Angel (or is it Maria?)

Chapter Two

"Um. Hi, Person." Angel said, confused. She waved kindly and plastered a fake smile on her face.

"ANGEL!" the woman cried with joy. She rushed forward and wrapped Angel in a giant bear hug. She smelled like herbs and mothballs and mildew. Angel wasn't sure she liked that scent.

The woman squeezed Angel so hard all of a sudden Angel thought she might puke onto her beautifully embroidered robe.

Then she released her grasp, and Angel stumbled backwards, panting and gasping for air. "Who are you?" Angel asked incredulously. No one hugged Angel like that except sometimes her mother. In fact. Angel wasn't well-liked at all. Most people tried to avoid her. Or tease her. Not hug her.

"Wait. Do you mean to say . . . you do not know who I am?" the woman asked with a seemingly heartbroken face.

"Me? Of course not. I don't think I've even seen you before!" Angel said, then instantly realized that sounded rude and regretted letting herself say it.

"Not even in photos?"

"No, sorry."

An angry look came across the woman's face. "Hmph," she snorted. "Whatever family you have, they are depriving you."

"What?" Angel said. "Of course not! What are you talking about?"

The woman bent down solemnly and placed her hand under Angel's chin, tilting it upward. "You don't know . . ." she whispered, " . . . what you have been missing."

She let Angel's chin drop and she stood up. She walked down the white path.

"Angel." she stated firmly. "Come over here."

Angel reluctantly followed. The woman stretched out her hands and held them face-up in front of her. Steam wafted off of them. Angel shook her head, confused. Had she just imagined that?

"My name is Elena Maxwell, and eleven years ago . . ." the woman began, waving her hands upward. A cloudy sort of picture appeared. It was of a crowd of people with smiling faces, playing about and talking happily.

"Whoa," Angel breathed, staring. Was this person magic or something? Or was this a trick?

"Magic was at its fullest," the woman continued, stronger. She waved her hand again. The picture changed to a girl waving her own hands. "Our hidden world was happy." The picture changed to the same girl, holding a puppy.

"However, we began to get more public with our capabilities." A man pulled a hat off of a rabbit.

"Soon we were discovered all too much . . ."

The picture showed many different confused, worried people, who had seen magic.

"At this time, the government was informed of our existence. We were hunted by the normal folk . . ." a shiver crossed her face as she showed a girl pushing a boy away, saying, "Hey! You're one of those magic weirdos!"

"Leave me alone!" the boy said, with a scared face.

"And we all went into hiding."

She waved her hands to make the next picture appear: a young woman with a purple stripe in her hair and the same kind little draw to the sides of her lips. In fact, she could be a younger form of Ms. Maxwell. She was lying on a bed with a sad face, and she looked like she was going to have a baby soon.

"Also around this very troubled time, I was nine months pregnant."

"I soon gave birth to a little girl, whom I named Maria." The picture changed to reveal the woman holding a sleeping newborn baby.

"But then . . ." The woman in the picture turned, with a frightened face, still holding her baby; " . . . my hiding place was discovered. I was taken to a prison, a lab where I was experimented on, along with all the other captured magic-folk. And my baby—baby Maria, but days old, was taken from me—and placed in an orphanage." The picture showed her chained to a wall, then behind bars while hands reached out and snatched Maria from her. "Noooooo!" she cried.

"At last I was able to escape that evil place, as well as my cruel captors." She was shown huddled under a worn out sweatshirt, in the cold outside a brick building, her breath showing in the air. "I searched EVERYWHERE for my lost baby girl." Younger Ms. Maxwell was out in the rain, desperately describing Maria to an orphanage keeper, who was shaking his head sadly as she cried.

"Finally, in a moment of despair . . . I found her!" She was gasping with joy. "She had been adopted at age three. She lived in this very neighborhood!"

"And . . ." she smiled at Angel as she pulled down the glittering image as it turned to air in her fingers, "And, her name had been changed . . ." She looked at Angel with a small smile on her face.

" . . .to Angel Lane."

Angel gasped, her eyes as wide a saucers and her mouth to match. "But . . . I'm Angel Lane!"

"I know." Ms. Maxwell smiled. "That's why you're here."