Ladybug Wings

The Goblin Baby

I wasn't even a year old by the time I learned the meaning of loneliness. 

My parents left me under a tree that was gray and dead and twisted from the cruel, clawing fingers of time. They didn't make promises to come back for me, because we all knew that wasn't going to happen. There was nothing I could possibly do except cry, so that's exactly what I did. I cried my little self hoarse as I waited for a rescue that wouldn't come- Not from my parents, anyway. Not that I particularly wanted to go back to that home, cold and empty feeling as it was, but most anything is better than freezing under a leafless tree. It was under that tree that I met her. 

She had heard me crying as she walked home on that bleak midwinter day, her puffy red eyes searching the cemetery in bewilderment until she landed on the source of the tears. I didn't know who she was then. She came and she found me laying there, my skin so pale it seemed gray in the cold sunlight. She lifted me up, wrapped me in her jacket, and took me to the police. That was Anna Rogers. Even fourteen years before we met again, she still had a heart of gold and a desire to look out for me. I couldn't tell you why. 

The authorities were baffled by me. They pulled up their security feed to see who had left me, but Miss Anna Rogers was the only soul that visited the cemetery since the day before. By all appearances, I had simply appeared under the tree on the outskirts of the graveyard. I was there when the sun rose. 

I won't say humans are dumb, because in all honesty they're probably more comprehensive than goblins. Not that goblins can't be smart, don't peg me the wrong way. They just don't like to think, and they'd rather pursue their own interests and cravings than any form of knowledge. Humans are so bent on intelligence, in fact, that they didn't consider the fact that there may not have been a logical explanation. Because there wasn't. It was magic. Or at least, a paranormal discrepancy in the space-time continuum that led to something of a "portal". The tree, in fact, was a portal between the world of the humans and the world of my birth. 

There were signs that I wasn't human. None too subtle signs, I should say. For one thing, I was a bit on the smallish side, even for a baby, weighing in at about five pounds. I was pale, too. My skin was closer to gray than anything. Oh, and my ears were pointed and nearly horizontal, rather than the tidy oval shape of a human ear. I was a strange baby. Anna Rogers, however, took pity on strange me. She gave me to the authorities, who turned around and put me in a home. 

The home sucked. I'm sure there are some nice ones out there, so I'm not going to generalize, but the one I was in was an absolute nightmare. No one cared about the kids that lived there. I won't go into much gritty detail, but some of the workers had rather... short fuses. They couldn't stand me. Probably because for the first four days, I did nothing but cry. I hated that home, and all I wanted was to go back to the place I grew up in. But there was nothing for me there, either. So I lived in that horrid children's home until I was eight years old. Then I was adopted.

The people who wanted to adopt me were nice enough, I guess. A fancy rich couple who wanted a little boy for photo ops. Hahah, well, suits weren't really my style. And once they found out I wasn't exactly photogenic, the deal was off. How was I supposed to know that cameras make my skin look practically transparent? I had barely looked in a mirror, let alone had my picture taken. They weren't too keen on my wild black hair or my horizontal ears, either. Well, that's fine for them. 

From then on, my life became a great big Ping-Pong match to see who would keep me the longest. I was adopted by seventeen different families in seven years, none of them intent on keeping the goblin boy. Because of legal stuff that someone as uneducated as me couldn't possibly hope to understand, I was provided with a caseworker. I stayed with him between the rounds of ping-pong. He was all worn out, like he had seen such a great many things that he couldn't bear to keep track of them all. He smoked a pipe, and the only memorable experience we had together was when he invited me to have a puff of smoke. Now listen kids, smoking is BAD for you, and you should NEVER, EVER do it. It was the nastiest thing I had ever tasted, and I think it shaved years off of my life. To tell you the truth, I don't think he ever even told me his name. So yeah, fun seven years. 

Today is my seventh-year anniversary, actually. Whoopee. The old man finally retired, so now I'm about to meet my new ball-and-chain- I mean lovely, dedicated worker that's going to help me find a home. Once again, so that you don't get a bad opinion, not all caseworkers are jerks. I'm sure most of them are fantastic people, I've just not had the pleasure of meeting any. I sit in the back of a van that smells like stale coffee, staring out the window at the slushy rain. It bangs incessantly on the windshield, but it makes no difference to me; I've got headphones in. I turn my music up louder to drown out the sounds of traffic, then lean against the window and zone out until we come to a stop.

The office where I meet my new caseworker is a small, white building with immaculate shuttered windows and tiny pink flowers growing in planters out front. Bleh. I keep my earbuds in my ears and get out of the car. The cold February air hits me like a blast, making me shiver and pull my jacket tighter around my small shoulders. My chin dips into my striped scarf, and I wear it like a ninja mask. It takes me an embarrassing amount of tries to twist the door handle and get the door open, but I get it eventually. The sight that greets me is certainly not the one I was expecting. A little boy with chocolatey brown hair and sparkling eyes of the same color sits on a plastic chair in the squeaky-clean lobby, watching some children's show on an old phone. A similar looking woman sits next to him, clutching her purse as if it might fly away. Her eyes light slightly as she notices me. So, she recognizes me.

"Anna Rogers." I greet.