A Bird of Praise: Act I

Chapter 1: The White Swan

6 November 1983 Rutherford, Illinois

Ulysses S. Grant Memorial Elementary School was having its annual Sister Act showcase. 8 year old Tabitha "Tabby" Castellanos didn't have any sisters but decided to perform with her 16 year old cousin, Tara Newman, instead. They decided upon performing "A Baby Swan and her Mother" which was just a modified version of the Four Baby Swans.

After the showcase, Tabby was reunited with her parents. Alice and Emmanuel "Manny" Castellanos showered their 8 year old with praises.

"Good job, sweetie!" Alice remarked.

"You did good, too, mija!" Manny remarked, patting Tara on the shoulder before his moment with his niece was interrupted by the buzz of his police radio.

"I told you to turn that off during the showcase," his wife reminded him flatly.

"I did. And the showcase is over."

"And you're supposed to be off duty, Tío," Tara chimed in matter of factly.

"Don't you have a 3 hour drive back to Indiana to get started on?" Manny remarked.

"I do," Tara knelt down to her cousin's level. "This was definitely fun! We should do this again sometime!"

Tabby gave Tara a hug before she made her way back to her vehicle. It was a 1980 Chevy Impala that was painted bubblegum pink and decorated with glitter, unicorns and flowers. Because literally what other car would you expect to be driven by Tara Selena Newman?

Tara made it across the Illinois border back to Indiana before she started to feel queasy. She shrugged it off as car sickness. Under any other circumstance, she might have slowed down, but she was on a time crunch. She had to pick Will up from the Wheeler house once their DnD session wrapped up and take him back to his place.

Will had protested this, insisting that he was old enough to return home on his own, but Tara argued that keeping his mother sane was the most mature thing to do.

Unfortunately for them both, once Tara made it back to Hawkins city limits, her nausea had become accompanied by a pounding and stabbing chest pain and they were both unbearable. Tara HAD to pull over. Good thing she did as she barely had the wherewithal to open her car door before she puked all over the side of the road.

Tara decided to examine her pulse and according to her read, she had gone tachycardic. She ultimately decided to rest a bit until her heart rate and intermittent vomiting calmed down. At least until a cop car pulled up behind her. Oh great. That was the last thing she needed. She peered closer at the vehicle to see if she could gauge whether it was a state trooper or municipal police.

An office exited the vehicle with a flashlight in hand and decided to shine it directly at her face, causing her to instinctively shield her eyes.

"Are you all right, ma'am?" the officer asked.

"I'm fine," Tara said, shielding her eyes.

"Have you been drinking this evening?"

"No, officer. I wasn't feeling well so I pulled over. You see, I have a heart condition."

"Do you need me to call you an ambulance?"

"That's not necessary. I just need to rest for a bit."

"What's wrong with your heart?"

"I have this disorder called POTS."

The officer raised a brow. "You have pot on your person?"

"No, officer. POTS. It stands for Postural Orthostatic Tachycardic Syndrome. Sometimes it causes migraines and I end up like this, but I'll be fine after a few minutes."