Disclosure:  All Mine. 

Pre-Edit Count –   1,450 Words

Song I listened to for this chapter: Magic Carpet Ride by Steppenwolf.

1980

Stella wakes up with a start, remembering the voice in her head telling her that her wish is granted, in return for her answering when they call.  It seems with her agreement, they did whatever, and she is now waking up.  Stella has all her memories, in fact, a lot sharper than she would expect.  She can remember her life in detail, and when she focuses on any part of it, she can see even more details. Stella can even remember her combinations from her lockers from all her years, no matter that to her it had been almost two decades since then.

But for now, while this is all interesting, she needs to figure out what is going on, what happened.  What it meant to get her wish granted, and where she is now.

She gets up and looks in wonder at her room.  It’s huge! Her mouth drops open as she remembers her mom and step dad had moved into a house in Pittsburgh at one point in time.  And this is where she is at now.  She is staring at the pale sunshiny yellow walls that matched her pretty yellow comforter with blue roses on it.  As she continues to look around, she can see the iron windows that were as tall as an adult on one side, with the extra bed on her right, that had nothing on it.  The wood floors that are as old as the house shining with whatever her mom did to make them clean once a year.

There is her bedroom furniture that she wants to go inspect for the little bit of marker she had put on it as if she had hit her head on the corner and bled. She chuckles remembering that in the end, no one had come to check on her, and Whisper had slept on top on her, licking her like crazy as she giggled.

Then there are the plastic odd colored yellow kitchen appliances.  She had-has the fridge along with the oven and microwave combination all gathered around the dresser.  Gazing around some more, Stella wanted to cry at the thought that her room was just getting messy enough for her to sweep everything in the middle, and her cleaning it up around the edges.

Suddenly she starts when Noel comes into the room and jumps on the bed to greet her, she cries.  This cannot be!  She is back in the past, the far past.  And she has no idea why she was pushed this far back.  But her wish had been granted, and here she is, holding the dog that she had remembered being put down due to a skin disease.  Remembering something she had done in the past, she makes notes to herself to, remember to never, ever shut a door when letting a dog outside without making sure the tail is in the clear.  Also to make sure she paid plenty attention to all the pets.  Depending when this is, she could have fish, birds, cats, dogs, and horses!

Before she can get too excited, she let Noel down and looks around at herself.  The first thing she finds that is odd to her memories is a pendant on a chain around her neck.  Stella holds the pendant in her little hands and frowns.  She didn’t remember this from before.  Stella searches her memory for where it came from.

As she looks, her new memories start to surface, and she remembers now that her father had told her of a stranger that had been on a mission for blood, and he had interrupted it being suspicious.  In reality, it had been because he had been bored and nervous, being kicked out of her mother’s delivery room because of a surprise cesarean.  The young man had been light-hearted about it all.  He had even congratulated Richard on her birth when the announcement came over the intercom.

Richard, feeling sorry of his accusations, had invited the young man to see her.  He had, and Richard said that the young man had seemed to adore her.  To the point that a week later, this pendant came in the mail with a small charm bracelet and a necklace. It was for her, and the young man hoped she would wear it.  That it would bring her luck and safety.

Richard had put on the charm bracelet, and she still has it with other charms that Richard and her family bought to go along with the first one.  But as she got older, she had asked her dad, and he had slipped the pendant on a chain, and she had started to wear it around her neck all the time.

Even now, holding it brings her a feeling of safety.  That no one can harm her, as long as it is on.  And the pendant is really simple but elegant as she stares at it now, delicate swirls are holding the stone in place.  And the blue stone in the middle makes her curious.  It looks like turquoise, but it is a deep blue color, with silver veins in it, and a hint of gold leaf in the edges of the stone.  No green or turquoise in the entire thing in fact.

She is startled out of her contemplation of the stone when she hears her aunt Serena call out, “Stella!  Your mom is going to the hospital!  Your baby brother will probably be born tonight!”

Stella jumps out of bed, excited.  She knows that it is either February 14^th or the 15^th, 1980.  She starts to plan how she will treat her little brother, loving the ideas of how they played when they were younger.

Serena walks in the room, and she hugs the little girl to her.  “Are you excited?” She looks down on the green eyed blonde that resembles her sister so much.

Nodding her head, Stella asks, “When will he be here?” Her eyes are wide with excitement.

Laughing at the little girl in her arms, Serena tells her, “Calm down, Stella.  I’m taking you to my home.  Once your brother is here, I will take you to meet him.  But for now, can you show me where Noel’s food is?” She needs to take the dog with her, which is no big deal, Noel comes with Stella everywhere anyways.  It is Merlin that stays in the house, but as a kitten, he can take care of himself as long as he has food, water, and his litter box.

The information floats up in Stella’s head, and she runs, still holding her Aunt’s hand as she drags her to the kitchen and shows her the bag.  “This is it!” She grins, proud of herself for remembering this little detail.  She also goes and puts food down for Merlin, recognizing that Merlin was her pet and that she needed to take care of him.

Serena just watches her Niece fondly.  Stella is smart.  One of the most intelligent young children she has ever met, and has been so from a baby. She talked, and walked so much earlier than most children, though Dianna never notices and acts like it is normal. Stella plays fondly with Serena’s son, and while he is also smart, Stella seems to have that something else.   Serena hopes that is never driven out of her, but knowing their family, it may actually be.

They soon make their way out of the house into the driveway.  As Stella is chatting away at her, Serena is taken back a couple years to where her parents had owned the house.  But they had sold it to her sister and husband.  Shaking her head at thinking of all the good times she had with her younger sister who is barely 13 years older than Stella, she soon has the little girl in her seat and buckled up. She hates to do it, but she will be leaving her son and Stella in her husband’s hands tonight as she goes to the hospital.

What she didn’t want to tell Stella, is that they are having complications with the pregnancy.  But there is hope that it will go away.  But Dianna is complaining of back pain and some pain shooting down her hip through her leg.  When she said that, the doctors had looked at each other and admitted her.

She backed up and turned on the gravel road, making noises at Stella as she worries about her sister as she drives down the gravel road to her home.

The following day, on February 15^th, is a dreary wintery day, average for Pittsburgh area at this time of year.  Sitting on the ledge, Stella is staring out the window.  She remembers yesterday as well as today as it was in her past.  But instead, the dosage of Penicillin that had bad results in her original history killed her mother this time.

She could nothing but stare outside and think about how this is her fault.  If she didn’t make that wish, she wouldn’t be back in time and killed her mother.  Because that is the only thing that she can see that changed history.  Nothing else is really different from then, and now, so it has to be her fault, right?

And because of her mom’s death, there was no embarrassing mention of chocolate babies to her aunt, there was nothing of the original with all the laughter and joy. Instead, there is everyone upset, her step dad grieving and her being stuck at her aunt’s house cause everyone had forgotten her.

She hates it here.  Her uncle loves her, but he had some odd ideas.  It had come to be a shock how stubborn Stella can be. For dinner, he fed her and Eric, beans and weenies.  She flat out refused to eat.  Thinking like a normal father, he told her that she had to sit there at the table until she ate.  Instead, Stella sat at the table all night until her aunt had come into the house to see her niece sitting there with a cold plate of beans and weenies in front of her while her son and husband had been in another room.

That piece of history had not changed.

Sadly.

No, the history had changed the following morning when she heard crying.  Stella had snuck out of bed and heard her aunt tell her uncle that Dianna died last night in giving birth to her brother.  She only heard that it had been a nurse that made the mistake, and when they found out, it had been too late.

She had made herself tiny and hid upstairs in the window. And been there since that morning.

It is her fault, and she deserved to be miserable.

It was now night, and the windows were frosting up with the cold, and Stella was still there crying.  Her mommy is gone.  Now, what?  Now, what is going to happen to her?

Just yesterday morning she had woken up with all the possibilities in front of her.  She had remembered the minor things that she could change at this time, and been thrilled to see her brother from birth on.  And now it has all collapsed on her.  How could her life go so wrong so quickly?

And what is to become of her?  Would she stay here, and how would that work?  Is one of her family going to take her in?  And who, her aunt who has Sam?  Or her grandmother who has her aunt Clarice still living with her, at 17?

Huddling down, Stella thinks through the night at what she has lost, the good times with her mother, even the bad times.

In the forest, a raven watches her.  Ruffling its feathers, it settles in for the night, watching over the small child that had called him here. Planning, trying to figure out what to do, while worried about his little one.

Final count, 2,018 words.

Fairfarren~Wendy