The Girl Who Knew

Lies and Train Rides

Scarlett took a deep breath.

"Scarlett?"

She looked up, meeting the young girl's eyes. "Yes?"

"Why did you stop?"

Scarlett smiled. "I was just finding my place again. This is not the easiest of stories to tell."

The little girl nodded. "Scarlett?"

"Yes?"

"Am I going to get sick?"

"No. Why would you ask that?"

"Why don't we take vitamins? If you need them to live and all."

Scarlett smiled, a little sadly this time. "You don't need them. You are different from the people in this story." She looked down. "Very, very different." She said softly.

"Scarlett?"

"Yes?"

"Did you find the place yet?"

"Yes. Are you ready?"

"Yup."

"Ten months later, Ruby was panicking. The lack of vitamins had absolutely no effect on the child. She did not miscarry, in fact, she had had a very easy pregnancy.

She now had a beautiful baby girl – with skin just not the right color for a child born in Rouge. As she looked at her child for the first time, she knew the girl would be ridiculed, disadvantaged, possibly even exiled or taken by the government. The government in Rouge did not support change, nor would they be tolerant of diversity. It was a system that Ruby had lived with all her life, and a system she had always supported with all her being. A system that she had to support now.

And so Ruby did not look at her child with the love and pride of a new mother - she looked at her as would a criminal desperate to hide the evidence of her crime.

So she came up with a way to get rid of the child.

The night before she carried out her plan, she held her daughter and sat in front of the fireplace. "I wish I could love you." She whispered to the girl, who was sleeping. "But that, that can't be in the cards for you and me. I should never have let this happen. You shouldn't exist, and I shouldn't be holding you." She closed her eyes for a second. "In just one day, you will not exist. You will not exist, and the world can go back to being what it should be." She looked directly at the girl. She took in her skin, her small bit of hair. The peaceful rhythm of breath as the girl breathed in and out. "But if you did exist," she whispered. "if you were mine to keep, I would make you so happy. I would make you feel so loved." Her voice got steadily quieter but she kept going. "If you were mine to keep, I would call you-"

Scarlett stopped speaking abruptly, then.

"Scarlett, why'd you stop?"

She shook her head, trying to clear it. "Sorry, I must have spaced out a little bit."

The young girl giggled. "Silly. What was it?"

"What was what?"

"The name. What was she going to say?"

Scarlett looked at her, and decided that maybe that part wasn't quite necessary right now. "Um, I don't remember."

The little girl frowned. "Oh."

"Do you want me to stop?" Scarlett asked her, trying not to sound hopeful.

"No, keep going."

"Okay then."

"She left at nightfall, so that if anyone should lay eyes on the child, they would not easily see the alarming shade of her skin. As she boarded the train that would take her to the city nearest the borders of Rouge, she ran into a friend from work.

"Ruby!" the friend exclaimed. "Why, what are you doing way out here?"

Ruby shifted uncomfortably. "I'm supposed to bring this little girl to a friend of mine. It's his daughter, you see, but there was this horrible custody battle, and they aren't quite on civil terms..." she trailed off.

"Oh, I see." Her friend nodded sympathetically. "Poor dear, custody is such a bore. Can I see her?" she reached for the infants blanket.

Ruby gently stopped her friend. "No, please, I just got her to sleep, and she wakes at the slightest noise." She made a show of looking at her watch. "Oh, no. I promised to have her there before midnight. If I'm not there soon, her father is going to have a fit."

Her friend smiled. "Of course. You're so kind, doing such things for everyone. Good luck, Ruby. See you soon!"

Ruby nodded and smiled as her friend left, silently relieved at her departure. She boarded the train and sat down in the back, holding the child close to her, rocking slightly. She looked out the window, and tried not to think about what she was going to do. But it was a long ride, and her thoughts would not be subdued forever. As they caught up with her, tears escaped and ran down her cheeks, and for the first time since that fateful day she found out she was pregnant, she wasn't sure she could go through with it.

For the first time since that first pregnancy test read 'positive', she felt like a monster."