- 3 -

"That's not possible!" I protested.

"Oh, I assure you it is. I've been there all along, but not as a prisoner. The melding between us was such that although you were in the driving seat I experienced everything you said and did as if they were said and done by me. We were quite literally one being. My memories became your memories and my personality in many respects your own, a true symbiosis. And I'm more grateful to you than I can possibly express. When we merged I had only minutes at most until I died, but thanks to you I've lived far, far longer and experienced things I never could've imagined. So thank you, Katy."

"Katy?"

"Well yes, that's who you are now. You're Fiona's daughter and you'll have to act the part. Surely you can see that?"

"Only if we can't undo this," I said. "Where's that jewel?"

"A good question," said Mary, looking around.

We checked the room thoroughly, but there was no sign of it.

"Looks like it vanished or was destroyed during that flash of light," she said, taking a final drag on my cigarette before stubbing it out.

"So I'm stuck like this?"

"I'm afraid so, and...ah. Sounds like your mother is back."

The front door opened and Fiona swept in. She and Mary shared a brief kiss, then she took her coat off and knelt down in front of me.

"Have you been a good girl?" she asked, ruffling my hair.

I nodded and she laughed.

"Right, then it's time we got you to bed, young lady."

With that she picked me up and carried me upstairs to the bathroom where she stripped me then washed me down with water we'd saved earlier - the taps would supply no water again til morning - all the while keeping up the inane chatter adults indulge in with children Katy's age. I nodded and giggled in the right places and she suspected nothing, but then why would she? Afterwards she took me into what I would have to accept was now my bedroom, with its Disney princess wallpaper and lots of toys strewn about the place, tucked me up in bed with my teddy bear, and kissed me on the forehead.

"Sleep tight, sweetie," she said. "Mummy loves you."

"I love you too, mummy," I replied, and then she was gone.

It was only a little after seven and in days to come I would quickly fall asleep, but not that first night. I lay awake for hours, long enough to hear Mary and Fiona giggling together as they fell into bed, quickly followed by the sound of their energetic love making.

- 4 -

Being a human child was a new and strange experience for me. Though I was the one in the driving seat, our melding meant that Katy and I became essentially one being. I had access to all her memories but I was also affected by her personality and her youth, finding myself deferring to adults and happy to pass the time playing with toys. However, a week later everything changed when Fiona came into my room one morning, sat me down and told me we were leaving. Mary was standing in the doorway behind her, looking unhappy.

"Leaving?" I said, not quite comprehending.

"Yes, sweetie. Daddy wants us to come home, so I need you to start packing your things. Mary wants to say goodbye to you."

She left the room then and Mary knelt down beside me.

"Wha' happened?" I asked.

"Your father reached out to Fiona saying his job was no longer keeping him as busy as it had the past few years and promising to spend more time together with you both as a family. She decided she owed it to you to give it another go."

"And you?"

"I'm not very happy about it - no one likes a break up - but I'll live. I've got something for you."

She handed me an Arcateenian telepathic pendant, one of those I'd taken from Arcateenian criminals transported here over the decades.

"You've been to my flat on Crwys Road," I said. It was where I stared all the mementoes and artefacts I'd gathered over the course of my very long life.

"And I'll keep it secure in your absence," she promised. "I wish I could keep you here with me, but Fiona's your mother so I have no say in the matter."

She kissed me on the forehead then.

"Goodbye, Katy," she said. "I hope I'll see you again when you're older."

My last sight of Mary was from our car when we departed a couple of hours later. Strapped into my booster seat I waved goodbye to her through the side window as Fiona... as Mummy drove us away to our new life in London. When we pulled off the driveway and onto the road so the skies opened and the deluge began.

The long drought had finally broken.

- 5 -

When I turned 7 years old my parents packed me off to a boarding school out in the country, as was the custom for people of their social class. After that I would only see them during school holidays or on those infrequent occasions when they came to visit. I was happy enough at the school and made friends easily, so none of this was a hardship. In 1981 I'd been at Wanderly School for Girls for three years, I was 10 years old, and I had a problem. So did the school. I was now ready to solve both of them.

I glanced across to my roommate Gemma's bed, reassured she was asleep by the sound of her gentle snoring. Picking up the canvas sack holding the supplies I'd need I then slipped out of our room. It was after lights out and I would be in trouble if I was caught, so I had to be careful. Fortunately I could see in the dark and I didn't encounter any teachers abroad as I made my way silently along the centuries old corridors of Wanderly Hall. My destination was the quarters of the school's headmaster, Jason Lithgow.

When I got to door to his quarters it was locked. Conveniently it had a relatively modern lock fitted, much lighter and easier to deal with than the heavy old original locks still fitted on some of the school's doors. With my strength breaking the lock was easy; the trick was doing so as quietly as possible so as not to be heard. The door gave access to a tiny hallway off which the various rooms led. The light coming under the door to his study indicated Mr Lithgow was still up. Good. Far better to do this in there rather than rousting him from his bed. I closed the door I'd entered through behind me, pausing for a moment to study myself in the full length mirror mounted on the rear. The image reflected back at me showed a skinny, flat-chested, pre-pubescent girl, her hair in pigtails and dressed in the school uniform of white blouse and ankle socks, grey skirt, and a grey blazer with the school badge on the breast pocket reading: Labor Omnia Vincit.

Steeling myself, I took a deep breath and burst through the study door, catching Mr Lithgow completely by surprise.

"Wh..what..?" he managed to croak, as I leapt up on his desk and socked him on the jaw. Thanks to my hybrid strength it was a knockout blow.

When he came to it was to find himself gagged and strapped to a chair in front of that desk by means of the heavy-duty adhesive tape I'd brought along, with me sitting in a chair in front of him, smoking one of his cigarettes.

"Ah, you're awake," I said, taking a last drag on the cigarette before stubbing it out in his ashtray. "I always promised myself I wouldn't start smoking again until after puberty. But I really missed it and, well, the best laid plans and all that."

Mr Lithgow struggled in his chair, trying unsuccessfully to free himself, panic in his eyes.

"I wouldn't waste the effort," I said, and began taking my clothes off. "Do you remember when you called me into your office a few days ago to administer 'six of the best'? I'm sure you do. Funny how you found a reason to cane almost ever girl, with no infraction too small to have her before you and bent over as you caned her rump. This is an old-fashioned school for parents with old-fashioned ideas, so they'd have no problem with corporal punishment, but they might not appreciate the way you fondle our arses afterwards. And with some girls you go further. Then there are those things on your laptop..."

My telepathic pendant had revealed all this to me. I folded my school uniform and laid it down carefully on the couch.

"You're probably surprised by the way I'm speaking for a 10 year-old, using words like 'infraction' and so on, but then I'm a lot older than I look - or at least part of me is. Unfortunately for you that part needs to be fed at least once every five years. And since I have no choice in the matter my sense of ethics compels me to always try to find someone who deserves that fate. It's been five years since I last fed. I was an adult then and though being a child has been interesting, I miss it."

By now I was down to only my briefs.

"I'm know what me stripping off has got you thinking," I said, "but this is not that. I stripped off because I don't want to get blood on my school uniform. You're a big man, Jason. When they find your body tomorrow the assumption will be that it took an intruder at least as large to overpower you, manhandle you into a chair, and do what I'm about to do to you. All that is beyond what a normal 10 year-old could do, but your blood on my uniform would be difficult to explain away."

With that I thrust my hand into his chest and tore out his heart, feeding on his lifeforce as he died.

Afterwards I washed off the blood, dressed, and returned to my room, sated. I didn't find feeding the way I had to since coming to this world at all pleasant but at least it was over and done with for now, and not something I'd have to worry about again until I was 15.

The next morning there was pandemonium when the body was discovered and the police called. Someone very strong had clearly broken into the headmaster's quarters and killed him. Who that individual was and how he gained entry to the school was a mystery. No one pointed the finger of suspicion at me, but then why would they? I was just a little girl and so couldn't possibly have anything to do with it.