Chapter 31 - Gen 2 - Tapestry

After helping Cherry to feed, bath and put the three toddlers to bed, we ate dinner.  A nice meal that Affair had cooked, which I was enjoying until their visitor turned up.  I made my excuses and make my way to my temporary bedroom.  The bedroom that I have to sleep in while I am at Cherry and Affairs house, where I am staying for a few days, while Lilly is in the hospital.

I am still very uncomfortable around other people, especially those who are not colourless, however, I really like Cherry, even though she looks very strange to me.  She is yellow AND red, what I am told is a mixed berry.  Her skin is yellow and her hair and eyes are red.  I did not even know that colour mixing was possible, until I landed in this town.  I have only ever seen people of one colour before, never two.   So seeing people that are more than just one colour is taking quite a bit of getting used to for me.

I would have liked to have stayed and watched the television with Cherry and Affair.  I feel quite comfortable with them, and they did try to get me to join them in front of the television, but I really do not like the other yellow and red lady who has come to visit them and is staying over.

Cherry's sister, Strawberry, she is grumpy and mean and she is spending the night here because she has split up with her boyfriend and does not want to go home tonight.  I do not like her and do not feel comfortable being around her so I told them I was tired and wanted to go to bed.  Even though it was far from the truth and it was just an excuse to get away.

I lie on the bed looking around the small red and white room.  I am bored, which is not anything new really, at the moment I think I would rather be lying on the bench outside the hospital, at least I would have something to do.  I could be sat watching the people coming and going, in and out of the hospital instead of being lay here staring at these four walls.  I suddenly feel a little suffocated, I am not used to being shut in a house, I am used to the outdoors.  I am far from tired and my head is buzzing and too busy for me to sleep.

I seriously do not even know how I ended up in this strange town!!!  It is full of strange mixed coloured and colourless people who are nothing but nice to me which suddenly does not make any sense!!  Nice enough for Mango and Lilly, who I do not even know, to give me a place to live.  I have moved into their house, I have my own bedroom and they have even taken me out shopping to buy me some new clothes and anything else that I might need.  Nobody complained about me being in their shop in this town, unlike in Rainbow Valley where even if I had the money to spend, they would not let me inside to buy anything, because I am colourless.

I have always been treated badly by EVERYONE so why do the people here in Sugar Valley treat me differently.  Everyone smiles at me instead of pulling horrible faces, everyone speaks to me nicely instead of hurling abuse at me.  Here I am treated like everyone else, it does not matter to anyone that I am colourless.  I have always thought  that I was the only colourless person, until I arrived here, I was pretty shocked to find out there are a lot more.  Affair, Lilly, Magnolia, Sugar and Moon are all colourless like me, suddenly I do not feel so alone.  I have also seen people with colourless eyes, and Coral, Lilly's daughter, is three different colours, purple, orange and has colourless eyes, it all looks like total madness to me!!

How did I even get to Sugar Valley??  Affair has told me that Rainbow Valley and Amber Meadow, the only two places that I know, are both thousands of miles away from here - on the other side of the planet he says - I am seriously confused.

Mulberry, the purple guy, who is Affairs Uncle and Lilly's brother, says he found me in Sugar Valley park, just lying on the grass unconscious, so he picked me up and took me to the hospital.  How did I get from one side of the planet to the other?  How did I get from Rainbow Valley to Sugar Valley? - did I fall down a hole in the woods and land here?  Or did the Bad Men bring me here?  That is what I thought up until tonight, now I am beginning to wander if that man did not have something to do with me being here.

Tonight I saw that man again, the one who I keep thinking about in my sleep and is in my head.  Only tonight, I have seen him, in the flesh, with my own two eyes and I have been told his name is Tapestry.

Since I woke up in the hospital I have tried and tried to think of the last thing that I can remember, and none of it makes sense!!  I keep thinking about that orange man with the colourless eyes in my sleep, stupid things that I do not remember doing, only in my sleep his eyes are orange, not colourless, and he is wearing glasses.  However, strangely, he is also the last thing that I can remember, in Rainbow Valley and in the cold strange place.

I remember lying on the bench outside the hospital, in Rainbow Valley, starving hungry and wishing I could just go to sleep so that I did not have to feel the constant hungry pains in my stomach, that I get sick of having to live with every day.  I had not had a good day, food wise, the only thing that I had eaten that day was an already half eaten apple that I watched someone toss into the gutter.

While I was wishing for sleep I just lay watching the people walking past me, cars driving on and off the car park, people going in and out of the hospital.  I was watching the dirty looks that people give me and listen to the nasty names they call me which are second nature to me, and now a days I just ignore them, I think I am way past being hurt by what everyone thinks and says about me.

Something bright catches my eye, as one of the cars drives onto the hospital car park.  A spirit.  A stupid spirit, who is standing up and half in and half out of the blue car that is pulling into a parking space.  I quite often see spirits doing things that the living people don't or can not do.  I watch the spirit as he jumps off the car laughing away to himself.  A blue and orange person get out of the car.  The blue lady, who I now know is Winter, goes into the boot of the car while the orange man stands talking to the spirit.  I sit up, because it is not normal to see living people talking to faded people.  I think I am the only living person that takes any notice of the spirits, I really do not understand why the living ignore and do not talk to the faded.  I sit and watch the orange man walk into the hospital with the blue lady, the spirit is playing him up, poking him and jumping around him and the orange man looks like he is getting very annoyed with the spirit.  After I have watched them go inside the hospital I lie back down and close my eyes.  That is the last thing that I remember about Rainbow Valley, I think!

The next thing that I remember, the cold, dark, stone place that stinks nasty!!!  I am not sure if that horrible place is here or in Rainbow Valley.  That man, who I now know is Tapestry, has his arms around me, he tells me he loves me, for a split second I feel happy, then .... nothing.

That memory is gone like a flash, then I get another memory, I wake up, still in the cold stinky stone place, and I see his face in front of me, he is holding me again, but this time I am scared of him, I do not know who he is, like he is a total stranger.  I scream and try to get away from him.  I try to run but something or someone jumps on me, I feel the ice cold hands of the Bad people, everything goes black and then that memory stops.  The next thing I know I am waking up in the hospital scared of all the people around me, especially the ones in the white coats, who call themselves doctors and the purple man who I now know is Mulberry.

The strangest thing that I really can not work out, besides not knowing how I got here.  How did I get from being dirty, dressed in rags and starving, to well dressed, clean and no longer hungry?!  When I woke up in the hospital and saw myself in the mirror I screamed because I did not recognize myself.  The reflection in the mirror was definitely not the same as the one I usually see, that I catch occasionally when I am passing glass windows or the reflection that I see on the surface of the water when I look into the lake. 

It is almost like a big chunk of my life or memories is missing, I am missing time because nothing connects together or makes any sense.  Silly things, like how do I know how to eat with a knife and fork, when I have never had to do that in my life.  How do I know what a television is and what it does, when I have never seen or watched one before.  I find myself doing a lot of things that I have never done before and do not know how or why I am doing them!!  It is all one big mystery to me!! 

When Affair told me earlier that we were going round to Lillys house, I thought she was out of the hospital already.  I was a little disappointed to find out that she was not.  While I love being with Affair and especially the triplets, I prefer to be with Lilly, she understands some of what I have been through and she is a woman like I am, I find it a lot easier to talk to her than I do to Affair.  We were going round to Lilly's house to see Affairs cousins, Lilly's and Mango's sons, Tapestry and River, who have returned home after being away for a long time, he did not tell me where they had been.

I was already feeling uncomfortable with all the people in the house that I do not know.  I thought about sneaking off to the triplets who were in the nursery playing with Cotton, Lilly's daughter.  Affair is talking to his Dad, who is a scary purple man, so I just stay quiet and stand behind Affair really wishing that we were not here with all these other people.

Then he walked in to the room - Tapestry.

It felt like my heart stopped working and all my blood drained away.  At first I thought I was seeing things, the minute I saw him, I knew him from my memories and my sleep.  As soon as he walks into the room, carrying the yellow baby, he looks and smiles at me.  I just dart behind Affair, a little shocked by all the bruises on both his and River's faces.  Every time I look at him, even when he is talking to someone, he keep glancing over in my direction, staring and smiling, almost like he is trying to attract my attention.  After a while Tapestry walks over to talk to Affair, who takes the baby off him.  I have seen that yellow baby with the colourless eyes before, at the hospital, Lilly took me there when she went to see, her son Tapestry's yellow baby.  I hear Tapestry tell Affair that he has called the baby Vanilla.  As he is speaking to Affair, I even know his voice, this confuses me, how can I know his voice when I have never seen or spoken to him before, only in my head.

Tapestry tried to talk to me.  He said  "Hello Crystal."  and smiled at me.  I panicked, I do not know why, I quickly told Affair I was going to check on the triplets and hurried away before Tapestry got the chance to talk to me again.  As I rushed away I heard Affair telling Tapestry that I am shy and not very good around people that I do not know.  I spent the rest of the time we were there playing with Cotton and the triplets and did not see Tapestry again, but I can not stop thinking about him and I do not know why.

I suddenly hear one of the triplets start screaming then crying, this snaps my head back to reality, so I quickly get off the bed and plan to go and see which one of the triplets is crying and why.  As I open my bedroom door, I see Affair walking into the babies room opposite.  I doubt it needs the both of us so I decide not to follow him into their room.  I go to shut the bedroom door when I hear Cherry suddenly shouting quite loudly, so I follow the noise and walk down the corridor to listen.  I can hear Cherry arguing with her sister.

I do not go into the living room where they are, I stand next to the door, leaning against the wall and listen.  I hate hearing people arguing, it always reminds me of one of the very few things that I can remember from my very early child hood, before the children's home.  Being constantly locked in a small room, with just my teddy bear for company, hearing a couple, who I presume were my parents, constantly shouting and arguing.   The only time I saw either of them was when they came into give me a bottle, then they would go again, most of the time it was her, rarely him.  I can not remember now what either of them look like and the only other thing that I can remember is she used to sing to me sometimes.  when I would not sleep, she used to sing to me, I still remember that song now, in fact it is still the only song that I know.

I wrap my arms around myself, really wishing that I had my teddy bear here, but it is sat on my bed, in my new bedroom at Lilly and Mango's house.  I was only meant to be staying with Affair, for a few hours, while Lilly went to the hospital to visit someone, but she fell and banged her head and has to stay in the hospital for two days.  I did not expect to be staying here so I did not bring my teddy bear with me.

This reminder of my parents and hearing Cherry and her sister arguing, makes me feel horrible.  I want to move away from the door and out of earshot of the argument, I really should go back to my room but something keeps me there listening.  I am curious because I can hear Tapestry's name keep being mentioned.  They are arguing over the baby.

"I am telling you now Straw, just drop it!!"  Cherry snaps  "You just leave Tapestry and Vanilla alone, she is his child!!"

"I do not care!!  He is an IDIOT!!  You know he can not even look after himself, there is no way he will take care of Vanilla properly.  I am still going to take her, it is what Honey would have wanted!!"

"NO STRAW!!  She would not!!  She would have wanted Tapestry to look after her, it is his child for berrys sake!!  You have no right!!"  Cherry sounds very angry  "There is only you going on with this rubbish, there are plenty of people around to help Tapestry with Vanilla!!  Everybody thinks you are in the wrong so just stop now Straw, before you cause anymore trouble!  Don't you think everyone has been through enough lately!!  That poor child already has to grow up without her Mother, and you want to take her away from her Father too, the only person you are thinking about here is yourself!!"

"I am thinking about Vanilla and her future well being!!"  she snaps at Cherry  "I am Honey's twin remember, I knew her better than any of you, and she would have wanted me to take Vanilla, not leave her with that idiot!!"  Strawberry laughs  "Tapestry is a moron!!  It is only a matter of time before he does something to put her into danger, I give him a week and he will have lost her wandering off and forgetting like he does!!  I have got half a mind to just take her now and move away before that happens!!  Berry Shores is supposed to be ten times better place than this dump of a town!!"

"I am WARNING you Straw, you can stop this nonsense NOW!!!.  First thing in the morning I am telling Dad and Mango what you are saying.  You lay one finger on that baby and you and me WILL be falling out - you will be shipping out to Berry Shores ALONE if you even try anything stupid!!  Carry on with this rubbish and you will alienate EVERYONE."  she snaps nastily  "If Affair hears you talking like this, you will be straight out the front door, with more than a flea in your ear!!"

"Oh here we go!!  I wandered how long it would take before you brought Mr Perfect Orchid into this!!"   Strawberry snaps at Cherry

"Back off Straw  Don't you start slagging Affair off just because you have messed up your own relationship and Parsley has dumped you!!  You had a good one there, Parsley is a good bloke, but you just couldn't keep your knickers up could you!!  I knew one day he would find out just how much of a slut you really are!!"  Cherry laughs sarcastically  "Gravel, I ask you!!  You and Coral both need your heads and eyes testing!!"

"Just shut up Cherry!!  Don't start with that again!!"

"No!!  You disgust me Straw!!  Who is the next victim that you are going to drop your knickers for, Slate? Tapestry? Affair?  I hear they are the only ones left in the extended family that you haven't been through ... or have you stepped it up to the oldies now?  Let's see who you have left to play with - Mulberry, Prelude, Mango, Alpine ... oh and River, and I hear Gravel's gay brother and his boyfriend are pretty cute!  Let's face it, not even the gay boys are off limits with you are they, you even managed to con Bayleaf into having a go!!"  Cherry starts laughing 

"Wind your neck in Cherry, now you are just being childish!!

I do not like where this conversation was going regarding Vanilla, but I am really beginning not to understand what they are talking about now.  They have stopped talking about Tapestry and Vanilla, they have moved their conversation onto something else, so I do not want to listen any more.

Affair shouts Cherry and I panic.  I do not want her to know that I have been listening to their conversation, so I slip quickly into the kitchen before anyone sees me standing there.  I need to get out of here and this house, I feel suffocated.  I need my teddy bear and I do not want to be cooped up in that small room alone with my thoughts, so I quietly unlock the back door and slip out of the house.

After I have run across the garden, I try the gate and it is locked so I just climb over it, and run out onto the street.  I do not stop running until I reach the end of the road.  I already feel a lot better just from being outside, it is all that I have ever been used to, a roof of endless sky and stars over my head.  I am not sure that I can be completely comfortable living in a house.

I slow down once their house is out of sight and start to walk at a leisurely pace.  I am not even sure that I know the way to Lilly and Mango's house.  I get the feeling that I might even get myself  lost, but I do not really care right now.

As I walk up the street I think about what Affair was telling me on the way back to his house when we left Lilly's house earlier.  I asked who Vanilla's Mother is and Affair told me that Vanilla's Mother, Honey, had faded when Vanilla was born along with her twin brother.  I think that is very sad!!  He also told me about his brother Storm, he also faded less than a year ago when he was a teenager.  He puzzled me, he looked at me strangely when I asked him if he see's his brothers spirit hanging around and talks to it.  He laughs at me and calls me a crack pot because he does not believe in ghosts.  How can he not believe in ghosts when they are everywhere?

I actually surprise myself as I walk down the next street, I recognize the houses that I am passing, but I guess it is second nature to me to take notice of my surroundings outdoors. We had walked with the triplets earlier, instead of coming in the car, we pushed them in their pushchairs, as Lilly and Mango's house is not too far away from Cherry and Affairs house.  I know I am going in the right direction, because I recognize things a long the way.

I see Lilly and Mango's house with relief, I have made it here without getting lost.  I run down the steps and am pleased to see that there are quite a lot of lights on in the house, I worried that I might have left it a little too late and there might be nobody around or up still to let me in.

This house is rather strange, it is very busy, there is always a lot of people here, coming and going, walking in and out, family and extended family who do not even live here.  Affair has tried to explain to me, the family connections and who everyone is, but it is too complicated for me to understand and there are too many names and people for me to try and remember.  That is why Mango thought it best that I stay with Affair until Lilly comes out of the hospital.  As I am not really comfortable around all these people that are constantly wandering around, even if they are nothing like the people in Rainbow Valley, because everyone here is always nice to me.

I try the door handle on the front door and surprisingly the door opens.  I am not sure that they ever lock this door.  While I have been here most people just walk in without knocking the door.  I walk in and close the door quietly behind me.

I stop in the hallway and stare down the basement steps.  I know that Tapestry is down there, that is where he lives, Lilly showed me around his apartment.

I am not sure why but I have a sudden urge to go down there so that I can see him.  I have questions that I need to ask him, I need to make sense of how and why I am here, and I am sure he must have something to do with it because I have seen both Tapestry and Winter in Rainbow Valley and it has to be more than a coincidence that they are now here like I am.

"Are you okay dear?"  Mango's Mom, Lemon calls me from the living room where she is sitting reading a book.  I like Lemon she is a really sweet old lady.

"Eeer yes, I just came to get something that I left in my room that I need." 

I smile at her nervously as she closes her book and gets out off her seat and walks to the archway between the hallway and the living room.

"Please tell me you have not walked from Affairs house without your shoes!"  she laughs at me.  "You know dear, you really need to start wearing your shoes when you go outside, you are going to catch a chill or step on something and hurt your feet!!" 

Lilly, Lemon and Winter have all tried to get me to wear shoes but every time I put my feet into them I scream. I can not stand the feeling of having my feet trapped in shoes, I do not think that I have ever worn shoes before, I have run around bare foot all my life.  The bottoms of my feet are hard and used to walking on the ground, I rarely feel anything uncomfortable that hurt my feet, not even in the woods.

Lemon starts to show concern about me wandering around alone outside late at night.
 
I walk up the stairs slowly with Lemon, who says she is just off to bed herself.  She is trying to convince me to let her get River or Tapestry to walk me back to Affairs house but I tell her that I am okay on my own, I have lived on the streets all my life and know how to look after myself.

When Lemon goes into her room she says goodnight and I make my way to my bedroom.  When I open the door, I realize, that I actually like this room a lot better than the room that I have at Affairs house.  It is much bigger so it does not feel so suffocating, I have a bigger two persons bed and there is a television in the room.  I think about staying here instead of going back to Affairs house, it is getting late and I never thought when I left I might not get back into their house.  I know they will lock the back and front door before they go to bed.  They think that I have gone to bed already so they do not even know that I am out of the house.

I pick my teddy bear up off the bed and stand there holding it, as I turn on the television, glad that the volume is very low so that it does not disturb anyone.  My teddy always makes me feel a lot better, it is the only comfort that I have every had.  I walk over to the window and stand there hugging my teddy, while I listen to the television as I look out onto the street.

I had not been stood there for long when I am shocked to see her coming down the street towards the house.  The yellow and red lady, I have forgotten her name already, Cherry's sister.

Why is she coming here?  To take the baby away!!

I drop my teddy bear on the floor in a panic and run out of my room and down the stairs, to the hall.  When I reach the bottom of the stairs I can see her through the glass of the front door walking quickly down the steps outside towards the front door.  I have to stop her from taking the baby away.

I quickly run down into the basement and open the nursery room door.  Luckily Lilly has showed me around down here, and I spent a few hours down here because Winter let me help her to bath and feed Ocean.  I really love babies and little children like Cotton.  The children are more on my wavelength, Mango thinks I have a childish nature still because I have never had a proper childhood like other children, instead of playing, learning, being loved and taken care of, instead of doing all the things that children do, I was living alone and almost feral in the woods just surviving.  He is amazed that I have managed to survive living the way that I have.

I open the nursery door quietly and only see Ocean in the cot closest to Winters bedroom.  The other cot is empty.  I know that the other door leads into Tapestry's room, Winter told me.  I have heard a lot about Tapestry over the last few days, I just did not know who he actually was.  I did not know the name of that man in my head until I saw him earlier tonight.

I open the door to Tapestry's room quietly and creep in.

I freeze for a moment as I see Tapestry curled up on the bed fast asleep.  Vanilla is in the cot by his bed.  I do not know whether to wake him up or not, I am scared that he might shout at me for being here.   I tiptoe over to the cot quietly trying not to wake him up..  I think about the bad lady coming to take the baby away and quickly take Vanilla out of the cot and tiptoe out of the door, into the nursery and out into the hallway.

As I close the nursery door quietly behind me, I am stood out in the hallway at the bottom of the stairs and I realize that I should have left Tapestry's bedroom by the other door, the one that leads out into the kitchen.  Now I am stood there right in front of her, the bad lady, where she can see me.

I see the bad lady coming down the stairs to the basement, on tiptoes, she is trying to be very quiet.  She sees me with Vanilla and freezes for a moment as she stops and stares at me wide eyed.  A nasty look flashes across her face and I decide to run.

I bolt through one of the doors close by which takes me into the kitchen.  I run into the bathroom and lock the door behind me, if she can not get in, she can not take the baby away.  I lean against the door in relief that we are safe in here where she can not get to us.

The bad lady must have followed me and watched where I went because I hear her try the door handle and the bathroom door shakes a little behind me, so I move away from the door quickly and back away from the door.  Then she taps on it lightly.

"Crystal let me in you sneaky freak!!"

She says very quietly but loud enough for me to hear her.  I am a little surprised by her calling me that because it is the first time that I have been called anything horrible since I have been in Sugar Valley.

"NO!!  Go Away!!"  I shout at her.

"Give me the baby Crystal!!"  she says  "If you don't I will tell Tapestry you have got her!!"

"Go and tell him!!  I will tell him that you came to take the baby away to some other Berry town!!"  I shout at her  "I heard you telling Cherry!!"

"You was listening to our conversation, you nosy cow!!"  she snaps at me  "That baby is nothing to do with you so you need to give her to me, she is my niece!!"  

 It goes quiet for a moment because I do not say anything.  She can say what she likes, I am not opening this door and letting her in here.  I can not let her take the baby away.

"Now open the door and let me in, I want my niece!!"

"No Go Away!!  I am not coming out and neither is Vanilla!!"

I sit down on the white wicker chair that is in the bathroom, holding the baby, who is still asleep.  I laugh at the chair, I had been very fascinated with it when I came in here with Winter, because it is made out of exactly the same material as the clothes basket.  That is how I know it is a wicker chair, because Winter told me. 

I can do nothing now but sit and wait for her to go or for someone to come and see her here.  The time drags.  She hangs around for a while and bangs on the door a few times and swears at me, trying to coax me out, but I just stay quiet and ignore her.  Even after it goes silent and I think she has gone, I stay sitting there, scared she might be waiting quietly for me to open the door so she can pounce and take the baby.

I hear the door thud and shake really loudly, while someone is trying the door handle, which wakes me up.  I had nodded off to sleep and I do not know how long I had been sat on the chair with the baby.  At first I think it is the bad lady so I stay silent.

"River the damn door is locked or stuck!!"

I hear a female voice that I recognize, I think it is Winter.  I go to open the door feeling safe with Winter, when I hear another voice that I do not recognize, a male voice, so I freeze and do not move.  I hear the door rattling again and watch the handle turning backwards and forwards.

"Tap are you in there?"  he shouts as he bangs on the door.  I stay quiet.

"Use the toilet upstairs then go back to bed,  I'll feed Ocean."  he says  "I'll check the door in the morning and fix it if it's stuck."

"Okay."  Winter says  "Oh River, don't forget take the bottles off the bottom shelf.  The bottles on the top shelf are for Vanilla, I don't want Ocean getting hooked on vanilla milk."

I sit there not knowing whether to go out or not, but I am scared they might shout at me and I do not know River at all.  He scares me a little, so I stay where I am too scared to move.

I wait until it goes completely quiet before I brave opening the door.  I really have no choice now but to move when Vanilla wakes up and starts to grizzle a little, I think she might want feeding.

I remember what I heard Winter say and go into the fridge for a bottle, taking one off the top shelf and warm it up in the jug of hot water that River has left on the side.  I know how to do this too because Winter showed me and I have been helping Cherry and Affair feed the triplets.  Cherry says I am getting good at looking after the children.

I stay in the kitchen while I feed Vanilla her bottle while I watch the fish swimming around in the fish tank in the wall.  All the time I am worrying that someone might come in and catch me and shout at me.  I am also scared that the bad lady might come back.
 
After I have made the baby belch out wind, like Winter has showed me to do by putting the baby on my shoulder and patting her back, I creep into the nursery and take a nappy and go back into the living room to change her soggy nappy.

I do not know what to do then.  I am a little scared to put the baby down, who has now gone back to sleep.  I am scared to put her back into her cot in case the bad lady returns and tries again to take her while Tapestry is sleeping.

I decide to take Vanilla to my bedroom, where there is a lock on my bedroom door and that will keep her from coming into the room and taking the baby.  My room is better than spending the night in the bathroom.

I go out into the hallway and up the two flights of stairs to my bedroom.  The house is completely quiet and there is nobody around, I guess that everyone is now asleep.  I lie vanilla in the middle of the big bed after I have locked the door behind me.  Placing her on the bed woke her up, so I sit on the bed and watch her for a while, until she goes back to sleep.

I spend the rest of the night standing in the window.

I can not sleep, watching to make sure that the bad lady does not come back.


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I stand frozen just staring at River who is just staring back at me with one of his worried faces.  I think he is even now starting to believe it, he has checked every room in the house and Vanilla is simply not here!! 

My baby has gone missing and I am not sure what all the emotions are that are running through me, half of them I do not really understand.

All I know is that I have never felt this scared in my life!!  Not even when I watched the vampberry draining Honey or when he started to drain me and I thought I was about to fade - I was not this scared.

Vanilla has only been a part of my life for less than 48 hours, but still I am terrified that I am never going to see her again - it is the weirdest feeling that I have ever experienced.

I watch as Dad pulls out his phone.  I stand there numbly watching him, I wander who he might be phoning.  I am pretty surprised when I hear him say the name Jazz.  I think it very strange that Jazz would be the first one that he contacts.  I listen to him explaining that Vanilla has gone missing, and we think that someone has taken her out of the house, then I hear him checking that they still have Manderine.  I laugh at Dad thinking it might be Manderine. 

Berry!!  I am so stupid, I know exactly who it is going to be!!  Strawberry!!  I snap open my phone and with River's help I call Strawberry's phone, she is not normally somebody that I would phone. I tell River to phone Sunny to let him know what has happened.  I am actually very surprised that my Dad did not phone Sunny first.

Dad sees me watching him, and he makes his way out of the room to finish his conversation with Jazz, which I am thinking is very suspicious.  It is not like Jazz can do anything in this situation, it is light, he can not go out and look for my baby, so why is he wasting time talking to him!!

Strawberry's phone just keeps ringing and ringing until it goes onto voice mail.  I start swearing at her and leave Strawberry a really nasty message, telling her to bring my baby back before I hunt her down find her and fade her.  When I cut the call off, River is watching me wide eyed, almost with a look of disgust,  I do not think he understands why I just know it is Strawberry that has taken Vanilla.  I have to explain to him what happened at the hospital, when she tries to take Vanilla off me and tell him what she said about the baby needing to be protected from me.  Then I think he understands, why I am so certain it is Strawberry who has taken Vanilla.

Dad walks back into the room with the phone still stuck to his ear and I think at first that he is still talking to Jazz until I realize he is now talking to Elderberry.  He is reporting Vanilla's disappearance to the police.  I wander why he chose to report Vanilla missing to El and not Gravel?  

Since Strawberry does not answer my second call to her phone, I try Parsley.  I do not need River's help to phone Parsley.  I have two P's in my phone P1 is Prelude and P2 is Parsley.

"Is Strawberry with you?"  I ask him as soon as he answers his phone

"Hell Tap what time is it?"  he moans  "No Strawberry is not with me!  I have ditched the bitch,  I have had enough!!"  he mumbles down the phone like he is still half asleep.

"Shit!!  I think she has taken my baby!!  I don't suppose you would know where she might be?"

"WHAT?!"  He shouts down the phone, almost deafening me.  I think he is awake now!

I explain to him that someone has come into our house, probably between midnight and 4am and taken Vanilla.  I tell him that I think there is only Strawberry who would do that, and explain to him what happened at the hospital.  He tells me that they had a massive argument yesterday tea time, because he has found out she has been sleeping with someone else and he has broken up with her.

"I'm sorry mate!!  I hate to ask but I need to find her, do you think she is with him?"

"I doubt it!!"  he laughs  "I think Coral might just scratch her eyes out if she is - it was Gravel who she has been screwing behind my back!!  Slate told me, he caught Gravel with Strawberry before he caught him with your sister!!"

"W.T.F!!  You are pulling my leg right!!"

"No I wish I was!!"  he goes quiet for a moment  "I'll get dressed and I'll see if I can find her for you!!  I'll phone you and let you know."

I shut off my phone not sure if I had heard any of that right!!

I am a little amused when Sunny comes tearing into the bedroom, in his bedclothes, he has not even bothered to get dressed before leaving his house, he must have run through the streets dressed like that.  I am half expecting him to say something along the same lines as River and Dad did about me losing her, but he doesn't.

Straight away he agrees with me in thinking that it will be Strawberry who has taken off with Vanilla.  He says that Strawberry was not home this morning when he checked.   Her bed has not been slept in so he presumed she was staying over at Parsley's.  Which I now know did not happen.

I have to tell Sunny what Parsley has just told me about them having an argument and breaking up because Slate has told him that she has been sleeping with Gravel.  Parsley has not seen Strawberry since yesterday tea time.  This did not seem to come as any surprise to Sunny or my Dad, neither of them reacted like I thought they would, I thought my Dad especially might start kicking off because of Gravel now being with Coral.  It appears they must have already known.

"I told you it would only be a matter of time before Parsley found out!!"  he mutters to Dad quietly  "Fudge!!  I would love to throttle that bloke for all the damage he's causing!!"

"Join the queue I'm first in line to throttle him!!"  Dad laughs  "I knew Slate wouldn't be able to keep it to himself, he told me he was struggle to look Parsley in the face."  Dad tuts  "Coral and Strawberry both need their heads testing, two good blokes they have lost because of that slime ball!!"

While I am amused by their conversation, I am getting irritated that this is not helping to find Vanilla is it!!  I lose my temper with them both and start yelling at them for gossiping about rubbish while my baby is missing!!  They both stand there looking a little sheepish and exchange a strange look that I do not understand while River just stands there chuckling at me.

Sunny starts to phones round all of his other children trying to see if he can locate Strawberry, but so far none of them have seen her and they do not know where she is.

I want to get dressed and go out looking for her but Dad will not let me.  He says I have to wait here until Elderberry gets here, and let the police handle it.  He tries to explain to me that I am just going to work myself up into a tizzy, which my head will not take, if I am running around the streets looking for her, he knows because he tried it when I went missing.  This does not help me, when I feel terrible just standing here doing nothing.

"I think we might have a bigger problem than we thought!!"  Sunny says suddenly as he snaps his phone shut  "I have just been talking to Cherry apparently she had a huge argument with Strawberry last night over her taking Vanilla..."

He starts to look a little sheepish as he starts to explain.  Cherry was going to speak to both my Dad and Sunny this morning because last night Strawberry was keeping on that she was going to take Vanilla, she is convinced that I can not look after the baby and it is what Honey would have wanted.  Strawberry mentioned to Cherry about taking Vanilla and moving to Berry Shores with her.  Cherry thinks that she was planning to snatch her and just take off with her.

"She should have told us this last night!!"  I snap at Sunny

"She knows, she feels guilty, she said it was very late last night and she thought Strawberry had gone to bed.  Cherry has just checked the spare room where she thought Strawberry was sleeping, but her bed has not been slept in."  Sunny rolls his eyes  "Also, I know now is not a good time to tell you this Tapestry, but Crystal has gone too, her bed has not been slept in either."

Sunny continues to explain that Cherry said she thought Crystal was a little quiet and fidgety last night while they were eating, she went off to bed really early, but must have sneaked off while nobody was looking.  She must have been gone all night.

This sends me into a total panic!!

River tries to calm me down as I start to hold my head and rock.  I can feel my head starting to  go.  It is bad enough that Vanilla has gone missing but Crystal too.  I was scared that something like this might happen, she is not used to being cooped up in a house, especially with strange people.  I am now scared that she might have run off trying to find woods to live in or make her way back to Rainbow Valley, the only place that she knows.

"Tap did you go to the bathroom at about 4am this morning?"

"No!!  I have told you I fed Vanilla at midnight and went to sleep and have only just woken up!!"  I snap at him, I am starting to get angry  "Why do you ask anyway?"

"Me and Winter got up with Ocean he needed a feed.  Win tried to use the bathroom but the door was locked, I called out to you thinking you was in there but when there was no reply, I presumed the door was stuck."  he starts to rub his neck  "I've just checked in the bathroom, so the door was not stuck, someone must have been locked in there ... probably whoever took Vanilla might have been hiding in there."  River stands there frowning  "FUDGE!!  I should have forced the door open, I could have stopped her from taking Vanilla!!"

I can hear Dad and Sunny talking in quiet whispers behind me which is starting to really irritate me.  I hear Dad mention Jazz quietly to Sunny which starts to make me suspicious again. They leave the room together when they see me watching them and close the door behind them.  I don't doubt so that they can talk in private where I can not hear them.

"Why do I get the feeling something is going on?"  I frown at River  "What are they whispering about, what are they trying to hide from me?"

"Nothing!!  You are just being paranoid."

"Why did Dad phone Jazz?  It is not like he can do anything in the daylight?"  I ask and River just shrugs his shoulders at me  "Don't tell me it is to check up on Manderine, because we both know she isn't getting out of that place and if she did, she would run like hell, she wouldn't come in here and steal a baby that she probably does not even know exists!!"  I frown at River  "Something is not right here I've just got a feeling, everyone is still lying to me about something!!"  River asks me why I think that.   "Well for a start I DO NOT believe that Honey had the same heart condition as Strawberry!  Why do they keep taking their conversations out of the room?"

River turns away from me and walks over to the window, probably to try and get away from my questions which he can not answer.  I think there is definitely something dodgy going on with Dad, Sunny and River.  I can tell just by the look on River's face, he is not very good at lying!!

Suddenly River bursts out laughing

"Oh Berry!!"  he keeps laughing which is irritating me.

"How the hell can you laugh at a time like this!!"  I snap at him angrily 

"Panic over!!  I think we have found your daughter, your girlfriend and our baby thief!!  Look outside Tap!"  he continues to laugh  "Oh Berry this is going to be interesting!!"

I storm over to where he is standing, he is now almost in hysterics.  I look out through the bedroom window.  It takes my mind a few seconds to process what I am looking at.  I can not quite believe what I am seeing.  A great wave of relief washes over me that almost has my legs giving way underneath me, I have to grab onto the window sill to stop myself from buckling.

Crystal is out in the back garden, sitting on the bench with Vanilla.

I bolt out of the bedroom and down to the garden.

Dad, Sunny and River all follow me.

Dad reminds me to go carefully because Crystal is still very frightened of everyone.

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