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CHAPTER 1 - The Woods

Theresa sensed the fall-rotted leaves deep inside her dreams, blending with and beginning to overpower the sweet choking smell that flooded her nightmare. Slowly consciousness crept up to her eyes, but she kept them clamped tightly shut. "It's only a dream," she repeated to herself, over and over, clinging to the mantra Uncle Selmon had taught her. She reached for the pillow, a clutch of reassurance she often used to bring herself back to reality from these dreams.

But her hand clutched only rotting leaves.

Stiffening, her every sense awoke. Heart beating wildly, she slowly and carefully opened her eyes. She lay in a forest, wrapped in a thick but scratchy worn blanket, of mottled greenish brown. It was wool and smelled of sheep. A dank mist swirled between the trees, limiting the view from her prone position. It was early September and this high in the Alps leaves had begun to fall and a chill braced the air. A few feet away she could see where a shallow hole had been freshly dug.

Theresa lay paralyzed for what seemed like hours but was only seconds. She could hear no sounds other than her own pounding heart and the rustling of wind in the trees. Slowly she rolled to one side and raised to an elbow. The mountain fell rather steeply to her left but she lay in a slight depression, hollowed out by the towering roots of a long-fallen forest giant. She wondered briefly how the woodcutters could have missed one so huge. The upended roots offered some shelter but one of them dripped on her scalp and she reached reflexively to sweep back her mass of soft wavy brown hair. A fresh shock of panic swept through her as she realized her hair was shorn. She grabbed for the butterfly opal. It was there.

"Its only a dream," she tried repeating to herself, half whispering it aloud. But she knew it was not a dream. The cold damp was real, and the scratchy blanket was ugly. She scootched closer to the tree, staring at the freshly dug hole, and pulling the blanket closer around her. She tried to collect her brains, the way Uncle Selmon had taught her. "Sit quietly," he said. "Slow down your head. Let your thoughts present themselves one at a time. Then figure out if they are true."

"Stifle the panic and anger." It was as if Uncle Selmon were actually talking. "Let your thoughts come one at a time."

The first thought that came was - "Uncle Selmon is dead". And she knew that was true. Even though she had been warned to pretend he wasn't.

She decided first, she better think about her body. She could feel everything , except her hair. The anger surfaced again and she battled it down. Nothing seemed to hurt, other than that she was stiff and cold from the hard ground.

Her hand went back to her hair. It had been the thing she was most proud of, and it had comforted her to twist her fingers through it whenever she was sad, or afraid, or lonely, which was quite a bit of the time anymore. Well, she had better cry about that later. Uncle Selmon would have told her it would grow back, wouldn't he? She tried to put thoughts of her hair aside, but it was hard.

She seemed to be wearing the same pajamas she went to bed in last night, and as far as she could tell they were still in place. She was barefoot. She tried to summon up thoughts that would tell what happened, why she was here. But all she could remember was going to bed in the dormitory and then the sweet choking smell that had flooded her nightmares. The nightmares had been about vultures and helicopters and the villain in a science fiction book she had been reading, so she knew they could not be true.

The freshly dug hole must mean something? Was it to be her grave? If so, it wasn't finished, it wasn't half big enough for her, but there was no shovel or anything about. She could tell it had been dug with a shovel, a small one, the edges were sharp cut and clean. So, perhaps someone was coming back, and perhaps she better leave. Now!

Quickly she pulled herself to her feet, using the tree roots as a lever. Ready to run, her instincts and the cold told her to grab the blanket. One step and she was stopped short. On the other end of the blanket, staring her down, stood a very large, very black, Labrador Retriever, teeth clamped on the thick wool.

And then she saw it. A small white envelope fastened to the blanket with a large safety pin. It must have been inside, next to her, probably to protect it from the damp.

With trembling fingers Theresa inched toward the dog and retrieved the envelope. At any rate she couldn't run. The dog would probably come after her. She didn't think Labrador Retrievers usually attacked people, but this one was awfully big and muscular. He didn't look unfriendly, but then he didn't look friendly either, and he was definitely going to keep her blanket.

She opened the note. At first she thought perhaps it would be from Uncle Selmon, or rather whomever had been writing her letters as Uncle Selmon. She knew Uncle Selmon was dead. But it was not. It was handwritten, rather quickly she thought, but it was no one's handwriting she recognized.

"Dear Theresa," it began. "Please try not to be afraid. At least not yet. What happened was necessary for your safety. I'm sorry about the hair. But you are going to have to be someone else for awhile and those tresses were just a dead giveaway. If you look up under the tree roots you'll find a roll of clothes - I put it there to keep them dry."

She glanced up, and there wedged among the roots was a plastic bag, with the polka dotted logo of a store she was unfamiliar with. The note continued. "Put them on, then put EVERYTHING, including the bag and the blanket, into the hole I dug for you. Chauncey will take it from there. Go with him."

There was no signature. Who was Chauncey? The dog had let go of her blanket now and watched her intensely. "If I run, he'll catch me," she thought. "What would Uncle Selmon do?" She didn't really know. So far her life had been one long confusion.

Theresa reached for the bag. It contained jeans, fashionably worn, a white turtle neck, and a welcomingly warm dark green sweatshirt with a brown eagle embroidered on the front. Her throat caught a little. She recognized the sweatshirt as being from a catalog place in Idaho, a catalog she used as a wish book the three years she had been in school there. Maybe her guardian angels, embodied in the dead Uncle Selmon, were watching over her. On the other hand perhaps it was a trick. She'd been told they'd read her mail. But she didn't know who "they" were. She had once asked for this very shirt for Christmas, was it now two years ago?

There was also a dun colored watch cap and sneakers that looked as if someone rubbed them in the dirt to give them a worn appearance, although the insides were new, and some slouch socks and underwear. The bra was way too big - whoever bought this must not know what she looked like. Probably a man, she thought. She never wore one anyway and threw it into the hole.

Turning her back to the dog through some strange sense of modesty, she quickly changed, then tossed everything remaining into the hole. Just get out of here, her brain screamed. But which way, and what about the Chauncey mentioned in the note? Was someone coming for her? Was he nearby, watching. If so, she hoped he had a shovel. The dirt was wet and cold and she suspected the hole had best be covered. And camouflaged. Uncle Selmon's voice was telling her to go.

Then the dog stood over the hole, a clear plastic bag in his mouth. Her hair! Her beautiful hair! The dog dropped the bag into the hole, then deliberately, with careful paws, began clawing the dirt over her discarded stuff. He pawed the ground then, raking leaves over the broken ground. She knelt to help him, biting her lips in anger. A few tears of mourning for her beautiful hair slipped out. She quickly wiped them away in silent fury.

"You must be Chauncey," she said.

CHAPTER 2 - TO THE ROAD

The ground was rough but Theresa was skilled at scrambling through unpathed mountains. She has loved mountains as long as she can remember, roaming wilds of Colorado when very small, often alone. Later she tried to roam the mountains of Idaho and Switzerland, but the "wardens" kept catching her and hauling her back to campus. Wealthy kids parked in these places seemed to have an unusual inclination to run away, and the schools were always on guard.

Chauncey, if that was the dog's name, was a good scrambler too, picking carefully along the steep slopes, seeming to know where the rocky cliffs were. And also, she hoped, knowing where he was going. Were she not terrified, this would be a wonderful escape from the school. She looked down at impossibly steep emerald green valleys threaded with small streams. A few white houses with gray roofs clung to the slopes. Swiss cow bells sang softly in the distance.

Chauncey would trot ahead, reconnoiter, then look back and watch while she caught up. He was big, sinewy, and stoic. She tried to read his eyes but could not. She wished he would wag his tail, or lick her hand, or show some sign of friendship, but he was all business. Serious business. What am I doing, she wondered. Blindly stumbling after a strange unfriendly black dog! Should I try to go back to the school? But she didn't even know where the school was, and something about the thought of going back filled her with foreboding.

The dog kept a steady pace, and Theresa was panting now, trying to keep up. A dog was not going to outdo her! They seemed to be getting lower now, the houses looked larger, and soon they broke out to one of those extremely steep Swiss pastures sparsely populated with giant bovines the color of gingerbread men. The big cows were one of Theresa's favorite Swiss images, though she had never been this close to one. The nearest one looked at them casually, swinging her melodic bell just enough for one clang. They didn't seem startled by Chauncey, nor by her.

The dog kept to the shadow of the wood now, working his way down. It was so steep that she slipped once on the wet grass, adding a muddy stain to the seat of her jeans. She could see a stream not far below - shallow but fast, rushing over stones. It paralleled a country road, paved but narrow, on which she had so far seen not even one car.

At the stream Chauncey finally stopped by a large boulder. He just looked at her. "Well, Chauncey, if that's your name, what do we do now?" she asked. "Cross the stream to get to the road?" The dog looked at her with what she was sure was disapproval or disgust. Then, putting his big black head down he began to shove her backward. Finally she got the idea "Get behind the rock, dumkopf!. Someone is after you!" Theresa collapsed behind the boulder, and Chauncey jumped on top of it, standing watch.

She put her head against the rock and wished for the blanket she had buried in the hole. The mist was damp as rain, and she was getting cold. Careful now, don't cry, she told herself. Uncle Selmon would not be proud of you.

CHAPTER 3 - the TRUCK RIDE

Uncle Selmon was much on her mind. He was always much on her mind, even though he was dead. He still wrote to her. Only it wasn't him. Or maybe it was. An unembodied sort of Uncle Selmon. But she knew he was dead. She had seen him dead. And she had sat by him dead for hours.

It seemed so long ago - four years seemed like forty. And Colorado was as far in the past as Jurrasic Park. It was a sweet time, with the sky and the mountains and the llamas. How she had loved the llamas. Maybe that was why she loved the Swiss cows. They were the same color as the llamas. Her llama anyway. She had cried for her llama, in the night at the school in Idaho, when she was eight years old. And she had cried for Uncle Selmon. She had cried for a month. And after that she never cried. She had done crying.

The rock was hard and cold against her back, and she was at the point of getting up, chucking Chauncey, and taking her chances with the road, when a coughy three-wheeled truck clattered up the road. Chauncey gave a quick bark, vaulted off the rock, and splashed expectantly across the stream.

The truck door popped upon, and Chauncey, her stoic black leader, jumped in, all friendliness and wagging tail. Cautiously Theresa stood, looking bedraggled and uncertain, she was sure. She could see the lone driver in the shadows of the cab. He appeared to be a grizzled old man with a weathered face, and he gave a quick "come along" jerk of his head, while rubbing and hugging the dog.

There seemed nothing else for it, so Theresa sloshed across the frigid ankle deep stream, and squeezed herself into the dog filled seat of the little truck. The old man smiled at her, kindly she thought, and sad. He had electric blue eyes, not at all watery with age.

It seemed there was to be no conversation At least it was warm, even though it smelled strongly of damp dog. The truck chugged along. Chauncey put his head in her lap and let out a sigh.

CHAPTER 4 - THE FARM

After some time they turned up a steep skimpy dirt road and bounced through the ruts for what seemed like forever. Chauncey kept losing his balance and falling into her at every pothole. So far the old man had said nothing, and neither had she. The mists lay along the mountains like wisps of that white stuff the Swiss school used on the Christmas tree. It always stuck her fingers and she did not like to fool with it - but it was pretty on the mountains, prettier than on the Christmas tree. She had always planned that when she grew up, if she ever did, she would have a real living Christmas tree with real snow on it. She guessed it would have to be outside. She would wrap all the presents in red plastic.

It was starting to get dark. Here in the high Alps dark came early. The sun didn't have much room between one peak and another, and anyway there had been no sun this day. Theresa was sore and tired, and her wet feet were squishy in her socks. From time to time she grew desperately tired of being scared, and almost slipped off into a fitful sleep. But not quite. The old man stared ahead into the dwindling gloom.

The last jolt was a bad one, but then they stopped. Theresa squinted into the mists. There were no lights nor any sign of habitation. Fleetingly it occurred to her that this might be just a more convenient grave than the one in the mountains. It was certainly remote. Then Chauncey sat up and licked her face - just one lick - but somehow it was reassuring. Usually she hated dogs that licked.

Out of the dimness she finally made out a rough stone cabin, with no lights. The old man was heading for the door, and jerked his head for her to follow. Chauncey bounded away, disappearing through tall grass, and Theresa stood hesitantly by the little three wheeled truck. She could just make out the open door, and the tall woman within. The presence of the woman made her feel better (illogically, she told herself) and she slowly approached the old couple, who embraced gently before the old man disappeared inside.

With a deft quickness that belied her apparent age, the old woman drew Theresa inside, pulled heavy woven drapes that must surely cut out all light, and struck a match to an old-fashioned lamp. Theresa's throat caught in an involuntary knot, the lamplight on the stone walls brought back images of her childhood in Colorado. Images with Uncle Selmon in them. Images tucked away deeply in her inner self, images which she could never share with anyone.

The old woman's face was a bit craggy, with a medium deep tan, and her gray hair was loosely pulled up in a bun that reminded Theresa of someone - maybe Katherine Hepburn. She wore a long loose skirt in an odd floral pattern, a worn gray sweatshirt with paint stains on it and a turtleneck that looked suspiciously like silk. An unfinished watercolor lay on a rough table and Theresa supposed that accounted for the paint splotched sweatshirt.

She didn't say anything either, and neither did Theresa.

What was this code of silence? Theresa wanted to scream, but she could not. Somehow, she couldn't make a sound till they did.

The woman kept her face out of the light, but she gathered Theresa into her arms and hugged her hard, once. For a moment, Theresa felt a pang of recognition. Could this be her Mother? No, probably too old. Her grandmother? Why did she seem so familiar? As far as she knew she had never met her Mother or her Grandmother. They were supposed to be dead. At least that was what Uncle Selmon had told her. Or had he only told her he thought they were dead?

The woman swept the watercolor to the floor and sat Theresa at the small table. From a small wood-stove she dished out a generous helping of some sort of noodles, placed the pewter plate before Theresa, and adjusted the position of the lamp so the light fell on Theresa's face, and not on hers. The noodles were surprisingly good, soft with a creamy sauce that must have had some veal in it once. Theresa ate in silence.

Just as she scooped up the last bite, the old woman blew out the lamp. Startled, Theresa choked and sputtered, then felt firm hands on her shoulders. The old woman had drawn the drapes open, and the now clear sky sparkled with stars. Gently the old woman pushed her toward a ladder, and left her to make her own way to the loft by starlight.

CHAPTER 5 - The Loft

It was warm under the heavy down, and her feet were finally dry. Probably not her soggy socks though, which she had consigned to a heap on the floor. She must have slept. She wondered how she could sleep in such bizarre circumstances. Perhaps she was drugged? She didn't feel drugged though - just slightly lethargic. Perhaps adrenaline wears off after a while?

And with exhaustion the mind just gives up and shuts down?

She watched the last stars fading from the sky as dawn broke over the black masses of the Alps. For once she had not dreamed. No dreams of Uncle Selmon, or Colorado, or even the aliens in the last science fiction novel. She was addicted to science fiction she assumed. It made her own life seem more sane.

The quiet was broken by murmurings downstairs. Suddenly the adrenaline was back and Theresa was rigid in the bed, straining to hear. Cautiously she slid an exploratory foot over the edge of her bed - really just a straw mattress on the floor. On cats-knees she crept to the opening and peered through the rungs of the homemade ladder to the small room below.

The old woman stood by the stove, back turned. The old man was at the table, eating some kind of gruel.

"How did they find out this time?" the old woman asked.

"Who knows," he responded. "Vadrian's got half the world on an electronic string, and Shov is psychotic."

Theresa must have shifted because the floor squeaked, and the old man looked up. He smiled at her, gave a jerk with his head that said "come down", and went back to eating silently.

Well, they weren't mute anyway. She would ask questions this morning. And she would get some answers. Who was Vadrian? That rang no bells.

Someone had been up in the night and left her a new set of clothes. Dry shoes and socks - hooray! Another pair of jeans, not so worn, a rather attractive patterned wool button-front vest and a long sleeved white blouse with ruffles at the neck. Altogether a moderately expensive and moderately non-descript looking outfit She didn't like ruffles, but she didn't exactly have a choice since her other clothes were gone. She missed the green sweatshirt with the Eagle.

Mostly she missed her hair, when she went to comb it with her fingers. The tears started to come again but she forced them back. Now that it was short, it felt like it was much more curly. She supposed the weight, or lack thereof, accounted for that. She wished for a mirror, then noticed one tacked to the wall. Yes, her hair was quite curly. She had been told often that it was magnificent - but that was because of it's length and thickness. She hated its color. It reminded her of a muskrat. A dirty muskrat. She wished it were red or blond or black or something different - anything different. Now it was nothing.

Finally she swung over the ladder and slipped quickly down. She had been pretty good at gymnastics, and was proud of her ability to control her body, even if it was only on an old ladder.

But both the old man and the old woman were gone. On the table sat a bowl of corn flakes, or something like corn flakes, a pitcher of milk, a couple of brotchen, (the ever-present European hard rolls which Theresa really liked), and an unopened jar of peanut butter. Well, someone must know something about what she liked. Peanut butter was not so easily come by in Europe, most of her non-American friends thought it tasted like brown glue.

Theresa fingered her opal butterfly. She didn't really understand it, but it was a talisman or something. It had been so long now, almost four years, she was only eight. She found it hard to remember which parts of the story were true and which she had made up in her fantasies. She just knew it had something to do with her identity.

Perhaps the old people would have some reaction to it? Should she expose it? She had always worn it next to her skin, even to bed, even in the shower. It was a beautiful thing, iridescent blue and green, flashing bright red when turned a certain way. The opal formed one wing of a small gold butterfly, the other wing, in shadow, was solid gold. Slowly she drew it out and laid it among the ruffles on her blouse.

But there was no reaction. The old woman did not reappear. The old man showed only briefly, dropping a fat white envelope on the table, then departing abruptly in his three wheeled truck.

Theresa ran outside when she heard the truck sputter to life, but she was too late, it was chugging down the road. Chauncey, the big black dog, seemed to be the only live thing still there.

CHAPTER 6 - The Bus

She sat at the table and stared at the short typed letter.

"Theresa, I know that you have traveled alone before, so hopefully this will not be too hard. Do exactly as instructed. Your life and others depend on it. At the other end of your journey someone will meet you. Be brave. There is a train ticket and air tickets, directions to the train station, and a passport in the name of Sally Jones, parents Michael and Carol Jones, with your picture in it, in case you should need it. Remember you are Sally Jones should anyone ask, but they probably won't. The birthdate is right, 10-21-82."

As an afterthought, someone had added by hand "Chauncey will show you the way to the road. Burn this in the stove before you leave. Go now."

Wonderful, she thought. Now I am to follow a dog again! But there seemed nothing else to do. "Well Chauncey," she said "Let's hit the road."

To her surprise, Chauncey let her through a small stand of trees on a well-worn path and came out at a nicely paved road. On the opposite slope there were a fair number of houses and more of the big brown cows with the bells. A short distance downhill was a bus stop, and Chauncey hurried her along. A bus approached.

The envelope had contained several flavors of money (Swiss, Italian and French), so, as instructed, she handed a bill to the driver. "Chur please," she said. The driver was maybe 50, and she would not have paid him much attention except for the eyes. The same electric blue eyes as the old man. Were they related? Something about those blue eyes stirred in her memory. He had a scar on his left arm, casually draped over the steering wheel as he accepted her money.

She found an empty seat - most of the seats were empty. As they pulled away she remembered Chauncey. He was already bounding back toward the forest, but at the edge of the trees he turned and looked back. Suddenly she felt very lonely. How could she be lonely for a strange black dog that smelled wet and was only occasionally friendly.

She thought about the driver. He seemed to have paid no special attention to her, in fact he seemed bored. So probably he had nothing to do with the old man. Maybe the electric blue eyes were just a genetic characteristic of these parts. And he had not reacted to her opal either. She had purposely left it out where he could see it.

It would be a long ride to Chur. She knew a little about Swiss geography. She had made it a point to study European maps in the school library when she had thought about running away. That was often, but she had never figured out where to go. Chur was a major rail head, that much she knew. Well, now someone was telling her where to go and giving her tickets to get there.

Maybe she should cash the tickets in and go her own way. Maybe she could get back to the cabin in Colorado. It was probably lonely and unoccupied up there among the peaks. She could be a reasonably content hermit, she thought. But even she knew that these tickets wouldn't cash in for enough to buy a ticket back to the States, and besides, she didn't know where the cabin in Colorado was. She had only been eight when Uncle Selmon died and the helicopter came. Until then she had seen cities only on video. At least that she could remember.

She liked the Alps, they were pretty. But she had never had the freedom here, or in Idaho for that matter, that she had had in Colorado. The school took them on field trips fairly often, and her class had gone skiing once for three days in Zermatt. She had been to Zurich and Geneva, and once on the train to London. It was an expensive school and most of the kids were from rich families. She supposed she must be too, but she never got the fat allowances that the other kids got. She felt like an outsider. She made up crazy stories about her past to disguise the fact that she really didn't know who she was. Nobody seemed to think much about them, some of their true stories were just as bizarre.

Well, she would just play along for now. Chur seemed as good a place as any to go, and if she didn't go there they would probably send a dog after her again.

At Chur, the bus pulled up to the train station, it was the last stop on the line apparently. The driver paid her no attention as she left.

Chapter 7 -- The Train

Theresa had little trouble finding the train her tickets were for, it seemed she was crossing the Alps to Lugano. She had to change once. Maybe that's what the Italian money was for. Lugano was near the border with Italy. She was glad now that she had memorized all the maps when she was plotting her futile escapes in the library. There were no tickets to Italy though. The only other ticket was an airplane ticket to Paris, France. It was on Crossair, an airline she had never heard of.

She found an empty compartment, and settled in with a science fiction book she had bought at the train station and a very large chocolate bar. Dark chocolate, "Chocolate noir", with hazelnuts. It was her favorite indulgence when she was feeling sorry for herself. It had taken all of the Swiss money she had left to get it, and she wondered if that was very smart. Oh well, none of this was probably very smart. She should probably just scream for the police. But something kept her from doing that. The same something that always haunted her.

It was raining now, a slight sleety rain that messed the windows. And then she remembered the electric blue eyes! The blue eyes! The men in the helicopter! A shudder ran through her. They had been kind, of course. They had tried to comfort her as best as grown men knew how. But they marked the end of her life with Uncle Selmon, and the start of her not knowing who she was. And they had those same eyes, the same eyes as the old man and the driver on the bus.

The memories flooded back. They were always there of course, but as she got older she visited them less often. She had been eight years old. As long as she could remember, well - almost as long as she could remember. There were earlier memories but they were fuzzy. The early memories involved a woman. Heat. Warm soft water. Sitting between someone's legs and playing with soft sand. Bright birds. Colored fish. She had finally decided that her early memories must have something to do with the tropics. Sometimes she could almost put a face on the woman, but mostly she couldn't. Anyway, Uncle Selmon had told her it was not her mother she remembered. When she asked who it was he would always just say "It's someone who loves you."

He never said "Someone who loved you." It was always "Someone who loves you." So Theresa believed that the woman must still be alive. At least she was alive when Uncle Selmon was alive. But she had never asked him. She was afraid of the answer.

As far as she could tell, she had come to Uncle Selmon's when she was about four, or maybe a little younger. She didn't remember how she got there, only that he held her and rocked her for long hours under the stars. The cabin was somewhere high in the Rockies, and there were no roads to it, nor any trails either. She had grown to love it there, and to love Uncle Selmon. It was, she knew now, a very strange childhood. But back then she didn't know it was strange. Uncle Selmon took her often into the woods, and taught her the ways of the forest animals and the forest trees. He taught her to read the nearby peaks, so she could always find her way back to the cabin. And he set her free.

Uncle Selmon would go off for supplies once every month or so, except in deep winter, but he never took her with him. Toward the end, she often begged to go, but his indulgence never extended that far. They had a couple of llamas which he used as pack animals, and they were her friends and playmates. She was not unaware of the outside world though. There was a large satellite dish well-hidden behind the cabin, and she watched Sesame Street like everyone else. Uncle Selmon was a strict tutor also, and there had been a computer ever since she could remember, with lots of programs which she was required to master. She was well ahead of the other kids when she got to the school in Idaho. In fact the schoolwork was pretty boring for awhile.

Uncle Selmon was somewhat crippled, and ancient by an eight-year-old's standards. She supposed now that he had been about 60. He spent his time whittling and reading and just gazing at the mountains, but he always had time for her. Except during "Satellite Time", when he would put on his headphones, listen intently, and fiddle with dials on his big gray box. He never said anything, and usually didn't do anything either. Very occasionally he would tap a button marked "SEND" in an odd sort of Morse code way. Now she thought he had probably been sending a pre-recorded message in bursts. Sometimes afterwards he would shut down the gray box, take the disk over to his computer and read whatever it was that came in. She had tried to look over his shoulder but everything was in some sort of code or foreign language, she couldn't tell which, and the message was never very long. Once though, he had showed her the end of it. It was in English and said "Tell Theresa we love her."

She thought that if someone up in the sky really loved her they should very well come down here and see her. She would make do with Uncle Selmon. The rest of them could just fizzle into deep space for all she cared. He looked sad when she told him this.

From the time she was five, Uncle Selmon had taught her the "Drill". They practiced it once a week at first, later once a month. It had seemed so much a part of her life at the end that she paid little attention to it. She thought it was just an old man's idiocy. But she played along because she loved Uncle Selmon.

Then, all of a sudden, it happened. She was eight. She found him outside, barely breathing, lying across a damp moss-covered patch of rock with one of the llamas standing over him. "I'm going for help," she screamed. But he grabbed her wrist, hard. "No!" he said. "It's all right. Remember the box." Frantic, she tried to pull free. She would take the llama. The llama would know the way to some town. But then he made a rattling noise, the grip on her wrist loosened, and he was still. She was enough a child of the forest to know that he was dead.

For a long time she just sat there, quivering. Then she went into the cabin, got some pillows and blankets and tried to make him comfortable. Wrapped in a blanket herself, she watched the full moon come up and glint on the snow that was already on the nearest peaks. It was time for the "Drill".

By the moonlight she made her way to a nearby cave and retrieved the box they had practiced with so often. She got Uncle Selmon's watch which he kept by his computer, and always wound faithfully every morning. It was a big watch, with a picture of a train on it.

The box was a simple thing, with a big purple button. Per the drill, she waited till midnight, then pressed the button, counted to five, released it. She was to do that every night at midnight till help came. She wondered if it would come.

She got Uncle Selmon's shotgun and sat in the doorway of the cabin, waiting.

At dawn the men with the electric blue eyes arrived. By helicopter. One of them gathered her up and hugged her. The other buried Uncle Selmon. Her eyes were swimming with held-back tears and she really didn't look at them very well. But she remembered the eyes, and the way they looked at each other. Extreme sadness.

The helicopter ride was short and loud. She was too numb to look down. One of them asked if she remembered Granmarie. "No, is she my mother?" "No," There was no further explanation. When she asked a question it was met with "It's best you do not know," She didn't try again.

At a small airport she was transferred to a blue car, driven by a woman named "Barbara". They drove in silence for a long while, north. Finally Barbara began to talk.

"Theresa, I cannot tell you much about your family. It is dangerous for you to know too much."

"Are my parents dead?"

"Yes, I believe they are dead."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you to a school in Northern Idaho, up near Canada. It is time that you were with other children. Have you been very lonely?"

"No, I don't think so. I miss Uncle Selmon though."

"Do you remember a lovely lady you lived with on the beach?"

"I think so, but not very well. I wish I had a picture of her."

"Unfortunately, pictures are one thing your family has few of."

"Was she my mother?"

"No, I believe she may have been your grandmother - or an aunt"

Theresa had the feeling that this woman Barbara was not telling her all the truth, but she didn't feel up to doing anything about it. She was still numb from Uncle Selmon's death.

"Theresa, if the kids at the school, or anyone else for that matter, ask you about your family, you must tell them that your parents are dead. Also that you grandparents are dead. Your guardian is your Uncle Selmon. "

"But he's dead."

"Yes, I know. But we'll pretend he is not. You know him well and can describe him well. Pretend that he was really your uncle."

"I thought he was my uncle."

"Oh - well, maybe he was."

There was a long pause. Then Barbara continued "Anyway - let's pretend that he is still alive. You lived with him in Colorado. In the mountains. It is best not to tell people that you never went to town and stuff like that. People would be suspicious. Can you do that?"

"Yes."

"Now he has had to go to Europe on business - he travels a lot. And he has sent you to this school to get a good education. You will get letters from him from time to time"

"Letters from Uncle Selmon? Dead Uncle Selmon?"

"Yes. They will be from someone else but they will be signed Uncle Selmon."

"Who will they be from?"

"It is better that you not know that now - but it is someone who loves you. You will have an address and you can write to him sometimes - but you must only write what you are doing in school, and you must not ask any questions that would arouse suspicions. Probably they will read your mail."

"Who?"

"I don't know, Theresa." Barbara began to sound exasperated but was trying to be calm. "Look, I hate all this. But I know that it is important for your safety, and for a lot of other people's safety. Do you think you can do this? If you can't, you must tell me now, and I will stop the car."

"Are you going to throw me out on the roadside?"

"No, of course not, sweetheart. I'm just so tired. I'm sorry. I don't want to scare you. If you can't handle this school thing just tell me. They'll think of something else."

"I'll be all right."

"Lots of people love you, you know."

"No, I don't know."

Theresa was quiet then, and so was Barbara. That was how she had arrived at the school in Idaho. They thought she was shy and withdrawn but it was because she was afraid to talk about almost anything for fear of giving something away. And she didn't even know what she would be giving away. Besides she had never been around other kids.

It was a rich man's school and a lot of the kids were spoiled brats. But she did well in scholastics and sports and finally was reasonably well liked, although she never made any close friends.

True to Barbara's word, she received letters from Uncle Selmon. He also sent her picture books and adventure books from around the world, which she devoured avidly, actually looking for some clues to her background. One card said "Study these well - they may serve you in times to come." The letters were always typed, even the signature line that always said "Love, Uncle Selmon." Sometimes they came into the school as a fax, with no return address, which she didn't like, although the letters never said anything very personal. But sometimes they came with exotic stamps from countries she had to look up in the Atlas - like Bangladesh.

Chapter 8 - The Plane

The train ride to Lugano had been uneventful, except for her uneasy musings. The Alps were spectacular, but Theresa was used to them by now. The tunnel had been long and dark. And now they had arrived in Lugano. She panicked for a moment, when she realized that she had spent all her Swiss money on chocolates and books, and needed to get to the airport, but she figured out how to change the Italian money to Swiss and had enough for the bus to the airport. There was some left over, which she decided she better not spend. Who knows when a dog or something would show up and take her through the woods to Italy! It was much warmer here on the Southern side of the Alps. There were even a few palm trees.

There was an airline called Crossair and her ticket as Sally Jones seemed to be acceptable. Maybe she wasn't going to Italy after all. Maybe that was just a contingency plan. That was a big word she had just learned. Contingency - something to do in case the first thing didn't work out. She wondered if she were a contingency - for someone or something.

The plane was pretty full, but she had a window seat, and was hoping that no one would sit next to her. She much preferred to be alone. But someone did. She buried her head in her book and did not look at him until the Stewardess came by and reminded her of her seatbelt. "Stupid," she said to herself. "You act like you've never been on an airplane."

That's when she looked at her seat mate, looked away, then looked sideways again. He was a kid, not much older than her, well, maybe a few years older. Maybe 15. And he was a God! Soft clear skin, light tan, with no pimples. Soft wavy very light brown hair with golden lights. It almost matched his skin and curled around his ears. Huge water blue eyes with a dark ring around the iris and lashes that seemed inches long! His features were all rather generous. And his lips - they would be thought voluptuous if on a girl!

"Hi," he said, in slightly accented English. "My name is Kahlil."

"Theresa," she mumbled. And she wondered how long it took to get to Paris. Not long enough she thought.

There was no more conversation till after takeoff. The stewardess came by again, asking for drink orders. She was pretty, with long swinging blond hair. It made Theresa think about her own missing hair again and she involuntarily ran her hand through the stubby curls. They were probably a mess. She didn't even have a comb.

Kahlil seemed to want to talk. Maybe he was nervous about flying. She asked him questions, to divert attention away from herself mostly. His English was pretty good, she could understand him, but it was obviously not his first language. He lived in Paris now he said (she told him she was going to visit her grandmother). When she asked where he was from he laughed.

"My Mother was Algerian," he said. "But she is dead. My Father was Russian, I think, and I suppose he still lives."

He went on. "I live with an Uncle in Paris. I lived in Algeria till I was ten, but since I don't look like an Arab, life was and would be difficult for me there. I don't speak Russian really, only schoolbook Russian, so I wouldn't feel at home there, even if I were able to go. I speak French fluently and have had most of my schooling in French, but I am not a French citizen so I don't know how long I shall be able to stay there. I'm sort of a man without a country. Or I will be when I'm no longer classed as a child or a student."

He was smiling but Theresa thought she detected a touch of bitterness, and perhaps fear.

They ate their airplane sandwich in silence. She noticed that he had some sort of deformity in his left ring finger - like a joint was missing or something. Otherwise she rated him a perfect physical specimen. Of course, that was just on the scale her giddy school friends used. Theresa professed still to have no interest in boys. But this was just academic. He would be out of her life in a few minutes as soon as they landed in Paris.

"Have you been to Paris before?" he asked.

"No," she said.

"Well, if you're going to be there awhile, come see me at the bird market. It's every Sunday morning on the Ile de la Cite. It's pretty and fun and I think you'd like it. I go there every week."

"What do you do at a bird market?" she asked.

"Oh, mostly just look at the birds. They're my hobby. I raise a few in the apartment and sometimes I sell a pair. Usually I buy some food for them. You can buy it anywhere but it's more fun to go to the market. I usually go about ten and then if the weather is nice take a walk along the quai or eat croissants in the Square du Vert-Galant. That's a park in the middle of the river. You can watch all the boats. Actually the pigeons get most of my croissants."

"Maybe I will," she said, knowing full well that was probably totally impossible. Tomorrow she would probably be in Antarctica or someplace.

The "fasten your seat belts for landing" spiel came on, and Theresa sighed. Here was a possible friend, someone she thought she could actually like, for practically the first time in her life, and she would never see him again.

The stewardess with the long blond hair came by to check her seat belt again - she remembered it this time, and soon they were on the ground.

Kahlil turned a wonderful smile toward her as he reached easily into the overhead for his backpack. "Hope I see you at the bird market," he said. And was gone.

Theresa waited till most of the plane was empty. She didn't have any luggage and she didn't know what she was supposed to do next anyway. Maybe another dog would meet her.

Chapter 9 - The Airport

Theresa stood in the busy terminal, with another envelope in her hand. This one was small and yellow instead of white. Another envelope! She felt like she was playing some sort of game. It was like an international treasure hunt and she was the treasure.

The stewardess with the long blond hair that she had envied had rushed up to her at the last minute. "You forgot this I think," she said.

You forgot this! How absurd. But she took it anyway, and now she was off the plane and the stewardess was nowhere in sight. Probably one of the "Blue Eyes" had given it to her. Theresa had looked carefully at the stewardess and she definitely did not have those blue eyes. They were blue, but only a normal blue.

By now, Theresa had decided that the "Blue Eyes" were some sort of clan and they were either after her or protecting her. For awhile she thought maybe they were her family, but her own eyes were not blue, they were a luminous green, fairly large, with a slightly unusual shape she thought. They were one of her best features, after her hair, which was now gone. She had nice lashes too, though not as nice as Kahlil's.

There being nowhere else to go, Theresa stepped onto a moving sidewalk, which, to her surprise, went up and down hill. This seemed rather silly to her. She was glad she had no luggage. An older lady with one of those wheeled carryons was about to be run over by her own suitcase. Theresa helped her and the woman thanked her profusely in French, which Theresa did not understand. She knew a few words from school, and from Uncle Selmon's computer programs, but she knew how to read them, not how to listen to them. She did understand "Merci" though. She at least knew that meant "Thanks".

She looked for a quiet corner where she could open this new envelope. It occurred to her that she had five hundred French francs, which she had figured out was almost $100, and perhaps she could run. But she still had no place to run to - unless it was the bird market, and that was of course silly.

The airport was pretty crowded. Some of the people were coming in from other countries and had to go through customs. She was glad that was no longer necessary between countries in the common market. She was a little nervous about being Sally Jones. She wondered if someone was watching her. Probably. She looked around but didn't see anyone suspicious, nor anyone with electric blue eyes.

Just to be on the safe side she decided to go in the women's room. She opened the envelope sitting on the toilet.

Inside was a gray plastic folder with a bright orange card with her picture on it and the name Sally Jones. It appeared to be some sort of official pass. There was also an orange subway ticket in a separate pocket, and a subway map. And another note.

"You did good kid!" it said. "Not too much farther to go. We all love you!"

A separate paper had fairly detailed printed directions on how to use the pass, and a rough hand drawn map to an apartment on Rue du Dome. At the bottom someone had added "6A39" in green ink.

Theresa wadded up the note that said they loved her and threw it in the toilet. Maybe they did, maybe they didn't. The other paper she stuffed in her jeans pocket. Then she walked out.

And there was "Blue Eyes"!

Chapter 10 - The Subway

Finally Theresa was on the subway - or the train or whatever it was. It wasn't underground at the moment. She had ditched "Blue Eyes". Why did she do that? Why didn't she just go up to him and demand to know what he was doing following her? Maybe he was her protector. But if so why did he look through her so.

"Face it," she said to herself. "You're half afraid of them. You're whole afraid of them."

Maybe they killed Uncle Selmon, she thought. But that was absurd. Uncle Selmon had died of a heart attack. Hadn't he? She was probably imagining all this.

She looked carefully around. Actually "Blue Eyes" hadn't been very hard to ditch. And that worried her. Fortunately she had ridden on the subways of London so this one wasn't so unfamiliar. She had been a little unsure of how to use her pass, but stood and watched other people with orange passes too and soon figured out to put the ticket in the slot, go through, and pluck it from the machine at the other end. Whoever wrote the note had been pretty emphatic about not losing her ticket or forgetting it in the machine. She wondered if they were watching.

The RER train, which finally did stay underground and become a subway, rattled along rather smoothly. She watched the station names flash past, sometimes the train stopped, sometimes it didn't. Fortunately the station names were written in large letters all over the platform and she watched as they flashed by - Villepinte, Drancy, La Plaine. It all sounded so exotic. Finally she deduced that there was a map over the door, sort of like one that might be drawn by a computer, listing the stations, so she could tell where she was and have some forewarning of when the Chatelet-Les Halles station was coming up, so she would know to get off.

The Chatelet Station was huge, and very busy, but her directions were very clear. Take A5 to Poissy (not A2 to Boissy) and get off at Ch. de Gaulle Etoille, the second stop. It wasn't hard to find the train and she didn't have to walk far to the platform. She had been worried about that. Some of the stations in London had been very confusing. The second train was crowded and she had to stand. She looked carefully for "Blue Eyes", but he was nowhere to be seen, at least not on this car. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to think someone was watching over her or not. Maybe not. Yes, that was better, especially if she couldn't know who were the good guys and who were the bad guys. Were there good guys?

The Charles de Gaulle station was big too, with lots of escalators. She found her way to the exit, finally, and figured out that she had to feed her orange ticket to a machine in order to get out. She had been on the verge of jumping over the gate (she saw someone else do this), and then she almost forgot to retrieve her ticket afterwards. A kindly lady had grabbed her sleeve, babbled motherly French, and pointed at the ticket waiting to be plucked from the exit turnstile.

Still she was not out. Exit signs pointed down some yellowish tunnels that smelled of pee. A sad looking man played a harmonica, squatted on a dirty towel, accompanied by a spotted black cat, a saucer for milk, and another saucer for coins. Finally Theresa found a passage to the fresh air. Her nose was burning, she wasn't used to anything other than mountain air, and this was disgusting!

Mounting the last steps, she turned around, and looked directly into the largest arch she had ever seen. From books she knew it was the Arc de Triomphe, but she had not expected it to be so big, or so close. It looked like it had hair on top, but on closer inspection she could see that there were people up there, and some sort of spiked fence. And ten million cars honked their screeching way around it.

Well, this was no time to be sightseeing. She pulled out the crumpled map and set out to find the apartment. The circular streets were confusing.

Chapter 11 -- The Apartment

Finally! Theresa hesitated in front of the apartment on Rue du Dome. It seemed that she had crossed a zillion intersections to get here. And she was still close to the Arc. But on the other side, she thought. It was a very old building, the lower part gray stone, the upper part some sort of stucco. There was a heavy stone carving hanging over the door at a slightly downward angle with the building number on it. How long had it been there she wondered? More to the point, would it fall on her head. It didn't look very stable. The only remotely modern thing about this building was the electronic keypad by the door. She had passed many others, and she correctly figured out that the green code "6A39" was meant to let her in. Well, this was the city. There were bars on some of the windows too.

Inside, the hallway was narrow and dark and smelled of dank and dogshit. All the doors were closed except one at the end which led to a tiny square patio occupied by two trash bins. Theresa stuck her head into the patio and looked up at least five floors. It was like being in the bottom of a dirty yellow well. Windows were on all sides, on each floor, but most had bars and almost all had the curtains drawn. Way up at the top someone had wired a red geranium to one of the bars.

She heard a cat mew. Well, at least something was alive in here. Otherwise it was so quiet.

The address said apartment 4B, and a narrow spiral staircase wound upward at the rear. It had once had carpet, but it had been removed, and only the outer edges of the steps were finished with stain. The grimy raw wood in the middle, which had been under the carpet, was marred on the first few steps by some brown guck, which Theresa strongly suspected was dog guck, and she stepped gingerly around. The streets had been full of it. Paris people must not have to use pooper-scoopers like London people. In London there had been signs all over warning of fines for "Fouling the Footpath", which meant letting your dog shit on the sidewalk.

On the fourth floor all the apartments were numbered 3 something, and Theresa belatedly remembered that the Europeans didn't count the ground floor as a floor. She finally located 4B on the fifth floor, and also finally noticed the light switches on each landing. It was not quite as dark with the light on, but she could still just barely read the apartment numbers in the dimness. Most of the apartments were only numbered by means of small business cards taped to the doors.

The door for apartment 4B was just like all the others, peeling paint, aging yellow, big keyhole in old old door. Theresa stood there for a full minute, afraid to knock. Finally she tapped hesitantly on the door. A cat mewed. Nobody came.

She didn't know what to do. Was she supposed to curl up in a corner and wait? What if somebody came. There were five other apartments on this floor, or at least she thought so. One of the doors had no number on it. Then she heard footsteps on the stairs. Panicked, she tried the door and it opened.

The footsteps stopped on the floor below. Some tenant must have come in. Quickly Theresa shut the door behind her and backed against it.

She was in a small foyer of sorts. It was not so bad really. It was old but had been painted, she could smell the paint.. A black and white cat sat in the barred open window by the door. It was young with very long whiskers, and one of the errant red geraniums rested on its head.

There was a small, very small, kitchen to the right, with another window. And directly in front of her, as she stood with her back to the door, was a toilet! Just the toilet in a closet sized room, no sink or anything. The door was open and it was one of those funny toilets that had a knob on top that you pulled. The first time she had encountered one of those she had been embarrassed because she had to ask someone how to flush. Well, at least she knew how to do that now. Sometimes you pulled, sometimes you pushed, but she no longer looked for a handle.

Theresa closed the toilet door and ventured into the next room. It was small too, and dominated by a huge piece of furniture that stood way taller than her. It had 2 doors and was heavily carved. It was much too big for the room. There was a single bed that apparently served as a couch, a table and two chairs, a small TV, and not much else. A small bookcase in the corner. Sheer white curtains stirred at the only window. There was one door which was locked, and a cluttered hallway of sorts leading to a tiny bedroom and a small bathroom. The bath was normal except that it had no toilet and the tub was doll size.

She sat and waited. And wondered what she should do. From time to time she looked out the windows. The apartment was on the corner, and she could watch both streets by switching between the bedroom and sitting room. From so high up she could see quite a ways, but she was careful to stay behind the curtains and not lean out. She wondered what she could be looking for - maybe the man with the "Blue Eyes". But she saw nothing.

Darkness fell and Theresa was getting hungry. She had been so enchanted with Kahlil's story, that she hadn't eaten much on the plane, and it was a long time since she had spent her last Swiss francs on chocolate.

Probably there was food in the kitchen. But she was too stubborn to go look. They, whoever "they" were, had sent her here, and she would just die on the couch if no one came for her. "Stop being so silly," she told herself. "You wouldn't do that, you'd leave here and try to find help. There's always the police." She looked at the phone and wondered if they had 911 in France. But she didn't do anything. She didn't look in the kitchen for food. She didn't pick up the phone. She didn't turn on the TV. She just sat on the couch-bed in the dark, knees pulled up under her chin.

Chapter 12 -- Salandra

She must have been asleep. The sudden light blinded her and she raised the pillow she had been clutching to shield her eyes. Then slowly the swimming image came into focus - long swinging honey blond hair, blue eyes (but not electric blue!) and a very wide smile with sort of wide teeth. But a friendly smile though, and not at all unattractive. The first emotion that crossed Theresa's consciousness was gloom at the loss her own hair, only an inch long now, and angry tears tried to form.

The blond lady looked alarmed.

"Don't be afraid," she pleaded. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. I shouldn't have turned on the lights so abruptly."

"Who are you?" was the only thing Theresa could think of to say.

"Well, that's a fair question. I was on the airplane. Do you remember?"

Of course, Theresa thought. The stewardess!

"So you're a flying waitress," Theresa said. "That doesn't say much about who you are."

"That's about right," the lady laughed. "My name's Salandra, and you're going to be staying with me for a few days. Or maybe more than a few days."

"Won't you have to fly off somewhere all the time?"

"Well, no, not all the time. In fact I have four days off right now. And I can have more if we need it."

"Are you going to tell me what's going on?"

"No, not completely anyway."

"Then I'm not going to stay here!"

Salandra smiled a little sadly. "Look Theresa, I can't tell you everything. It's dangerous."

"I'm not a child. Strange people, even strange Dogs, have been dragging me all over Europe. I've been drugged and abandoned in a forest, frozen and half-starved, nobody will talk to me and then they follow me, and then I almost got lost trying to find this street with a weird name where none of the streets go straight, and the hallways stink, and the toilet is by the front door, and it's dark outside, and I want to go home, only I don't know where home is. I don't have any home. I can't even run away from one." Theresa was almost sobbing now and trying desperately not to. She jumped up and turned toward the window to keep Salandra from seeing any tears.

Absently she fingered the flimsy white curtains. And then she saw him - "Blue Eyes" from the airport, standing in the street looking up at her. She jumped back, stifled a scream.

Salandra was behind her. She gestured to the man, maybe, Theresa wasn't sure.

"Don't worry," Salandra said. "He's one of ours. He's your uncle."

Chapter 13 -- A Long Night

The bed was kind of lumpy, but Theresa couldn't sleep anyway. Salandra had given her sheets and a pillow and left her to half-way make up the bed in the living room. Salandra had also offered her supper but she had refused. Finally Salandra had gone in the bedroom and talked late on the phone. Theresa noticed that she unplugged the only phone and took it into the bedroom with her. At length the bedroom light had gone out.

Theresa was still angry, but mostly she was scared. She supposed she had been acting like a brat. But what did they expect? Salandra had tried to be nice to her, had tried to comfort her, had tried to hug her. But Theresa wouldn't have any part of it. She had just crossed her arms and sulked, and turned on the TV, which she couldn't understand since it was in French. Now she wished she had accepted the hug, or something. She was so terribly lonely. If only Uncle Selmon hadn't died.

She hadn't really found out anything. Perhaps if she had been less unpleasant Salandra would have told her something useful. So far all she knew was that the man with the "Blue Eyes" was her Uncle - at least the one that was outside tonight. She was confused though. There were at least two "Blue Eyes" - the old man in the truck, and the man at the airport. She thought he was the same one on the street outside the apartment that Salandra had waved to. But there was also the bus driver. She tried to remember what he looked like, but she couldn't. Could he have followed her all the way to Paris. She didn't think so, so there must be three. Maybe she was imagining all this. And were they the same men in the helicopter from Uncle Selmon's? They did look familiar, but it had been so long ago, and for such a short time, that she guessed she could never be sure.

Stop this, she told herself. You are being paranoid. Thinking up legions of people with "Blue Eyes" who are all interested in you. Why would they be interested in you? But someone was, and she wished she knew. Who and why.

The sky was beginning to lighten and she could make out objects in the room. There was an old oval photograph of someone in a naval uniform - from some long-ago war in the mists of history she supposed. There was a rust brown ceramic fireplace, or at least the outside of the fireplace, the firebox had been closed off long before and the table now sat in front of it. It had some chips that showed bright white. Probably someone was very proud of it once. Now it was kind of ugly. She thought that ceramic was a strange material for a fireplace. Now the place seemed to be heated with old-fashioned radiators. There was one under the window that made gurgling noises occasionally. There were a few other pictures, mostly hand painted by amateurs, probably someone's aunt. They were mostly of flowers and weren't very good. Maybe Salandra had painted them. She better be careful about what she said. The one really beautiful thing was the carved chest. It looked so out of place. Salandra had told her it was called an armoire and showed her that it was full of dishes.

Actually, Salandra was nice. And pretty too. Maybe she was jealous. Jealous of Salandra's hair. It was a beautiful color, like the honey when the sun shone through the jars in Colorado. She and Uncle Selmon used to gather it sometimes and strain it and put it in jars in the window. When the deep snows came they would take it down and eat it on thick biscuits.

Theresa figured that Salandra must be about 22 or so. She mentioned that she had gone to the University of California at Santa Barbara, and Theresa supposed she had probably graduated. She seemed to be smart. She wondered why she was a stewardess instead of a physicist or an astronaut or something. Theresa planned perhaps to be a scientist. Maybe one of those that went down in submarines to the bottom of the ocean and took pictures of strange fish and things. What attracted her to the ocean? She had never even seen it that she could really remember. She had vague feelings that she would be at home in it - provided it was green and warm, but she didn't know why exactly. She thought that Uncle Selmon had talked to her about it once, something about being on a beach when she was little. But she couldn't remember.

Anyway, perhaps Salandra just wanted to travel and being a stewardess was a good way to do it free. That wasn't such a bad idea. Maybe she would do that too someday. Often she thought about when she would be eighteen and out of school. Maybe the phantoms in her life would send her to college, maybe not. If not, maybe she would be a stewardess.

When Salandra had told her "Blue Eyes" was her uncle, she had been shocked. But then, out of nowhere, she had blurted "Is he your Uncle too?" Salandra had looked surprised, then just shook her head and said nothing. Theresa didn't know if that meant "No", or "What a silly question." But she thought it was the latter. She and Salandra looked nothing alike. Of course neither of them looked much like "Blue Eyes" either, but he was so very much older you couldn't really tell. It would have been nice to have a big sister. Maybe. Some of her friends at school had hated their older sisters, but she had secretly wished she had one. Maybe she would be nicer to Salandra tomorrow.

CHAPTER 14 -- First Encounter

Theresa had been in the apartment for three days now. Salandra had not let her out of her sight, but she had taken her to see some of the sights. They had been to the Lourve, which was full of old black pictures, and old bloody pictures, but Theresa did like some of the statues. Particularly the one of a headless woman with giant wings that stood at the top of a long sweeping marble staircase. Salandra had promised that there were better pictures, but they had not had time to visit nearly all the galleries. She had seen the Eiffel tower, from a distance, but her favorite thing was going up on top of the Arc. They had done that quite late this afternoon. You could see forever, and all the people down below looked like ants, and the cars looked like beetles that were wanting to eat the ants. You went up by an elevator, and down by millions of steep steps. It was fun. And the elevator operator had joked with her. Probably trying to impress Salandra she thought. Salandra was pretty. She didn't care, the attention made her feel good and she was almost happy.

She had not found out much about who Salandra was, or who she was for that matter. Salandra seemed on the verge of telling her things, then she would always change the subject before she did. She had worn her opal butterfly on the outside of her shirt once, and Salandra had had no visible reaction.

They ate in the apartment mostly. Salandra would bring back groceries, and things from the bakery, and once a roasted chicken which was delicious. Theresa watched out the window and knew that all these little quaint stores were just down the street, but she was not allowed to go to them. Whenever they went out, they always walked quickly to the subway, and never lingered in the neighborhood at all. Salandra had loaned her a jacket - dark teal blue, kind of long for her. She made her zip it up, which brought it up around her chin, and keep the hood up sometimes. So far the weather had been fairly cool and rainy for September, so it wasn't too bad, and besides it hid her hair. But she really wanted to take it off sometimes - particularly today, cause it was almost hot.

Once they had been out to dinner. To a cafeteria called the Monte Carlo. It was across from the Arc which was really pretty all lit up at night. In the middle a flame burned all the time for an Unknown Soldier and Theresa thought that was very romantic. The food was good, but very French, and Theresa wanted something American. She was tired and frustrated and had threatened for the umpteenth time to run away. She thought Salandra was getting disgusted with her, where was she going to run to anyway?

But tonight they were at McDonalds.

It was a strange McDonalds. On the Champs-Elysees. They played classical music and had a news program on a TV, but the menu was the same as in Idaho except that the Big Macs were much more expensive. Salandra wouldn't eat outside on the sidewalk, so they sat upstairs, at a table which looked out on the street.

She had decided to spring Uncle Selmon on Salandra, to see if she knew who he was. She pushed her fries around, and was about to broach Uncle Selmon, when Salandra sputtered, spit coke on the table, and turned white. She was staring at the street below.

Just as quickly, Salandra recovered herself, and pulled a small photo from her purse. She studied it, looked at an oriental looking man below, then wordlessly handed the picture to Theresa.

"That's Li," she said.

The man was tall for a Chinese, thin, with very dark hair and eyes. Theresa stared at him.

"Sit over here, away from the window," commanded Salandra.

Theresa did as she was told. They finished their burgers in silence, Salandra riveting all her attention on the street. Finally Salandra apparently decided it was time to go.

"Theresa, if anything happens when we get downstairs, Run!" Suddenly Theresa was scared again. Why had she asked for a Big Mac?

"Run into the subway. You have your pass don't you?"

Theresa nodded. "Okay, go somewhere on the subway - anywhere. If you can't get to the subway, run for the tunnel - you know the one that goes out to the Arc. Come out on the other side and go to the cafeteria. If someone tries to get you there scream like hell."

"Who's running after me," Theresa asked in a small voice.

Salandra did not tell her not to be scared. "Probably Li," she said. "You can probably outrun him, he's at least forty and you're supposed to be a track star."

"I'm in gymnastics, not track, and I wasn't a star," Theresa countered.

"Well, just run fast if you have to. You probably won't. He seems to be gone. And there are people watching you. You have to go, we can't stay here all night."

"What do you mean, I have to go," Theresa asked, dumbfounded. Salandra hadn't let her out of her sight for days.

"That's just the way it is. Go through the tunnel under the Arc. I'll meet you in the Monte Carlo cafeteria. If no one has followed you we'll go home from there."

Theresa blinked back tears. She didn't want to go out on the street alone. She had begun to think Salandra was her friend. She had just been going to tell her about Uncle Selmon. Now Salandra was sending her out on the street to run from some mad Chinese man. A skinny man who could probably run very fast.

"Go. Go now," said Salandra.

In a trance almost, Theresa got up and left the table. She pulled her hood up over her head, then put it back down. It was too hot to be wearing a hood and that would probably look suspicious.

chapter 15 - the chase

Theresa tried to look nonchalant as she pushed out onto the street. But she kept close to the walls. She looked around as best she could without being too obvious. She didn't see the Chinaman nor any of the "Blue Eyes". Well, as least it wasn't far to the Arc. Maybe Salandra was getting all dramatic over nothing.

Just ahead was the Lido - a famous nightclub (she had heard about it from kids in the Swiss school) which was supposed to be like the shows in Las Vegas. She had of course never been to Las Vegas, but she wanted to go sometime. She wasn't sure about shows with naked women, but she was curious, and she guessed she would go see one if she could. One of the girls at school had been to one of those shows. She bragged all the time. About how her father dressed her up in a white sequin dress and a fancy hair-do and passed her off as twenty-one. One of the other girls said her father just bribed the man at the door and passed her off as his mistress. Theresa didn't believe half of their stories anyway, so it didn't matter. But she didn't believe a twelve year old could seriously look twenty-one, even with all the make-up that girl wore.

The front of the Lido was bright purple, and Theresa glanced in. And gulped. There was the Chinaman, Li, lurking in the entryway. But he didn't seem to notice her. In fact he looked right through her, or past her. She held her breath and kept walking. But then suddenly he tensed. He was looking behind her, then suddenly his eyes swept the crowd.

Just as suddenly a "Blue Eyes" appeared. The one from the Bus! Theresa recognized the scar on his arm. Definitely not the same one from the airport! He went straight to Li, grabbed him by the shoulders and started babbling drunkenly, like he found a long lost friend. Li was trying to get free without causing a scene, but even Theresa could see "Blue Eyes" strong fingers digging into the Chinaman's shoulders. Li was looking directly at her now. "Blue Eyes" kissed him loudly on both cheeks and clutched him to his bosom. She glanced behind her and there was Salandra, who gave her an imperceptible nod that said "Run!"

Theresa ran! Into the nearest subway, the huge Charles de Gaulle. She flew down the steps and ran flat-out toward the turnstile, any turnstile. She didn't take time to hunt for her ticket, just grabbed both sides and vaulted over like she had seem some of the young punks, and even a couple of well-dressed businessmen do. You can hear the trains rumbling in the tunnels, a low rumble that grows louder. One was rumbling now and she headed toward the sound, down the tunnel, to the platform, to the doors. Few people were on the platform, and she struggled desperately with the door as the buzzer blared. Always before Salandra or someone else had opened it for her.

A stocky well-dressed man appeared behind her. "Let me, " he said pleasantly. His hair was snow white, and very thick, and he wore a full length tan rain coat. He had a funny smile though, sort of transparent or something, as he flipped the curved handle easily. She had better get the knack of the doors!

The subway was the slow freight. It made lots of stops and that was okay with Theresa. She was still gasping and needed time to think. She took one of the fold-down jump seats - it was easier to move if someone sat by you who smelled bad. And she had sat by some pretty foul smelling people on the subway. She thought that none of the men in France used deodorant. She didn't either, yet. But she didn't think she smelled bad. At least she wore clean clothes every day. Salandra said the French men didn't use it because it cost too much. But Theresa thought that was very doubtful. They didn't seem to think that the Big Macs cost too much.

The man in the raincoat stood by the door and read a newspaper and paid her no more mind. At the next station an accordion player got on and serenaded the passengers before passing through the car with a little metal cup. Theresa thought the entertainers were cool. She had seen several of them already on the subway. One guy had rigged up a black curtain between the chrome posts that were there for the standing passengers to hold on to, then had done a whole operatic concert with a puppet between one station and the next. Salandra said he was imitating Pavarotti. He was pretty good, and it made the bad air in the subway more bearable.

Theresa watched the stations pass - George V, Franklin D. Roosevelt (that was nice, an American), Clemenceau, Concorde, Palais Royal. The big one, Chatelet, was coming up. Maybe she should get off there. She could wander around there for hours. She wasn't going to go back to the Arc for a long, long, time. Maybe never. But that wasn't too practical. She had very little money. She cursed herself for spending most of her $100 in French francs on silly stuff like novels and snacks. Now she had only one 100 franc note left, about $20. She looked at the subway map over the door. There was a station called Bastille. That sounded good, she would go to Bastille, then transfer to some other line. She thought that Bastille was a prison of some kind and that sounded appropriate.

The train pulled to a stop at the big Chatelet station. And the man in the raincoat, in one smooth movement pulled her to her feet. He smiled his transparent smile.

"We get off here," he said.

Under the newspaper was a long thin knife. He let her see it, then put it away somewhere in the folds of his coat. His fingers dug into her elbow.

In a trance Theresa stepped off the train with him. Her pulse was pounding wildly.

"Don't scream", he said quietly. "I don't particularly care if you live or die."

The alarm buzzer sounded. The train doors clanged closed. The train gathered speed quickly and was gone. His fingers hurt her arm.

Suddenly Theresa just collapsed. She was quite conscious of what she was doing. She just collapsed and became a dead weight, hanging off his arm. She hoped he would think she had fainted. He cursed, but he let go of her arm and bent, trying to grab her by the waist. And she rolled over and let out a mighty kick to the place they had taught her in school. Rape or not, it worked. And she ran. And ran.

Frantically she jumped a train headed for the airport. She didn't know quite why. Maybe because the airport was familiar. Because she had been there once, though it seemed like a hundred years ago. The train was pretty full, and no one seemed to be paying her much mind. Her pulse slowed, a little, and she tried to breathe slowly. It wouldn't do to look agitated - who might be watching.

Finally she calmed enough to look at the map above the door. Going to the airport was foolish. She would have to go back to the apartment eventually. Or to the police. She couldn't make up her mind. Right now she wished very much that she was in the apartment, with Salandra, eating Knorr potato leek soup for dinner. She would never leave that apartment again, if she ever got back alive. She would become a hermit and live like Anne Franck.

Theresa found the subways fairly straightforward, only the grown-ups got confused. It wasn't too hard to figure out which trains to take to get back to the Arc. One of them went through Pigalle though, and some pretty bad-looking characters got on. She moved to a seat next to a middle aged woman, and felt better, even though the woman didn't smile at her.

She forced herself to think about the station at the Arc, the Charles de Gaulle-Etoile. What if they were waiting for her there. She decided to get off at the station before, called Ternes, and walk. They wouldn't expect her to be coming from that direction, and at least now she knew what they looked like, unless of course there were more of them. Why were there no "Blue Eyes" around when she needed them.

For that matter, why hadn't "Blue Eyes", if he was her uncle, just rescued her there on the Champs-Elysees instead of having her run? That was pretty dumb. She began to have second thoughts. And anyway the "Blue Eyes" that fought with Lee wasn't the same man that Salandra had said was her uncle. There were now three "Blue Eyes" - the old man, the bus driver who also fought with Li, and the guy from the airport and the apartment who Salandra said was her uncle. Or was he? Maybe Salandra just wanted her to feel better about him. None of this made any sense but it did make her afraid! She wished that Uncle Selmon hadn't died. Right now she was almost angry with him and she bit her lips to keep them from quivering.

chapter 16 - the arc

It was dark outside, and slightly drizzly, and Theresa pulled her hood over her short curls and zipped her jacket as high as it would go, and hunched her shoulders up so that her face was mostly hidden.

When she neared the bright lights of the Champs-Elysees she kept close to the buildings and in the shadows as much as possible. She would skirt the Arc as quickly as possible and make her way up the back streets to the apartment.

She saw him before he saw her, and she headed for the tunnel that went under the busy traffic circle, trying to walk with a hurried calm and looking straight ahead. But she sneaked a glance, just before descending underground, and with a shock their eyes met - hers and the Chinaman's. She held her poise for three steps, then grabbed at the rail and tried to leap down the steps. She raced through the dim tunnel,, rage raising in her throat. Who were these people and what gave them the right!

Halfway through she thought of the man in the raincoat! What if he was at the other end of the tunnel!

Theresa darted left by the closed ticket booth and took the steps up to the Arc two at a time. There weren't many. If they were going to catch her they weren't going to do it down there in the dank depths. She would go out in a blaze of glory at the tomb of the unknown soldier - or something.

Then she saw the bright glow of the elevator door. They were still open! It was Friday night! She remembered that Salandra had told her they were open one night a week. And there was the same guy, who had joked with her earlier.

"Hey, you're here again! You should have come a little sooner," he said. "We're just closing - it's 9 PM you know."

"I know, but I left my camera up there." Theresa smiled sweetly and tried not to appear out of breath. "Just got too excited I guess. Can I please go up and get it. Without buying another ticket? I'll just be a minute"

"Where's your friend?" he asked.

"She's waiting for me - in the Monte Carlo cafeteria." Theresa countered.

"Well, okay. But come right down. You shouldn't be out here alone this late at night. You can use the steps to come down can't you? This is my last trip."

"I'll be okay. Thanks!" Theresa slipped quickly inside and they rode smoothly to the top. She didn't know exactly what she was going to do next. Maybe Li would follow her and throw her off the top of the Arc.

The elevator ride ends not quite all the way up the Arc, and one has to mount 30 or 40 more steep steps. Theresa came out on top to an increasing drizzle and it was so dark by now that she could hardly see her footing. There were few people left. A couple with an umbrella were silhouetted against the Eifel tower. Three kids with backpacks still leaned on the spiked railing.

The couple were kissing - rather long kisses Theresa thought, but this was Paris. Maybe this was their honeymoon. The woman laughed. The laugh made Theresa terribly lonely.

Theresa walked slowly around the edge by the fence. There was an elevated walkway of sorts here, and she remembered from being here in the light that it was narrow - too narrow for people to pass, and she was careful not to fall off. It was a two foot drop to a sloping floor, or roof she supposed, and there were some buildings in the middle, maybe elevator shafts or something. On one side you looked all the way down the brightly lit Champs-Elysees, on the other you looked out a long way toward the ultra-modern Arch of the Defense, or something like that. She hadn't been there yet but it looked like a giant cube suspended over the city. Maybe it was the haze. Tonight it was lit up and looked even more eerie. It was pale and had what looked like a string in the middle. Salandra had told her it was an elevator. Some elevator.

The most spectacular thing was the Eiffle tower, lit up like a tinker toy, a giant bright glowing tinker toy. Briefly it made her think of Tinkerbell, flying through the sky in advertisements for Disneyland. She didn't know why. She had never been to Disneyland.

Well, she had better figure out what she was going to do next. She didn't think that Li had followed her. The ticket booth was closed. Carefully she walked all the way around and inspected all the streets she could see, as well as the base of the Arc, where a few people still lingered. She was about to consider spotting anyone hopeless when she saw him, standing at the end of the tunnel on the far side, talking to the man in the raincoat. About the same time she saw Salandra, at least it looked like Salandra, blond hair, the right walk. She was walking away from the cafeteria, right toward the two men. Theresa watched, not breathing. Salandra walked right past them, looking neither right nor left as far as Theresa could tell, and disappeared into the tunnel. Did Salandra know where she was? How could she? Was she in cahoots with them?

Theresa waited a moment, then stumbled, in the dark, to the other side of the Arc. Did Salandra know the elevator operator? Did she even trust Salandra?

By this time the three kids, and the lovers, had gone. Theresa hadn't noticed them depart. She clung to the spikes of the railing, eyes glued on the opposite end of the tunnel. At length Salandra appeared. She looked around, then continued on toward the Drug Store. Probably headed back to the apartment. But that was the long way around.

It was very quiet up here. Theresa distinctly heard him coming up the stairs.

Quickly she shrunk into the shadows, flattening herself into a corner of the elevator shafts, or whatever the squatty structures were. She crouched low, and pulled her dark hood over her face. Her hands shone white even in the dim light and she pulled them into her sleeves.

He seemed calm. He was a little portly in silhouette. At least it wasn't Li. He had a flashlight, a large one, and swept it around, passing close over her head at one point. She held her breath. Well. He seemed to be a guard. Theresa thought of approaching him, but she was frozen in place.

After what seemed a week, he retreated to the stairs, and she heard a door clang. Probably being locked she thought. She breathed at last. Well at least she was safe for a moment. She was up here on the top of Paris, alone. She breathed a few more times. Hadn't she wanted to be alone? She unbent her legs and shook out the kinks. Slowly she felt her way over to the edge, the edge toward the cafeteria, and peered over, moving very slowly. If someone were down there she didn't want them seeing movement. But Li and the man in the raincoat were gone. And Salandra was no where in sight. Theresa was very alone.

chapter 17 - on top of paris

Even though it was only September Paris was pretty cool at night. The drizzle had stopped and Theresa was thankful that it hadn't soaked through her coat - at least yet. But it was clearing, and Theresa knew that it would be even colder. It was always colder when it was clear. Most of the foggy overcast had moved to the far outskirts of the city - she could still see the blurry place where the lights started to be obscured, like someone had run an eraser along there. There were still some streaky clouds - the long thin kind, and some of them slid past the three-quarter moon that was now brightly visible. It was eerie, and beautiful.

To keep warm, Theresa started pacing around the perimeter of the Arc. Everyone from the small museum, which was where the elevator stopped just below, must have gone home by now. And anyway there was far too much cement between her and the museum for them to hear her. Maybe it was marble? But whatever, she knew that she was safe from people for the moment. She doubted that anyone could hear her even if she screamed. Even this late the Champs de Elysees and the Place Charles de Gaulle Etoile (that's what Salandra told her the circle was called) emitted a low growling roar. She couldn't comprehend why there were not more accidents there. It was like a vast circular parking lot that was alive. All the cars darted forward or sideways in starts and jerks like a badly animated computer game. A game of chicken too. The tour buses usually won the chicken game. They were bigger.

It was a beautiful night. The Eiffel Tower was the most spectacular, a bright yellow candle. For awhile the moon sat over it, pretending to be the flame to the candle. Theresa wondered if there were people on the Eiffel looking at her, on the lit up Arc. She supposed so, Salandra said people had dinner up there on the Eiffle Tower. But she was far too far away for them to see her here.

She walked to the other side. She could make out the church with five domes on the hill. It was not so brightly lit, but she liked it. Salandra had planned to take her there tomorrow. The Sacre Couer. It was white and she had seen it in many pictures in her art history classes. Particularly in those by an artist whose name started with a "U". A strange name she couldn't remember now. How many names started with "U". Not many she thought, at least in English.

There was a lot of light down by the river. It looked like a football stadium or something. She had never been in a football stadium, but she had seen pictures on TV taken from blimps . Uncle Selmon had watched football games once in a great while - in the winter. She had tried to watch them with him, but she had been too little she guessed. He got excited and talked to the TV and she mostly got bored. At school they hadn't been allowed to watch much of anything on TV. Someday she would go to a real football game and find out what Uncle Selmon liked. Anyway, the lights weren't a football stadium. She was sure of that. Maybe they were from tour boats on the river.

Theresa walked around the top of the Arc for what must have been at least 25 times. Finally she was just getting too tired, and she carefully picked her way through the dark to a corner that was somewhat sheltered. She tried to pull her knees up into her coat, and squirmed with the various drawstrings - it was a complicated coat she thought, with drawstrings at waist, bottom, and collar, but she was very glad for it at the moment. Somehow her fingers tangled in the gold chain to her opal. Her opal butterfly.

She closed her eyes and cupped it securely in her fist, tightly imprisoned but not bent. It seemed to exude a warmth, to have a little fire of it's own. That was silly, but she didn't care. She took a deep breath, let it out, and settled into her corner. If she thought it would keep her warm, maybe it would.

Her thoughts went back to Uncle Selmon. Losing Uncle Selmon was the first real crisis in her life, at least that she could remember. Things had happened so fast. The helicopter. The blue-eyed men. The car and the lady named Barbara. In less than twenty-four hours she had been snatched off her beautiful wild mountain in the Rockies and deposited in a remote school crowded with kids. Actually, she knew now that it wasn't really crowded; there were only about 70 students. But to someone who had seen only one other person for as long as she could remember 70 kids were a universe.

Barbara had given her the opal. Theresa had been so numb that she hadn't even said thanks. What would Uncle Selmon had thought of that! He had tried to teach her to be polite - even to the blue jays and squirrels, since she had no one else to practice on.

She loved the opal though, and had clung to it gently through many a long night of loneliness.

"Wear it always," the lady named Barbara had said. "Someday someone will come who has it's mate."

Well, so far no one had come. She had thought so, momentarily, a year ago. An older lady, the silver lady, Susan had called her. She had come to the school in Idaho. All dressed in silver gray. A silver gray silk blouse, a silver gray silk suit, and silver gray silk hair in intricate French braids that swirled around her head. Silver watch on a silver chain around her neck. Everything matched!

Suddenly, with a gulp in her throat, Theresa now remembered the only thing about her that was not silver! The electric Blue Eyes! She must have been one of them!

The silver lady had been quite pleasant, if very formal. She was inspecting the school cause she was thinking of sending her grandchild there. She wanted to meet some of the students, see how they liked it, stuff like that. Theresa was the third one she talked to. The questions had mostly been plain vanilla ones - who's your favorite teacher and why, what do you do in the evenings, do you like the food? But then the silver lady had asked her if she was lonely. She didn't ask anyone else that. Theresa checked afterwards.

Theresa had lied and said no, but she didn't think the silver lady believed her. The lady had looked sad. And she had noticed Theresa's opal butterfly and fingered it. Theresa had quickly put it inside her blouse and said she had to go to class. That was also a lie, but she was suddenly frightened.

Then the man with the camera was there and the silver lady turned away from her abruptly and started talking to Susan. Susan was a chatterbox and talked with the silver lady for at least ten minutes. Theresa was inexplicably and stupidly jealous, but she held her jealousy inside, and wandered away.

She had never figured out who the man with the camera was. He wasn't anybody from the school and he wasn't anybody's father. She saw the headmaster heading towards him but before he made it all the way across the huge lawn the man skittered to his car and drove away. The silver lady watched him go. The headmaster shrugged his shoulders and went back to his office. The silver lady seemed to lose interest in Susan. She talked briefly to some of the other girls, then thanked Ms. Bronley warmly and left. Theresa had watched all this from behind the big lilac hedge at the edge of the lawn. It was one of her favorite hiding places. There was some lilac light in her opal butterfly too. That night she had wondered if the silver lady had its mate, like Barbara had said someone would, but she knew that was foolish. She would surely have said something if she did.

It was the next day that the letter came from Uncle Selmon. Actually it was a fax. She much preferred it when he, or whomever was pretending to be he, sent things in sealed envelopes instead of on the fax machine. She always knew that Ms. Bronley read the faxes. Not that they ever said anything very personal, she just wanted them to be private. This one had jolted her out of thinking any more about the silver lady, for the moment.

The fax told her, in friendly little girl terms, that she was being transferred to another school in Florida, and not to worry. NOT TO WORRY! What did they know!

Ten minutes later Ms. Bronley plucked her from the library. Someone, probably Ms. Bronley, had packed her things, some of them anyway, into a small bag. The headmaster drove her 90 miles to the airport in Spokane, and by that afternoon she was in a huge airport in Minneapolis, standing uncertainly at the exit gate, with a ticket to Miami in her hand. One of those motorized carts had come by, the kind used for crippled people to get from one gate to another, driven by a woman who looked vaguely Oriental.

"Hop aboard," said the woman. "I'll take you to your transfer."

Theresa sat up by the driver, and several men jumped on too. They certainly weren't crippled Theresa thought; just too lazy to walk she guessed. Theresa didn't pay much attention to the driver. They passed several other similar carts and made a few stops. They went a long way it seemed, and sometimes around in circles, it seemed anyway. Finally all but one of the men had already gotten off. Theresa was thoroughly lost and the airport loudspeaker was saying "Last boarding call for Flight 704 to Amsterdam. All passengers should now be on board".

"Be careful Theresa," the oriental looking woman said. Theresa looked at her in surprise, how did this lady know her name was Theresa? Theresa was still staring at her as the man pulled her off the cart, grabbed her ticket to Miami and her bag, and shoved her toward the open maw of the tunnel leading to the plane. The man at the gate took her in hand and hurried her onto the plane. She was plunked down into a first class seat by the bulkhead and nobody talked to her the entire flight to Amsterdam.

When they were on descent, she began to worry about having no passport. She knew she should have a passport. Finally she broached the stewardess.

"I don't have a passport, M'amm", she stuttered.

"Oh, I'm sure you do," said the stewardess. "Look in here." And she handed Theresa a red backpack.

Indeed there was a passport in the backpack. It was for some strange name, Theresa couldn't even remember what it was now. And nothing else in the bag was hers either. Just a few clothes. And two science fiction books.

"Where's my bag?" Theresa asked.

"What bag?" said the stewardess. "That's the only one you brought on."

Theresa was beyond arguing by now. This was too weird. And she was too tired. It was a long way from North Idaho to Amsterdam. She went through customs as directed by the stewardess, sort of like a zombie, and was delivered to another stranger. She couldn't remember if he had "Blue Eyes". She couldn't even remember now what he looked like. He had put her on a train, and she had eventually ended up being driven by a limo to the school in Switzerland, where they seemed to be expecting her and didn't act as if anything unusual had happened.

Was her life to be one long string of abductions by people who had Blue Eyes and pretended to be dead Uncle Selmon!

Theresa started from this reverie. The cement on the top of the Arc was cold and her rear was numb and asleep. She got up and shook herself and wiggled her toes. She had better walk some more! The tourists that came up in the morning would find her looking like a mummified frozen cat.

But the memory of the silver lady haunted her, as it had in her dreams from time to time. There was something so familiar about her. And she had recognized the opal. Or had she? Theresa told herself that she was perhaps just imagining things. The silver lady was probably just someone's nice grandma, nice rich grandma, who by now had probably installed her granddaughter in that school, or some other rich kids school. Lots of the kids in school had grandparents who were responsible for them. Some of them had parents that made Theresa glad she was an orphan, if that's what she was. Susan's father, in particular. He was a rock star that was very popular but Susan hated him. He was always high on something and he always tried to kiss Susan sloppily on the mouth when he came to see her, which was rarely, fortunately.

Theresa wished that she was grown.

chapter 18 -- vincennes

Theresa huddled in her corner, clutching her folded up legs, and watched the sun rise over the city. It was going to be a clear day, and maybe it was her imagination but already the sun felt warm on her cheeks.

Soon the tourists would be coming up the steps. She had to shake the dreams from her head and figure out what she was going to do next. Her stomach let out a low growl.

She felt in her jeans pocket for the crumpled 100 franc note. That wasn't going to go far. Not with what things cost in Paris!

But she couldn't stay here forever. And she wasn't going back to the apartment! Or Salandra! Being with Salandra wasn't safe! Ok. Why? Maybe Salandra was one of the baddies? Or maybe she, Theresa, was putting Salandra in danger. She tried to reason this out as Uncle Selmon had taught her.

Finally she guessed that she did trust Salandra, as much as she had trusted anyone since Uncle Selmon. But of course she had known Salandra only three days. And if Salandra was really a friend, she couldn't just lead the raincoat guy or the Chinese guy to her apartment.

Should she phone? Immediately she remembered that she didn't know the phone number and had never asked Salandra for it. On the first day Theresa had noticed the number on the apartment phone had been scratched off, deliberately, she assumed.

Noises arose from below, and almost immediately the first tourists were oohing and ahing over the bright view that glinted before them in the morning sun. This was the first day since she awoke in the forest that she had seen any sun. It made her nostalgic for the bright clear skies of Colorado.

Theresa had little trouble blending with the tourists, and as soon as the first batch finished their exclaiming and videotaping she merged with them and slipped, unnoticed she hoped, out of the Arc and into the subway. She took the first train that came along and rode it to the end.

Her stomach was growling again, and her nose led her down a side street to a little bakery. Theresa had never been allowed in the little bakery on the Rue du Dome, but she knew what a baguette was and she wanted one now. She was amazed at the variety this little tiny bakery offered. There were buttery croissants of course, and different sized loaves and rolls, but the other things! Little pies with raspberries, fluted tarts with thin sliced peaches arranged in swirls, chocolate looking things with bits of what looked like real gold on them! They were edible works of art. Theresa thought that she could eat them all. But they were too expensive. She surrendered 3 francs for a baguette, and refrained from clenching the end in her teeth until she was back on the street. A baguette is pretty long, over two feet. This one was light crusty brown, chewy on the outside, soft and white inside, with a short paper sack over one end. Theresa had seen people carrying several of them home completely unwrapped. They needed to be eaten fresh, hence Salandra's daily trips to the bakery. They were delicious fresh, but next day they got sort of hard and dry. Anyway they were big, and Theresa was hungry.

The subway had ended at the Vincennes station, or more properly the Chateau de Vincennes. Theresa wasn't sure exactly what that was, but she followed some Japanese who appeared to be tourists. It was still early Saturday and not too many people were about. The Chateau seemed to be a huge partly ruined wall, with some towers inside. For what seemed like a long while Theresa walked along a fence by what must once have been a moat. It was really deep. And wide. Grass grew in the bottom and she wondered how they got a mower down there. And how long ago it was filled with water? Farther on she could see what must have been church spires inside, intricate and pointed. Around a corner she came to an entrance, and inside she could see a full grown airplane! Strange! The Japanese went inside - some display about World War II she guessed, and she continued on toward what appeared to be a big park.

The park was comforting to her. There was an entrance fee, but she managed to sneak past the gate among a large family group. Once inside it was calm. A little train hauled off the family, and she was left alone to wander the paths. It appeared to be some sort of flower park, and was pretty, even though this was September and most of the flowers were some past their season. A lot of exhibits were closed. She sat on a bench for awhile and watched three little boys play "King on the Mountain" on some brick sculptures. The sculptures sort of grew out of the cobblestone paths and resembled three upside down cones with the tips cut off. They were actually quite attractive Theresa decided, and the children seemed to love them. They would run at them and try to claw their way to the top. No one made it up the tallest. Theresa thought that she could probably do it, but she was too grown-up to try.

The boys left, and Theresa had finished her baguette, so she wandered on. There were a few more people now and they seemed to be heading in the same direction. Following, Theresa came upon something truly spectacular. The dahlias were in bloom! And what bloom! Most of them were over her head, and some of the blossoms were big as dinner plates. All colors of the rainbow - sunflower yellow, deep bronze, lavender, lipstick red, palest pink, white! She finally realized there were no blues, nor blacks, but every other color she could think of was represented.

She felt safe among the dahlias.

Then a fat German man asked to take her picture with the flowers, and she ran, leaving him with a perplexed and hurt look on his face.

Theresa took shelter in a rest room - a large cement structure with maybe twenty stalls that was, at the moment, empty. Her chest was heaving, and she backed flat against the wall. What was wrong with her? The fat man hadn't chased her. He had probably only wanted someone in his picture to show the size of the flowers. She looked around. There was an empty office sort of place, with a glass window, with a large roll of toilet paper shoved onto the ledge where an attendant was probably supposed to sit. By now Theresa knew that in France toilet paper was often sold for 2 francs, about 40 cents, by the women who cleaned and maintained the toilets. Well, it was late in the season and apparently no one maintained this rest room now. No one seemed to use it much either. It did not even smell too terribly bad, which could not be said of the one she had visited in the subway. She wondered if she could stay here tonight. Probably not, she thought, someone would surely check. And she had better do something besides look at dahlias if she was going to survive. Trouble was, she didn't know what.

chapter 19 -- the flea market

Theresa had boarded the subway again, somehow she felt safer down here, despite the narrow escape from the raincoat man yesterday. There were less directions to look for trouble. She sat on the folddown jumpseat by the door, the one where you leaned against the front of the car. That way she could see every single person that got on, and she would have a good shot at jumping off before the door closed if she didn't like someone's looks. If she couldn't get that seat she stood up, or changed trains. She changed trains quite a bit. She stayed away from the big transit stations in the center of Paris, and she definitely stayed away from the Charles de Gaulle-Etoile! Once the door closed, she could almost relax till the next station. It was warm and stuffy, but she got used to the air, and the rocking roar of the train was sort of soothing. Several times performers came on board - she liked the accordian player, and felt sorry for the little boy who sang his heart out, very loudly, but couldn't carry a tune. Nobody gave him any money. In one of the stations there was a flute player. He was pretty good.

She was hungry again. The couple across from her were eating a sack lunch and laughing. She coveted their sandwich, and their carefree giggles. She wished she could understand French.

Two old American ladies were talking about the Sacre Coeur. It was nice to listen to a conversation she could understand. They both carried umbrellas and wore practical shoes. She followed them off the subway an Anvers. Salandra had been planning to take her to the Sacre Coeur. Maybe that was why she got off. Maybe she had some wild and improbable hope that Salandra would look for her there.

Theresa hoped the old ladies knew where they were going. She idled in a doorway while they consulted their map, then tagged along as they headed up a street filled with incredible shops overflowing with bolts of cloth. Theresa was fascinated. There were silks and wools and flower garden patterns. She had never had much exposure to stores, and certainly not this kind. First she was isolated in the mountains of Colorado, then she was hidden away in private schools in Idaho and Switzerland. And since she had been in Paris she had been mostly confined to Salandra's apartment. Of course she had been on a few field trips with the schools, and she had watched television carefully whenever she could in Idaho, so as not to seem dumb to the other kids, some of whom had practically lived in malls till their parents had shipped them off to that school. Some of them had been into drugs and stuff too. Mostly she thought they were neglected. What she thought they really wanted was for their parents to care, though they never admitted this. Well, at least they had parents. They didn't know how lucky they were. In most cases. A few of them would have been better off without the particular parents they had.

Lots of people were heading up this street, so she figured it was the right way, and she quit following the two old ladies. She stopped to look at postcards, then felt a stab of sadness because she had no one to send one to.

The Sacre Coeur was big! At the bottom of the hill was a two story carousel making music. She wanted to ride it, but she couldn't waste her money on silly things like that. So she stood and watched it awhile, and looked at the gleaming white domes of the huge church on top of the hill. The carousel even had a big seashell that rocked, so mothers or others who didn't want to climb on a horse could sit in comfort and go round and round. One of the old ladies was in it, and the other was astride a black horse with pink and yellow carved wood flowers around its neck. They seemed to be having a good time. The church itself had five domes, Theresa knew, but you could only see three from where she stood. There were a jillion steps, but most people seemed to be taking an elevator sort of thing that ran uphill along the ground. Theresa watched them get on with what looked like subway tickets. She tried her orange one. It worked. It was a strange trip, being lifted to the top of Paris. Salandra had said the view was spectacular from up here, and it was.

Once on top you could see a long way. Walking around, she stood and gazed at the Arc, where she had spent last night. It seemed forever ago. It made her shiver, even though the sun was warm. She also watched the vendors, fascinated. Most of them were black and they had their wares spread out on table cloth looking affairs right on the ground in front of the church. Well, just below the church, on the first terrace. Lots of terraces cascaded down the hill, but this one was paved. Mostly they were selling velvet hats. Black and magenta and green. Crushed. Must be the current fad. Theresa thought she had seen one in a shop window somewhere earlier, probably on that street with the fashion houses that Salandra had taken her to. Salandra said that the fashion houses were famous but Theresa hadn't recognized any of the names except Chanel. She knew Chanel #5 perfume because some of the girls got it for Christmas, usually from their Grandmothers or Aunts.

Then suddenly all the black guys snatched up their tablecloths full of hats and ran. Some of them were selling medals too, and those jangled together. They all ran down hill, down steps, maybe 50 feet, then stopped. A police car appeared. Theresa laughed. The black guys were poised like birds, ready to take flight, but not willing to fly further than necessary. The police car just parked, and the police didn't try to chase them. Theresa thought probably they weren't supposed to be selling things there in front of the church.

She was still hungry. Wandering left, she came upon a crowded area with lots of artists. No police seemed to be chasing them so apparantly they were legal. More important, a man with a cart was selling crepes - cooking them right there on the street. They smelled delicious and Theresa bought one with chocolate syrup on it. Then she bought a ham and cheese sandwich about a foot long. Not much ham and cheese, but it was good.

She was feeling better. Was it the food? Or maybe the sun? Or maybe that no one had chased her or pulled a knife on her in at least 12 hours. She wandered on, walking downhill to the north. Where was she going? She did'nt know.

Theresa wandered on for several hours. If she kept moving, she felt no one would notice her especially. She came to a place called Clignancourt. She wondered what it meant. Clanging court? Bells ringing at a royal palace? Silly! But it seemed to be another market. A big market. Lots of stalls on the streets. Lots of cheap stuff. Piles of jeans on the sidewalks. Leather bags hanging from ceilings. Hawkers hollering about their wares. Lots of people. Crowds of people. And a bunch of tourists too. She saw a dozen tour buses parked. One had a sign in the window for the Paris Flea Market. Appropriate, Theresa thought. Some of the people looked like they might have fleas.

This kind of crowd made her nervous. She kept looking over her shoulder, then worrying that looking over her shoulder all the time would make her look suspicious. She didn't see many Orientals, and none that reminded her of Li, but she saw lots of men in raincoats, and she was getting frightened.

Suddenly she was obsessed with the idea that she would be spotted. She ducked into a dark narrow store. Breathe deeply, she told herself. Think of Uncle Selmon. What would he say to do?

Maybe he would suggest she get a disguise she thought. This would certainly be a good place to find one.

A little later, she emerged from the last store. She had managed to trade her coat for a wool pea-coat, dark blue with a stand up collar and only one button missing. It was really heavy, and should be warm, though it smelled a little like old moth balls. Her jeans she had kept, half the kids in Paris wore them anyway. She had bought a long cotton sweater, kind of slouchy, in a drab olive green, and sold her white turtleneck for enough to pay for it and a light wool print scarf too. Then she got one of those black velvet slouch hats for 15 francs. It was used she knew, though the woman had assured her it was not, and she inspected it carefully for fleas before parting with her money.

It was too hot for the coat right now, and besides she had to hike up her long sweater or it hung down underneath. But she had found a cheap carry-bag to hold it, and also an old army blanket she had found. She wasn't going to be cold tonight!

She spent most of her remaining money on six chocolate bars, stashed them in the carry-bag, and headed back to the subway. She felt very Parisienne now. She knew where she was going. She had a fashionable hat. More important, it hid her hair. She had on a sweater and scarf that no American kid would probably ever buy. She had thought about sunglasses, but decided that sunglasses would be a dead giveaway that she was trying to hide. She had bought some lipstick, to make her look older. She took her finger and rubbed a little lipstick on her cheeks too.

Resolutely she entered the subway. She was going back to the cement restroom she had found this morning in the park with the Dahlias. It was called Vincennes, but to her it was the Dahlia Park! She knew where it was, she knew how to sneak in without paying (though she had saved enough money for the fee in case that didn't work). She would be safe and warm there. Maybe she could live there. She was pretty sure no one went in there after closing, but just in case she would hide in the shrubbery until dark. Her quiet mountain skills would be good for that. There were lots of trees and bushes.

It took four changes, but she navigated her way back to Vincennes without going through the big central station.

CHAPTER 20 - THE BIRD MARKET

Theresa jerked awake, her head bouncing off the broken paper holder. For a minute she was totally disoriented and her head hurt. There was a cold gray smelly light, and her black velvet hat was on the floor. Finally she sat up straight and pulled up stiff knees up to her chin, perched on the rough boards she had balanced across the open toilet seat. Her stomach growled again. Everything was sore. She needed to brush her teeth. Sleeping in abandoned cement toilets was no picnic in the park. She grimaced at that thought. Some park!

She had had no trouble sneaking into the dahlia park last night just before closing. She waited in the bushes till the cleaning crew left, then scuttled inside this building like some sort of dung beetle. Fortunately she had found some boards among the bushes to balance over a toilet seat - otherwise she would have been on the floor, which she could just not have handled. Anyway she felt safer in the stall with the door locked. No one had come in, but she felt safer anyway.

Well, she couldn't spend the rest of her life in a toilet. Could she? There must be someplace better for street people to go. It occurred to her that she didn't really know beans about street people - that was an expression Uncle Selmon used to use. "I don't know beans about that", he'd say, mostly she thought when he didn't want to answer any more of her questions. Well, she didn't know anything about surviving on the street, and it wasn't very romantic up close.

Finally she unbent herself, massaged her head, picked up her boards and unlocked the stall door. She thought it must still be very early, she heard no sounds except a few birds, and she supposed that the park wasn't yet open. Good - that would give her time to clean up a little. The water was icy cold and the sink full of rust stains, but she needed to clear the sleep from her eyes with something. She retrieved the huge toilet paper roll from the abandoned attendants desk and used almost the whole thing to dry herself with. It was thin and kept dissolving. There was an old comb left on one of the sinks, but, badly as her hair was tangled, she just couldn't use it. Even after holding it under the cold water for five minutes it was still crusty! She jammed on her black velvet hat instead, picked up her boards - she would stash them in the bushes outside just in case she had to sleep in this toilet again - and stepped out into the quiet Paris air.

The sun was up there someplace, trying to burn off the mist. Her peacoat felt good today. She stuffed her mouth with chocolate, but somehow cold chocolate bars, which she usually would die for, just didn't take the place of breakfast. She found she was dreaming of hot oatmeal, of all things! For awhile she wandered back among the dahlias. They were soothing, and anyway she couldn't really sneak out of the park until there were some people to blend in with. She would have had to climb the big iron gates, which were locked she was sure. This was Sunday so there were sure to be crowds soon. She wondered if this was going to be her permanent home. "Stop being silly", she told herself. "You'll either be soon dead, or some dog will come find you, or someone will put you on a plane for Bangladesh." Or someplace. She doubted that there were any private schools for rich kids in Bangladesh.

For today, she would wander around, be inconspicuous, and try to think what to do.

Her wanderings took her past a small cathedral, and suddenly she realized it was Sunday. Sunday was bird day! Kahlil would be at the bird market! As soon as she thought this reason prevailed. He was just being nice. He wouldn't expect her to come. Besides, what if she led danger to him? It seemed to follow her around like a cloud, enveloping her in terror then melting away into mystery.

She would not go to the bird market. Pleasure was not meant for her life! Absently she went into the subway. There was something soothing about the rattle and roar of the trains, the sheer numbers of them. They were a place of danger, but also a means of escape. The names raced by, Picpus, Bercy, Place d'Italie, Glaciere. She switched at Montparnasse. More names, all saints this time - Saint Placide, Saint Sulpice, Saint Germain, Saint Michel. And then there was Cite! Where Kahlil had told her to come! Without thinking she jumped off the train.

Once on the platform her steps slowed. What was she doing? What was she going to tell him? That the grandmother story was a lie and she was running from Chinese terrorists and men in raincoats who were trying kill her with knives on the subway? If she told him that he would probably laugh and think she was making up cockamamie yarns like some of the girls at school. Trying to impress him.

Nevertheless her feet kept taking her upwards, towards light and the bird market. Actually it wasn't hard to find. You could hear the singing birds. And it wasn't very big. And Kahlil wasn't there. In some ways she was relieved. The birds were wonderful. Mostly little birds. Very bright birds in some cases, painted like a Picasso. Picasso birds she would call them. Or maybe more like Chagall. There was a Chagall painting in a book she had seen. She liked it, but it had a chicken in it. There were fancy cages for sale, and sheaves and sheaves of what must be bird seed, all kinds of bird seed. Men and women stood around, some talking volubly, some just looking. Two old men had set up a brazier and were cooking their lunch. Two of the birds were having a fight.

Something brushed her cheek. Turning sharply, she looked up into Kahlil's eyes, smiling eyes, deep and luminescent. He held a sheaf of a wheat sort of thing, bird food she supposed, it had lots of grains on it, and he had tickled her cheek to get her attention.

"Bon jour", he said. His eyes said he was glad she came.

"The - the birds are pretty," she stammered. She looked down, suddenly aware of her funny hat and slouchy sweater. How had he even recognized her?

"I see you've gone Parisienne," he said. "Your hat's on backwards though." He tucked the bird food under his arm and plucked her black velvet cap from her head.

Cheeks flaming, Theresa looked down as he carefully placed it right-way-round on her very rumpled curls.

"They are like jewels, aren't they," he said easily, turning toward a nearby cage. "I've never owned one of these." The tiny birds were like jewels, emerald and lapis and ruby. Six of them flitted in the sun.

"Have you had breakfast?" he asked.

"No," she wanted to scream. "Please feed me!" But instead she only shook her head and mumbled something about not usually eating breakfast.

"That's a bad idea", he said. "But come on, we'll get some croissants and feed the pigeons".

He shifted his bird seed to his other arm and took her hand. It felt strong and warm and big and soft. She couldn't have pulled away for the world.

They walked along, mostly in silence. He took her around the outside of Notre Dame, pointing out the occasional gargoyle, telling her a little of it's history. She found it a little comical that a famous cathedral had scary animals jutting out from it. A few flowers still bloomed in the gardens, and a street performer sang pretty good opera in the square. They stopped at a small shop he apparently knew, and emerged with a sack of wonderfully smelling croissants. Theresa apparently ate hers too fast, as he looked at her strangely, then went in and bought some more, these with fruit fillings.

Finally they came to a small triangular park, the Vert Galant he said. The Seine flowed on both sides, and Kahlil explained that they were on an island. Lots of tour boats went by. They were flat and wide, sort of squashed looking, built that way so they could get under the many bridges on the river. They mostly had glass tops and were full of people.

Kahlil fed his croissant to the pigeons. Theresa gobbled hers. She couldn't help herself.

"I think you should start eating breakfast," he laughed.

Then he looked at her seriously. "What's wrong," he said.

She must be pretty transparent! What had she told him on the plane? Something about her grandmother.

"Well," she said, "actually I've sort of run away."

"You look like you spent the night in the subway," he said.

"Not quite," she replied. But she didn't volunteer any more and he didn't press.

"I've been on the run sometimes too," he said. "Not running away from home exactly. I've never exactly had a for-sure home. But running from something, or someone to be more specific."

"From what? I mean who? ", Theresa asked.

"Nothing you really want to hear about. Just has to do with my family and being a pawn for their intrigues sometimes. I guess."

"I want to hear," Theresa countered.

"No, you don't. And anyway I can't tell you. I'm not allowed and it wouldn't be safe."

Theresa laughed. "Safe!" she said.

She noticed his strange finger again. A dent where the joint should be. On his ring finger. A little chill ran through her. Was he another sinister player in the pantheon of characters she was collecting? She looked at his eyes. Friendly eyes they seemed. Blue, but not bright blue. Could he have been a plant on the plane? Suddenly she felt cold again inside.

"Would you like to come home with me?" he asked. It was said softly, and kindly, but Theresa looked at him with frightened eyes. "It's okay, there are other people there - women I mean."

"No," she said, a little too quickly. "But thank you though."

"Go back to your grandmother then. No matter how bad, it's safer than sleeping in toilets."

Theresa looked up startled. Did he really know she had slept in a toilet?

"I'm sure she's worried about you, Theresa."

He used her name, that was the first time. She had assummed he probably didn't remember it.

"I've got to go now," she said. She rose quickly and slipped into her coat, and was halfway out the little gated park before she shouted back -- "Thanks for the breakfast."

"Will you meet me again, next Sunday?" he called after her.

Theresa practically ran to the subway, but he didn't follow. Was she imagining things? What was going on? Was he a friend? Or one of them?

chapter 21 - confrontation

Theresa spent the rest of Sunday on into the night wandering the subways and streets of Paris. She would rattle along underground. Sometimes the cars would emerge into the sunlight and she would watch the four story apartment houses whiz by, with little gardens on tiny balconies and occasional lace curtains blowing out the windows. The red geraniums made her think of the apartment on Rue Dome. It had seemed like home almost. Sort of a prison-like home, but home. Sometimes she had felt like Anne Franck in her garret. She had read Annd Franck's famous diary, and it had made her sad, but not only sad for Anne, but sad for herself. She wished that she had a family like Anne's, even if she did have to live in a garret in Amsterdam.

There were little gardens planted along the tracks some places - vegetables mostly. She wondered who tended them. The markets had seemed overflowing with vegetables, maybe the people just liked growing them, or maybe they were expensive. She really didn't know. But they made her hungry again, just thinking about food.

Twice she thought she saw Li or the man in the raincoat. Once she knew she was wrong, once she wasn't sure. But both times she fled the subway in panic, only to feel less safe in the sunlight above. Once she came up near a huge plaza sort of place that sloped away, fairly steeply, toward a bizarre building with big colored pipes all over the outside like worms - red, green, blue, yellow and white! The building sort of hung inside the pipes, and escalators ran back and forth and up the sides in what looked like clear plastic tubes. They appeared to be full of people. It reminded her of one of those ant colonies they had at school, where you put sand in a glass box and watched the ants build tunnels. Only here the people were the ants. Or maybe some giant wind was sucking the people upwards through a giant plastic straw. On the sloping plaza quite a few people were flaked out. Just lying on the stones, sometimes talking, sometimes looking at the sky. They didn't look very clean and many had grungy hair and beards. Some rested their heads on dirty looking backpacks and basked in the thin sun. She thought maybe they were students but they looked kind of old to her.

Theresa wandered down the slope to the worm covered building. The lobby was crowded, and she merged with a large group of kids about her age babbling away in French. They propelled her into the plastic straw escalators on the outside of the building, but abandoned on the fourth floor, when they disappeared into what seemed to be an art gallery. They had tickets; she didn't.

There seemed to be one more floor to go; Theresa continued upward - toward the smell of food. An open air pavillion with scattered tables looked out over all of Paris. The view was stupendous!

The smell of pizza even more so! For awhile Theresa just leaned on the rail. She could see the Arc, and the island where Kahlil's bird market was. Both made her stomach clamp up in longing. Why was she so alone! She had been alone her whole life, ever since Uncle Selmon had died. And now she was both alone and afraid.

In large eating pavillions such as this, where one purchases stuff at various booths and brings it to a table, some people are always trashy enough to walk off and leave their mess instead of dumping it like they're supposed to. Theresa soon became aware of this and started watching. It was no problem to slip in behind someone departing, and take their place before the busperson realized. She was selective about whose food she ate. She cut off the "eaten" parts. But she managed two pieces of pizza and half a ham and cheese sandwich in ten minutes. She felt wonderfully independent - she had found where to get food! Then people started looking at her strangely, and she left.

She didn't go back into the subway that day. Somehow thinking of the subway now made her feel clammy and cold, instead of safe. Maybe it was having the sun out. Instead she walked. Being on top of the plastic worm building had given her a sense of direction of sorts. She knew where the Seine river was anyway. For awhile she walked along it's banks. There were a few bookstalls open, selling old and moldy things like worn-out sheet music. Most of the stalls were closed though. They weren't really stalls, though Salandra had called them that. They were more like big boxes with padlocked lids that sat on top of the railing. When someone came to open them up, they unfolded sideways and upwards, to offer small display areas to hang things on. Theresa wondered mildly why people wanted such old stuff when there were such pretty new books and stuff around.

She purposely avoided Kahlil's island. She did find a footbridge though, that crossed the river.

She wondered how long it had been there - a long time she guessed. Maybe before people had cars. She stopped awhile in the center and watched the big flat tour boats pass underneath. Some of them had the tops open, and people were laughing and pointing and taking pictures. Suddenly she realized that some of them were taking pictures of her, and she pulled her jacket collar up and scurried to the other side. Later she came to another Garden. This one had a sign - Luxembourg Gardens, and there was no ticket booth to enter.

Being Sunday, and sunny, there were quite a few people in the park, which made her feel less conspicuous. She sat for awhile on a bench in the sun and watched small boys sail boats on a big pond. It appeared that you could rent the boats, sailboats, along with a stick. Finally she saw a little girl get a boat, and felt better about that. She put it in the water, it was half as big as she was, and launched it away from the edge with her stick. The sail was set, and it purposefully took off across the pond, while the little girl ran after it to the other side, laughing joyously. That was what it meant to be carefree. There were two young parents who seemed to belong to the little girl. Theresa had a pang of jealousy. She wished they were her parents and would rent her a boat. She was a little big for boats she guessed, but she wanted one very much at that moment.

This was making her sad, so she got up and wandered on. There were some flowers in the park, even in September, and quite a few statues. She even came across one that was a replica of the Statue of Liberty. She remembered that the real Statue of Liberty had been a gift of the French people to the American people a long long time ago, so she guessed this little Statue of Liberty had something to do with that. She wandered on, finally out of the park. There were lots of little streets, mostly kind of crooked, where she felt safer. She tried mostly to avoid the big boulevards. Some of the houses looked very old. Some of them sort of leaned in toward each other. At one place she thought she had wandered into a slum area, the houses looked so old and precarious. They were all at least five stories high and built flush with the sidewalk. But then she looked in an open courtyard and it was filled with parked Mercedes, and a richly dressed woman came out into the street, so probably they were just historic or something and someone had renovated the insides.

She walked along the Seine for awhile, down by the water, and watched the boats pass by. She wished she could be inside one of the brightly lit boats - preferably one where they were serving dinner. It was beginning to get dark, and cold. She had to think about where she was going to spend the night. She wasn't going back to the Arc d'Triomphe. They were sure to have that area staked out. And she couldn't face going back down in the subway, finding the Dahlia Park, and spending another night in the toilet. This made her think of Kahil. He had told her to go back to her grandmother. Oh that she could!

There were not so many people down on the quai by the river now. It was definitely dark. The few people she saw were lovers smooching - she had read love stories on the sly - but she had never seen real live smoochers. She guessed that she had led a sheltered life - first on a mountain in Idaho - then in severely regulated rich girls schools. But there had been plenty of talk in the dorms at night. Some of it she believed, much of it she didn't.

Soon she began to see people curled up in corners, settling down to sleep. Homeless no doubt. She felt sorry for them, at first, but some of them looked at her really scary, and she took the next stairway up. As fast as she could without looking like she was running.

She came up by a brightly and beautifully lighted bridge. There were gold statues at the ends, and lovely soft clumps of lamps. There were a lot of tourists still loitering on the bridge, watching the lighted boats go by and she joined them for a while. Not far away was a huge gold-domed building. She overheard someone say it was Napoleon's tomb. There was no doubt, Paris was beautiful at night, all lit up. But only the big streets were lit up now - like the Champs d'Elysee. She could see it in the near distance, and was drawn to the activity and the lights, but fearful of showing herself there. Were Li and the raincoat guy still there? Probably that was where they would look for her since that was where they last saw her

Of course, the apartment was also near there. In the last few hours she had been longing to be in it again. Safe and warm and fed. Or dead. She still wasn't sure about Salandra. For a long time she stood on the bridge and tried to decide - the restroom in the Dahlia park, or chance going back to Salandra, or somewhere else? She had previously been sure she would never set foot in that apartment again, but the weirdos on the quay had scared her away from dark corners, she doubted she could get into the Dahlia park again without scaling the high fence, it must be long ago closed, and she had almost no money.

For a long while she shadowed the Champs d'Elysee. She stayed about a block off of the main street. The activity, people, and lights reassured her, but the dark side streets made her feel safe. Once in a great while she ventured across to the other side, once where there was a brightly lighted fountain that she especially liked. But she always hurried and kept her head down. It was getting very very late. The streets were getting quite empty, even the Champs d'Elysee, all the stores were long closed and the restaurants had followed suit, then the theaters. A few lovers still strolled hand-in-hand. She wasn't sure she had ever even been awake this late before. It must be way after midnight.

So, finally, she decided she would take the subway and try the Dahlia park. She had thought about the Luxembourg Gardens park, but she hadn't seen any real good places there and anyway she couldn't remember exactly where it was. Maybe she would just ride the subway all night. That might not be too bad. Although a kid on the subway alone at that time of night would look suspicious.

Her indecision, at least as far as the subway, was decided for her. It stopped running! Sometime after 1pm. She hadn't realized that! She scampered back onto the street and tried to blend into the shadows. Maybe it was fate, maybe luck (maybe good luck, maybe bad luck) but she recognized the side street she had darted into as not being far from Salandra's apartment. Almost unbidden, her feet started to take her in that direction.

She was about a block from Rue du Dome when she saw her. A giant woman, over six feet tall, high heels, mesh stockings, very short dress, very curly and puffy red-blond hair. Leaning against a wall with one foot bent and resting against it, smoking a cigarette in a long holder. Besides all this, she was black. Therese had just turned a corner and was almost on top of the giant woman. There was a smaller one in the shadows, also heavily made up, not smoking, with a silver sequin evening purse. They just seemed to be loitering, or waiting, or something. They were less than ten feet away and Theresa stopped cold.

"Good Evening Honey", said the giant. In a very deep masculine voice. Then they both smiled, mostly at each other, but not unkindly. Theresa gulped, mumbled "Good Evening", and ran by. She heard their deep laughter follow her, but they didn't.

She was almost there. She was there. Code 6A39. At least she remembered that! The door clicked and let her in. She was panting hard. Why was she here. Maybe THEY were here. But after a few moments she calmed herself. Maybe no one was here. Maybe Li and the raincoat didn't know about this place. Maybe Salandra was gone - she was supposed to have gone on a flight to Stockholm or somewhere today - wasn't she? Anyway, what did she have to lose. If they were going to kill her maybe best to get it over with. She waited in the hall till her heartbeat slowed, then crept up the creaky stairs one at a time, without turning on the lights - no need to wake up anyone if she could help it. Finally she reached the fifth floor and tiptoed, one step at a time down the hall. For a long time she stood in front of the door.

What would Uncle Selmon say? "When you have to do a thing, just get on with it, do it quick, don't dawdle, you'll lose your courage!"

She took a deep breath and let herself in. The door creaked. The only light came in through a window, perhaps the moon had broken through the clouds.

Then Theresa screamed. Someone crouched in the bedroom doorway, and the dim light glinted on the barrel of a silver gun, pointed right at her.

In a flash the crouching figure lept toward her, slapped a hand across her mouth, silencing her scream in mid-air.

It was Salandra, and she had flung the gun on the couch.

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