Tree of Valijah

Chapter One

Thirty-one dollars and fifteen cents. Juneau looked at the bills sitting in her hand that she had dug out of her nightstand. "Not nearly enough," she mumbled to herself as she began pulling all the contents of her drawer out searching for what she knew wasn't there. In two days time she needed ten times that and if she didn't she'd be thrown out by Mr. Candrew, her gross and perverted landlord. She had been renting the room in his basement for months now, the old man had come down the steps more than once willing to pardon her rent in exchange for unmentionable acts, the thought of it made Juneau's skin crawl. When she had refused – not so politely – he told her one more late payment and she was gone. Men, specifically men like that, made her wish the world would be expelled of all men and that the human population would die leaving behind its mass destruction at the age of nineteen.

She flopped on her bed; she didn't know what to do. There was no way she would make that much in one night. It was bad enough she was living off of scraps she snatched up at the diner she worked, bad enough that she wouldn't take the free meals the owner constantly offered her claiming they were mess ups, and someone should take them. Juneau always gave the boxed-up food to the man who slept in the alley on the side of the diner, he needed them more than her.

Instead of feeling bad for herself she got off her ass and started packing her few belongings into a bag, she had a plan, work tonight and tomorrow, make as much money as possible and then catch the bus to the closest beach town. If she was going to be homeless, she'd rather be sleeping on the beach than the streets where anyone could walk up and well, do anything they wanted.

Heavy footfalls sounded from the other side of the basement door that connected her to the upper floors, "Juney girl," she tensed, and her eyes darted to the door, the rickety knob shook, "why do you lock me out girl." She grabbed her apron off the dresser where she'd tossed it the night before and backed towards her exit. The only entrance she ever used, the window that was just low enough that it wasn't an inconvenience for her to crawl through, "Girl, I need your money for rent."

She snatched the bag she'd half-hazardly packed and shoved the money she had in it, she was leaving this place for the last time, she would leave tonight after her shift and be rid of this place. The door rattled on it's hinges, "you have to come out eventually girl, I'll be waiting." No footfalls sounded on the steps, no movement on the other side of that blasted door. She needed to go and needed to go now.

As quietly as she could she slid the window up on it's old frame, nothing about this place made it worth any rent. She'd found it in a newspaper ad since she didn't have a phone and the old man seemed nice enough, for the first month. She turned one last time to make sure she wasn't forgetting anything and dropped her feet on the pavement of the alley, she didn't bother to shut the window.

Work resulted in fifty-three dollars; it wouldn't have been enough even if she had worked tomorrow. She glanced around at the closed down dining room, red chairs with worn out seats nothing special but it'd been good to her. "Goodnight Juneau, I'll see you tomorrow hun." She turned to see one of the older ladies who made the pastries and pies walking out the door, she didn't have the nerve to tell her she was leaving, didn't have the nerve to tell anyone, so she just nodded and smiled.

Another voice called from the back this one belonging to owner Mrs. Gallagher, "Juneau you can head on out, I'll finish everything else!"

She swallowed hard and grabbed her bad from behind the counter, "Thank you Mrs. Gallagher," and she meant it, the older lady had done so much for Juneau, she'd invited her in off the street and offered her a job when she had nothing else, hadn't judged her for being a high school dropout or a runaway, had just accepted her for who she was. She was an eccentric old lady, one of the cooks refused to look her in the eye, said something lurked there that wasn't natural, but he also came in with a water bottle of alcohol and burned half the dishes he put in the window – sandwiches were his best dish. But there was something odd about the older woman, Juneau often found her muttering to herself, phrases that she'd never heard before or staring off into the distance like she was lost in herself. She was odd, yes, but she had only ever been nice to her.