Secrets Never Known

"So this is where you've been hiding."

AnnaBelle poked her head through the doorway of her new home. She looked down, to see who had spoken, though she already knew who it was. "Hi, Mr. Smith." She sat on the porch, legs dangling over the edge, then scooted off and landed in front of him.

He stared at her for a whole few minutes, scrutinizing her face as if she'd somehow changed, which, in a way, she had. Anna had only been out of the Webbers' home for four or five days, but already she was feeling much more healthy. She looked it, too. Her hair was back to its normal golden sheen and her skin was much less ashen.

"Can I help you with something, Mr. Smith?"

"AnnaBelle," he said, "your parents are looking for you."

Anna took a protective stance, narrowing her eyes at her old teacher. "They're not my parents."

"They're worried about you."

She shook her head. "I don't need them."

"You're sixteen, AnnaBella. You're too young to be living on your own."

"Says who?" she shouted. "The stupid government that's running this country into the ground? My "parents"? They aren't worried about me, Mr. Smith. They're scared of me. They always have been. They're scared I'm going to do something now that I'm gone. If I go back, they'll put me in some sort of girls' home. I assume they told you what happened the other night?"

Mr. Smith nodded carefully.

"And besides," AnnaBelle stepped around him to walk over to the lake, where she stood staring at her reflection for many moments before continuing, "I'm not alone. I'm never alone. You, of all people, should know that." She turned back around to look at him.

"Something's bothering you."

The girl's face contorted into a mask of sadness. Mr. Smith knew that she was fighting the urge to tell him. He was the one person in the universe, other than herself and her Madman, whom she trusted.

"Is it him?"

AnnaBelle looked at Mr. Smith for a second before answering. "Not per say." She paused, then walked over to the rock where she sat after school so many times and perched on top of it. "A couple of days ago," she started, voice hesitant, "I didn't dream."

"What, not at all?"

"There was nothing. When I woke up yesterday, I was scared. I've never gone a single night without him being there. All I could think was what if something bad happened to him? Would I see him that night, or would just be that same endless darkness that had gone on the night before? I didn't have anything to worry about, though, because he was back last night. Only..." she trailed off, lost in her thoughts.

Mr. Smith prompted her forward, walking to kneel beside her. "Only what, Anna?"

She shook her head, still not looking at him, but rather past him. "He was different. He just...sat there. He just sat there and did nothing the entire time. He stared straight ahead. He didn't say anything or make any noise or move a muscle. Something happened," she said. "I know it. Something with the Doctor." She looked at him then. "He did something to him. To my Madman. I could feel it."

"What do you think he did?"

"I don't know!" AnnaBelle yelled suddenly. "I don't know," she repeated, this time quietly. "Something bad."

The man's eyebrows rose and his eyes widened in shock at the ferocity in her voice.

"I'll kill him," she said. "I won't let him hurt my Madman. Not anymore. He's already done that enough. Trying to keep me away from him. If I ever find out who he is, I won't hesitate. That's a promise." As she finished her words, AnnaBelle looked at Mr. Smith, only to find that he was staring back at her with tears in his eyes. "What is it?" she asked.

He shook his head, smiling at her through his pain. "It's nothing. I'm sure everything will work out for you, AnnaBelle."

--

Mr. Smith left, and Anna was left alone. Normally that's how she would have preferred to stay. However, he was the only friend she really had. She knew that something she said had hurt him, scared him even, but without knowing what, there was nothing she could do. Anna had no way to contact him and she didn't know how to apologize for something she wasn't sure she should have to apologize for. She was angry at him for being upset by her words. He was the only person she had who even kind of understood.

AnnaBelle stared down at her fingers, the cracked skin from having been out in the wilderness, the dirty fingernails from forraging for food. She didn't understand it, but somehow she could tell which fruits were safe to eat and which were poisonous. She waded into the water of the pond at the end of every day as the sun went down, but still managed to get just as dirty the next day.

As the moon and stars came up into the sky, Anna was grateful for how far away from town the forest was. In the city, you could hardly see the stars or appreciate the magnificence of the moon. In the forest, all nighttime light came from the craterous rock and the shining balls of light that were so far away from her, just like the man she so dearly wanted to meet.

Each night, AnnaBelle would lay out in front of her treehouse on an old blanket and stare up at the sky, arms folded behind her head. She would lay out and, while her eyes searched the night, pray to the stars that her Madman would come and take her away to a better place.