She shuddered involuntarily against the cold. She'd sat outside 221B Baker Street all night, refusing to contemplate her only other choice. A choice that, in her mind, equalled the death of her spirit.
"Open the skies over me…" she whispered, her breath coming out in dragon puffs of mist, "I am waiting… patiently."
Her cheek rested against the hunter green door, her arms cradling her knees to her chest. She was cold, nearly frozen. The weather was unusual for late October, but weather in London, and England in general, was strange. She may have seemed asleep, or out of her mind, but her eyes were alert with feverish delight. Her father lived on a busy street only nine minutes away from Oxford Street by car, but twenty-one minutes by foot. She had, of course, walked for seven minutes from her house on Lisson Grove. She could, in theory, have taken the underground train from Marylebone station to the one on Baker Street, but tickets, which were traceable, and CCTV, controlled by her uncle, made it nearly impossible to go through undetected.
Everywhere she looked there were orange and black shop fronts, banners. Posters advertising haunted houses, Hallowe'en parties. People already dressing for Hallowe'en. She knew why. Hallowe'en was still only eight days away, but major chain supermarkets, such as Tesco, were already selling Christmas merchandise.
At least her bottom wasn't cold. She had sat on the bag filled with clothes, which was placed on the stone steps. Something stopped her from knocking on the door again. Fear. Fear of discovery by her doctor, by her father's landlady. She didn't want to be sent home.
She took out her iPod, mercifully still containing a considerable amount of charge. Flipping through bands, she selected Mindless Self Indulgence and allowed herself to sink into her pseudo meditation to the hypnotic sounds of Never Wanted to Dance. Remixes followed. Minutes ticked by. Hours blended together.
It was nearly sunset when she got tired of waiting. She had begun to sing along to the music sounding through her earphones, unaware that she was doing so. People had absentmindedly tossed coins at her, which soon summed into a sizeable amount of money – especially when people began to crowd around the doorstep and listen. That scared her. There were too many people. Always too many people.
Boredom was creeping into her thoughts again. What should she do? What could she do? She had roughly fifty pounds, if that, and nowhere to live. Unless…
No. She wouldn't degrade herself like that. Her uncle would be a last resort, and a very reluctant one at that.
But she had to survive… somehow.