Little
could any of them have imagined the turn that destiny was about to take....from
a very unlikely source.
* *
*
~
How did I ever let myself get talked into this? ~ Mandy Riker was not having a much better afternoon than her
mother. Organizing had never been her "cup of cocoa" as her mother
jokingly called it, but this was ridiculous! ~ I'll kill Jase for this!
"Head the clothing drive" he says. Suuure! ~
After
searching the house from ceiling to floor she was about to pronounce the place
a total loss for good material. Everything they had was either in use or
something her mother would no doubt cling to for all eternity, purely on the
basis of sentimental value.
With
a sudden flash of brilliance Mandy remembered the spare room. She knew her
mother sometimes kept things in there when she didn't know what else to do with
them, and no one had occupied any real space in there....at least not in her
lifetime, as far as she knew. ~ Think I'll start at the closet, and work my way
to the boxes.~
Combing
through the closet turned up some very interesting prospects for the drive, and
she set them out on the floor of the room for her mother's approval. She was
about to move on to one of the rather large boxes when something out of the
corner of her eye caught her attention: a crack in the closet ceiling. Upon
closer inspection, it proved to be a small door. ~ What in the world? ~
Mandy
ran for a ladder, hoping her mother wouldn't come home before she found her way
down again. She could just hear the lecture now. She made her way up, and
fought with the door. ~ Nobody's been up here lately, I take it. YES! ~ The
door gave way with a sudden swoosh. Mandy pulled herself though and looked
around, gaping at what she was seeing.
The
room was like a life-size doll house. Small chairs occupied by various stuffed
animals ringed a little table, and a miniature coat rack sat off to the side,
heaped with large outlandish clothes that reminded Mandy vaguely of her
grandmother. A small chest sat in the opposite corner.
Moving
slowly, Mandy crawled cautiously over to the chest. Gently, she ran her fingers
across the all too familiar letter "A" that had been cut intricately
into the top. "How did you get up here? I know I left you in my room an
hour ago." Mandy's voice sounded strange to her own ears in the small,
musty space.
She
summoned all her courage and lifted the lid. The content was much like that of
the other chest, that was in fact, sitting in Amanda's bedroom. The only
difference was that she had never seen any of these things before. And the
defiantly weren't hers. The picture were what bothered her most. True her
mother had a passion for taking old fashioned pictures, she said they were more
"alive" than holo pics, and had taken dozens of Amanda over the
years, adding special touches and captions to preserve the memories.....but the
subject of these pictures was a total stranger.
* *
*
Will
slowly guided his wife through the front door of their house. He was still
disturbed by the scene in the transport lot, but Deanna had insisted that she
was fine, just the victim of a bad day. Still, he worried.
"Mom,
Dad! Is that you?" Mandy ran breathlessly into the hall, eyes wide.
"Amanda,"
Will said sternly, "your mom had a bad day, whatever it is can wait until
she feels better."
"Dad,
this really can't wait. Sorry Mom, but I need you to see something, NOW!"
She pulled them into the room before they had another chance to protest. There
on the table, was the chest, which Mandy had pulled down from the crawl space
(with more than a little difficulty).
Seeing
this seemed to brighten Deanna's mood considerably. "Your memory chest.
Oh, we haven't gone through that in ages. But why the urgency, honey. It isn't
as if we've never seen it before."
Mandy held her breath not knowing what the effect of her next words might be. "But, Mom," she said slowly and carefully, "it isn't mine.”