Cassy, Maestro, Ash, and the mayor stood in the ballroom of �Someplace Else�.
Ash finally broke the silence, �I think you should leave.� Cassy nodded in agreement.
The mayor didn�t move an inch; he just stood silently looking at Maestro with a hating glare. Ash asked him �Are you going to leave or should I make you?� The mayor replied �Not without the girl�, meaning Cassy, who hadn�t said a word yet. �I think I�ll make you leave.� Ash said, meaning it for sure. Cassy finally spoke up, �No, no I�ll go�� when she said that, everyone stared at her in silent surprise. Why would she go with the mayor? Everyone wondered but nobody knew. �Well, then I will be on my way,� the mayor said very proudly. As the mayor walked out of the ballroom and toward the front doors, with Cassy at his side, the doors slammed shut in front of them. Maestro disappeared and reappeared between them and the doors, standing before them still looking very surprised. Ash came into the front room, but stood behind everyone, just silently watching. �Move!� the mayor demanded, as Maestro was just one very annoying freak to him, he let him know that very often. Maestro looked to him �No, I can�t let this happen� he looked at Cassy, �Cassy, why are you going with him?� he said, much less calmly than he normally spoke. Cassy looked to maestro with hatred, �Out of our way, freak!� she said with more hatred than anyone would ever think she was capable of feeling. Maestro looked to her, his eyes wide with shock, then hung his head and disappeared as the doors opened for the two. As the mayor and Cassy walked out the doors, which closed behind them, Maestro reappeared in a chair near the fireplace in the ballroom. He tried to act like nothing happened, but it was impossible. He had raised Cassy from just a baby, as if she were his own. Ash looked almost as surprised as Maestro was, but since she had only known her for less than a day, she wasn�t near as shocked as him. She walked into the ballroom and stood by Maestro. Maestro just looked completely heartbroken as well as a little betrayed, but that feeling didn�t matter right now, Cassy was gone, and she had went with the mayor. On top of all of that was the fact that she called him a �freak�, she never used that word, even about things anyone would call freaky or use similar terms, she hated that word, as the mayor always called him that, and she had hated him for that. Ash looked to him, seeing how sad he was about this. �Maybe she�s not really going. She�s just making him think she is, like that time she acted like she agreed with him about not having to stay here. I remember her saying �I don�t have to stay here, but I want to.� And she made the mayor hit himself in the face.� Smiles a bit, thinking about how Cassy had fooled him that time, then looked to Maestro, who wasn�t smiling, and immediately remembered why she was telling him that. He said without even looking up to her �No, she has never talked to me with that tone of voice, she meant it. You didn�t see how she looked at me; there was a fiery hatred in her eyes that I had never seen before, not even toward the mayor. She meant what she said, I know that. Also, I finally realize that the mayor is right: living in town can give her the opportunity to have a normal life, living here will give her a life that is anything but that.� Ash said to him, �Although I haven�t known her long, I think I can safely say that normality isn�t what she wants in life.� She looked to him, having no idea what it�s like to raise someone and to love them with your whole heart, and then for them to hate you so much and leave forever. After giving the mayor and Cassy time to be far gone, Maestro stood up and walked out of the ballroom, Ash following behind him, curious as to what he was doing. The front doors opened slowly before him as he walked, allowing him to enter the front yard area. Part of him was hoping that when those doors opened, Cassy would be standing there, laughing because she had yet again fooled the mayor, but he almost knew that she wouldn�t be. After seeing that she wasn�t there, he continued to the porch of the mansion. When he was through, the doors closed gently behind him. He stopped just on the other side of the front doors, looking around. That same side of him was thinking any moment she would come out from behind the trunk of one of the many leafless trees in the yard, laughing at her own joke. As he was looking, he noticed something shining on the path to the metal front gates. He walked over to where he saw the shine and crouched down, looking at it. It was a silver necklace with a small heart-shaped charm on it, the letter M was etched in the center of the charm. This was the necklace that he had given to Cassy a couple of years ago. She had taken it off and left it on the ground. It was as if she never wanted to be reminded of him again. Maestro picked it up and held it in his hand, �This is not one of her illusions, this is real.� he thought to himself as a tear came to his eye. If Cassy had been just fooling him, as Ash had suggested, she wouldn�t have gone as far as leaving the only thing she had to remember him by. Ash stood behind him, having second thoughts about what she had said about this being Cassy just playing another trick on the mayor. She was beginning to think this was for real. Raven, the pale, black-clothed, winged human, had been watching this whole incident from various areas outside the mansion. Although she had never met Maestro, she was a good friend of Cassy�s, in fact, that was why she had come, to visit her. She was standing on the roof in front of the tower in the center of the mansion. She looked over the edge and down to Maestro and Ash. She then looked ahead to the town just past the trees. �Is Cassy really gone?� Raven asked herself, although she knew that she wasn�t literally gone, but if she had left looking for a normal life, as Maestro had said, and by the way she had spoken to maestro, calling him a freak, Raven figured that Cassy would never use her abilities. Raven also realized that Cassy would most likely start to hate those with powers, even those who--like herself--were Cassy�s friends, although Cassy had powers of her own. Thinking about these things, she began wondering to herself as tears came to her endless brown eyes, �Is this really the end? Is she gone forever?� To Be Continued�