Hands running lightly over a woman's face, through strawberry blond hair and over smiling lips. The woman grins downward at the source of the hands. "Find what yer looking fer?"
     The little boy in her arms smiles blankly at her. "Yes Mamu. I know you now. But Mamu, are you pretty?"
     She leans down and rubs her nose against his. The four year old scruntches up his nose and giggles. "I don't know, me darlin'. What do yer hands tell ya?"
     "Well, you have a nose like mine, and ears like mine, and lips to talk like mine, and hair like mine, 'cept yours is longer, and two eyes like mine. . ."
     "Yes, two eyes, just like yours."
     "But your eyes are different. You can see things, right? Like the chair we're sitting in. What color is it?"
     "'Tis purple."
     "Describe purple to me Mamu?"
     The blond woman sighs and holds her son closer to her, as if to shield him from the world. "Well, purple is passion, like red, just softer, with a bit of coolness to it. It's a piece of fruit on a hot summer day, or snuggling with someone you love in front of a fire in the winter. Purple is fuzzy."

     Mason sat up in his bed suddenly, breathing great gasps of air and cluching the cotton sheets he slept in. Another dream. They were coming more and more often lately. It hadn't been a nightmare, exactly, but it still made the 9 year old want to cry. He missed her soooo bad.
     It had been a year since Lily McGuire, Mason's mother had died. She had gone into one of her fits, and had stepped into the road to chase an invisible cat. An oncoming car didn't see her, and hit her. She died of internal injuries on the way to the hospital, and Mason was sent to live with his grandmother on his father's side. He still remembered meeting her for the first time, when someone had finally explained to him that his 'Mamu' wasn't coming home.

     Someone else had entered the room. It smelled like roses, so Mason figured it was a woman. "Mamu?" he said softly, reaching out his hand. His mother had always taken his hand then, and knelt to place it on her cheek. But this person didn't. Mason's hope died. His Mamu hadn't been home in days and he was staying with a friend of his mother's.
     "No, I'm sorry, Mason. I'm not you're mother. It's me, Mrs. Birkman."
     "Oh. Is Mamu coming home soon? She promised to take me to the zoo and describe the animals to me."
     "Umm, Mason hon, there's been a slight change of plans. You see, you're Mamu, she-" the woman stopped to compose herself. How did you tell an 8 year old that his mother was never coming home?
     The social worker standing outside the door winced as shrieks came from the room Annabelle Birkman had just entered. They had agreed that because of Mason's impediment, that someone he knew should tell him. So the woman he had been staying with for the week had been elected.
     The older woman standing next to the social worker grimaced. Then snorted with anger as the shrieks died off into harsh sobs. She swept into the room.
     "Stop that carrying on, child. No grandson of mine is going to act like a puppy that just had it's tail stepped on."
     Mrs. Birkman just stared Melanie Holland, Mason's paternal grandmother. She was appalled that the woman would speak to a child in that tone. Any child, especially family, especially when they had just been told that their world was being turned upside down and shaken like a snowglobe.
     "Come along, get up. I've come to take you to Holland Manor. You'll be living there with me from now on. Lord knows no one else wants you. Get his things," she said briskly to Mrs. Birkman, who was holding him. She turned and stalked out of the room. Mrs. Birkman looked down at Mason.
     "What have we done?" she whispered.

     Mason hadn't had a happy day since coming to Holland Manor, on the North side of London. It was a dismal place, filled with strange sounds and cold rooms. Anyone could have told him it was no place for a child. And Melanie Holland was no woman to be raising one.
     He had learned early on, the rooms he wasn't allowed to go into. That was most of them. He was allowed in his room, one of the old servant's quarters, and in the bathroom down the hall. And sometimes she allowed him into the foyer or kitchen if she was in an especially good mood.
     He had also learned that breaking something in the house, on purpose, or accidentally because he tripped over an unseen object, would mean almost death. He had broken a vase the first day he was in the house, and she had smacked him and told him he was confined to the old servant's quarters. Then he broke a pitcher in his room. She smacked him again and didn't allowed him out for days.
     And now he avoided her like the plague. A visit from her was always accompanied by a smack across his cheeks, for any reason whatever, and a emotion ripping to shreds. He memorized the sound of her footsteps and always retreated to the shadows. Not that there was any other footsteps in the house. The only other person that ever came over was the pharmacuetical woman, who gave Grandma Holland her medication.

     Mason hid behind the door and listened. Annie was here again. He could recognize her voice. She sounded young, not young like him, but younger then Grandma Holland. She was probably around Mamu's age, he guessed. Or younger.
     "Hello, Mrs. Holland. And how are you today?" 34 year old Annie Finnster greeted the stone faced woman who answered the door. She was the only person who could deliver the medicine without the old woman scaring her away.
     "Hallo, Annie. I'm just fine. Is that my monthy pills?" Mrs. Holland was straight and to the point.
     "Yes, of course it is. Is Mason here?" The delivery woman had taken a liking to the small blind boy.
     "Of course he is. Where else would he be? Mason! Come here right now!" Her voice rang through the house and Mason stepped timidly from behind the door. He crossed the room, thankfully not breaking anything. He stood between the two tall women.
     "Good day Mason! And how are we today??" She knelt down to his level.
     "Fine m'am." He replied softly.
     "I have something for you."
     "You do?" She took his hand and placed something flat and square in it. "What is it?"
     "It's chocolate."
     Mason turned the paper covered chocolate bar over and over in his hands, feeling it. "What's chocolate?"
     "You mean you've never had chocolate?! Oh, well, there's a first time for everything. Here," she took the bar from him and unwrapped a corner. Breaking off a small piece, she pushed it against his lips. "Eat it." He complied and his eyebrows raised in amazement. It was like nothing he had ever tasted before. Annie laughed lightly and handed the bar back to him.
     "Thank you." he said, remembering his manners.
     "No problem, kiddo. Glad to see you smiling. I'll cya next month Mrs. Holland!" She waved and left.
     Mrs. Holland slammed the door. "Give it to me!" she commanded.
     "But-but she gave it to me," he protested.
     SMACK!! The blow she delivered sent him slamming into a wall and sliding to the floor. His beloved chocolate was ripped from his grasp, and Grandma Holland's face was near his.
     "You are lower then dirt, boy. You don't deserve chocolate. You can't own anything. You are the son of a whore who seduced my precious son and then had him sent off to prison. It's all your fault." She was dragging him along by the front of his shirt, and only out of sheer habit was he able to tell they were in his doorway. "ALL your fault." She shoved him in, slammed the door and locked it. Only when he was certain she was gone did he let the tears fall. He was often punished for crying, too.

     Months past slowly for the poor boy. The only break in the miserable monotany in his life only served to make it even worse. He was in the foyer, attending to his Grandmother's whims when a sharp knock on the door startled them both. It was different then Annie's knock and Mrs. Holland fiercely ordered the boy to stay put while she got it.
     He could hear them talking softly and strained to hear. "I'm sorry m'am." It was a man. "But your son, Derrik Holland, was killed in Bayberry Prison{1} three days ago."
     "No!" Mrs. Holland wailed. "This cannot be! Why- how, how did it happen?"
     "He was in a fight with another inmate and killed. I'm sorry for your loss." The man left.
     Mrs. Holland crumpled to the floor. Mason was tempted to go to her, and try to ease her pain, as he knew the feeling. That name, Derrik Holland. That was his father, the one Mamu had told him about. Suddenly the sound of her weeping stopped. Mason knew without seeing that she had spotted him in the doorway.
     "YOU!" she shrieked. "This is all YOUR fault!!" He shook his head wildly, but he knew she was hurting and casting for someone to blame. "Yes it is!! Don't deny it!" She was up and upon him before he had time to brace himself. For a 70 year old woman, she moved pretty quickly.
     This time, she hit him with her fists. And she didn't stop when he was down. She continued to kick and beat him angrily. "IF YOUR WHORE OF A MOTHER HADN'T GOTTEN PREGNANT WITH YOU AND STOLEN MY BABY AWAY, HE WOULD STILL BE ALIVE!! IT'S ALL YOUR FAULT! BY MERELY EXISTING!!"
     She drug him by his hair back to the room he had called home for 2 years. "I hate you! I hate your miserable existance! If I could pawn you off somewhere I would! You've been nothing but a thorn in my side for years!!" She locked the door, leaving him in a ball on the floor, and shouted from the other side, "ROT IN THERE FOR ALL I CARE ANYMORE!"

     "Mamu, what's a father?" Mason's cherubic 7 year old face turned towards his mother.
     "A father? Where did you hear that?" Lily wrapped her arms around the tiny child, worried that someone somewhere had said something to him about Derrik.
     "The girls downstairs were talking about their father. I heard them."
     "Well, me darlin', most kids have, well, 2 Mamu's. But one is a guy, like you, and they call him father. The girl is the mother and the guy is the father."
     "Oh. Do I have a father?"
     "Yeah, hon, you do."
     "Where is he? Why isn't he here?"
     Lily sighed softly, knowing her son would eventually ask. And she promised herself that she would tell him the truth. "Well, Mace, before you were born, your father and I were very much in love. But when I told him about you being in me, he started getting worried that he wouldn't be able to support us. I tried to tell him he was wrong, we would be fine, but he started drinking to forget. Remember what I told you about alcohol?"
     "That it tastes bad, and the mornings after are painful to boot?"
     "Yeah. That and they make you think weird. One night he got really really mad at me for no reason. He picked up a baseball bat we had in the closet, and started hitting me with it. Almost killed me. They said it was a miracle that both me AND you had managed to survive. But you were born blind, and me, sometimes, I think weird, like I've had some alcohol and do strange things."
     "Oh. What about him?"
     "They took him to this big house with metal bars on the windows and doors called a prison, and he has to stay there for 15 years. They said he tried to kill me. I think so too, even if he was drunk. It's his horrible mother. She's a very vicious, commanding woman."
     "I understand. What's a bar?"
     "It's a long, well, baseball bat, made out of the same stuff the refridgerator is, made to keep people from escaping where ever they are."
     "So he can't get out?"
     "Nope. Not until you're 15."
     "Can I meet him then?"
"Yeah. But do me a favor, and ask me that when you're 15."

     Now he would never meet the man that was as much a part of him as Mamu was. With both of them dead, he truely was the orphan Grandma Holland delighted in calling him. The dreams that night were of no comfort to him.
     The next year and a half of his life had gone from dismal and miserable to downright hell. He was no longer able to go anywhere. At all. A pot was put in his room for him to got to the bathroom in, and water was put in a small basin every day to "bath" in, if you could call it that. He was fed when Grandma Holland remembered. Essentially, his room became his prison, even though there weren't any bars on the window that he could feel. He wondered if this was how his father felt in the place they called Bayberry Prison, and hoped it wasn't. This was absolutely more then horrible.
     Then things began to change again.

     "Hello? Anyone home?" Annie stood in the doorway of Holland Manor, calling for someone. The door was unlocked, and Annie wondered what was wrong. She always made her deliveries here in early morning and Mrs. Holland always unlocked the door. Meaning she locked it late at night and now that it wasn't even locked. . .
     Against her policies, but not her morals, Annie entered the house cautiously. Everything was silent, the food on the table was cold, and a light sheen of dust covered the furnature. Nothing had moved in the house for days. Annie walked slowly up the stairs where she knew Mrs. Holland's bedroom was.
     In the bedroom was just as still and quiet as the rest of the house. Reclining on the bed was Mrs. Holland. Her skin had taken a slightly blue tinge from the cold. Annie reached up and took the woman's pulse. There was none. She was dead and obviously had been for a while. Annie backed slowly out of the room, wondering where the 12 year old Mason was.
     She wandered the house. Through main rooms and towards the back. Most old houses had old areas for their servants and housekeepers. Although why the boy would be back here she had no idea.
     In one of the farthest back rooms was a scene that made Annie cry. Mason lay in a corner of the tiny room, curled into a tiny ball and wrapped in a raggedy blanket. A pot stood in another corner, overflowing with human feces. Next to it was a large bowl filled with dirty water. The entire room smelled of shit and piss and Annie rushed to the lithe figure in the corner. Mason was thin and pale, as if he hadn't eaten in days, but he was alive. Annie fumbled her cell phone out and called emergency services.

[1]This first part takes place in England, and I don't believe there is a prison there called Bayberry Prison. But I didn't know the name of any prisons in England, and that just fit for now.