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She runs through a meadow of multi-colored wild flowers, chasing after a young boy who laughs and runs away from her. The boy is older than she is, tall, blonde-haired and blue-eyed with a young impish smile on his face. He keeps running, climbing up a steep hill before them. She finds it difficult to climb after him, but finally she reaches the crest. The golden-haired boy waits for her to join him. When she does, he takes her hand in his and points to something beyond in the distance. Her gaze follows and she sees a beautiful city grown out of the rocks, the trees, and the land itself. In its center is a magnificent white stone castle that rises into the sky as if reaching toward heaven with its many piers and towers.
It is the most wonderful thing she has ever seen. She takes a step toward the city, but the boy stops her, pulling her back to his side.
“No,” he speaks in an urgent voice.
She looks up at him, confused. He points to the city and the castle once more, this time shaking his head. “You can’t go there. Not now…You must stay away from there.”
He looks deep into her eyes to see if she understands. He takes her quickly in his arms and hugs her, her face pressed against his chest. She feels comforted by his embrace, safe and protected by his presence. She longs to stay with him forever. Then he turns, pointing back the way they had come, and nods in that direction.
“Go, Gwen. Run. It’s not safe here for you now. There are those who will stop at nothing to hurt you. You must vanish. Your life and mine depend on it.” He looks down at her, a sad yet loving gaze in his blue eyes as he shoves her forward. Reluctantly, she obeys, walking back down the hill, back the way she came. She pauses as if to look back and ask him the many questions in her mind.
“Don’t look back. Leave and only come back when I call for you, Gwenevere. Not before.” She hears his voice over her shoulder.
She feels so confused, so sad and miserable to be leaving him, so hurt that he is sending her away, that she takes off running. She runs and cries, on and on forever in a never-ending meadow of multi-colored flowers. Before her in the distance, raises a dark and ominous mountain, clouds hovering over its peak, its presence oppressive and haunting. She feels compelled by unseen forces to run to it, even though her heart screams for her to turn and go back to that magical city and the safe loving embrace of the blue-eyed boy on the hill.
Disorientated, she awakes, lying in the hospital bed in the same stark-white hospital room. After several panic-filled moments, she recognizes her surroundings, finally recalling everything that has happened to her in the last few days. The last lingering images of the dream lift like a mist from her mind. The one thing that she holds onto is the name the boy called her.
Gwenevere, he had said. She vaguely remembers having other names, too, but Gwen or Gwenevere is the most significant. It feels true to her. She reaches for her neck.
It’s gone! Where’s my necklace? Gwen looks about, frantic; her eyes catch a glint of gold. She turns and finds her large oval locket lying on the table next to her bed. Sighing in relief at the sight of it, she takes it, opening the clasp to peer inside. Two locks of hair braided together are coiled inside. One lock of golden hair, fine and soft, the other lock of deep black; they are intertwined, contrasting one another.
She closes the locket again to touch the engraved symbol across the golden cover. As she admires the locket, she tries to recall the boy from her dream. What’s his name? Did I know him before? Something of him seems familiar but… she feels the dark images of her past trying to bubble up to the surface and immediately she shoves them away, not wanting the heartache that comes with them.
I don’t want to be here anymore, she thinks to herself as she looks about the strange uninviting room. The same odd devices are nearby, beeping and buzzing, their purpose unknown to her. There are tubes everywhere, some injected into her arm and some coming out of her nose. Immediately she begins to remove them.
“Don’t move. You need to rest, sweetheart.” Doctor Thompson’s shift ended hours ago, but she has taken it upon herself to sit next to the little girl’s bed and wait for her to awaken.
The Doctor moves from her chair to stand next to the bed. She wears her fiery-red hair up in a bun, a few errant strands falling into her face, contrasting against her light brown eyes. A lovely display of freckles sprinkle across her cheeks and the ridge of her nose, making her skin seem fresh and rosy. She smiles down at Gwen.
“Do you want me to put that on for you?” She gestures toward the locket clutched in the girl’s right hand. The child looks up at her, confused a moment, then nods her head. Doctor Thompson takes the locket and fastens it gently around the girl’s neck, making sure not to get it tangled with the medical tubes around her face.
“Are you feeling better today?” Renee asks when the girl smiles, contented.
“I am Gwen. My family is gone and I have no home. My feet are all better now. I am hungry. Where am I? Who are you? I want to leave now,” Gwen rattles off in response.
The Doctor only hears, “Me Gwen, femitie goona e Me noni dwella. Mane fetta cura longa betta ou. Me henger. Ere me? Whoetta uon? Me levetta ou.” Renee just smiles down at her and pats the child on the head.
While studying medicine at Berkley the doctor had minored in foreign languages. She became a gifted linguist. She finds this child’s way of speech peculiar. The closest thing it resembles is baby talk. She can’t identify the girl’s nationality from looking at her either. Her skin is pale and creamy like milk, so she could be Caucasian, yet she has exotic green and yellow cat-like eyes that could’ve been Asian if not for the color, mixed with her jet-black hair which suggests a Latin or Asian heritage. One thing the Doctor knows for sure is that she is a beautiful little girl. There is no doubt in Renee’s mind that she will grow up to be a gorgeous woman someday; the kind of woman others will stop to take notice.
The mystery surrounding this child puzzles Renee. It has been more than forty-eight hours since she was found, and yet the police have turned up nothing. The only thing they found is her other shoe and her footprints in the snow. Luckily, there has been no fresh snowfall and the police thought to follow her tracks that they might eventually find out where she came from, but to no avail. The tracks had suddenly stopped, as if the girl had fallen from the sky and landed in that very spot.
Her description has been sent out over the police radio, a picture taken in the hospital has been attached to missing child flyers and faxed to every station in the state, and there has even been a news bulletin on the six o’ clock news. Still, no one called in. They have no leads, no clues, nothing at all. It is as if the girl simply appeared out of the snow.
Renee is brought out of her pondering when the girl looks up at her, then points to her bandaged feet. They sit in a sling to elevate them. Renee is just about to tell the girl the bad news about her feet, even though she knows the little thing can’t comprehend, when she notices the girl’s feet move. She hurries over and unwraps the bandages carefully. She gasps.
“Oh, my… that’s impossible!” Just hours ago, the toes, and half of both feet, were completely black with frostbite; the feet had been stiff and without feeling. Now they are pink, soft, and perfectly healthy. As if to emphasize this point, the girl wiggles her toes, laughing.
“Dah-Day-Wente!” she exclaims in her pretty little voice, pointing to her feet, face beaming with triumph.
“What? I don’t know what that means. It’s… it’s impossible.” Renee grabs the girl’s medical chart and flips through it quickly. There has to be an explanation. Maybe they had the wrong diagnosis. The damage to both feet had been so severe that she and her colleagues had all agreed that the best course of action was amputation. For her condition to go from one extreme to the next like this is just impossible, Renee tells herself.
Just then, one of the Nurses on duty enters the room, making her rounds. When she sees that the girl is awake, and the stunned look on Renee’s face, she
immediately runs to the Doctor’s side.
“Is something wrong, Doctor?” the Nurse asks urgently. “Should I call for more help?”
“Who checked her bandages last?” Renee questions, trying to make her voice sound calm and professional.
“I did. Why?” The Nurse glances at the girl’s immaculate feet. “Oh!”
Gwen still wiggles her toes with glee. “Dah-Day-Wente! Dah-Day-Wente!” little Gwen sings out, her pleasure showing from her head to her toes. She laughs; her smile radiant and sweet as if she has just learned a new trick.