Twelve years later and the man, worn with years and brown from the sun, looks up at the stars. He stars into them as though they hold the answer to a question, an answer for which he has been searching for so long. With a soft sigh, he brushes his calloused fingers against the damp grass. It rained today, but he ignores the fact that the raindrops are sinking into his trousers and casting a cold shadow over his body.

"Shelley..." he whispers, searching for her. Can she hear him? Does she still remember to look up each night and see that which she can never set eyes on? He hopes she has not grown up too much to think of that. He hopes she still keeps faith, even when she is sure that nothing good can ever come of it.

***

And far away, on the other side of the world, a young woman with yellow eyes is sitting in a small study, with a sandwich in one hand and a pen in the other. She glances out of the window. "Shane..." It is night time for him. He is thinking of her. Or is he? So long has passed with no news and she cannot be certain, but she will hold on to that belief.

Wiping away the tears which come each and every day, she stares down at the notepad. This is their story. This is their song. She will write it, and she will sing it -- because this is something she will not forget, no matter what happens. "I will not forget," she promises, and writes the final word.

***

The man, Shane, turns to the girl sitting beside him. "Let me tell you a story. You have not heard this one before." She smiles and he begins to speak of someone he once knew, someone tortured continually by strange things she could not explain, but who kept on going no matter what. "You would have liked her, Peggy," he says.

"What was her name?" his daughter asks, staring into his eyes. "What was she called? You have never spoken of her, but you think of her often. I can tell."

He looks around at the world which surrounds them, so different from the one in which he grew up. And yet some things are still the same. Love and hate and the pain that they bring. The eternal gnawing ache of separation. These things remain.

***

With almost a sense of despair, but also a sense of pride -- it is done, she has done it, it is finished -- the girl lays down her pen. But not before she writes one thing, at the bottom of the page, in purple ink.

For Shane.
With love,
Shelley.

FINIS

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Author guidance for This story

Michelle - now eighteen, with brown hair, yellow eyes and pale skin - tells the story of when she was sent to live in a mental home at the age of nine by abusive parents who couldn't deal with the voices she heard in her head.

It wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She was leaving behind the lifestyle she hated and it changed her, probably for the better. But that wasn't the only thing that changed.

There was something about the home she went to stay in which unnerved her, and made her feel cautious. She couldn't relax there. Because try as she did to block them out, the voices just got stronger.

And they weren't just talking to her. They were watching her, too.

One day, everything changed. She knew things she had never known before and seen things she had never seen. But the Voices had other plans for her, and Michelle had to decide whether to run or whether to fight.

updated Jun 30 '10 by delorfinde