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Chapter or Story 
Chapter or Story
DISCLAIMER: "The Pretender" and all its characters and situationsbelong to NBC
DISTRIBUTION: Please ask before archiving or forwarding to mailing lists. I doubt I'll say no, but I want to know where it is.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Carolyn for great beta services.
~~~~~ For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her ~~~~~
Part I:
Takes One to Know One
by Maggie McCain
PART: 2 of 2
Seated in Carolyn Mackenzie's living room, Jarod felt his happiness surround him with an almost palpable warmth. After a lifetime spent with two old pictures and a few indistinct memories, he had found a priceless gift-- a woman who had known his lost mother and sister intimately for many years, and was prepared to spend hours in happy reminiscence of the time she had spent with them. Carolyn had dug out a box of mementos and scrapbooks for him to look at, and as Maggie played contentedly on the rug beside them, she told him the story behind each theater stub and snapshot in the box.
"What on earth is this, Carolyn?" Jarod held up a small piece of glossy cardboard. It was a replica of the Land O Lakes margarine logo, with certain changes. The logo now read, "Land O Tats" and he was certain that the kneeling Indian maiden had not been bare-chested the last time he had looked at a margarine tub. The bottom of the card read, simply, "Colette."
Carolyn took the card from him and laughed. "This is the business card of the tattoo artist Emily and I went to," she said, pulling up her pant leg to reveal an intricate design etched onto the skin of her ankle. "Em had wanted a tattoo for ages, but your mom was scared she'd catch a disease from the needle. So do you know what she did?"
"What?" Jarod was fascinated.
"She started doing research, and found out more information on tattoos and tattooing than I even realized existed. Then she told Miss Meg that the last recorded case of anyone contracting a serious disease while getting a tattoo was in 1964, that reputable artists used autoclave sterilization and disposable needles, and that she was over eighteen and there was nothing that she could do to stop her, so she might as well stop worrying."
Jarod grinned. "How did she talk you into going with her?"
Carolyn shrugged. "It wasn't hard. Em's very persuasive. Besides, she was my best friend. There was no one I would rather have with me."
"So, what kind of a tattoo did she get?"
Carolyn shook her head, a wicked grin on her face. "I'll leave that to her to tell you," she said. "I want you two to have something to talk about." Her voice caught a little, and she blinked back tears. "I can't believe you're still alive, Jarod," she said. "They thought you were dead."
"Who told them that?"
"Apparently your dad had tried to rescue you once," she said, looking to him for confirmation. He nodded.
"Well, apparently he told your mom that if he hadn't met them at a pre-arranged spot in three days, that they should assume that he was dead and go into hiding. Em was really little then, but she remembers it. A priest came and told your mom that they had found a car that had crashed and exploded on a road leading away from the Centre. It held the bodies of a man and two small boys. They were burned beyond recognition... the car had been run off the road." She took a shaky breath. "Miss Meg was devastated, but she was even more determined to keep Em safe. She was like you, you know?"
"Like me?"
"Smart like you, I mean. Miss Meg was terrified that the Centre would find out she had another genius child and take Emily too."
"So what did she do?"
"Well, stayed on the move and kept a low profile. Miss Meg worked a little but your dad had some money for emergencies and it was enough to support them. When Em started school, she dumbed herself down on purpose. Your mom spent hours teaching her things like how to mispronounce words and make mistakes on her math problems. She made herself seem average enough that nobody took much notice of her."
Jarod smiled, picturing a tiny girl with dark, intense eyes laboring to master the art of mediocrity. "I think that the whole family has become experts at blending in."
Carolyn smiled sadly. "When I first met Em I thought she was the most normal person I'd ever seen. Then I got to know her a little better and thought she must have had some deep emotional problems, because she was incredibly paranoid. Eventually I realized that she was one of the more stable people I knew, so if she took precautions, she must have a good reason. When she told me about her family, though, I was so amazed... I mean, she's had so much to cope with, and she's still such an incredible person."
"Tell me more about her," Jarod asked, entreaty edging his voice.
"She's extremely intelligent, but you probably know all about that," Carolyn began. "Apparently it runs in your family."
Jarod nodded, encouraging her to continue.
"Emily is so strong. You'd never know it to look at her, but she can fight like some kind of action hero. When we were in college she took all these classes-- every form of martial arts she could think of, kickboxing, self-defense... anything. She didn't have to study much, so she spent a lot of time training. She was always at the gym or the firing range, practicing. She's a great shot."
"I'm glad," Jarod said. "I recently found out that the Centre has been trying to track her. I was afraid she
wouldn't be able to defend herself. It's good that she took
precautions."
Carolyn shook her head. "You don't understand, Jarod. She wasn't taking precautions. She was training."
"Training?"
"She was trying to make herself into some sort of female Rambo so that she could punish the Centre for what they did to her family."
"I don't understand," Jarod said. "If she thought we were dead, why didn't she just go on with her life, live normally?"
She shot him a piercing glance. "You wouldn't have."
He sighed in resignation. "No, I wouldn't have. Not once I knew what the Centre had done... what they continue to do. They can't be allowed to do to other families what they did to ours."
"You sound just like Em." She was silent for a moment, thinking. "Jarod, have you ever read any fairy tales?"
"A few."
"There's a story by Hans Christian Andersen called 'The Wild Swans.' It was about a princess whose eleven brothers were turned into swans. To break the enchantment, she had to pick stinging nettles and use them to weave coats for her brothers. When she placed the coats on their bodies, the spell would be broken; but from the time she began her task until the time she finished, she could not speak a word, or her brothers would die. The nettles burned her hands, and she was imprisoned for being a witch, but she never tried to defend herself. She spent all her time weaving so that she could save her brothers, and they could all be together again."
Jarod was silent as Carolyn paused for a moment.
"Emily told me that 'The Wild Swans' was her favorite story. Your dad used to read it to her when he tucked her in at night. She told me once that the morning he left to try to rescue you from the Centre, the last thing she said to him was that if he couldn't save you, she would... just like the princess in that story."
He shut his eyes, trying to restrain the tears that pressed at them.
Leaning forward, Carolyn laid a warm hand on his, clenched into a fist on his lap. "They thought you were dead, Jarod, but they never forgot you," she said softly. "Every year they had a holiday for your birthday, your dad's birthday, and Kyle's birthday. They did the same thing every year, no matter what else was happening in their lives. Every year on your birthday, as soon as Emily got out of school, they would go to church and light a candle for you. Then they would find a park, someplace beautiful and peaceful, and they would talk about you. Your mom would tell Em all the stories she could think of, anything to make her feel like she had known you. Then they would go home, and your mom would make your favorite dinner..."
"Chicken and mashed potatoes," Jarod said, suddenly and unarguably sure as a vivid memory swept him. For a bare moment, he could taste it... Mom would pick the chicken off the bones for him and drop it into the hole he had made in the center of his fluffy potatoes, and she would cover them with golden brown gravy, salty and tangy on his tongue.
"Yes." Carolyn's voice was soft. "Our senior year of college, Em got sick and she couldn't go home for Jarod's Day. I went to church and lit the candle for her, and found a diner that made chicken and mashed potatoes and brought it back to the dorm. While we were eating, she told me stories about you... you would never know that she was born after you were taken. She told me about a time that you fell off a ladder and cut your back..."
"I still have the scar," said Jarod quietly.
She looked at him, her perceptive eyes deep and green and still. "I think you still have a lot of scars," she said.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"There's one thing I don't understand, Carolyn," he said, when she had talked herself hoarse telling him about his sister.
"What?"
"Why does Maggie pretend to be autistic? She's obviously a normal child."
Carolyn smiled ruefully. "That's where you're wrong, Jarod. Maggie isn't a normal child. But she's not autistic, either." She beckoned to the girl, who had been amusing herself quietly while they talked.
"Maggie, tell Jarod what you've been studying with Mommy."
The child pushed a red curl out of her face, regarding him with curiosity. "When I go to school, I read fun books and take naps. I have my lessons with Mommy at home at night and on the weekends. Right now we're learning geometry, and I'm studying the French Revolution for history. For homework I have to write an essay comparing how the French Revolution was portrayed in books written by English and French writers."
Jarod stared at her in amazement, then turned to Carolyn. "Why?
"I'm afraid." She turned to her daughter. "Sweetie, your favorite show is coming on in five minutes. Why don't you go watch it in Mommy's room while Jarod and I talk some more?"
Maggie nodded and picked up *Little Women* before leaving the room.
"What's her favorite show?" Jarod asked curiously.
Carolyn grinned. "Biography."
He shook his head. "So you have a genius child, but you send her to a school for children with severe learning disabilities?"
She leaned forward, suddenly intense. "My husband David and I were having trouble conceiving a child, so we went to a
fertility clinic. It worked; I got pregnant with Maggie, and we were so happy..."
"What happened?"
"I hadn't seen Emily in a long time, but she appeared on my doorstep one day out of the blue. She made me come with her to a loud restaurant, where she was sure we couldn't be overheard, and she told me that my baby was in danger. She found out that the Centre owned the clinic where we had gone for treatment. Her research into your kidnapping had led her to believe that the clinics were being used to try to find children that the Centre could use. She was afraid that something terrible would happen to me, like it did to Miss Meg. She was snooping around in some computer records and found a list of children's names, with percentages by them. Maggie's name was on the list, and she was rated at eighty-seven percent."
"What do the percentages mean?" Jarod asked intently.
"We don't know. We think that they were trying to determine how likely the children were to be like you and Emily are, so they would know who... who to take." She looked over her shoulder as if reassuring herself that there were no intruders in her house.
"So what happened then?"
"Emily convinced David and me that the only way to keep our baby safe was to disappear like her mom had done, and try to hide Maggie's intelligence if we could. She got us false identities to use; she set it all up. I left first... I told everyone that I was going to visit my mother. Then a few days later David was supposed to meet me." She shuddered. "He never made it to the meeting place, Jarod," she whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "They said it was a drunk driver..."
"I'm so sorry about your husband," he said gently.
She gave him a watery smile, swallowing back the tears that threatened to spill. "After that I was terrified. I lived with your mom until Maggie was born... she and Emily helped me so much. I could never have made it without them."
"So Maggie is named after my mother and sister?"
"Yes." Carolyn drew a deep breath, steeling herself for the end of her story. "When Maggie was just a tiny baby, your mother recognized the signs. I never thought I would be sorry to hear that my daughter was a genius. But all I wanted was for her to have a happy life, a normal life like a normal little girl. I knew that if I sent her to school it would only be a matter of time before the Centre found us. I didn't think she could fool standardized tests as young as she was. So we taught her how to be autistic. When she was two we moved here, with falsified medical records that Em gave us, and enrolled Maggie in Ferncrest."
"Forgive me if this is too personal a question, but how do you pay her tuition? It isn't cheap, and you have so much else to worry about."
"I don't have to pay anything," she said. "Emily took care of that. She set up a dummy foundation that gave Maggie a 'scholarship.'" She grinned suddenly and managed a chuckle as she wiped away her tears. "I have a strong suspicion that the Centre is inadvertently funding my daughter's education."
"I hope so," said Jarod. "They owe you much more than that." He sighed. "I'm worried, though, Carolyn. How is this affecting Maggie? It can't be good for her to live like this."
"I know. I've worried about that too. But for now, it seemed like the best plan. We're planning on trying to move next year, go to a new town with a new identity. In the meantime, we're going to practice Emily's tricks and see if Maggie can successfully pretend to be a normal child. We've already started misspelling lessons."
Jarod smiled at the idea of the six-year-old sitting down gravely to practice making errors in her schoolwork. "That sounds like a good idea, Carolyn. Before I go, I'll give you a way to contact me. If I can ever help you, or if you find out where Mom and Emily are, please get in touch with me."
"I will, Jarod. I promise."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jarod sat in his dingy hideaway for long hours, turning over a precious little box of pictures and keepsakes that Carolyn had given him. He hadn't found his mother and sister yet, but he was closer than he had ever been. He had gotten so much information about Emily from her friend that he felt, for the first time in his life, as if he knew her.
He was leaving Ferncrest in two days, called back by a manufactured family emergency. Before he moved on, there were some things he wanted to take care of. Somehow, he wanted Emily to know that her father and brother were trying to find her, that they loved her despite the years that widened the gap between them.
The syncopated tapping of computer keys was the only sound in the room as Jarod typed far into the night.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
With a sigh that spoke of bone-deep fatigue, a young woman dropped her luggage onto the lumpy mattress of yet another musty bed in yet another seedy motel. She drew the blinds tightly shut, and moved through the room with deft hands and keen eyes, searching for hidden cameras, minute transmitters, hidden assassins, anything that would threaten her privacy. When she was assured of her solitude, she removed her tousled blond wig and laid it on the scarred chest of drawers. As she removed the pins that held her dark hair close to her head, she removed a slim notebook computer and switched it on. Unplugging the room's phone from the wall, she plugged in the modem and began working.
Hours later, frustrated by her fruitless efforts, she decided to take a break. She clicked "home" on her web browser, and was returned to a page on Hans Christian Andersen. She wanted to read her story tonight, to remind herself of her father and the promise she had made. When she located the text of the story, however, there was a new link beside it. "Hear this story," she read. "Link provided courtesy of Eldest Swan Productions." Curious, she downloaded the file. When it began to play, she heard a rich voice with a touch of Britain around the edges.
"Far away in the land to which the swallows fly when it is winter, dwelt a king who had eleven sons, and one daughter, named Eliza. The eleven brothers were princes, and each went to school with a star on his breast, and a sword by his side. They wrote with diamond pencils on gold slates..."
As the first words of the story filled the room, she had gone pale and still, listening as though she could force the sound to coalesce into a person by the sheer force of her will. As the story took its well-remembered course, she reached a trembling hand to caress the speakers of her laptop. "Daddy," she whispered, choking back a sob. "Oh, Daddy..."
Her fatigue forgotten, she sat on the sagging motel bed and listened to her father's voice, as he read her favorite bedtime story over and over to her in the quiet of the night.
END (02/02)
End of Story
DISTRIBUTION: Please ask before archiving or forwarding to mailing lists. I doubt I'll say no, but I want to know where it is.
AUTHOR'S NOTE: Thanks to Carolyn for great beta services.
Part I:
Takes One to Know One
by Maggie McCain
PART: 2 of 2
Seated in Carolyn Mackenzie's living room, Jarod felt his happiness surround him with an almost palpable warmth. After a lifetime spent with two old pictures and a few indistinct memories, he had found a priceless gift-- a woman who had known his lost mother and sister intimately for many years, and was prepared to spend hours in happy reminiscence of the time she had spent with them. Carolyn had dug out a box of mementos and scrapbooks for him to look at, and as Maggie played contentedly on the rug beside them, she told him the story behind each theater stub and snapshot in the box.
"What on earth is this, Carolyn?" Jarod held up a small piece of glossy cardboard. It was a replica of the Land O Lakes margarine logo, with certain changes. The logo now read, "Land O Tats" and he was certain that the kneeling Indian maiden had not been bare-chested the last time he had looked at a margarine tub. The bottom of the card read, simply, "Colette."
Carolyn took the card from him and laughed. "This is the business card of the tattoo artist Emily and I went to," she said, pulling up her pant leg to reveal an intricate design etched onto the skin of her ankle. "Em had wanted a tattoo for ages, but your mom was scared she'd catch a disease from the needle. So do you know what she did?"
"What?" Jarod was fascinated.
"She started doing research, and found out more information on tattoos and tattooing than I even realized existed. Then she told Miss Meg that the last recorded case of anyone contracting a serious disease while getting a tattoo was in 1964, that reputable artists used autoclave sterilization and disposable needles, and that she was over eighteen and there was nothing that she could do to stop her, so she might as well stop worrying."
Jarod grinned. "How did she talk you into going with her?"
Carolyn shrugged. "It wasn't hard. Em's very persuasive. Besides, she was my best friend. There was no one I would rather have with me."
"So, what kind of a tattoo did she get?"
Carolyn shook her head, a wicked grin on her face. "I'll leave that to her to tell you," she said. "I want you two to have something to talk about." Her voice caught a little, and she blinked back tears. "I can't believe you're still alive, Jarod," she said. "They thought you were dead."
"Who told them that?"
"Apparently your dad had tried to rescue you once," she said, looking to him for confirmation. He nodded.
"Well, apparently he told your mom that if he hadn't met them at a pre-arranged spot in three days, that they should assume that he was dead and go into hiding. Em was really little then, but she remembers it. A priest came and told your mom that they had found a car that had crashed and exploded on a road leading away from the Centre. It held the bodies of a man and two small boys. They were burned beyond recognition... the car had been run off the road." She took a shaky breath. "Miss Meg was devastated, but she was even more determined to keep Em safe. She was like you, you know?"
"Like me?"
"Smart like you, I mean. Miss Meg was terrified that the Centre would find out she had another genius child and take Emily too."
"So what did she do?"
"Well, stayed on the move and kept a low profile. Miss Meg worked a little but your dad had some money for emergencies and it was enough to support them. When Em started school, she dumbed herself down on purpose. Your mom spent hours teaching her things like how to mispronounce words and make mistakes on her math problems. She made herself seem average enough that nobody took much notice of her."
Jarod smiled, picturing a tiny girl with dark, intense eyes laboring to master the art of mediocrity. "I think that the whole family has become experts at blending in."
Carolyn smiled sadly. "When I first met Em I thought she was the most normal person I'd ever seen. Then I got to know her a little better and thought she must have had some deep emotional problems, because she was incredibly paranoid. Eventually I realized that she was one of the more stable people I knew, so if she took precautions, she must have a good reason. When she told me about her family, though, I was so amazed... I mean, she's had so much to cope with, and she's still such an incredible person."
"Tell me more about her," Jarod asked, entreaty edging his voice.
"She's extremely intelligent, but you probably know all about that," Carolyn began. "Apparently it runs in your family."
Jarod nodded, encouraging her to continue.
"Emily is so strong. You'd never know it to look at her, but she can fight like some kind of action hero. When we were in college she took all these classes-- every form of martial arts she could think of, kickboxing, self-defense... anything. She didn't have to study much, so she spent a lot of time training. She was always at the gym or the firing range, practicing. She's a great shot."
"I'm glad," Jarod said. "I recently found out that the Centre has been trying to track her. I was afraid she
wouldn't be able to defend herself. It's good that she took
precautions."
Carolyn shook her head. "You don't understand, Jarod. She wasn't taking precautions. She was training."
"Training?"
"She was trying to make herself into some sort of female Rambo so that she could punish the Centre for what they did to her family."
"I don't understand," Jarod said. "If she thought we were dead, why didn't she just go on with her life, live normally?"
She shot him a piercing glance. "You wouldn't have."
He sighed in resignation. "No, I wouldn't have. Not once I knew what the Centre had done... what they continue to do. They can't be allowed to do to other families what they did to ours."
"You sound just like Em." She was silent for a moment, thinking. "Jarod, have you ever read any fairy tales?"
"A few."
"There's a story by Hans Christian Andersen called 'The Wild Swans.' It was about a princess whose eleven brothers were turned into swans. To break the enchantment, she had to pick stinging nettles and use them to weave coats for her brothers. When she placed the coats on their bodies, the spell would be broken; but from the time she began her task until the time she finished, she could not speak a word, or her brothers would die. The nettles burned her hands, and she was imprisoned for being a witch, but she never tried to defend herself. She spent all her time weaving so that she could save her brothers, and they could all be together again."
Jarod was silent as Carolyn paused for a moment.
"Emily told me that 'The Wild Swans' was her favorite story. Your dad used to read it to her when he tucked her in at night. She told me once that the morning he left to try to rescue you from the Centre, the last thing she said to him was that if he couldn't save you, she would... just like the princess in that story."
He shut his eyes, trying to restrain the tears that pressed at them.
Leaning forward, Carolyn laid a warm hand on his, clenched into a fist on his lap. "They thought you were dead, Jarod, but they never forgot you," she said softly. "Every year they had a holiday for your birthday, your dad's birthday, and Kyle's birthday. They did the same thing every year, no matter what else was happening in their lives. Every year on your birthday, as soon as Emily got out of school, they would go to church and light a candle for you. Then they would find a park, someplace beautiful and peaceful, and they would talk about you. Your mom would tell Em all the stories she could think of, anything to make her feel like she had known you. Then they would go home, and your mom would make your favorite dinner..."
"Chicken and mashed potatoes," Jarod said, suddenly and unarguably sure as a vivid memory swept him. For a bare moment, he could taste it... Mom would pick the chicken off the bones for him and drop it into the hole he had made in the center of his fluffy potatoes, and she would cover them with golden brown gravy, salty and tangy on his tongue.
"Yes." Carolyn's voice was soft. "Our senior year of college, Em got sick and she couldn't go home for Jarod's Day. I went to church and lit the candle for her, and found a diner that made chicken and mashed potatoes and brought it back to the dorm. While we were eating, she told me stories about you... you would never know that she was born after you were taken. She told me about a time that you fell off a ladder and cut your back..."
"I still have the scar," said Jarod quietly.
She looked at him, her perceptive eyes deep and green and still. "I think you still have a lot of scars," she said.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
"There's one thing I don't understand, Carolyn," he said, when she had talked herself hoarse telling him about his sister.
"What?"
"Why does Maggie pretend to be autistic? She's obviously a normal child."
Carolyn smiled ruefully. "That's where you're wrong, Jarod. Maggie isn't a normal child. But she's not autistic, either." She beckoned to the girl, who had been amusing herself quietly while they talked.
"Maggie, tell Jarod what you've been studying with Mommy."
The child pushed a red curl out of her face, regarding him with curiosity. "When I go to school, I read fun books and take naps. I have my lessons with Mommy at home at night and on the weekends. Right now we're learning geometry, and I'm studying the French Revolution for history. For homework I have to write an essay comparing how the French Revolution was portrayed in books written by English and French writers."
Jarod stared at her in amazement, then turned to Carolyn. "Why?
"I'm afraid." She turned to her daughter. "Sweetie, your favorite show is coming on in five minutes. Why don't you go watch it in Mommy's room while Jarod and I talk some more?"
Maggie nodded and picked up *Little Women* before leaving the room.
"What's her favorite show?" Jarod asked curiously.
Carolyn grinned. "Biography."
He shook his head. "So you have a genius child, but you send her to a school for children with severe learning disabilities?"
She leaned forward, suddenly intense. "My husband David and I were having trouble conceiving a child, so we went to a
fertility clinic. It worked; I got pregnant with Maggie, and we were so happy..."
"What happened?"
"I hadn't seen Emily in a long time, but she appeared on my doorstep one day out of the blue. She made me come with her to a loud restaurant, where she was sure we couldn't be overheard, and she told me that my baby was in danger. She found out that the Centre owned the clinic where we had gone for treatment. Her research into your kidnapping had led her to believe that the clinics were being used to try to find children that the Centre could use. She was afraid that something terrible would happen to me, like it did to Miss Meg. She was snooping around in some computer records and found a list of children's names, with percentages by them. Maggie's name was on the list, and she was rated at eighty-seven percent."
"What do the percentages mean?" Jarod asked intently.
"We don't know. We think that they were trying to determine how likely the children were to be like you and Emily are, so they would know who... who to take." She looked over her shoulder as if reassuring herself that there were no intruders in her house.
"So what happened then?"
"Emily convinced David and me that the only way to keep our baby safe was to disappear like her mom had done, and try to hide Maggie's intelligence if we could. She got us false identities to use; she set it all up. I left first... I told everyone that I was going to visit my mother. Then a few days later David was supposed to meet me." She shuddered. "He never made it to the meeting place, Jarod," she whispered, tears welling in her eyes. "They said it was a drunk driver..."
"I'm so sorry about your husband," he said gently.
She gave him a watery smile, swallowing back the tears that threatened to spill. "After that I was terrified. I lived with your mom until Maggie was born... she and Emily helped me so much. I could never have made it without them."
"So Maggie is named after my mother and sister?"
"Yes." Carolyn drew a deep breath, steeling herself for the end of her story. "When Maggie was just a tiny baby, your mother recognized the signs. I never thought I would be sorry to hear that my daughter was a genius. But all I wanted was for her to have a happy life, a normal life like a normal little girl. I knew that if I sent her to school it would only be a matter of time before the Centre found us. I didn't think she could fool standardized tests as young as she was. So we taught her how to be autistic. When she was two we moved here, with falsified medical records that Em gave us, and enrolled Maggie in Ferncrest."
"Forgive me if this is too personal a question, but how do you pay her tuition? It isn't cheap, and you have so much else to worry about."
"I don't have to pay anything," she said. "Emily took care of that. She set up a dummy foundation that gave Maggie a 'scholarship.'" She grinned suddenly and managed a chuckle as she wiped away her tears. "I have a strong suspicion that the Centre is inadvertently funding my daughter's education."
"I hope so," said Jarod. "They owe you much more than that." He sighed. "I'm worried, though, Carolyn. How is this affecting Maggie? It can't be good for her to live like this."
"I know. I've worried about that too. But for now, it seemed like the best plan. We're planning on trying to move next year, go to a new town with a new identity. In the meantime, we're going to practice Emily's tricks and see if Maggie can successfully pretend to be a normal child. We've already started misspelling lessons."
Jarod smiled at the idea of the six-year-old sitting down gravely to practice making errors in her schoolwork. "That sounds like a good idea, Carolyn. Before I go, I'll give you a way to contact me. If I can ever help you, or if you find out where Mom and Emily are, please get in touch with me."
"I will, Jarod. I promise."
=-=-=-=-=-=-=
Jarod sat in his dingy hideaway for long hours, turning over a precious little box of pictures and keepsakes that Carolyn had given him. He hadn't found his mother and sister yet, but he was closer than he had ever been. He had gotten so much information about Emily from her friend that he felt, for the first time in his life, as if he knew her.
He was leaving Ferncrest in two days, called back by a manufactured family emergency. Before he moved on, there were some things he wanted to take care of. Somehow, he wanted Emily to know that her father and brother were trying to find her, that they loved her despite the years that widened the gap between them.
The syncopated tapping of computer keys was the only sound in the room as Jarod typed far into the night.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
With a sigh that spoke of bone-deep fatigue, a young woman dropped her luggage onto the lumpy mattress of yet another musty bed in yet another seedy motel. She drew the blinds tightly shut, and moved through the room with deft hands and keen eyes, searching for hidden cameras, minute transmitters, hidden assassins, anything that would threaten her privacy. When she was assured of her solitude, she removed her tousled blond wig and laid it on the scarred chest of drawers. As she removed the pins that held her dark hair close to her head, she removed a slim notebook computer and switched it on. Unplugging the room's phone from the wall, she plugged in the modem and began working.
Hours later, frustrated by her fruitless efforts, she decided to take a break. She clicked "home" on her web browser, and was returned to a page on Hans Christian Andersen. She wanted to read her story tonight, to remind herself of her father and the promise she had made. When she located the text of the story, however, there was a new link beside it. "Hear this story," she read. "Link provided courtesy of Eldest Swan Productions." Curious, she downloaded the file. When it began to play, she heard a rich voice with a touch of Britain around the edges.
"Far away in the land to which the swallows fly when it is winter, dwelt a king who had eleven sons, and one daughter, named Eliza. The eleven brothers were princes, and each went to school with a star on his breast, and a sword by his side. They wrote with diamond pencils on gold slates..."
As the first words of the story filled the room, she had gone pale and still, listening as though she could force the sound to coalesce into a person by the sheer force of her will. As the story took its well-remembered course, she reached a trembling hand to caress the speakers of her laptop. "Daddy," she whispered, choking back a sob. "Oh, Daddy..."
Her fatigue forgotten, she sat on the sagging motel bed and listened to her father's voice, as he read her favorite bedtime story over and over to her in the quiet of the night.
END (02/02)
End of Story
