The day was basically starting out like any other day: get up, get dressed, eat breakfast, walk to school. Everything was routine, and there was no reason for Pegatha to suspect that anything might happen that was out of the ordinary. Because rarely did anything happen that was out of the ordinary in North Corel.
She snuggled further into her jacket as a north-westerly wind starting blowing in her face, sneaking its tendrils of cold air down her collar and making her shiver. It really wasn't warm enough for this particular jacket, she was starting to realize, but the weather had looked so nice from her bedroom window with the sun shining and the trees budding that it had been all but impossible for her to take her cold weather coat out of the closet, much less put it on. So she would have to suffer the cold, she thought grimly, pulling her hands into her jacket sleeves for a little warmth even though she was now less than a block from the school.
The high school was a large, red-bricked building, two stories tall and surrounded on all sides by attractive new spring gardens and a well-kept yard. Pegatha barely glanced at it as it came into view, however, too used to the sight to spend any extra moments admiring it. Instead, she tugged the straps of her back pack into place and continued walking, hardly noticing the clusters of students standing and chatting around her as she made her way toward the rectangle of pavement near the doors where she usually waited. She was forced to look up a moment later, though, as a group of about four girls ran noisily across her path, talking and pointing excitedly across the school yard. Instinctively, she followed them with her eyes until they disappeared into the gathering audience of the beginnings of a fight.
The fight started off, as they usually did, with a push, and then a returning shove. And then the two boys were scuffling on the ground, pulling up the grass underneath them until they were both covered in dirt. Pegatha would've turned away, losing interest, except that there was a familiar face in the crowd. She waved.
The girl, a petite eighth grader with straight brown hair that nearly reached her waist and glasses that seemed to constantly want to rest at the end of her pert nose, stood on her tiptoes to wave back before heading over. Pegatha waited until her friend was no more than a foot or so away before asking, "What's going on over there, Haelie?"
Haelie shrugged, pulling on the straps of the back pack resting on her shoulders as she came up beside Pegatha. "I think Jayson started it by laughing at that other kid because his shop was robbed," she explained quietly. "Well, it was his dad's shop that was robbed," she amended a moment later. "I hope that boy gives him a bloody nose. Jayson's always been a jerk."
Pegatha laughed a little in surprise. "I thought you said once that fights are dumb."
Haelie smiled and shrugged for the second time. "I don't think fighting solves anything, no, but I still think Jayson deserves a bloody nose."
Pegatha couldn't help but laugh again. "Yeah, maybe," she agreed. "I probably would've given him a bloody nose if he'd laughed at me."
Haelie hummed out a chuckle. "I'll make sure never to laugh at you, then, if your dad's shop is ever robbed."
Pegatha cast her friend her best 'yeah, right' expression. "My dad's shop would be the last place a robber would come," she said assuredly. "It doesn't make enough money to make it worth a robber's while to go off of the main road."
"Some of the shops that have been robbed so far haven't been very rich," Haelie pointed out, but Pegatha only shrugged.
"We're still off of the main road. You almost have to know where our shop is to find it. It looks just like a house from the outside."
Haelie didn't say anything, and a moment later they started moving away from the fight, toward the pavement by the door. They walked in silence for almost half a minute before Pegatha spoke again. "So, when was this robbery?"
"Last night," Haelie told her matter-of-factly. "It was on the news this morning. The police think it was the 'Phantom Gang' again."
"Who?"
Haelie turned to her in surprise. "You know, the gang who's been robbing everyone."
"Oh." Pegatha rolled her eyes. "I didn't know they had a name now."
"Well, they don't call themselves the 'Phantom Gang', I imagine," Haelie answered with a grin, "but that's what everyone else has been calling them because they disappear like ghosts after they rob a shop. The only thing anyone knows about them is that the bullets they use come from Neo-Midgar."
"How do people know that?" Pegatha asked. "I heard from somewhere that they were against killing people."
"I don't think they're against it," Haelie said. "They'd probably kill someone if they had to. But, no, they haven't shot anyone yet. The bullet the police found was from the ceiling of one of the shops."
"Ah." Pegatha nodded.
Haelie looked at her in something akin to pity. "You really have to convince your parents to buy a TV," she observed.
Pegatha sighed loudly. "Yeah, that's about as likely as my Mom letting me have a pet chocobo," she said, chuckling sourly. "For now, I'll just have to rely on your daily reports, newscaster Haelie."
Haelie laughed a little, and then fell silent as they stepped onto the pavement and walked over to lean against the school wall. She looked about ready to start up another conversation when something caught her eye over Pegatha's shoulder. Pegatha looked just in time to escape Arick, who had a hand outstretched to mess up her hair. He could be such a child sometimes, even if he was three years older than her.
Arick laughed at his failed prank and said without a hitch, "How're you guys doing?"
"Fine," they answered, nearly in unison.
Arick nodded and then turned to Pegatha. "Hey," he began, and Pegatha was a little surprised to see him shuffle a foot as if suddenly stuck for words. "I hope I didn't get you into too much trouble yesterday. I didn't mean to make your dad angry."
Pegatha shook her head quickly. "No, that's okay. Don't worry about it. I didn't get into any trouble."
Arick's easy smile returned and he shifted his weight from one foot to the other. "That's good." There was shout from behind him and he glanced over his shoulder for a moment, his blond hair swinging around his ears, before turning back to her. "Well, I guess I'll see you guys." He was just starting to wander off again when he seemed to remember something. Turning around to walk backward, he called out, "Hey, Peg, I'll walk you home tonight, since I'm working. Meet you by the tree, okay?"
Pegatha nodded and Arick smiled before dashing off toward some other boys across the yard. Once he was out of hearing range, Haelie said, "You know he lives on the south side, don't you, Pegatha?"
Pegatha scoffed and glared at her friend for a moment before looking away. "I know. But I don't care. Arick's not like most of the people from the south side. He's not a punk or a drug dealer. His brother's studying in Cosmo Canyon and he says he wants to go there someday, too." She sighed on the words she'd wanted to say to her father so many times and let her anger go. "And I know he'd never hurt me or anything like that," she continued, quieter this time. "He told me that he'd beat up anyone who ever tried to hurt me."
Haelie paused for a moment before nodding mutely and Pegatha felt suddenly a little uncomfortable. She hadn't meant to snap, but sometimes Haelie could be kind of pushy with her opinions, even if she didn't mean to be, and Pegatha was already kind of touchy on the subject of Arick thanks to her father. She would apologize later, she decided, in homeroom. The last thing she wanted to do was create another rift, between herself and her best friend, because of Arick.
School passed much like any other day and, before Pegatha knew it, she was on her way home with Arick, scuffing her shoes on the sidewalk and thinking about the homework she had to do tonight as they dawdled along. It was English homework; she had to read a selection of poems out of her textbook and then make journal entries about them, nothing she couldn't do at the till while she worked. She'd gotten into the habit of doing her homework at the till during the hunting season each year because, even if it was busy in the forge, there were rarely more than a few customers in the front room per hour, which allowed her ample time to do most of her school work, especially if it was something as easy for her as English.
Then, at six, they would close up for the night and go upstairs for supper. Her mother said that, before she'd started school, they'd had the shop open until nine, but they'd changed things around when she'd gotten older, not wanting to leave her alone in the apartment during the evenings. Not that they didn't trust her. She'd never given them any reason not to trust her. But they didn't want her to get lonely. After all, she had no siblings. She'd asked her mother once why she was an only child, and her mother had just sort of shrugged and said, "No real reason. Your father and I were both only children. I guess we just...haven't tried for another baby." Her mother's face had then taken on an odd expression and she'd asked, "Why, Pegatha? Do you wish you had a brother or a sister?" Pegatha had shrugged then, not really sure of her answer. She was happy; maybe a tiny bit lonely at times, but certainly contented with the way things were.
As much as she sometimes became bored with the routine of her life, she didn't really want anything to change. She liked things the way they were. Well, maybe not with herself and her father fighting about Arick, but everything else was fine...
Pegatha was brought out of her thoughts as Arick, who was a head taller than her, jumped suddenly at her side to hit the low branch of a tree with an open palm; there weren't any leaves yet to rustle with such a move, but the branch vibrated in creaky annoyance at the disturbance. Pegatha couldn't help but smile a little. Arick noticed and stuck his hands in his pockets, making a noise in his throat as if to clear it.
"Hey," he began in the way he began almost every conversation, "do you think your dad'll still be mad at me when we get there?"
Pegatha pursed her lips and thought for a moment before shaking her head. "No, probably not. At least, I hope not. He wasn't angry at me this morning, I don't think, so you're probably safe. But, maybe..." She couldn't stop her grin. "...you shouldn't pick me up anymore."
Arick laughed a little, a sharp noise. "What, like this?" he asked, before swooping down with his arms to scoop her behind her back and legs and hefting her to his chest. She gave a surprised and irritated shriek before dissolving into giggles and beginning to fight for her freedom. Arick grunted out another laugh as she pushed at him with an elbow and then set her back onto the sidewalk. She frowned at him in mock anger and began to walk quickly away. Arick was at her side again in a moment.
"Okay, I won't do it anymore," he said in an annoyed apology. "You don't have to get mad."
"I'm not mad," Pegatha told him immediately. Though, she realized, she was a little dizzy with something that had nothing to do with being picked up and everything to do with Arick. Sometimes when he touched her, it made a sort of excitement bubble up in her that she'd never felt before and it was kind of overwhelming at times. "I just don't want you and my Dad to fight anymore. I'm afraid he'll fire you or something, and then we won't see each other except at recess."
Arick merely shrugged, but Pegatha saw the concern behind his nonchalance. "I know it's dumb," she continued, "but my Dad's being overprotective of me. My Mom says it's because I'm growing up and he's worried about me, but I don't see what's got him so worried." She chuckled ruefully. "It's not like there's any trouble to get into in North Corel."
Arick glanced at her, a strange half smile on his face as if he couldn't believe what she'd just said. "Ever heard of the Phantom Gang?" he asked.
Pegatha scoffed, noticing how he raised his eyebrows at her reaction. "It's not like they're killing people," she muttered. "And the police'll catch them eventually."
Arick was staring ahead as he walked, that strange partial smile still on his lips. "You think so?" he asked. "You sure have a lot of faith in people. The police haven't been able to do jackshit so far."
Usually, Pegatha berated Arick for his language, but this time she didn't bother to interrupt him for it.
"I've seen the way the police try to deal with things like this. They're around my block pretty often, trying to enforce the law on prostitution and drugs, but they never completely stop it. If they arrest a pimp, there's always another pimp ready to take his place. If they cuff a dealer, there's always another dealer. It's like trying to kill a tree by cutting off the branches. And these robberies are the same thing. They're trying to arrest the members instead of trying to get to the bottom of everything." He shook his head and Pegatha heard him mutter something that sounded suspiciously like, "Stupid."
She didn't reply, not sure what to say. She did have a lot of faith in people, she realized; she'd never been given a reason not to. But, when Arick said it like that, he made it sound like there wasn't anything anyone could do. That thought made her uncomfortable. After a moment, she stirred herself enough to change the subject.
"I hope it isn't too busy in the shop today," she said quietly. "I have English homework." She glanced at Arick. At first, he just looked at her as if he hadn't understood her. And then he smiled.
"Hey, maybe I can get you to do my homework," he joked, and the tension was broken.
Pegatha laughed, relieved. "Yeah, right. Do your own homework, slacker."
Arick pushed her shoulder and she stumbled, chuckling. She would've pushed him back, but they'd arrived at the shop. Her mother was sitting at the front desk. She looked up and smiled as the bell chimed above them.
"Hi Peg, Arick," she greeted them. "How was school?"
"Fine," Pegatha answered just as Arick replied with, "Fine, thank you ma'am."
"That's good," Elira commented with a nod, shuffling the papers in front of her into some kind of order so that she could slip them into a drawer in the desk, putting them away for later. She turned to her daughter. "You ready?" she asked.
Pegatha nodded. "I'm just going to drop off my coat and stuff upstairs."
"Okay." Elira glanced at Arick. "You can leave your coat and backpack behind the desk here, if you want, Arick."
"Thank you, ma'am," he said again, slipping quickly out of his things and stashing them beside the stool before walking into the forge, followed by Pegatha. Pegatha wanted to punch Arick on one of his shoulder blades as he started to walk away, toward the small closet where a white apron was kept for him, but checked herself in time. She didn't want to start things off badly. Her father always seemed to know what she was doing, even if he wasn't directly watching her.
As if on cue, her father looked up at them from the workstation by the furnace, his expression watchful where it had been open with greeting so many times before. She didn't meet his eyes as she passed him; they could both play that game. If he was going to keep such an obvious eye on her, she had every right to ignore him.
The door was unlocked. Pegatha pushed her way into the apartment and, tossing her jacket deftly onto the rack to her left, strode to her bedroom. At the foot of her bed, she dropped her pack to the floor and began to dig through her books to find her homework. Eventually, she came across her text; throwing it onto her bed, she set about grabbing up a couple of pieces of lined paper from her binder and a pen from her case so that she could write out her responses. Finally, with everything gathered, she headed out of her room and to the front room of the shop, ready to replace her mother at the till until six.
As expected, the front room was never occupied by more than three customers an hour and Pegatha was allowed to work fairly steadily on her homework, reading the poems and tapping the end of her pen against her teeth as she worked out the wording of her remarks. Some of the prose was actually kind of interesting; more so, she thought, than those they'd studied today in class. She'd been starting to fear that all poetry was dull and confusing. She much preferred books where there were characters and plots to the indiscernible images and jumbled emotions of poems. But this poem she was working on now, The Highwayman, was sort of story-like and engrossing: a love denied by death so that the man and woman could only come to each other as ghosts...tragically romantic...
She was just reading the poem over for a second time, gloriously caught up in its sweet, melancholy ambiance, when the bell over the door chimed. The answering chime didn't sound for a couple of seconds so Pegatha knew, even before the hollow sound of boots on the hardwood floor reached her ears, that more than one person had entered. She glanced up after a moment from a stanza and let her eyes sweep the four men. They were all tall and big-looking, and they all wore black. That wasn't so odd, but for the fact that the black clothing extended to ski masks covering their faces. She noticed after another second of inspecting them that they were all carrying hand guns. Not here to buy, obviously. Maybe they wanted their weapons cleaned. She was just standing from the stool to greet them and ask them how she could help them when the man at the forefront of the group pointed his gun at her. She froze in confusion, and then couldn't help the giggle that was forced out of her mouth at the absurdity of this.
And then he cocked the weapon. Loaded. And pointed at her. She felt her breathing quicken, her palms start to sweat. No...no way was this what it looked like...
A red-coat troop came marching—
Marching—marching—
King George’s men came marching, up to the old inn-door.
"You," the man barked at her, and she flinched as if he'd hit her. His eyes darted down and to his right momentarily before returning to bore into her own. "Open that safe."
Pegatha's eyes instinctively glanced to her right and she could hear her heart begin to pound in her ears as she noticed, as if for the first time, that there was indeed a safe down there. Imagine that. Her mother put the money the shop made in there at the end of every day, letting it build until the end of the week when her father sent Arick to deposit it. She was just turning to look again at the four men, almost against her will, a swallow caught uncomfortably in her throat, when the first one spoke again in a sharp tone that made her jump and nearly stumble over the stool.
"Open it!"
Her body responding before her mind could grasp what was happening, she flew to the safe and hunched down in front of it. The combination lock sat in front of her like an unfamiliar eye and her fingers trembled in front of it hesitantly for a moment before she moved to grip it. She was just about to turn it when she remembered that she didn't know the combination. Her father had started changing it weekly, much to her mother's annoyance, after Arick had deciphered the code of numbers in under a minute to get the deposit himself. He'd laughed to her later, telling her it was a trick he'd learned a few years ago, but her father certainly hadn't been amused.
She sat still, numb, for a second, unmoving, unsure of what to do. Should she try to explain? Should she get up and run for the forge? Should she scream for her father and hope that he could take care of everything? She was just beginning to feel light-headed from her shallow breathing, wondering if she was dreaming, when the man behind her shouted again, his voice angry and impatient.
"Hurry! Open the safe!"
She started again and felt tears of fear and frustration start in her eyes.
"Open it, dammit! Do you want me to blow your head off?" He took a heavy step forward.
Reacting out of a burning panic that was shooting through her veins, she stood and swung around, sobbing, screaming, "I can't! I don't know the combination!"
The man made an angry scoffing sound and, for one terrible moment, Pegatha was afraid he wasn't going to believe her and shoot her anyway. But then, there was movement out of the corner of her eye and she glanced involuntarily away from the gun to see who or what was coming out of the forge.
There was death at every window;
And hell at one dark window;
For Bess could see, though her casement, the road that he would ride.
It was her father, walking, striding forward with his jaw set and his eyes burning in a way she'd never seen before, not even when he was his angriest. The man in front of her seemed startled by his sudden appearance and he hastily turned the gun from her to her father. Pegatha felt everything in her clench up, frozen as pins of fear and dread prickled over her body, inside her limbs.
Blood-red were his spurs i’ the golden noon; wine-red was his velvet coat;
When they shot him down on the highway...
There was a shot and Pegatha couldn't stop her scream, ducking down behind the desk with her hands over her ears.
Down like a dog on the highway,
And he lay in his blood on the highway, with the bunch of lace at his throat.
She was still screaming, she realized dimly, but was unable to stop herself. It was too horrible...she'd never be able to look. She wished the world would explode at this moment so that she would never have to see.
A hand touched her shoulder and she screamed again, this time in fright and surprise. When she turned, she expected to see awful, hate-filled eyes staring at her through the holes of a ski mask. But it was her mother, her face contorted in concern. Pegatha squeezed her eyes shut and threw herself into her mother's embrace. "Dad!" she sobbed. "Dad!"
"I'm here, Pegatha."
It was him, and he didn't sound like he was dying or in pain. She opened her eyes and stared over the desk, moving out of her mother's arms, to watch her father as he calmly stepped over the bodies of the four unconscious men, picking up their fallen guns as placidly as if he was picking flowers out of a grassy field. Pegatha felt, at first, as if the world had been turned on its head, but then she started to come into a foggy comprehension of what had happened.
"Dad," she managed to mumble, "what...what happened? Did...did you...?"
Her father turned from her pinched, pale face to look at her mother. "Elira, could you take her upstairs, and then call the police?"
Elira nodded, and then moved to put her hands on her daughter's shoulders to steer her away. "Come on, Peg. Let's go up to the apartment."
Pegatha was still in too much shock to do much protesting. She tried to keep her eyes on her father as they walked, but she was forced to look away as they came to the opening to the forge and she had to watch where she was going to make sure she didn't step on or trip over the feet of the employees who were now huddled in the doorway. Arick was there, near the back, and he followed them for a moment. She thought she heard him asking her if she was all right, but she couldn't make herself answer him. Her mother said something to him, and then they were on the stairs to the apartment, her feet dragging her up the steps automatically. The next thing she knew, she was sitting on the couch in their living room, a glass of water on a coaster on the coffee table in front of her.
Her mother was on the phone a few feet away, talking to someone. "Yes...yes. That's right. No, my husband. Yes. Yes, he did. Mmm-hmm. Now...yes, but I think... Yes. Yes, but you should ask him yourself. No, I didn't see, but... That's why I thought you should... Okay. Yes, that's right. All right. Yes, thank you." She hung up the receiver and hesitated for a moment to puff out her breath before coming to sit on the couch beside Pegatha.
"You okay?" she asked, running a hand over her daughter's forehead as if to check for a fever.
Pegatha nodded and, as if to prove it, reached for the glass in front of her. Her hand was trembling, however, and the water sloshed onto the table where it quickly proceeded to drip into the carpet. She put the glass down quickly and wiped her hand dry on her shirt. She was about to apologize, but her mother was already halfway to getting a towel to clean up the spill. When she returned, she dropped to her knees and began to press the towel into the wet spots, letting the material soak up the liquid by itself.
"Sorry, Mom," Pegatha mumbled.
Her mother paused for a moment in what she was doing, her hand trembling. And then she was sitting with her daughter again and cradling her against her chest. Pegatha held her mother around the waist, feeling suddenly desperate for the comfort.
"I'm sorry that had to happen," her mother whispered to her, gently pushing some curls back from her daughter's face. "I never, never wanted you to have to go through something like that. North Corel's crime rate was always so low." She held Pegatha closer and Pegatha felt some belated tears start to leak out of her eyes. She was still trembling, as if all of her muscles were exhausted, and she pressed against her mother as if searching for warmth. "Oh, Peg, you're shaking." Her mother started rubbing her back and she felt herself begin to relax a little. "Shh. That was scary, I know, but everything's okay. The police will be here in a few minutes to take those men to jail, and I'll bet they'll think twice before they ever rob a store again."
"I thought those men shot Dad," Pegatha admitted thickly into her mother's shirt. "I heard a gun go off. I thought they weren't supposed to kill people." She hitched out a sob.
Elira's hand stilled on her back. "Who, Peg?"
Pegatha turned to look into her mother's face. "What?"
"Who's not supposed to kill people?"
Pegatha blinked and swallowed to regain some of her composure. "The Phantom Gang," she said, somewhat surprised that her mother didn't know. "They're the ones who've been robbing everyone. No one's been able to stop them, or anythi..." Her voice failed her for a moment and a line appeared between her eyebrows as she frowned a little. "How did Dad stop them?" she asked her mother. "They were all on the floor, but I didn't see..."
Her mother smiled grimly and looked away across the room as if seeing something only she could see. "Well, your father...he, well, he had some training when he was younger."
Pegatha felt her eyes widen. "Fighting training?" she asked incredulously. "Dad?" It seemed too strange to believe. This was her Daddy they were talking about, the one who'd read her stories when she was little, who'd taken care of her when she'd had the measles (and then had promptly caught them from her because he'd never had them before), who'd helped her with her homework on numerous occasions. Her Daddy.
"It's not something he likes to remember much about," Elira said by way of an excuse. "He never uses his training unless he absolutely has to."
"Like he had to today?" Pegatha asked.
Elira seemed to start out of her own thoughts, looking back from across the room to glance at her daughter. "Yes," she answered. "Like today."
The scream of a siren started in the distance and Pegatha sat up, staring over the back of the couch as if to see the source of the noise. Elira stood.
"You're okay up here, Peg?"
Pegatha met her mother's concerned gaze and let her expression melt into one of self-assurance. "Yeah, I'm fine."
Her mother smiled. "Good. I'll come back up to check on you in a minute. I don't want you working at the till again tonight."
Pegatha watched her mother leave the apartment for the forge, curiousity making her want to follow to see the arrests. And to see her father. She wanted to make sure that he was all right...and to ask him about his training. But she knew they'd just shoo her back up here, angry that she'd come down. Maybe Arick would tell her tomorrow at school.
School? Homework! Her homework was still in the front room! Wiping at her drying tears, she got to her feet and headed toward the forge.
There were a lot of people talking. She could hear them in the stairwell. At the bottom of the stairs, she glanced around as if expecting her mother to be there, watching for her. But the forge was empty except for the backs of some of the men in the doorway to the front room. Feeling a little emboldened, Pegatha crept forward toward the source of the excitement. The men moved aside for her as she pushed her way through, letting her step in front of them until she found herself standing next to Arick who was also in front of the other men of the forge. She didn't look at him, though, barely acknowledging his presence as she took in the scene.
The four would-be robbers were being hauled away by the police, one of them still unconscious and all of them tied up with knotted rope. Had her father done that, too? It was starting to seem less unlikely that he would have. Her mother was standing to one side as her father spoke with an officer, a gun from one of the robbers held loosely in his right hand as if, a moment ago, he had been ready to use it. It startled her to notice how...how right the gun looked in his light grip, as if it belonged there. And then he was handing the weapon over to the policeman who took it from him and handled it with the same kind of knowledge. The officer looked at it for a moment as if something about it surprised him, but then he was giving a nod to her father and mother and leaving the front room with the rest of the squad and the unconscious black-clothed man they were carrying out. As if this was a cue, the employees, including Arick, headed back into the forge to continue working now that the excitement was over. Pegatha didn't move.
Her mother noticed her first, her face taking on a stern, reprimanding kind of look. Pegatha cowered back a little, but then her father put a hand to her mother's shoulder and said something to her that Pegatha couldn't hear. Elira's expression softened, but her daughter knew better than to think this was forgotten. She should get out of here as soon as she could, though she still needed...
Her father approached her, an eyebrow raised. "My homework?" Pegatha squeaked, pointing at the desk. He glanced over his shoulder and then moved to grab up the book, papers and pen before turning back to her. She took them gratefully and then looked into his face.
Her Daddy.
She took a breath. "Dad, how did you do that, earlier? I mean, for a moment I thought that maybe they'd..." She stopped speaking as her father began to shake his head. She sighed a little in irritation, impatient for some answers, and was about to continue asking when he moved suddenly to embrace her. Surprised, Pegatha felt her grip on her schoolwork falter and a few of the papers fluttered to the floor. And then, she was holding him back tightly, suddenly very aware of what she could've lost. He rarely held her now of his own volition; usually she was the one going to him for hugs when she wanted one. But, this time...
This time they'd both been made to realize how fragile some things were and it didn't matter who'd hugged who, or who the observers were.
The embrace lasted for a few seconds only, and then Pegatha was crouching on the floor and gathering up her homework. She didn't look at her father again as she stood, feeling the tears balancing on the rim of her eyes, and she hoped to get to the safety of the apartment before they fell. He was still watching her, she could tell, but she knew he understood the embarrassment of showing some emotions in public. So, she turned and ran for the stairwell.
And it really was no surprise that her homework took her longer than usual to finish that night as she found herself reading and re-reading a line from The Highwayman, strangely unable to stop herself even though it gave her chills:
Look for me by moonlight;
Watch for me by moonlight;
I’ll come to thee by moonlight, though hell should bar the way!
Author's note: Hey, another author's note! I'll bet you know what this one's about. Yup. It's to give credit to Alfred Noyes for his poem The Highwayman which I remember studying in grade seven along with Robert Service's poem The Cremation of Sam McGee. It's the only type of poetry I find I really like! Heh...there's no music to this soul...