Flutter-Field Ranch

Chapter 6

"Can I help you Miss?" I ask the girl who is still looking me up and down in confusion.

"Who are you? I haven't seen you in town before." The girl brushes aside my question, and rudely asks for my name when she hasn't given me hers, but I merely sigh silently and look at her with boredom.

"My name is Roark... Diane Roark." I inform her dryly as I see her facial features go from confusion to shocked in a milli-second.

"There's no way... the Roark kid died years ago!" The girl hissed at me but it didn't faze me one bit, "There's not a single chance that you're her, so who in the hell are you really?"

"My name is Diane Roark, and I can assure you, they did a DNA test and compared the results with my past medical records." I inform the girl and she flinched away from me as if I'd slapped her, "Now if you'll excuse me, I have to get these kids home."

I turned away from her, making her gasp in shock yet again (I guess she wasn't used to people turning their backs on her) and I blatantly ignored her as I made sure that all of the kids were strapped in before pulling out of the school yard... letting Rachel DJ the radio the entire way home. When we did get home, all of the moms came to greet their kids and took one good look at the new van that could fit all of their kids into it.

"Where on Earth did you get this van?" The young woman from this morning asks me as I get out of the driver's seat.

"I believe the term is 'Car Dealership'. It's just something that they had laying around." I reply, downplaying the price of the van greatly.

"This isn't just something they had sitting around... this is a brand new van!" She exclaims in shock still and I had to place two fingers over her mouth to get her to dial the volume down some.

"First off, it was something they just had layin around. Secondly, I did get it for the purpose of making sure that there would always be a vehicle for the kids to make it to school on time. Thirdly, I need you to head up which ever group that put the designs on the last van... because I need something breath-taking on this one so that everyone can know that this is our van." I inform her as I keep my temper in check, mostly because she wasn't reacting how I thought they would react to this gift.

"Hey Diane." Drew called over to me as I saw him coming from inside the house with his mom waiting in the doorway, so I walked to meet him part of the way and he turned around to walk with me back up to the house, "I got some of the others to help me carry all of that stuff up to your room... didn't really know where to put it all so we put it against the far wall so that you would have plenty of room to work with while you were setting everything up."

"Thanks, that's a big help." I smile at him as we stop walking for a moment so that I can convey my gratitude... but then my attention is caught by the sounds of panic.

When I look over to see what happening, I see a pure white Mustang Mare running around like someone's gone and made her spitefully mad... and I couldn't see anyone here causing her that kind of trouble. On instinct, I ran to put myself between the mare and the kids, grabbing hold of the leading rope that swung around as she tossed her head wildly.

"Woah girl! Easy, easy." I shouted over the noise of the panic and then, after deciding that being on the ground wasn't going to help me much, I jumped up onto her back in order to try and calm her down that way... all I ended up doing was causing her to bolt for the trees at the far end of the property.

"Diane!" I heard Drew shout before he started barking orders at a few of the others and pulled out his phone as he mounted his own horse.

"Steady girl... steady." I kept trying to sooth her with my voice, trying to let her know that everything was going to be okay.

I didn't know much about horses, but just from how this one seemed to be running, we were going to be well within the trees before Drew and the others come to try and help... and I was right, I ducked low because some of the tree branches were low enough to try and throw me off the mare's back, but she race through the trees like she knew where she was going. I looked around when I could, finding that behind the tree-line everything looked so peaceful and filled with a beauty that I had never seen before, and I found myself hoping that this forest went on forever. It stirred something within me to know that this forest was here, that the creatures that lived within it were thriving... and then the mare came to a halting stop in a small clearing and I was thrown forward harshly, bracing myself for the impact with the hard ground below. It never came though.

Oh I did fall, but it wasn't onto hard ground. It was onto a grass so soft it felt like a pillow under me, and when I felt the mare sniffing at my face, I opened my eyes carefully to look at her raising a hand to pet her face gently as she seemed to be trying to making sure that I was okay after such a fall.

"It's okay girl, I'm not hurt." I laugh softly then slowly get up, taking care just in case I had hurt something, "See, on my feet now."

She seemed to understand what I'd said and pranced around me almost happily, I laughed and she came in closer to use her head to nudge mine so that it would turn to the left, where I saw other Mustangs of all different colors watching us... but it was the people who were caring for the Mustangs by grooming them and had been speaking to them that caught my eye the most. More importantly, the wings on their backs caught my eye most of all. There seemed to be an almost palpable pause as we just continued to look at one another and then I took but one step toward them and bowed gracefully to them.

There was a reason that I'd never gotten close to anyone, not really, it was mostly because I was very different from the average person. I could hold conversations with animals because they actually replied to in the best ways they knew how, plants grew several times bigger than what they were supposed to when I cared for them... and that was only the beginning of what made me different. I slowly took off my button-up blouse and tied it around my waist before taking a deep breath... I was different from other people because I had learned one night that I had something they didn't, and at the time I thought I was the only one. Now though, as I collected my energy to my back where anyone would see what looked to be a tattoo, I finally figured that maybe I wasn't the only one like me... that I'd not only found one family, but a second one as well.

My 'Tattoo' slowly separated itself from my skin, spreading outward delicately yet while projecting strength at the same time... by the time I was done, I stood before these people with my own set of wings sticking out behind me, even if I didn't know how to fly with them yet.

"It's her..." I heard the start of whispers among them.

"She's found us again!"

"It's just as it had been foretold..."

"She even rode in on the Mare of Purity!"

I looked at them all in confusion as I tried to take in what they were saying, but was completely lost no matter how hard I tried to understand what they were saying. I was still petting the Mare gently when one of the young girls literally flew over to me and just seemed to hover over me excitedly... only to cringe away when a young man's voice shouted over all of us.

"What on earth is going on over here!?" I could hear him, but I couldn't yet see him because the young ladies were blocking my view, "Why do I smell a human female within our grove?"

My eyes grew wide as I was finally face with the young man who had been shouting, his growing just as wide as mine as we stared at one another... at the same moment we both cursed the same word and I fell forward in a faint, blacking out as I he flew toward me quickly.