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"So, where are you from?" I asked as Sally dug into the apple pie I'd bought her. "Durem, or somewhere else?"
"Well, I was dumped at the orphanage in Aekea when I was a baby," she said, her mouth full of pie. "Then that place shut down, so I ended up at Shabby Meadows. I'm officially a Gwendy, blah, blah, blah...stupid pathetic names they give us to have us adopted. My real name's right there on the records though, I'm Celeste."
"Where'd you get that name from?" I asked, more curious then ever.
"It was on the note in my cradle," she said. "The Matron showed me that before the Aekea orphanage closed." She grinned. "A lot of the other kids hated me for it...we were all orphans, but I knew there was someone out there that loved me. You wanna know why?" I nodded. "Well, it was typed really neatly, and it said that my name was Celeste, that I was three months old, that my birthday was August 13th, and that I should know that my mother would always love me. And she must have, because that was a real nice cradle I'd been left in!"
"So how old are you?" I asked. As best I could tell through her shabby, frumpy clothes, Sally was on the verge of being a teenager, but she was quite small. As we walked in, I'd noticed that her head was just at my shoulder level.
"Twelve, I'm thirteen this year," she said, confirming my suspicions and planting others in my head. "I know I'm short and skinny, it's been useful with my kind of life. That's why I got adopted, it helped that I looked younger than I am." I nearly choked on my tea. The same words, the same attitude, the same eyes, the same seeming frailty over ice...I wondered if Leon had been so off the mark.
"So, you think someone would adopt me at my age, ma'am?" Sally asked, looking ever so slightly hopeful. I looked into her eyes again, under those badly-cut black bangs and patched, catlike hat.
"First of all, don't call me that," I said. "I'm five years older then you, not fifty. My name's Dawna, you can call me that. As for being adopted...when I was little, I used to want a sister. I'm warning you, my life's unstable to say the least. Still, I can give you food, better clothes, a roof over your head."
"You're saying you want to adopt me?" Sally asked, looking amazed. "Like, I could be your sidekick, right? Like Catboy and Birdbrain?" She laughed. "Don't worry if you haven't seen them, I made them up. I can't afford comic book, so I dream up my own." Then, as I ruefully wondered if I would really be doing Sally a favor by bringing her into my tangled family, my father's own sidekick walked in.
Edmund was making a beeline for our table. "May I have a word, Dawna?" he asked coldly.
Wondering if he had come to fetch me to dinner, I said just as coldly, "Sure, drag a chair over from another table."
"In private," he growled, glaring at Sally.
"Sally is my sister and sidekick," I said. "I've just told her that my life's not the stablest in the world, so I think she can hear whatever you have to say to me. She might as well get a taste of it before we do the adoption paperwork."
Looking seriously annoyed, and not sitting down, Edmund said, "Unless you consider Louie Von Helson a good catch, I'd advise you to take the next train back to Barton. Your father intends to try some matchmaking when he gets the two of you together over dinner, and I think it'll annoy you."
"What?!?" I sputtered. "Me and that vampire?"
"He told me he'd like to have you Lady Gambino, but he can't very well recognize you as his daughter if you refuse to recognize him as your father," Edmund said. "So he's going for the next best thing. A Gambino can't publicly be seen to marry the heir of the Von Helsons, but you insist on being plain Dawna Celeste, so you don't count. However, you are one of his legitimate heirs, and Louie knows that. Privately, it would be a great way to tie the families together."
"And what about me?!?" I exploded, barely noticing that Sally was staring at me with her mouth open. "When did he ever ask me about this?!?"
"He didn't," Edmund said. "He merely assumed that any girl would want to be Lady Von Helson."
"I'm not any girl!" I shouted. "You can tell that fat old toad to swallow his cigar!"
"I will pass on the message," Edmund said. "Meanwhile, I'd suggest you don't try to formally adopt your young friend. You may use Celeste as a last name, but legally it is Gam..."
"Get lost," I said.
"I'm merely warning you that your father will not be happy if he finds you've adopted a ragamuffin," Edmund calmly continued. "While I respect your choice of name, be assured that he will not, and that he will use it to make sure the adoption is invalid. And as I said, I think you should go back to Barton." He walked out, leaving me to explain to Sally.
She was still laughing as we got on the train to Barton. "I thought my life was weird!" she chuckled. "So Gambino's your dad? And you're legitimate, no less? Amazing..." She shot me an odd look that was chilling from those green eyes. "Why do you use that last name?"
"It's actually my middle name, according to Gambino," I said sourly. "I was adopted as a baby, and my family wasn't of the social level that had much use for surnames, so I never got one. It's just that if you sign anything with two names, people assume the second is your last name, even if it wasn't meant to be. Gambino probably was in the ID card records...which reminds me, I should get a new one. I need something to prove who I am."
"So if you adopted me, I'd be Celeste Celeste?" Sally asked as the train pulled out. "I think I'll settle for Sally..."
Cindy was not amused when I showed up in her office with a shabby girl in tow. I watched her carefully as I helped Sally take off her hat and scarf, but she seemed too busy telling me how I was just too rebellious to notice Sally. When Cindy finally stopped, I rather heatedly told her of Gambino's plans, and she had to admit I was right to clear out. Then I explained to Sally that Cindy was my aunt (much to Sally's amusement), and let Sally tell her story. And yes, I did see Cindy flinch and start fiddling with some papers when Sally mentioned the note and the cradle.
"So?" I asked Cindy quietly, as Sally ran ahead of us down the steps.
"Don't worry," she said with a shrug, "you don't have to think about a cousin. I missed a month, like I said, but it's come now. I shouldn't have burdened you with my worries."
"Good," I said, feeling very relived. My family was tangled enough already. "Because I do have a cousin, don't I? You didn't lie to me or Leon, but you didn't tell us the whole truth, did you?" She stopped and turned angrily to me, and I quickly put my hands up. "I'm not angry at you, Cindy! There was no reason to tell me. It's just fate that she came back..."
"How did you know?" Cindy asked, looking at the ground.
"First the eyes," I said. "They slant more than yours, but you've seen when she opens them wide. Then name, hair, attitude, age...and then your reaction. That was the clincher." I took her hand. "You did the best you could for her, I know that. With Leon after you..."
"I meant to keep her." Cindy's voice was choked with tears. "I named her after Celeste...I loved her. And I loved her too much to let him ever see her!" She looked at me, and her eyes seemed to flash green fire. "Dawna, you're right. It's clearly fate she came back to me. But she will never know! You get that? Never! You can adopt her, and she can be Sally Celeste or Celeste Celeste, but she will never be Sally Donovinh, or Celeste Donovinh for that matter."
"Why?" I asked, looking at where Sally was sitting on the hood of Cindy's car. "She knows her mother loved her, she wouldn't be angry at you..."
"That's not the point," Cindy snapped. "If she finds out I'm her mother, she'll want to know who her father is. And I will not have her know that. Nor him! Leon made a mess of most of my life, Dawna. He's not having one bit of a claim on any of us now. Neither of them can ever know..." We went on to where Sally was waiting for us.
So that was that. Sally now lives with us as my sister. I gave her my bed the first night, and slept on the living room couch myself, and the next day we bought a pair of prefab twin beds. It took the rest of the day to carefully take apart the old bed and remove it (Cindy later told me that she put the parts in the demon-haunted room) but now we're happily sharing a room. There was the same old argument about school as with me, only worse because Sally's younger, but she outright refused to go if I wasn't going, and Cindy had to give in. Actually, that's probably for the better...I don't know if it would be good for Sally to go to school in Barton. I won't tell her about her relation to Cindy and Leon, but I will keep a close watch on her in Leon's presence. That lout is thickheaded, but he did get four when he put two and two together...only I was five to his four. Sally is the four he came up with, and he must not know that!