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I've, a memory of a dream for you
In a strange place in my heart
Wish I knew the truth of you
Wish I'd known it from the start

I've, thrown a wish away on you
My heart just slipped away from me
Falling for you.
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					'slip'
Title:  Mysterious Time
Chapter 3
Author:  nat-chan
Genre:  Romance/Alt. Reality
Disclaimer:  standard
E-mail:  natia_99@yahoo.com or nymphnat@animail.net

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Twelve Years later..........


Rini took her time walking home from school.  Her silvery blond
hair, tied into two pigtails, blew gently in the spring breeze.
Her back pack wagged with a slight scuff across her back to
the rhythm of her walking.

She sighed thoughtfully.

It always seemed to her, on days like these, that she could pick
up and fly if she wanted to.  

But of course she had never tried.

She gazed into the park as she headed home and saw other kids
playing on the swingset.

She didn't really have any friends.  She was different from
the others somehow.  She knew it herself.

Her father was much younger than everyone else's.....and she had
no mother.  

She knew it--before her father tried to explain.....she knew
her mother was no where on this earth....

A strange flash in the woods caught her attention.  As though
someone ran by very fast...but different.

She walked curiously in after it but found only the shaded
darkness of the trees stretching out before her.

She and her father often walked through these woods.  It seemed
the only time he felt at peace....he seemed very haunted most
of the time--as though he'd forgotten something important
and wanted to remember very badly.

She noticed.

A breeze picked up in the trees, making them whisper their
secrets in some long-dead language.  But a voice suddenly
whispered next to her ear,
       "You can do it if you want to....."

She jumped and reeled around.  But there was no one there.

Then the whisper was in her other ear and all around,
          "fly....fly......"

And for one startling moment it seemed she was lifting off the
ground....just like she'd always dreamed she could.

But then she broke the moment and tore off in a frightened run
for home.

"Papa!  Papa!"  She cried out as she burst into the apartment.

But he was not there....for the first time.....

She found a note next to her dinner saying he had to work late.
Her breathing gradually slowed and she threw off her knapsack.

She didn't feel like eating dinner, or doing her homework.
She felt oddly restless. 

She wandered through the small apartment and into her fathers
room.  It was small and plain with just his bed and desk by the 
window.

She looked out across the busy city landscape and sighed, letting
her eyes dart meaninglessly around--not expecting to see anything.

Something did not seem quite right.  She was just getting to the
age where she remembered.....where true life memories began and
now, fleeting things she had noticed were adding up.

Her father's haunted solitude.  How different she herself was.  
How a secret seemed to lay just a breath ahead of them both
ever moment.  

The sad way her father walked through the forest--always
stopping at that same place, where the trees were darkest. 
How he never slept.  

He was a kind father.  He had provided everything for her,
encouraged her to take dance, and music and swimming
and everything else small children did.  But she did not
want to.  She drew.  He had managed to enroll her in some
drawing classes.  But that was all.

She was very gifted with it.  But she struggled with
school--not because she wasn't smart, but because she
seemed to truly feel it was all irrelovant.  

And she did.  With a sense of magic all around--why did
they study such drab, gray things?  No one seemed to 
want a drab, gray life and yet they all headed straight
towards it.

She often felt everyone was asleep and only she and her
Papa were awake.  Though it was very lonely.

She sat on the edge of his bed and traced the room again 
with her wide blue eyes.

Suddenly, something near the closet caught her eye...on the ceiling,
an attic door.

She jumped up and ran over to it, searching for someway to reach
it and found a step ladder in the closet. 

She climbed up and pushed at it till it opened and she could pull
herself into the dusky space.

She had never noticed they had an attic--but it appeared Papa came
up here.

She pulled herself to a stand and flipped on the light, only to 
freeze in sudden shock.

For the room was full of sketches....everywhere....and they were
all of a woman's face....

	And the woman looked like her.....
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