Alessandra (#1, Omega Beginnings Miniseries) by Lizzy Ford Page B

this day get any worse?” I moaned.
    It could and did.
    My parents came home early, soon after I
did. Irritated by my day, I went to the top of the stairs to greet
them and fetch my book bag before my mother yelled at me.
    They were speaking tersely in quiet voices.
This, of course, warranted me sneaking down the stairs to hear
their secrets. My sixth birthday was coming up. It was possible
they were planning a party.
    “… neighbors
disappearing,” my father said. Tall and handsome with brown hair,
he stormed into the kitchen – the place they went to talk in
private – and was followed by my pretty, tiny mother. “Seven,
Kaitlin! They’re closing in.”
    I crept down the stairs. It didn’t sound
like a discussion about my party, but I wanted to be sure.
    “If we move now, they’ll know,” my mother
was saying in her calm I-told-you-this-before voice. “We have to
wait.”
    “For how long? For our entire neighborhood
to end up at the House?” my father asked. “For us to be arrested
and interrogated?”
    “Relax, Howie. We’ve been careful. We always
are.”
    “Not careful enough. They found her somehow.
We’ve tried everything to make her normal, to make her fit in.”
    I was too young to
understand they spoke about me. That knowledge didn’t click until I was close to
ten. I stood and listened, wondering whom they were talking
about.
    “Hey, Mrs. Nettles,” my mother greeted my
special pet. “No snacks before dinner.”
    Mrs. Nettles curled up at her feet.
    “This is why,” my father said and pointed at her. “We can’t keep
hiding these … things she makes.”
    Offended by how they treated my only real
friend, I gasped.
    “Lyssa, is that you?” my mother called.
    I ducked behind the doorway.
    “Come on out, baby,” my father said.
    “Who were you talking about?” I asked and
entered the kitchen. I gave Mama a hug first and then Daddy before
picking up Mrs. Nettles.
    “No one, baby. Just a neighbor.”
    I was too young to know when my parents lied
to me, too. “Oh. You aren’t planning my birthday party?”
    “Not yet.” Mama smiled.
    “Will people come this year?”
    They exchanged a look. “Lyssa, we might have
to keep it a family affair again this year,” Daddy said gently.
“You can bring all your toys to life at once. Won’t that be
fun?”
    “It’s the worst day of my life, daddy.”
    He laughed and picked me up, hugging me.
“You want nuggets for dinner?”
    “Yes.”
    My mother wrapped her arms around both of
us. We rested our foreheads against one another’s, the way we did
every day before bed. The worry faded from both their faces.
    “You are our world, Lyssa,” Mama told me.
“You know that, right?”
    “I knooooooow.” I said with another dramatic
sigh. I took her face in my chubby hands, kissed her forehead and
did the same to my father.
    “I’ll put Mrs. Nettles away so you can start
dinner,” I said with all the seriousness a child possesses.
    My father set me down. I picked up Mrs.
Nettles and hefted her up the stairs to my room.
     
    Dinner was quiet. I knew enough to sense
something was wrong. Rather than watch a movie after eating like we
usually did, my parents went to their room. I couldn’t make out
their muffled words and remained in my room, alone, as usual. Mrs.
Nettles played with me, though Horsey was grounded after spilling
her tea.
    My parents didn’t emerge at bedtime, so I
changed into my pajamas and brushed my teeth then turned off the
lights. I climbed into bed with Mrs. Nettles. Streetlight slipped
past my curtains and made lines on my ceiling. I watched them. Mrs.
Nettles burrowed into the covers beside me, and soon, her purring
lulled me to sleep.
    Until sometime very late, when a scratching
at my window woke me. Mrs. Nettles was at the wall beneath the
window, clawing at it. I sat up, shuffled to the window and peered
out. Shadows and light played with my eyes. I wiped sleep from
them. Something resembling a huge bird was