1 Prologue

Alice sat quietly staring out of the cold fogged windowpane of Doctor Carlisle's soulless office. Her eyes seemed aloof, as if she were searching for something…something lurking between the blur and the tendrils of condensed rain that languidly coalesced on the outside of the glass marring her view.

A cold shiver trembled through her spine as the doctor's sterile hand gently rested upon her shoulder. His voice was like the groan of a worn and weathered wood in the wind. "Alice… I… Your brother's situation has become seriously complicated…"

Alice continued to stare out the window; her normally vibrant azure eyes were dull and sallow. Her breathing slowed to almost a faint wisp, only evident by its foggy, spectral presence on the glass in sporadic tufts.

Doctor Carlisle continued. "Alice, Jonathan has always had a difficult and uphill battle...unfortunately his situation has dramatically worsened…" Doctor Carlisle hesitated to give Alice a moment to prepare herself.

"It appears that Jonathan has developed a very rare strain of viral encephalitis. Now, the brain is normally in a state of equilibrium, protected by a bony shell — the skull — but when the spinal cord is affected by encephalitis, it swells and pushes downwards on the brain stem. The brain stem controls key components of the body's core functions. As encephalitis progresses, it puts the brain stem under severe traumatic pressure eventually causing it to stop functioning.

"Your brother is in a very dire predicament…one that only you can make a decision about." He slowly placed a number of documents on the desk in front of Alice to review.

"Now I understand how trying this can be. Your brother is only nineteen, already dealing with the challenges of Down syndrome. These documents explain a care plan for Jonathan. I'm going to be blunt with you. As it stands, Jonathan only has a thirty percent chance of survival and that is with the surgery. Without surgery there is less than a ten percent chance that he will survive longer than two years. After surgery, those dismal numbers will hardly improve. We currently have not had any instances of this aggressive encephalitis here in Seattle, so we will need to bring in a number of operating specialists.

"Even after a successful surgery, this inflammation can cause symptoms such as confusion, a fever, a bad headache, and a stiff neck. Sometimes it leads to symptoms like seizures and personality changes. It can also cause long-term problems, such as trouble with speech or memory. I know that all of this is overwhelming."

Doctor Carlisle moved around to the opposing side of the desk and took a seat in his large office chair. He sighed. "Alice, are you taking all of this in?"

Alice continued to stare off into the distance for a long while — then with stiff rotation, she craned her neck to stare aloofly at the papers glaring at her from the desk. Her mind slowly churned and creaked into activity.

At twenty, Alice had become the sole legal guardian and protector of her younger brother. Their family dynamics were shrouded in a grim history. Just two years prior, their mother had been brutally raped and left lying on her back in a grimy alley. Her throat had been slit, stuffed with black sand and a single solitary rose left on her exposed breasts. Even still her rapist and murderer remain free. With that knowledge burning deep into the core of their father, he eventually succumbed to alcoholism and eventually suicide. She still remembered the days she had to explain to Jonathan that their parents 'went away.'

At first it was very hard for her brother. He didn't understand the grim reality before him, but wherever 'went away' was, he knew that it was bad. Every day he would wait for his parents to return, but they never did.

Over the last few years, Alice watched her brother become depressed and withdrawn. It felt strange that without surgery, her brother would be gone forever…just like her father…just like her mother.

"Went away…" Alice mumbled softly.

"Excuse me?" Doctor Carlisle asked, caught off guard by her sudden, yet meek response.

She shook her head.

"Well…" Doctor Carlisle began, rising from his desk chair. "I understand that this is overwhelmingly complicated. There is a lot of information that you still need to digest. Please take a few days to take all of this in, and then give me a call so we can discuss the situation further."

Doctor Carlisle picked up the rumpled documents and placed them next to his computer. Getting up, and then taking Alice by the arm, he tenderly led her out of the room and into a long, bland corridor. On both sides of the hallway, plain doors with uniform names and numbers made Alice feel trapped. The walls with their old white paint — dulled a sickly yellow — made her temples pulse. For a moment, she closed her eyes, letting the doctor guide her as she tried to lose herself in her thoughts. She could not.

How could she tell her brother he was going to die? Was she going to have to live with the burden of her brother's death on her conscience? No. She loved her brother. She took care of him, played with him, and cooked all of his favorite foods. She protected him. Deep down inside she felt that if she were to lose Jonathan, she would have nothing to live for.

They emerged from the innards of the hospital offices to find Jonathan aimlessly smiling and looking about the room in seemingly random fashion, and then abruptly snapping his attention to a magazine in his lap.

This is nice, pretty-nice. Tiny people, Jonathan thought. One Like Alice. Alice. Alice! He looks up, she's standing there. Smiling. Alice is pretty, smiling, but her eyes are wet. Water. Strange. Alice has happy water that comes from her eyes. He wonders if he has happy water too. He tries to make some. No. no water, maybe later? Maybe happy water is off.

"Hey, Superman!" Alice beamed warmly, doing her best to mask the shame, fear and guilt she carried. She was acknowledged by one of her brothers' half-smiles. His mouth was slack on the left side of his face, and on the right side his lips looked as if they were sneering. A Jonathan smile. His large, brown, saucer-like eyes brimmed with adoration.

Slowly, Alice sat down next to her brother on the sofa. He didn't show any signs that he had noticed her, as he had turned all of his attention back to the magazine in his lap.

"How are you doing out here? You okay?" She asked in a motherly, yet friendly tone. Her voice sounded happy, yet was slow and calculated.

"Me…am…good." Jonathan said thoughtfully, without looking up from his magazine. He turned a few pages until he found one with a lot of pictures on it. There was a house with three children playing with a Frisbee and a dog. The children's parents stood on the porch, holding hands and smiling while their children played happily on the lawn.

"Alice…why…tiny people look…look happy…but no move? Me am happy…I move. Why they…no move?"

Alice gave him a tight, loving squeeze around the shoulders and then rocked him back and forth gently. "Well…these people are not real."

"Not real!" Jonathan exclaimed, genuinely amazed.

"That's right. These are," she pointed to the family on the magazine. Jonathan's syrupy brown eyes followed. "These are pictures." She said the word pictures slowly and sounded it out for him with care."

"What…A..." Jonathan paused and screwed his face up. "What a pisher?"

Alice glanced at the doorway, and she saw Doctor Carlisle had begun to turn back towards his office.

"Doctor Carlisle, may we keep this magazine? We'll pay for it if you want."

Doctor Carlisle glanced over his shoulder. His face looked tired and ragged. "No, no. Go ahead.

There are more than enough magazines around here as it is."

"Thank you Doctor." Alice turned to her brother. "C'mon. Let's get some ice cream and take a walk in the park. I'll tell you some more about pictures tonight. Tell Doctor Carlisle thank you for the magazine."

Jonathan didn't know what 'the magazine' was, but he thanked the doctor. All he could think about was pictures, ice cream, and the park.

Yes. Nice. Play, have fun. Swing, be happy. Eat ice cream, taste good, cold, wet, nice, yes, nice. Pishers…

Malfese sat with her focus affixed on a weathered deck of tarot cards. The hairs on her skin were electrified with a hidden twinge of excitement as she traced her fingertips sensually across the cards, listening to the scratching sound they made as she drew three cards and placed them face down.

It was historically frowned upon to perform a reading of one's own tarot, but something…something echoed at the core of her very being to call upon the cards. As she flipped over the cards, her eyes rolled back in her head, exposing the whites in a spastic fluttering.

The Empress.

The Empress had not revealed itself to her before and was thus a rare occurrence. What it meant, she could not discern. How would their paths cross? What would tie them together? For what reason would she have graced her presence?

The Hanged Man.

His face gleamed at her. How could such a handsome face be such a traitor? She could see the war that raged on behind him. The light and the darkness clashed violently.

War…

What war? Was she to be involved in a war or some climactic struggle? She could not get a clear vision from the card of war. There were so many images fluttering behind her eyes...as if past, present and futures were all melting into one. Sweat beaded down her smooth brow as a sudden premonition swept over her consciousness, an intense flicker of twisted images searing her mind.

Eyes.

Arresting, evil, devilious eyes.

They were inhuman. The more she tried to concentrate on the disgusting pair of sandy orbs, the less she wanted to find out who possessed such a pair of eyes. What was he? He? It? Whatever it was, it was searching for her. She knew it. It seemed far away, yet somehow intimately close...no not quite… —

— She lost the connection.

For a moment, the thing she felt probing her thoughts seemed afraid. Why was is searching for her, and why was it trying to hide its fear...was it concealing some other hidden truth?

Abruptly, she stood up. Her body felt weak and her mouth was tacky. Stepping through an elaborate curtain of beads, she entered the foyer of her tarot card shop. With tendrils of fear constricting about her body, she glanced out the large pane windows, that looked out onto the street.

Without further hesitation, she snatched the phone off the hook and dialed her home number. Her fingers were so jittery she wasn't sure if she had dialed correctly. She paced as the phone rang.

"Come on… come on!" She snarled under her breath. Whatever it was, it could be heading for her house... for her daughter…

"Answer the phone…"

Riiing.

"Why aren't you answering?"

Before she had given herself time to be answered — or even answer herself — she slammed the phone down. Grabbing her keys, she bolted out the front door. Barely taking the time to lock up, she wrenched the key from the lock and sprinted behind to an ally where her small Dodge Neon was parked. By the time she reached the car, she wondered why she was running home. She felt stupid...and was bing irrational. It was just a vision...It wasn't real at all...right?

Malfese took a long , shivering and silent breath as she got into her car, started it and calmly drove into the chaotic traffic. She glanced up at the rear-view mirror. Her milky-white cheeks were slowly becoming flushed. She took another three breaths to try and calm herself down. Even still, she couldn't shake the uneasy feeling embering in the dark pit of her stomach… something was going to happen to her daughter. She didn't know when or how, but she knew she needed to be home protecting her. Call it mother's instincts, if nothing else.

"This," Alice said, "is a camera." She placed a Polaroid camera on the dark, black walnut table between herself and her brother. Jonathan eyed it warily.

"Don't worry." She laughed. "It won't bite you, just take your picture."

Jonathan's eyes lit up. "Pishers?" His wariness seemed to melt away at the mention of the cameras byproduct.

"Yes! Pictures!" Alice said enthusiastically. She hoped Jonathan would take an interest in photos.

She had tried numerous times to find something that interested him that was not dangerous. She had bought him dozens of comic books, but soon he became bored with them. He had told her that they were all the same.They hurt his head. She didn't buy any more comics. She tried puzzles. Simple ones with fifty pieces or less. Those he left untouched. Now, he seemed to be truly interested in photos.

Lovingly, Jonathan touched the camera's lid. Alice watches as Jonathan's eyes widened in terror as the camera accidentally slipped off the coffee table and onto the rug. Tears began welling in his eyes.

"Me...U-uh am bu-bu broke it!" He sobbed.

"No," Alice sighed as she picked up the camera from the carpet. "It's not broken. See?" She demonstrated by taking a picture of the fruit which was piled in a bowl on the kitchen counter. The flash went off, then there was a whirring noise as the camera processed the image, then a click as it ejected a milky-yellow photograph.

Jonathans eyes were wet with the faintest traces of tears, but he was no longer sobbing.

"So...me...am no...broke it?"

"No. Watch." Alice handed him the Polaroid and he held it loosely in his fingertips. He looked at it with child-like anticipation.

"Pisher?" He watched, fascinated by the swirling colors coming slowly into existence. It was like a dream. Tiny rivers of white streaked across the filmy plastic surface. Small dots of red; yellow with tiny brown spots. Jonathan looked up at his sister with a quizzical expression on his face, but before he could say anything, alice pointed back at the photo.

As he did, his childlike amazement resurfaced. "This...this am...pisher!" He managed to stutter excitedly as he compared the photo to the kitchen counter where the fruit bowl sat.

Interesting. Fruit was in the picture, yet still on the table. Did something in the camera take away something in the real thing? Did it take away happies? Strange but interesting strange. He wishes he could tell Alice what he is thinking. But no, he can't. When he tries, it doesn't come out right. He sounds stupid. But why? He not smart, but not stupid either. Why, why, why. He does not know.

Oh well…

Almost forgot! Picture in shiny book, two people together, happy touching. Wait! Wait...wait...he knows the word for it. He thinks real hard. What, what, what. Word, word, word. What word, what word. Yes! He's got it. He looks at Alice and she smiles at him.

"Alice...What...am...love?"

Alice blinks her eyes in rapid succession. "Love?" She questions loudly.

Jonathan sat quietly awaiting an explanation.

"Well," Alice began taken aback, "Love — uh… — love is sometimes when two people care about each other. Like I love you. See? I care about you very much, so I love you!

"No." Jonathan retorted.

"No?" Alice asked. "What do you mean?"

Without a word, Jonathan got up from the sofa and picked up the magazine they had brought home from the doctors office. Flipping through it quickly as he walked to where Alice sat, he gently flopped the magazine into her lap.

Alice stared at the picture. There was a man and a woman rubbing noses, while the Eiffel Tower filled the background. It was a very unoriginal scene...cliché even.

Alice didn't know how Jonathan had learned the particular context of the word love he was evidently asking about, but he had. Now he was asking her to explain it to him. How could she explain something to him ...something he would never likely experience in his life. She didn't' want to hurt him.

Tomorrow, I'll explain it to him tomorrow. Alice got up from the couch and put the magazine on the coffee table. Giving Jonathan a kiss on the forehead, she spoke softly. "C'mon, Superman. It's late.

I'll tell you about love in the morning okay? You just get yourself into bed."

Once Jonathan was in bed, Alice stood in his bedroom doorway looking at him. There was a rustling of his covers, then Jonathan said goodnight. Alice replied, "Don't let the bedbugs bite kiddo."

"Sweet dreams, Superman…"Alice said, quietly shutting the door to Jonathan's room, leaving him in the dark quietude to sleep.

Sarah E. Kimble, no longer the Malfese of a tarot shop, but the mother of Elizabeth Kimble put her house keys into the lock of her apartment door. Opening the door quickly, she barged into the house looking for her daughter —

— Who was fast asleep on the couch. A Nightmare on Elm Street was playing on the television and was nearly over. Elizabeth was safe under a pile of blanket, her mocha-brown hair wild and her bangs damp on her forehead. Sarah looked at the digital clock on top of the television. The green numbers blinked the time: 11:20.

Sighing, Sarah headed to the kitchen for something to drink, but forgets all about it when she sees the note taped to the freezer door. Taking the note off the door, she reads it tiredly.

Absentmindedly she reads the note and slowly grabs a wine cooler out of the fridge. Life seemed quite normal. Perhaps she was letting work get to her.

Sarah went back over to the couch and kissed Elizabeth on the nose. "Good night, sweetheart." She whispered, then headed for her bedroom. She could hear Elizabeth stir and mumble, "Good night, Mom...love you…" then curl back to sleep.

PART ONE

THE LOST SOUL