours and the boy was getting cranky.
"What does it sound like?"
"Mommy!" The little boy jumped into his mother's arms.
A scream came from above.
"Uh oh." Said the husband.
"Mommy what's going on? What's happening to Maggie?"
"The baby has to leave Maggie's tummy and it hurts a little."
The boy looked up and heard more screams and started to cry. "Mommy? Daddy?" He hugged his mother tighter and she rubbed his little back.
"It's going to be fine, baby, you'll see."
"Baby?!" He shrieked at the reminder and cried louder. "Why is it hurting Maggie?"
"The baby's not hurting her, it's what's happening to her body."
"What happening to her body?"
Hannah, realizing she could never satisfy the curious and sobbing six year-old, handed him over to his father.
"Pete take him to the Shaw's, please."
"NO!" cried the boy, "I want to help Maggie and Joe, I want to see the baby, Milo can come over here." He was referring to the Shaw's youngest son, who was about his age.
"Jack," said his mother as she wiped the tears from his cheeks, "Maggie will be just fine and your new cousin will be here when you get home."
He nodded, pouting.
"And trust me," warned his father, "you don't want to be in that room right now, it is very scary for little boys like you, me, and your uncle," he looked up at his wife and smiled. She gave him a slightly more cynical smile back.
Peter took his son's hand and walked him over to the neighbors. Before he left him with their friends Jack asked his father one more question.
"Dad," he said, "just between you and me, I think Joey's gonna be really scared of Maggie from now on. He's not gonna be scarred for life is he?"
"No son, he'll be fine…eventually." He smiled and shook his head. Jack was such an odd little boy, but it made him love him even more.
Thirty minutes later Maggie and Joe had a little daughter. Emily Dawson came into the world with every intention of rocking it.
***
I found myself under the spell of the strange girl. God, they even moved the same. It was unreal. It was the little girl from the drawings. I thought they were ghosts for so long. I never thought I'd ever even be in the same room with her. I was beginning to doubt her existence. But Emily Susannah Dawson, as I would find out, was something all her own.
I stood there in a trance as the sun slowly started to break through the clouds.
And who better to break me from this sentimental mood I've worked myself into than Emily herself.
"Asses on train now! Hurray up it's leaving soon! Come on people!"
"Funny little bugger." Bookie shook his head and goaded me onto the train.
But Manny wasn't much of a planner so to speak. When I did really want to marry him I kept nagging him about setting a date and organizing things and he never really got too enthusiastic about it. He said it was his fault for putting things off and maybe he wasn't ready to get married to anybody.
He asked me to keep the ring. It was still gift from him to me and we would always love each one way or another. So I still wore the ring as a gift from a dear friend.
One other incident kept the whole group of us from speaking on normal terms. It happened on our way to Veracruz. We "borrowed," as Manny would say, some horses and a map and rode mostly through small towns, but we eventually got lost out in the desert. We weren't as far from civilization as we thought, but the discovery we made perturbed us and would follow us back to the States.
The desert was silent, even quieter than Columbus. I started to miss it the noise of the camps, laughing, carousing, the sound of a guitar…
"I think you're reading it upside down, that's why we're lost, genius." Maria snapped at her big brother.
"Don't start bitching now Maria." Sammy pointed his finger and she ignored him.
"Shut up a minute, and we're not lost dammit."
"We're lost aren't we?" sighed Mary.
"Bloody hell." Bookie snorted.
My horse grunted. "You and me both." I whispered swinging my legs over either side of its body.
"We are not lost!" snapped Manny.
"Are too." said Maria.
"Are not." answered her brother.
"Are too."
"Are not!"
"Are too!"
"Are not!"
"Are too!"
"Oh shut up!" I moaned "And give me that." I snatched the map out of his hands. "Manuel you obviously don't know where you are, but we are not totally lost."
"We're not?" he asked me sincerely and stuck his tongue out at his little sister when he thought I wasn't looking, she did likewise.
"Well, if we're here," I pointed, "which is highly likely, then the next town on the way to Veracruz is only five miles to the southeast, which would be that way." I pointed again.
"Oh." was all he said.
"Well," I said, "I'm in charge now."
"Says who?" asked Maria.
"Says me, I know I got you all into this mess, but I'm getting you out too."
"What makes you qualified to be our leader, Dawson?" Bookie said trying to trip me up.
"Well, for starters I've survived under all sorts of conditions, I'm relatively well educated, I've broken two noses with my bare fist, I have the capacity for abstract thought, I speak three languages and that's not including Latin, and most importantly I seem to be the only one around here that knows how to read a bloody map!"
"Right then. Lead the way." he said.
We rode in silence for a few minutes until Mary pointed out the strange smell coming from the yonder brush we'd all been pretending not to notice.
"Alright, that's it everybody," she huffed, "what in God's name is that smell?"
"More like stench you mean?" said Bookie.
"That would be the one."
"It's probably just some rotting animal carcass." Sammy stated in his usual calm, matter-of-fact way.
"Let's go see what is." Mary said.
"Yes something stinks let's go poke at it and scrunch our noses!" Sammy mocked her. She just made a face.
"Rose you're our fearless leader, why you go check it out?" Bookie loved getting back at people at the right moments.
"Fine." I dismounted my horse and crept over the bushes, the smell got worse and worse. I found a piece of paper near, it was a symbol drawn in pencil.
"What is it?" Mary called and she skipped over to me to look at it.
"I don't know it's got some sort of symbol or character on it."
"Maybe it's Mayan or Aztec?"
"If it came from anywhere around here it's probably Aztec. The Mayans were over on the Yucatan Peninsula, it's southeast of here." I waved my hand motioning in some unknown direction.
"Shit! Get away!" Mary screeched as she practically jumped into my arms.
"Oh it's a snake." I observed. It slithered past us and on its way.
"What the hell it is doing here?"
"It lives here, you don't. Just when I forget you're from New York, you always manage to remind me."
"They're poisonous you know, you should be careful."
"Only if they bite you, and they only bite you if you bother them. It's just a snake."
"Oh God." Mary gasped.
"What?"
She covered her mouth and turned away. Bodies, five of them.
All men several days expired with all sorts of archaeological equipment on their persons. And it was obvious the desert hadn't killed them. These men were attacked, beaten, and stabbed.
The others joined us after we didn't answer them several times. After a very long silence I was the one to speak.
"I know that man." I pointed to the tall one with the big red mustache.
"Rose…how?" Manny asked.
"I met him once," I stepped over a tiny wall of bushes and knelt down to him, covering my mouth and my nose, "he knew my father, I met him at my house once when I was eight."
"Who was he?" Sammy whispered.
"Reggie Carnahan. He's a famous archaeologist from England, this symbol must be Aztec now, because that's his area. He's got a brother over in Egypt. They're quite well-known actually. Poor Mr. Carnahan. Who would've wanted to kill him?"
In the next town we reported the murders. They were a little suspicious of us at first, but couldn't find any evidence or reason against us so they let us go after two days. I still kept the piece of paper with the figure on it.
When we got to Galveston we stayed in a cruddy hotel provided by my "savings." It was the first time I dipped into Cal's money. I also used it to send wires. One to the Columbus post office, Fannie Prescott was still alive and well, most of the civilians were left alone even though the center of town was almost leveled and she sent us the all the money in Maria and Manuel's bank accounts. Another Mary sent to her people back in Manhattan telling them she was alive and in Texas. They were coming down to Texas. They being George, Danny, Emily, and Emily's boyfriend: Sonny Andolini.
Since Mary had been living without the man she loved for over a year she began to have extremely vivid dreams. In one she described water literally flowing out of a person's every pore, not shooting or spraying out of the body, but steadily flowing out. In another she picked up a rose and it began to bleed.
The last one she had was the most interesting. She describes it entering St. John's Cathedral in New York and it is completely finished. (It was relatively new back then and it is still not completed to this today, the transects have yet to be constructed.) But as she's entering it snow begins to fall from an opening spanning across its enormous ceiling, it gets deeper and deeper as she continues towards the front, and it gets harder and harder to continue. Once she reaches the alter the snow is waist deep. Then sunlight comes down through the opening and she can't breathe anymore.
If only the movies had the technology then to recreate such visuals. They sounded so beautiful, I wished I could see them too.
We finally met Mary's crew in Houston where we would all go up to Dallas and go our separate ways from there. Mary would go back to New York. Bookie would go with Mary and then catch a boat back to England to see his parents and his brother. Sammy would go to Santa Fe and from there go to visit his four sisters back on the Rez and try to get them to leave with him this time. Manny and Maria would go with Sammy to Santa Fe, then back to Columbus, and see if they could pull things back together, if they couldn't they would go see their cousin Sarita in San Diego. As for me, I had a destination set. This time, it was not by force or on a whim, I made my choice as soon as we all talked about moving on. I would go to Los Angeles. And not just any place in Los Angeles, I planned to stay in Santa Monica. I had a list of things I wanted to do there.
It was July by the time we got everything organized in Houston. We even started working at the hotel in Galveston for two months. But we finally left after the Fourth of July.
I was just arriving outside the station when a familiar voice came up behind me.
"Max?"
I turned around. "Calvert!"
"Oh call me George."
"Gosh I haven't seen you since I left the hospital."
"You're looking much better."
"Well thanks," I said, "you're going to take good care of our Mary aren't you?"
He blushed. He was rather funny to see such a strong looking man blush. "It's the only thing I've wanted to do for eighteen months. I'm just glad she didn't give up on me."
"I think she feels the same way."
"Of course I do!" Mary came up behind him and gave him huge hug. "I also am aware that you are very late." She smiled. She already had time to get reacquainted with her old friends.
"Sorry about that."
"Speaking of late," she turned to George, "where are the children?"
"The children?" I asked raising my eyebrows.
"Emily and Sonny. Danny's asleep on the train if you want to go surprise him." said George. "The other two have engaged a couple scruffy looking Frenchman in poker.
I think we'll have to drag them away soon."
"In a minute I think." I couldn't wait to see Danny again, but I desperately needed to see someone else first. I was going to go watch some poker.
"Take that frogs!" Emily slammed down a winning hand. "Royal flush!"
"I'm adopting her." Bookie immediately liked the kid after he heard her make several rude comments about the French.
"How much did you derelicts win?" Mary asked.
"Ten bucks," Sonny smiled, he was a pretty good looking kid, black hair, tan skin, save for the big nose, "which is good considering we started out with five, which wasn't even ours. We pinched it offa George-"
"Hey!"
"And Milkmaid here almost bet our tickets." He gave his girlfriend a little nudge. That was a common nickname of hers. She came to New York from the rural mid-west when she was nine.
"Emily!" said Mary.
"I didn't lose them so it's fine. Oh fucking hell." Emily noticed the tear by the hem of her skirt. "How did that get there?" She did have mouth on her all right. Very strange to look at this young pretty little girl and here the crudest things come out.
I took this time to carefully examine her. A jaunty, skinny girl of seventeen, not very tall with a slightly torn skirt as she pointed out, she wore big, black boots instead of regular shoes, long dark brown, almost black curls tied half way up and the rest spilled over her blood red blouse and framing her pale face, and she had flashing blue eyes that seemed to dart everywhere poking at every other pair they met.
She may have been a week shy of seventeen, but she looked like she was only fourteen or fifteen especially with that goofy little smile of hers.
There I caught my first glimpse of the girl called Emily. At that moment in time her only significance to me was her family blood, the simple facts of name and history, and the story she deserved to hear.
I could not have but known that within four years time she would be the center of my universe. She'd be my sorrow, my joy, my guilt and my burden, my relief and repentance. My damnation, my redemption, my light and my grief. She'd be the thorn in my side and the warmth on my shoulder. A sister, an enemy. She drove me to the edge and pulled me back more times than I can remember, sometimes consciously, sometimes not.
With the great frustration and great affection she made me feel, she will forever be in my heart and follow me wherever I go (and I do mean *follow*), like the playful little imp she always was inside.
You may think it tactless in storytelling to tell you all this now and then make you wait, but she's something very special.
I love and have loved others just as deeply, just as strongly, but so few broke and built foundations the way Emily did.
I was forever changed by that devilish and mischievous angel. She is one of my heroes and I am proud to be one of hers. I love her.
I had been waiting to meet her for so long, not just from hearing all of Mary's stories about her, but something else. Maybe I shouldn't flat out tell you even though I like getting to point, but this story will explain her as a person a little better…
***
July 14, 1899
Maggie screamed as all her lower body convulsed again. She had been on that bed since the crack of dawn; it was now almost dinnertime.
"Just keep pushing, Maggs, it's almost over." Her husband, Joe, tried to calm her, but she just screamed at him.
"YOU TRY DOING THIS!"
"Alright Margaret, not long now." Said the town doctor, Dr. Burke.
Below them, in the kitchen, Maggie's older sister Hannah paced back and forth, she hoped her husband, Peter, also Joe's older brother, and their son wouldn't get back soon, she had him take the six year-old out so he wouldn't have to hear his aunt while she was in labor.
"Hannah your men are home! Baby yet?" Peter got home early on purpose he felt bad about hanging around town while his niece or nephew was being born. And they had also been out for eight hours and the boy was getting cranky.
"What does it sound like?"
"Mommy!" The little boy jumped into his mother's arms.
A scream came from above.
"Uh oh." Said the husband.
"Mommy what's going on? What's happening to Maggie?"
"The baby has to leave Maggie's tummy and it hurts a little."
The boy looked up and heard more screams and started to cry. "Mommy? Daddy?" He hugged his mother tighter and she rubbed his little back.
"It's going to be fine, baby, you'll see."
"Baby?!" He shrieked at the reminder and cried louder. "Why is it hurting Maggie?"
"The baby's not hurting her, it's what's happening to her body."
"What happening to her body?"
Hannah, realizing she could never satisfy the curious and sobbing six year-old, handed him over to his father.
"Pete take him to the Shaw's, please."
"NO!" cried the boy, "I want to help Maggie and Joe, I want to see the baby, Milo can come over here." He was referring to the Shaw's youngest son, who was about his age.
"Jack," said his mother as she wiped the tears from his cheeks, "Maggie will be just fine and your new cousin will be here when you get home."
He nodded, pouting.
"And trust me," warned his father, "you don't want to be in that room right now, it is very scary for little boys like you, me, and your uncle," he looked up at his wife and smiled. She gave him a slightly more cynical smile back.
Peter took his son's hand and walked him over to the neighbors. Before he left him with their friends Jack asked his father one more question.
"Dad," he said, "just between you and me, I think Joey's gonna be really scared of Maggie from now on. He's not gonna be scarred for life is he?"
"No son, he'll be fine…eventually." He smiled and shook his head. Jack was such an odd little boy, but it made him love him even more.
Thirty minutes later Maggie and Joe had a little daughter. Emily Dawson came into the world with every intention of rocking it.
***
I found myself under the spell of the strange girl. God, they even moved the same. It was unreal. It was the little girl from the drawings. I thought they were ghosts for so long. I never thought I'd ever even be in the same room with her. I was beginning to doubt her existence. But Emily Susannah Dawson, as I would find out, was something all her own.
I stood there in a trance as the sun slowly started to break through the clouds.
And who better to break me from this sentimental mood I've worked myself into than Emily herself.
"Asses on train now! Hurray up it's leaving soon! Come on people!"
"Funny little bugger." Bookie shook his head and goaded me onto the train.