I’ll always want to be your friend, Annabelle. Do you want to be mine?”My head nodded like mad, ecstatic, all on its own. I disappeared among the shadows again and watched my new friend until...

The fact is, the man who’d begotten me didn’t want me. In his eyes I should never have been born. And perhaps that would’ve been best. As it was, my existence had proven to be...

Rainbows paint the sky ‘til the sun melts their colors.Swinging in the wind, whiskered cattails purr.The pigs gallop by and snort at the moon,While frogs kiss the lizards and princesses too.”

Dare to imagine. Dare to be. Books are the seeds. Dreams are the soil. The fruit of the harvest, a world reborn.

Though it pained me, I gave in. Why was it that I repeatedly succumbed to the first whisper of a promised maybe? How did the enticer, hope, always find my heart unguarded? There was no...

The interruption did nothing but earn her a similar slap, as I’m sure she knew it would. Sometimes I wondered if my mother spoke up at the wrong time on purpose. As often as we...

Answer me, you good-for-nuthin’ wench!” The pain bit instantly as his hand connected with my cheek. I shook my head in answer to his crazy questions, feeling a rise of warm tears.

Are you superstitious?” Annabelle asked with a grin.Daisy glowered at her. “There’s a reason for superstitions, you know. At some point in time, something bad happened to someone who was standing right next to a...

My fingers combed through my dark hair, short and straight, landing in choppy, uneven ends nearly level with my chin. The color reminded me of every evil character in any fairytale. It seemed all were...

Real? Real depends upon your perspective, Annabelle. People never see life exactly the same way. The world is what you think it is.

I’m not really Red Riding Hood. My name is Annabelle, but I’m pretending to be her because……well……because this is my dream and that’s what I wish to dream about.”Oh glorious day! He’d learned her name!...

Have you ever felt as if your dreams were more memorable, more alive, than what you knew to be reality? Have your dreams ever seemed so tangible as to make you question upon waking if...

you’re Shane, right?’He inched away from her and managed a quick nod as he twisted the rag he held in his fingers. ‘Heidi sad you were willing to teach me how to ride.’ Her expression...

I realized at that moment – observing his form move further away without once turning back – that I’d already begun to rebuild the imaginary wall between us. I was shielding my heart with stone...