The Touch

Chapter 40 - Alive

The truck slowed down and then came to a stop. I could hear footsteps on gravel outside then the doors to the back of the truck swung open. Light poured into the truck and as I looked up I could see beautiful trees outside and sun streaming through them. It looked heavenly.

Two men came inside and one helped Samantha and Blind Bird down out of the truck and then they came back with a stretcher and gently lifted me onto it. They had placed a ramp on the back of the truck and I was wheeled down onto the gravel driveway. I looked to my right side and could see a beautiful white two story old villa that looked like it had been freshly painted. It was so white and clean that it actually looked almost like someone had just built it and painted it today, not two hundred years ago when it was originally built.

Samantha and Blind Bird walked together and a few men and woman came out of the house with a wheel chair and placed Blind Bird in it. A man offered to wheel Blind Bird up to the house but Samantha insisted on wheeling her to wherever they were going. I knew that Blind Bird had found a mother in Samantha and that Samantha had found a daughter in Blind Bird because they loved each other dearly.

I saw them walk up the ramp to the main entranceway as I was being moved towards the ramp and I looked at the people coming out to greet everyone. I felt a sob catch in my throat when I saw Theon coming towards me.

Fresh tears flowed down my cheeks as he enveloped me in a hug.

"Theon, thank god you are okay" I sobbed. "Is everyone else okay? Did everyone else get here okay?"

Theon looked at me with tears in his eyes.

"Yes, everyone else got here okay. My father just turned up on a truck with some of the children who had lived in the institute. They were all a little startled that they are finally safe and my father couldn't stop hugging me which was a bit weird, but nice."

He stalled for a minute and I knew he probably wanted to tell me about Slade, but I didn't want to hear it. It was my fault that he had died and I would live with that for the rest of my life.

"Jeffrey didn't make it Lacey, he died shortly after you were taken. He never woke up from the operation".

"I am so sorry Theon as I know he was like a second father to you. But he will be with Slade and his wife now so I think he would rather have gone then to wake up to find his only child dead". A sob caught in my throat and the realisation of it all was coming crashing down around me. How could I lose Slade like that? How would we all get on with our lives without him in it?.

Theon looked at me and smiled. He opened his mouth to say something but was interrupted by a woman standing to his left.

"Hello my girl" she said.

I turned my gaze and looked at this woman and into her blue eyes. I saw the warmth that I had seen in my memories and as I looked closer at her features I wondered if in fact I was seeing a ghost. My heart was pounding loudly in my chest and I could feel my vision start to blur. I was losing consciousness and the darkness was claiming me again. I grabbed for this woman standing next to Theon just as I blacked out and as she held on to my hand I could hear the sobs erupt from her.

I don't know how long I was unconscious for or whether it was day or night when I woke, but what I saw when I woke again made me terrified and excited at the same time.

The woman was standing next to my bed holding my hand and I could feel the warmth in her hand.

"Grandma?" I whispered.

"Yes my love, my little girl. It's me" she replied with fresh tears in her eyes.

"Have I died?"