Nameless

By Dawn Napier

Sharon Ross is forced to travel outside the bounds of known space and time to rescue her foster child, a little girl with no name. Aided by her renegade "slacker" brother and a surprisingly attractive priest (who is beginning to re-think his vow of celibacy), she will go to places as far away as heaven and hell, and as close as her own imagination.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dawn Napier
• Release date: May 19, 2012
• ISBN: 9781476300849

Dawn Napier

Dawn Napier grew up in Waukegan IL, and upstate New York. She has a husband, three children, and a ridiculous number of pets. She grew up reading Stephen King, Isaac Asimov, Mercedes Lackey, and Piers Anthony. When she’s not reading and writing, she is hiking with her dogs, napping with her cat, or cleaning up after her herd of adopted guinea pigs. Visit her online on Facebook and her website dawnsdarktreasures.com!

Book preview

Nameless

By Dawn Napier

Published by Dawn Napier at Smashwords

Copyright 2012

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Chapter One

The little girl’s sleep-drowsed eyes belied her wiggling feet and busy hands. Her chubby fingers went everywhere—under her pillow, into her pants, up her nose. Sharon Ross gently moved her hands away from the less-appropriate venues of exploration, but still she wiggled, poked and kicked. The more Sharon redirected her, the more rapid and anxious the little girl's movement. It's a wonder she doesn't fly right off her bed, Sharon thought with exasperation.

Stop trying to keep yourself awake, Sharon whispered. If you just lie still for thirty seconds, you’ll pass right out.

That was the point, of course, and Sharon knew it. The child hated to sleep, and before she finally succumbed to the lure of the sandman, Sharon was in for about twenty minutes of relentless, exhausted screaming. The little girl hadn’t reached that level of tiredness yet, but Sharon thought she was close.

Are you ready for a name yet? Sharon asked. The little girl looked at her sidelong, popped her thumb into her mouth, and shook her head.

You need a name, Sharon said. All people have names. You’re a person, aren’t you?

The child seemed to consider this. Finally she nodded.

So don’t you think you need a name?

Another headshake, more emphatic this time.

All right. Sharon gave up, again. She rubbed the little girl’s back slowly, and a few minutes later the little girl fell asleep. For once she did not cry.

In the living room, Sharon went back to work on her novel. It was coming slowly; instead of the usual twelve hundred words a day, Sharon was only writing about six or seven hundred. Becoming a mother so unexpectedly might have had something to do with it. It was hard to make up stories when there was a bona-fide fairytale living in her apartment’s second bedroom.

The child had turned up on her doorstep a year ago wearing nothing but a diaper. Sharon had no idea how she’d gotten through the secured door and up the stairs, but she knew that the child didn’t belong to anyone in the building. Downstairs was the cute little pot-smoking newlywed couple who had no kids yet. And adjacent to Sharon was an elderly woman years past childbearing. This could possibly be a grandchild or great-grandchild, but Sharon didn’t think so. She couldn’t remember the last time the lady had had company, and that had been an old man who looked about her age. Her brother, maybe.

The strange child was about a year and a half, or perhaps two. Her hair was thin and blonde, and her eyes were pale blue. She stood in Sharon’s doorway exactly as if she was waiting for her. When Sharon looked down at the little girl, the child looked back with calm, expectant eyes. Then she popped her thumb into her mouth and smiled around it.

Sharon brought the naked child—who had to be freezing; it was only in the fifties outside—inside her apartment, forgetting all about the coffee date waiting for her at the Hot Brew on the corner. She wrapped the baby in the knit afghan from her couch and ran to the phone to call 911. Someone had either lost or abandoned their kid, Sharon thought, and either way it was a matter for the police. But then—

She picked up the phone, pushed the 9—and then she’d forgotten why she was calling. Why was she calling 911? Her apartment wasn’t on fire. Nobody was trying to break in. There was no emergency here. She hung up the phone.

Her eyes fell on the little girl on the couch. The child pulled her thumb out of her mouth and raised both hands in the air like a tiny blonde preacher. Sharon went over and picked her up. Are you mine? Sharon asked.

The little girl nodded and popped her thumb back into her mouth. Then she put her head on Sharon’s shoulder and closed her eyes, and Sharon was lost.

Like falling, but flying too. The child's warm head was a comforting weight on her shoulder, and Sharon felt as though they were drifting through a warm cloud. She held the little girl tight against her chest, and her heart thumped painfully. Mine, she thought. This child is mine. Her throat closed up with emotion, and she stifled a teary sob. Is this the maternal instinct I've read about? Oh, it hurts, but it feels so good too…

Sharon had tried again and again to call the authorities or tell someone about the odd little girl who had apparently adopted her. Each time, she had forgotten what she wanted to say—sometimes in mid-sentence. She could never complete the thought. And it never bothered her that she had forgotten; she’d always followed the incident with Oh well, if it’s important it will come back to me later.

But that wasn’t even the strangest part. Sharon could accept that maybe she was losing her mind. Her own mother had schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. But had everyone around her lost their minds as well?

Sharon had to take the child out to buy her clothes and supplies, and she had no car seat in her little Honda. So she had carried the little girl all ten blocks wrapped in one of Sharon’s sweaters and the afghan off Sharon's couch. She’d met the neighbors downstairs who were coming home from church.

Hi! Sharon said, wondering how she’d explain the kid to them. Maybe a visiting niece or cousin she was babysitting.

Hi Sharon, Tricia said. How’s your little one today?

You know about her? Sharon glanced at the child sitting placidly in her arms.

Of course we know your little girl, Eric said. He ruffled the child’s hair. How are you, little punker? The child grinned around her thumb.

We’re going clothes shopping, Sharon said. Take care, you guys.

Yeah, you too, Eric said. See ya later, punk.

Ten blocks, one sore back and two very sore feet later, Sharon walked into Bob’s Best Department Store with the semi-clad baby in her arms, and nobody glanced at her twice. The little girl sat calmly in the shopping cart while Sharon tried desperately to acquaint herself with the world of baby supplies and nobody took any notice. Sharon filled the cart with clothes, diapers, a few toys, and an umbrella stroller, mourning the loss of the zero balance on her credit card. The cashier rang up her purchases and smiled at the little girl.

She looks just like you, the boy commented.

Sharon blinked. The child looked nothing like her; she was blonde and pale, while Sharon had a medium complexion with dark, wavy hair. Was the cashier making a joke? He wasn’t watching her to gauge her reaction, just scanning the items one by one, humming a tune from some old sitcom.

Sharon left the store quickly, sweating under her clothes. She had to do something with this kid; this was insane. If she couldn’t use the phone, she’d just walk straight to the fire station. It was only a half-mile away.

But once they were past the parking lot of Bob’s, Sharon forgot her resolution and went home. The little girl rode in the pink umbrella stroller, chortling and kicking her feet. It was the first sound Sharon had ever heard her make.

The next few days were shockingly normal. Sharon fed and played with the child, changed her diapers, and wrote for The Horrific whenever she had sufficient down-time. The little magazine didn’t pay nearly enough to cover the new expenses the child had brought, but Sharon still had a trust fund from her parents, nearly untouched for fifteen years. If that ran out before she sold her first novel, well, there was always Real Work. Sharon always felt shivery and sick when she thought about re-entering the Real Workforce. She must be losing her mind to even think of it.

The tot acted more and more like a normal child the longer Sharon played with and talked to her. In the beginning, she never cried and rarely laughed. But within a week she was doing both, as well as throwing tantrums, kicking the walls, and biting her own hands when she got angry. The books Sharon had bought all said this was normal. She didn’t talk much, no more than three or four words, but the books said this was normal too.

But what was not normal, and Sharon did not need a book to tell her this, was that the child would not allow her to call her by name. Any name. Sharon started calling her Rachel, after her maternal grandmother. She didn’t understand why the girl screamed and cried hysterically every time she used the name. She thought that the kid was sensitive about being called the wrong name, and she tried to guess the right one. But every name she tried was met with tears and tantrums, and Sharon’s nerves couldn’t take it anymore. She got in the habit of thinking of her as the kid or the child. Sometimes, in the back of her mind, she called the child Nameless.

Nameless was a good sleeper once she was down, and Sharon could count on at least two uninterrupted hours before the kid started crying for food, a fresh diaper, and a story. Usually the story came first. The kid loved stories. Sharon spent more time at the library now than she ever had before in her adult life.

Sharon managed almost a thousand words while Nameless slept, a good haul. Her main bad guy was starting to show his true colors, and things were about to get interesting. This afternoon she might take Nameless back to the library, though they had just been there two days ago. The ladies there knew Nameless and loved her for her quiet manners and obvious passion for books. Sharon wanted to sign her up for a storytime activity, but she wasn’t sure how to do that without a name to give. Or a birthday. Sharon guessed the kid to be about three, but that was only a guess. She supposed that she ought to just invent a birthday, like she had for her stray cats as a child.

With the time she had left, Sharon wrote a letter to her brother Mark, who she had not seen in two years or more. She didn’t know what possessed her to do this; Mark was a drug-addicted slacker who hadn’t had a steady girlfriend or a steady job since he was seventeen or so. Maybe just because he was family. Foster-motherhood brought out the sentimentalist in her. She tried, again, to give her a name, and once again she was unable. She tried to write an R, but Sharon’s hand shook so badly that she couldn’t make a legible A. The trash can was filled with torn and scribbled attempts.

Dear Mark,

How’s it going? Hope it’s all good. Meeting any nice girls? I mean, the ones who are nice to you without you having to wave a ten at her across the runway. Ha ha, I’m just playing with you. I’m in no position to judge. I don’t even remember my last date. I think it was the guy from the coffee shop. The dork who brought his laptop TO A COFFEE SHOP just so he could write in front of other people. Cuz you’re not a writer unless people watch you doing it.

But part of my current dry spell is due to a new family member. I am a foster mother to a beautiful little girl who appears to be about two and a half or three. I’m not sure of her age. She didn’t come with a birth certificate, and her birth parents are nowhere to be found.

She’s a beautiful little girl. Blonde hair, blue eyes, very pretty smile when she bothers to smile. She looks a little like you, actually. She doesn’t talk much, though she understands everything I say to her. She’s very quiet is all. She plays quietly, too. If I’m in the kitchen making dinner, she follows me and just explores the whole room. Goes through every cabinet and drawer within reach, pulling everything out and looking at it. If she makes a mess, all I have to do is tell her to clean up and she does it. The only time she’s ever gotten into real mischief was when she somehow got into the spice cabinet and found the cinnamon. The girl likes cinnamon. She dumped it all over herself, all over the kitchen, then she went through the whole apartment sprinkling cinnamon everywhere. She even got it into her bed. It took me the entire day to clean it all up and vacuum, and the house smelled like cinnamon for weeks afterwards. Could have been worse, I suppose. She could have found the pepper.

She likes music, especially rock n roll. Joan Jett is her naptime CD. The kid fights naptime like she thinks she’s going to die if she falls asleep. I wonder if she has bad dreams. She didn’t have any bruises or scars when I got her, and she seems healthy enough. I don’t know what her home life was like before she came to me. All I know is her mom and dad are gone baby gone. But you have to figure that if they’d run off and leave their baby with nothing but a diaper, they can’t have taken wonderful care of her when they were around.

So anyway, I haven’t gotten out much lately. Haven’t been to the bar since before the little one showed up, and I’m not sure if I could find my way to that dance club that used to be my second home. I take my little girl to the children’s museum and place like that when I’m not working. That’s about it. I did start a new novel, though. It’s called The Horror Within. I’m going to self-publish this one on the Web. I'm done trying to break through to these big-name publishers. It's like beating my head against a wall.

Talked to Mom on the phone the other day. She seemed pretty normal. I haven’t told her about my kid yet. I’m afraid she’ll want me to take her over to the home for a visit, and I’m not ready for that yet. I want to know that her medication has her fully stabilized before I subject a little kid to her. This child has been through a lot, and she has probably had her share of crazy relatives already. But I have high hopes for her current drug cocktail. It’s a combo platter of antipsychotics and mood stabilizers, and she bitches about having to take them, but they really do make her bearable. Last time I talked to her, she mentioned her book of shadows—you remember that spell book she has that she used to think she could use to control the neighbors?—and then said, Oh but I know it doesn’t really do anything, it’s just my diary now. So she’s more aware of reality now than she used to be. That’s a good sign. You NEED to come visit, bro. I have been doing this by myself long enough. You haven’t been up here since the week after we had her enrolled. If you come see us, you can meet my new baby and we can get a visit with Mom out of the way. What do you say, big guy?

Love you so much,

Sis.

When Nameless awoke, Sharon was sitting by her bed with a book in her hands. Nameless smiled at her, and Sharon smiled back. She didn’t know where the kid had come from or who she was, but Sharon felt that she was lucky to have her.

Father Jason Cawley finished the Liturgy of the Sixth Hour. As usual, the ritual filled him with a sense of purpose and left him feeling as close to God as a living mortal could. To the ritual prayer he added, as he often did, And thank you, God, for giving me a good life that I cherish and dedicate to you. If you see my parents, tell them Jay-Jay says hi.

He lit two candles at the altar and stood quietly for a moment, absorbed by the tiny dancing flames. Like human lives, he mused, tiny bits of energy, glimmering bravely in the darkness of the universe. So easily extinguished, leaving behind nothing but a bit of smoke and ash in memory.

Then he shook the thought away. He was being morbid. Mom and Dad were in heaven with Jesus, surrounded by the eternal light of God. Not burnt out, but absorbed into the larger flame of His love. But the melancholy remained, and Jason guessed that he knew why. Kelly had gotten married.

Her brother Aaron had called with the news, a kindness Jason could have lived without. But Aaron had meant well. Maybe he’d thought that Jason would welcome the news that the woman who had been infatuated with him had moved on and was happy now. And Jason did welcome the news. He wanted Kelly to be happy. He really did.

But still, there was that faint tug, that twinge of what-if. What if Jason had not been offered this new post, three states away. What if Kelly had dropped by to help out during the week just a few times more, times that they would have been alone together. What if Jason had let slip his mask of Godly distance just for a moment. What if Kelly had been a bit more aggressive in her affections. What if, what if, what if.

No. Jason fingered his Roman collar and centered his heart and mind. He was not free to indulge, not yet. His life belonged to God, as it should. He had been spared by God the tragedy that had befallen his parents, and for that mercy he owed the big guy.

It was a bona-fide miracle; even the secular media said so. The three of them had shared a tiny one-bedroom apartment, a dingy little place equipped with carbon monoxide detectors that were apparently just for show. All three of them had gone to sleep one night, and only Jason had woken up.

A two-year-old child should have been the first to succumb to carbon monoxide poisoning, not the last. But somehow, he had survived. Nobody knew why, except for Jason and his grandparents.

God spared you for a purpose. That was the mantra of his childhood, which had encouraged him when he struck out at t-ball, soothed him when a best friend criticized his new haircut, and scolded him whenever he screwed up. God saved you for a reason. Be patient, and wait for the small, still voice.

And the voice had come, but it had been neither small nor still. It was more like a river of fire through his brain. It came when he was sixteen, when he and his grandparents were at the seminary for a Christmas concert. Jason had stared all around him, taking in the magnificent statuary, the beautiful landscape, the deep aura of peace and love. This is where I belong, he’d thought. And from that moment, there had been not one doubt in his mind.

Until Kelly—but Jason corrected himself. There had been no doubt, even then. Only a