like a kitten¹ P.H.

Prologue

  The fire was everywhere. It had been an accident. It wasn't on purpose at all, but still, it was burning up everything in its path and taking away all the air. A small girl cowered in the far corner holding a small ball of a snake in her jacket pocket as her mother attempted to open the window. They had to get out somehow. Finally, the woman pried open the old window and pushed her daughter towards it. The small girl was quick to scamper out of the window. Her mother, however, wasn't so quick. A burning slab of ceiling tiles fell from above, blocking whatever escape the woman once had. The small girl cried out, hoping her mother could hear her, but her mother had run through the flames, trying for the upstairs window.

   However, her mother never made it that far. The stairs burned under her as the beam that burned harshly fell down, crushing the woman. The woman's screams were heard throughout the neighborhood, but her daughter heard them so much louder. The small girl yelled for her mother for hours. Even as the firemen removed her from the line of danger, she still cried.

  Amanda Dolland had died a brutal death. She never got to say the final goodbye to her daughter, and her daughter never got to say goodbye either. Xena Dolland was left behind without a mother and without a home.

   Flash forward a month, and Xena was moving in with her Uncle Zach and Aunt Tracy. She hadn't seen them since she was 12, but she was 15 now. She was 15, and she had no mother and no father. Zach was 25 years old and very much loved his 20 year old wife, Tracy.

   Xena didn't have possessions to bring with her, but Tracy was not opposed to sharing and taking her shopping. Zach had never seen Xena with sadness in her eyes before. Xena had always been a little ray of sunshine, and the sunshine was now hidden by dark clouds of death. Xena hadn't talked since her mother's death, and that made things a little harder for everyone. She wouldn't hold a conversation, so how was anyone to know how she felt?

   Xena could never have imagined life without her mother, but now she had to live it. Her aunt and uncle were kind to her, of course. She just couldn't find a will to speak to them. The only creature she spoke to was her pet snake, Ezekial-- Zeke for short.

   Her aunt and uncle didn't fully understand her love for the snake, but they weren't going to take it away. They weren't opposed to a pet, as they had two dogs, Rex and Alphie. Rex was a large rottweiler with white fur and tan markings. Alphie was a white great dane with a single black spot on his butt. They were also companions of Xena, even though they didn't like Zeke too much.

   Of course, staying with her aunt and uncle in another place meant a new school. Derry only had one school, and that was where she would be. She was going to be the weird new kid that wore too much pink. She could already see it coming.