The Girl Who Knew

Something Older....Something Better

Scarlett paused for breath, blinking away tears that formed in her own eyes.

"Scarlett, what was her plan?"

Scarlett smiled sadly. "Just listen, Sweetheart."

"A man sat next to Ruby on the train. He had seen her tears as he boarded, and he was concerned. "Miss, are you all right?" he asked her in a soft voice.

Ruby looked up, and the tears flowed freely. "No," she answered quietly. "No, I can't do it."

The man was confused, understandably so. "What can't you do?" then he frowned. "Wait, I know you. You're... Fuego's wife, aren't you? Ruby, isn't it?"

Ruby nodded.

The man's face lit up in a smile. "Well, then. I could hardly let you sit here and be sad, could I? Now, Miss Ruby, what seems to be the matter?" He noticed the child for the first time. "Who is this? Is it yours?"

Ruby made a quick decision. "No," she mumbled, shaking her head. "She isn't mine. But her parents...they can't keep her."

The man frowned. "Why not?"

Ruby took a breath, and without looking at the man, lifted the blanket from her daughters face. She was hoping that he would give her some advice. Maybe he would have a solution. She heard his sharp intake of breath as he took in the girl's coloring.

"What is she?"

Ruby shook her head in reply. "The father doesn't know." She said quietly.

The man seemed angry. No, not angry... furious. "I should hope not. This is... this is... well, if you'll excuse my bluntness, Miss Ruby, this is an abomination. This is a disgrace. No man would want the burden of raising...that."

She heard the disgust in his voice, the traditional hatred of anything and everything different. She closed her eyes, for one moment, in despair, for he had simply said everything she had already known he would say.

His glare, which had appeared upon seeing the child, softened as he looked back at Ruby. "They asked you to get rid of it?"

She nodded, not needing to hear what he was going to tell her.

He cleared his throat. "Miss Ruby, it's a wretched position to be in, but really... if you just ended it, you'd be doing the thing a favor. You know as well as I that it would never make it. We'd never accept something like that into our schools, our stores, our...well, you name it, Miss Ruby." He was silent for a moment. Then, hesitantly, "If you need me to do it for you... well, Miss Ruby, I would understand."

Ruby shook her head. No, she had to be the one to do this. It was her mistake, her responsibility. She had to clean this up. "No...I have to do it." She told him.

He nodded in a forced understanding. He looked out the window, and then grabbed his bags. "This is me." He stood as the train came to a stop. As he started to walk out of the doors, he hesitated. "If it helps, a thing like that can't really be called a child, Miss Ruby." He looked at her once more. "Good luck." And with that, he got off the train, leaving Ruby once again to her thoughts.

As she watched the station recede as the train's speed increased, Ruby looked down at her little girl, and covered her face with the blanket. She looked out the window at the scenery rushing by, and the tears came slowly as she tried to make her mind blank once more.

Three hours past midnight, she made it to the outermost city of Rouge. She rented a small carriage, and she began the tedious journey to the borders of her country. It took hours, but she made it to a clearing on the edge of Rouge, where there was a narrow but deep stream. Looking around to be sure she was the only one there that night, she stepped out of the carriage and towards the stream.

She knelt by the stream half an hour before dawn, the infant in her arms. She took the blanket and unraveled it from the child's face and arms, to look at her one final time.

"I'm sorry," she told the child, tears dripping down her face and quietly colliding with the water below. "But sometimes the ones who seem most innocent, are the ones who have to be...sacrificed," she said, faltering on the word, " to preserve something older. Something...something better."

At that moment, the child's eyes opened, and they were a cloudy, swirling gray, solemn as they looked at the woman. And in that instant, Ruby felt as if the child knew.

It scared her, that moment. And so she closed her eyes, kissed her daughter on the head for the first and last time, and lowered her into the stream."