Hocking Hills {EXCERPT}

Chapter 1 (continued)

I was only there for about five months before my caseworker told me I was going to be fostered by a woman named Vicky. When I lived with Vicky I found that some people fostered for the wrong reason. Fostering was her main source of income while she worked from home selling natural herb diet products that turned out to be nothing more than a scam.

Vicky had four other foster children all under the age of six. I was just a live-in babysitter during the three years I lived there. While she spent most of her time on the computer or trying to do things to impress the reverend at the church she was committed to, I was responsible for looking after the children.

But then she had to get rid of me. And this occurred at the time when something...unusual began happening to me.

I was fourteen when it first happened. It was on a Saturday and one of many times Vicky was having the reverend over for dinner so she didn't care if I took the metro bus to a shopping mall plaza and stayed gone for a couple of hours.

After I went into one of the clothing stores, I was browsing through a rack of designer jeans when I found a pair I wanted to try on. I remembered feeling distressed about the way the jeans looked on me inside the dressing room when it came on suddenly.

A ringing sound filled my ears. I stood still for a moment because the noise became so invasive. My breathing was shallow. I felt as if I couldn't get enough air into my lungs. And then an overwhelming sensation of falling came over me. It was the same feeling I'd get going down on an elevator. I knew I was standing on solid ground but the suddenness of it took my breath away. It was so surreal it made me panic. I didn't know what was happening so I ran out of the dressing room and kept running. I wasn't aware that I had run outside until a security guy grabbed my arm and forced me back inside the store.

After the guard walked me to the manager's office they had me sit while they replayed the video of me walking into the dressing room and then running out of the store wearing the designer jeans. There was nothing I could say in my defense.

I got busted for shoplifting because I couldn't even explain why I ran out of the store. I was too shaken by what had come over me. The manager made me believe it would go in my favor if I signed a statement. So I did without knowing it actually went against me.

When Vicky arrived at the store she immediately let them know that she was an active member of Character Counts and expressed how embarrassing this was for her. But I could tell by the look on her face that she was really annoyed because it had interrupted her evening with the reverend.

I thought they were going to take me to jail after the police officer came inside the office, but instead he handed Vicky a slip of paper and told her to make sure I didn't miss the court date. I was then able to leave with Vicky.

I didn't stay with her for much longer after that. She thought I was a negative influence on the younger children so she contacted my caseworker and a few days later I was sent back to the children's home.

The incident at the clothing store wasn't the last time I experienced the ringing in the ears. I continued to have that same exact experience every month. I even started marking it down every time it happened and it occurred once every twenty-eight to thirty days apart. The good thing about it was I could tell when I would have one so I became better at handling it.

That's when I started drawing the shapes. Each time after I had the ringing in the ears I'd draw senseless lines and circles on an impulse. It would start out as nothing at first and then it was almost as if I lost a few moments of time. I was zoned in and focused. I kept drawing the same thing. The best way I could describe it would be a circle that had four petals intersecting through it. I had no idea why I kept drawing this thing but it did give me a calming effect after going through those weird episodes.