Prologue

Prologue

 

            She ran through the dark night with ice cold droplets of water pelting her face.  She used one grey wrinkled hand to pull the hood of her dark cloak up over her head and the other to clutch the tiny bundle she held closer to her body.  The lights in the surrounding houses were all dark and you could hear crickets singing in the distant woods.  She continued to run as fast as her bony aching legs could take her; soon the sun would be peeking over the far off hills and all would be lost. 

The sun on the back of her hand had nearly completed its rotation and then she would be no more.  Proof of the chilly weather was evident in every breath she exhaled.  She sighed in relief as she came upon a tiny green house that remained as pitch black inside as its neighboring counterparts.  She brought up her free hand and the raps she used to knock on the door resounded like gunshots in the now silent night.

 There was no warning, no footsteps or stumbling, before the wooden door was opened revealing a slight young woman with a bewildered expression on her face.  The old woman only had time to whisper something in the girl’s ear and press the small bundle into her arms before a fiery blast of sunlight burst over the horizon and through the rain. 

The sun on the woman’s hand completed its rotation and she exploded into a shower of dazzling blue energy.  The tiny girl in the doorways’ silver eyes were wide and curious, and as the blue light from the old woman faded, she looked down into her arms where the small bundle was shifting slightly.  A small hand stretched between the folds of the blankets that swathed her and reached for the face of the now smiling woman.  She adjusted the blankets to look down into the face of a baby girl.  She leaned in and kissed the baby’s forehead.

 

“Hello, Blake.”