Abandoned by Angela Dorsey Page A

sprawled across the barn floor,
gasping for air with the ladder on top of her. She cried out in
pain where the jagged wood stabbed into her arm and raked across
her back. She struggled for a moment, wild and unthinking, the
ladder crushing her into the floor.
    Then stars exploded in front of her eyes
and she slipped into darkness.
     

 

     
    Lauren wasn’t sure how much time
had passed when she first noticed the light behind her eyes. But
she couldn’t open them to see. Her body wasn’t working. Then the
light disappeared.
    When she became conscious again, she
heard murmurs. Far away conversation. They’ve come to rescue me. The single thought made
its way through the fog in her mind. Then there was silence.
    Darkness again.
    An animal sniffed at her.
Growled . A dog, she thought,
but she couldn’t see it. Still couldn’t open her eyes.
    Dark again.
    “But I don’t want to go,” Lauren heard
herself say. Her eyes were shut, but she could tell she was crying.
Her tears were choking her words. “Daddy, please,” she begged.
    “You have to,” said her dad. Lauren
could imagine him shaking his head, even though she couldn’t see
him. “It’s for the best,” he continued. “I know you don’t see why
it’s important now, but someday you will.”
    “No, I won’t. I belong here. I belong
where you are. Where Mom used to live,” said Lauren’s voice.
Somewhere in her mind, Lauren thought it was strange she couldn’t
feel her lips moving. “She wouldn’t want you to send me away. If
she were alive, she’d stop you,” she concluded.
    He sighed. “I’ll come to visit you and
you can come home every Christmas and summer holidays. It won’t be
that bad. I promise. Now go gather the eggs while I finish milking
Bessie. Then we can have breakfast.”
    Breakfast? But it’s past suppertime. And gather the
eggs? I’ve never gathered
eggs in my life. Dad knows that. Something scraped across
the floor, loud in the silence. Hey,
how did Dad get here?
    “I’m not hungry,” she whispered.
    “Mrs. Carter is going to be here in a
few hours to pick you up and you’ve got a long drive ahead of you.
You’re going to get hungry, Lizzie,” warned her dad.
    Lauren became even more puzzled. Who was Mrs. Carter? And who was
Lizzie? She tried to open her mouth to ask him what he
meant, but her mouth wouldn’t move. She could hear her voice
speaking. “I can’t eat. It makes me sick to think about it.”
    But I
didn’t say that, Lauren finally realized. Someone else is here. She tried to move her
head, then her shoulders, but nothing happened. She tried to move
her hands to motion to her dad that she couldn’t speak, but her
hands wouldn’t move either. She was paralysed.
    Lauren’s heart beat faster and thudding
filled her ears. Then somewhere behind the thunder of her heart,
Lauren heard someone say, “Please, Daddy. Please let me stay.
You’ve got to let me stay. Mom wouldn’t send me away. And you can’t
either. You just can’t.”
    With all her effort, Lauren opened her
eyes a tiny slit. She was lying on a wooden floor. “Where am I?”
she whispered. The floor in front of her moved like ripples on a
pond. She closed her eyes and drew a shuddering breath. “Help,” she
said, but her voice was the softest whisper.
    “I’m not going to change my mind,
Lizzie. This is for the best. There are things you don’t know and
that I can’t tell you. Now just gather the eggs and meet me up at
the house.”
    Lauren lay still and waited for the
nausea and dizziness to pass. She opened her eyes for a second, saw
a blur of movement and clamped them shut. She heard heavy footfalls
leave the barn and the sound of hooves following. Well, at least my ears are still working, she
thought. She could feel the dizziness slowly fading away. When she
opened her eyes a few minutes later, the floor was still.
    “Help,” she called again. She waited for
a moment, but there was no response. The voices were gone.
    I must
have