Dream Makers: Dream Of Me Part 15

Darla laughed. "I have no idea what you're talking about."

"Sure, you don't," Serenity said shaking her head.

"So what happens now?" Emma asked.

"Now we eat," Darla answered as she stood up and headed toward the kitchen where delicious smells called to the group to come partake.

Raphael placed a large but gentle hand on Emma's shoulder as she headed toward the kitchen with everyone else. She looked up at the large angel and saw so many different emotions in his eyes. She could tell he still felt responsible for what had happened. There was nothing she could say to change that. It was between Raphael and his conscience to let it go.

"After breakfast we need to return to your aunt and deal with what happened. None of us want you to return to that place, but...," he paused.

"It's where I'm supposed to be right now," Emma finished.

Raphael's jaw clenched. "You are too wise for your age, Emma Whitmore. You should not have to worry about such things."

She shrugged. "We can't see the bigger picture sometimes, big guy," she told him. "Mama used to tell me that there was a reason for everything. She'd say, Emma Jean, there is nothing in this world that G.o.d misses. There is nothing so bad that he can't use for good in some way. We may never know what that is, but you can trust that He's got it covered."

"What if a person doesn't believe in this G.o.d of yours? What do they do with the horrible things of this worldthe unjust, the corrupt, and evil? Where is their hope?"

She knew that he was playing the devil's advocate. Her daddy used to do the same thing with her mama. Of course, he just liked to argue more than anything. He got a kick out of seeing her mama get all riled up. "I've asked my mama that same question."

"What was her answer?"

"She told me that oftentimes it was those very things that helped them see that there was something bigger in this world than themselves. And it was our job to show those people love, acceptance, and that very hope, not judgment, hate, or ambivalence."

"And in your circ.u.mstances, with what has happened to you, you still believe there is this G.o.d who loves you?" Raphael seemed to truly want to understand. Emma wondered if, because he was an angel created for one purposeto serve his Creator, perhaps he didn't understand free will.

"I have to believe that he has a greater purpose. Maybe I will be able to help a child one day who is going through the same thing." Emma could admit to herself and to G.o.d that she was scared, but she did believe he was with her.

"You are a rare gem, Emma," Raphael said warmly. "A rare gem in a cave of coal."

She tilted her head to the side as she looked up at him. "Even coal has a purpose."

Serenity stood next to the back pa.s.senger seat of her car as Emma climbed into the other side. Dair stood by the open driver side door looking back at her while Raphael had already sat down in the pa.s.senger seat. Dair's eyes were narrowed and his jaw tight.

"I really wish you would stay here," he told her for the third time.

She shook her head. "Not going to happen." She turned then when she heard Glory's horn honk at her as she backed out of the driveway. Serenity gave her friend a wave and then placed her hand to her ear as if it were a telephone letting her best friend know she would call her. When she turned back to look at Dair, she realized that his frustration with her wasn't going to abate anytime soon, so she gave up trying to reason with him and just climbed in next to Emma. She heard him let out a deep sigh.

"He's protective of you," Emma whispered to her.

"Which is why he shouldn't be worried. He won't let anything happen to me so I don't understand what the big deal is."

"What if I can't protect you," Dair nearly growled. "What if it is beyond my ability?"

"Brudair." Raphael's voice held a warning that Serenity didn't understand.

"What are you talking about?" she asked Dair.

"Never mind," he told her as he backed out of the driveway.

It was the first time he had ever been remotely harsh with her, and for that reason, Serenity knew that something very serious was upsetting him. What did he think he couldn't protect her from? What danger could she possibly be in? Serenity's mind conjured up scenarios ranging from her and Mildred getting into a ridiculous slapping fight to a crazy patron busting into the library brandis.h.i.+ng a gun while yelling about the library fines he would not pay because the library was supposed to be free. Both scenarios were equally likely in her estimation. Regardless, she had no doubt that he could protect her.

The car ride into town was quiet. Serenity noted how they each seemed to be lost in their own thoughts. Was Emma thinking about how she was going to be back with her aunt and the uncertainty of her safety? Was Raphael still beating himself up about not being there to protect her? She started to wonder what thoughts might be consuming Dair when she looked up at the rearview mirror and caught his intense gaze. Their eyes connected for a brief moment before he looked back at the road. But she had felt the turmoil in those dark eyes all the way to her soul.

Her attention was taken when Mildred's house came into view. Serenity felt a churning in her gut as she stared at the house. She had never been one for violence, let alone arson, but in that moment she truly wanted to light the rotting structure up and watch it burn, and hopefully all of the evil within it.

She reached over and took Emma's hand as Dair pulled into the driveway. Emma gave it a rea.s.suring squeeze and it wasn't lost on Serenity that it was the eight-year-old doing the comforting. In all her life, she had never met a person as brave as little Emma.

"I'll be fine, Serenity," Emma told her and the confidence in her voice almost had Serenity believing her.

"I will do what I can to protect her," Raphael promised.

They all climbed out of the car and Serenity felt as if they were walking to their doom rather than Emma's aunt's house. As the door opened and a rough looking Mildred emerged, Serenity was sure they were leaving Emma to her doom.

"Where you been, girl?" Mildred asked attempting to sound like she cared and failing miserably.

"Are you here alone?" Dair asked her, his stern voice and swirling eyes would have had any smart human being taking a step back. But Mildred wasn't the swiftest horse in the herd so she actually took a step toward himtoward the hunter who obviously saw her as prey.

"This is my house, boy; I don't answers to the likes of you," Mildred snarled, her true self making its appearance once again. That was the thing about a person's character; it couldn't be hidden, not for long. The truth of an individual would always come to the surface eventually, revealing what lay below.

"That is where you are wrong. Emma is under my protection."

"And mine," Raphael spoke up.

Not to be left out Serenity piped in. "And mine as well."

Dair shot her a look but quickly turned back to Mildred. "If anything happens to her while under your roof, we will hold you responsible and you will pay the consequences."

Emma started forward but Serenity grabbed her hand before she had made it two steps. She turned Emma to face her and then knelt down in front of her. "Just because you're young doesn't mean that you don't have rights. If at any moment you feel scared, you get out of there. Don't hesitate, alright? Raphael will get you out."

Emma nodded. "I know, Serenity. I will be fine. Maybe I'm here to help my aunt change her ways. Maybe I'm the only light she will see."

Serenity closed her eyes and squeezed them tightly, fighting back the tears. If only they could all be as good and hopeful as this child. But Serenity had lived longer than Emma; she knew that sometimes people didn't want to be saved. "I truly hope that that's true," she whispered to her and then let her hand go. Serenity continued to kneel there as she watched Emma walk toward her aunt. She told her good morning in a polite tone and wished her a Merry Christmas before walking past her and into the house. Mildred gave them all one more nasty look and then slammed the door behind her.

"I will watch over her," Raphael said and then disappeared.

Serenity finally stood but she didn't take her eyes off of the door that Emma had just entered. She felt as though if she looked away something bad would happen, and it would be their fault for letting her go in to that dark place.

"I'm going to call DHS," Serenity said suddenly. "This isn't right, Dair." Her heart was pounding so hard in her chest as the muscles in her stomach clenched painfully tight. "We can't let her stay here. I don't care what Emma says. This woman isn't worth saving."

Dair walked over to her and placed a gentle hand on her face. "I understand your anger and it is a righteous anger, but we cannot know the heart of another. I agree Emma should not stay here, but I do not want to see you grow bitter. Mildred's fate is in the hands of the Creator. Whether she is salvageable or not, only he knows."

"I guess I'm not as forgiving as you thought, huh?" she asked as she attempted to turn her face from his.

Dair's eyes softened. "You are human, Serenity. I never expected you to be perfect. It is the fact that you strive to be the best you that you can be that matters. You will not always succeed, but I won't hold that against you."

"Thanks," Serenity huffed.

"Are we heading back to your aunt and uncle's house for the remainder of the day?"

"Yeah, Darla's sister is supposed to be coming in this afternoon." Serenity took his hand as he guided her back to the car.

"What's she like?" Dair asked.

Serenity waited to answer him until they were both seated in the car. "Let's just say she's one of a kind. If you thought Glory didn't have a filter, well Aunt Willa is a step beyond that."

Dair grinned as his eyes glinted playfully. "Then this should be interesting."

"That's an understatement," Serenity muttered.

Emma knelt on her knees in her aunt's kitchen, scrubbing the floor with a rag that wasn't any cleaner than the filth covered linoleum. Raphael stood in the corner with his arms crossed in front of his huge chest, glowering at her aunt. Of course Mildred couldn't see him, and it was hard for Emma not to talk to him. His brooding presence was doing nothing for the gloomy atmosphere. As soon as Mildred had shut the door on Emma's friends, she'd turned her hate filled eyes on Emma. For a brief moment, she was sure that her aunt was going to hit her, and in turn Raphael was going to do something as equally distasteful to Mildred. But instead she just started barking orders: clean this, scrub that, dust this, pick up over there. Emma had decided that Mildred was trying to poison her by forcing her to wallow in this filth.

By the time she had come to the last few tiles of the kitchen floor, the sun had set and the cold dark night was draping itself over everything outside. Mildred hadn't said anything to her in a couple of hours and it didn't hurt Emma's feelings. But the reprieve wasn't to last.

"When'd you leave?" Mildred asked her as she lit a cigarette.

Emma paused her scrubbing and looked over her shoulder at the worn and wasted woman. "I left last night," she answered honestly.

"You ever think it might not be safe for an eight-year-old girl to go prancing around town in the middle of the night?"

"I think it was safer than staying here."

Mildred's eyes narrowed. The smoke from her cigarette danced eerily around her face, like a charmed snake waiting for instructions from its master. "What'd you mean by that?" she snapped.

Emma was trying to decide how much to tell her aunt and what exactly to tell her. She had a feeling that it didn't matter what she said. Mildred wouldn't believe her. So when in doubt, go with the truth. "That man, Rat, came into the room. He hit me and I got away from him by climbing through the window." She waited, sure that her aunt would yell at her.

Mildred flicked her cigarette ashes onto the floor Emma had just cleaned. "You probably did somethin to p.i.s.s him off. He don't go hitting a girl for no reason at all."

Emma didn't say anything to that. What could she say? She knew there was no point in arguing with her aunt. Mildred wasn't reasonable and therefore could not be reasoned with. Instead, she just went back to scrubbing the floor. Emma was nearly done and she was hoping that Mildred would get caught up in one of her shows so that she could slip off to bed.

After she rinsed out the dirty rag, which really was a lost cause, she laid it on the edge of the sink. When Emma tiptoed to the edge of the kitchen floor to look into the living room, she saw that her aunt had fallen asleep in her recliner. Her mouth was opened wide and as Emma walked quietly past her and down the hall, she wondered how many spiders had found their way into her aunt's cavernous mouth. "Yuck," she whispered to herself.

When she closed the door behind her, Emma saw that Raphael was already in her room. He stood next to her window looking out into the night. Emma could see the moonlight reflecting off of the white snow making it appear bright against the darkness. It was so hard to look out into the peaceful world, blanketed in the pure snow, and know that outside of those walls was safety. Outside, away from the darkness of that house, were good people, full of light and love. But even though that was true, Emma had meant what she'd told Serenity. Emma might be the only light that her aunt would ever see. She would try to live there a little longer, in hopes that maybe Mildred would see the error of her ways and see that her life could be different.

"You should get some sleep. I will keep watch," Raphael's deep voice penetrated her thoughts.

She looked up at him, but he still was looking out the window. Emma didn't bother with sleep clothes. She was too worn out. It took all of the energy she had left to climb into bed. She was asleep before her head hit the pillow.

Raphael looked down at the sleeping child. She had worked diligently as her aunt had given her task after task and not once had Emma complained. He had to wonder who this human was that she was so important to the Creator's plan. Raphael could see that she was exceptional in her knowledge, kindness, and joy. But were those the things that set her apart for her destiny? He did not know the answer to that. He did know that even if she had been just a young child, with a simple destiny, he would still have protected her. He wished that he could protect all children from people like Mildred and Rat. Even as an angel, he did not understand the evil in the world. And after thousands of years, he was still surprised by it. Whatever her future was, wherever she went, as long as it was in his power to do so, Raphael would be her guardian. He was not human, and so it was difficult to truly say, but he figured that the way he felt about Emma was the equivalent to the way a father felt for his child. Raphael would never have children, but that did not mean that he could not offer his protection to those who might be fatherless. Perhaps, that was his purpose now, and until the Creator told him otherwise, that is what he would do.

Chapter 11.

"If you dream about being a permanent marker, it means you are feeling that your situation is perpetual and stinks."

Serenity sat on the couch next to Dair with her hands twisting nervously in her lap. She didn't realize that Dair had noticed until he reached over and placed one of his larger hands over hers. She glanced up at him but he was still looking and listening intently to Aunt Willa who was bombarding him relentlessly with question after question. Willa's interrogation was actually worse than her Uncle Wayne's had been. It was another moment where Serenity felt a face palm was completely appropriate. Why hadn't she just told Dair to come see her later? Why on earth did she think it was a good idea to introduce him to Willa, who she knew was notorious for drawing information out of people? A CIA interrogator had nothing on this woman. Even after Dair had answered her as smoothly as he'd answered her uncle's questions, Serenity could see the curious gleam in her eyes. In Willa's case, pulling the wool over her eyes was not an option. Serenity knew that once Dair was gone, she would undergo her own interrogation by her aunt.

"So tell me more about this little Emma," Willa said after having finally gotten her fill of Dair's answers. "Darla's told me a little about her when we've talked on the phone."

"Did she tell you she's a genius?" Serenity asked.

Willa nodded. "And very mature for an eight-year-old. But she's living with an aunt that cares nothing for her and the girl is in danger." Her eye narrowed dangerously.

"We can't just steal her away, Willa," Darla told her sister. "Don't think we haven't considered it."

Serenity bit her lip as her eyes darted from Darla to Willa and then Uncle Wayne. "I sort of did something."

"What?" Darla and Willa asked at the same time.

"I called DHS," she admitted. The rest of her words came out in a hurried ramble. "I told them that she didn't need to be in that house and that Mildred had no business raising a child. I also told them that the house itself was not fit to be considered livable; it should be condemned. I told them about Rat and what had happened."

"What did they say?" Willa asked as she moved forward to the edge of her seat.

"They asked if she was still with us. I told them, no, that we'd taken her back to her aunt's. The lady I spoke to said that was good because it wouldn't look good to a judge no matter our intentions if we stole her. She asked if we felt Emma was in immediate danger when we took her home."

"Was she?" Willa interrupted.

Serenity looked over at Dair. He gave her a small nod. "I don't know, but she isn't without protection. I didn't tell the DHS lady that she had protection, but I did tell her that I didn't think Mildred was going to harm her."

"Are they going to start an investigation?" Uncle Wayne asked.

Serenity nearly growled out the words. "As soon as they can get a DHS worker out there."

"How long will that take?" Dair asked.

Willa snorted. "It's the government. They'll take as long as they d.a.m.n well please, and when you call to check on it, they will say they've lost the paperwork, or the person handling the case got fired, or a sudden attack of malaria mysteriously overcame the DHS office, and they had to burn everything the sick came in contact with."

"So they aren't very efficient?" Dair reiterated.

"No." Willa shook her head. "If I had meant they weren't very efficient, I would have said that. What they are is unconcerned. Emma isn't anyone important to them. She's just another child among thousands that got put in the system and shoved in the first home they could find. I'm not saying that their jobs are easy. I am saying that someone with a brain and some common sense could come up with a better way to handle it."

"We will keep an eye on her until DHS decides to show up," Darla a.s.sured her sister. "Emma is now an honorary member of our family, and if it comes time that she needs a new home, Wayne and I are willing to take her in."

Serenity felt tears burning in her eyes. This was news to her. She hadn't known that her aunt and uncle had made such a decision but it didn't surprise her. Darla would save the world one person at a time if she could.

"Well I don't think anyone would find it suspicious if old Mildred fell down a flight of stairs because she was too drunk to see straight," Willa said dryly.

"Willa," Darla admonished, though Serenity could tell her heart wasn't in it.

Willa waved her sister off. "All I'm saying is it would leave more oxygen for the rest of us and our pets if the likes of Mildred weren't taken any in."