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Rain's mom. Jaron had watched from a distance, hiding in the shadows; he had been so scared.
    No one had helped Rain's mother. Curtains had been closed; open doors had banged shut. The determination to save her child's life had moved Jaron in a way nothing ever had. But the woman had been mortally wounded. She was slowing dying.
    Rain danced the song of the dead. Her small feet moved like gentle feathers on a soft current. She lifted a hand to stroke against her breasts as one would shush or comfort a child. She twisted as though to peek at her assailant. Rain was moving death—her actions so meticulously slow it was pitiful. Until finally, down she went in a graceful surrender. There was poetry in her motion when Rain danced. Her tale was gripping, and he felt his heart in her clutches.
    Rain was lying now, facedown in the alley, gasping. She lifted her head; her elbows wobbled and almost buckled beneath her. When she rose Jaron knew it was Rain the child. Lost and alone she flittered from her dead mother's side, looking back, willing her mother to rise. Rain's hair was dripping over her face; her shirt was saturated and molded to her skin. His boxers shaped to her slim hips showing off beautiful legs and a rounded behind.
    When she turned to look at him she was terrified. A childlike expression of innocence and loss made his heart hurt. Instinctively he knew whatever possessed her to dance had now lost its hold; she was wide-awake. Her eyes were pleading with him to help her. She lifted her hand and she reached for him. Her fingers trembled. Jaron stepped from the shadows just like he had eighteen years ago. Rain stepped into his arms. She clung to him and he swore he could feel her relief. Jaron turned her and shielded her from the storm.
    ~ * ~
    "You left me all alone," Rain muttered.
    Jaron lifted his hand and cupping her chin he tilted her face up to meet his gaze. "I left to save your life."
    "I was so scared," Rain said. Jaron wasn't lying; she remembered. She'd remembered everything while she had danced. Back through time her mind had taken her. Everything had been so vivid—so real. But would the person she sought be there in the shadows? "Daddy was dead; my mother was lying in a pool of blood that ran right past me. You were holding me, next you vanished. It was hours before they found me. I couldn't speak for days after."
    "Why, Rain? Why didn't you ever say anything?"
    "Because you weren't real," she muttered.
    "What?"
    "You weren't real." Her hand rose to cover her mouth for mere seconds before continuing. "You vanished and Grams said an angel watched over me that night. I thought you were an angel."
    "But you got older, you had to know. I met you when you were a baby. You knew me," he said desperately.
    "After I convinced myself you were an angel, I blocked everything else out. I wasn't allowed to see any papers or news; we didn't have a TV. We had moved within days after it happened. I was in shock. One moment we were in the city, the next in the country, and everything was so different. Everything in my world was different. My parents were dead, my home burned, my friends gone. Even my surroundings had been taken from me.
    "It took forever for Grams to teach me that squirrels weren't rats. At first I was too terrified to go outside. I had never seen a cow up close, or a horse. I had never seen so much grass; suddenly the pavement was replaced by green and not black and it felt strange under my feet, softer. The smells were different. A car's exhaust was replaced with manure and hay. Rain had a certain odor when all along I thought it was just wet and damp and moldy. My father said he named me Rain because it was so beautiful, so fresh. He always said if innocence had a texture, it would be a single clear, clean raindrop. I didn't believe him until we moved.
    "It was so quiet at night. No cars, no sirens to help me remember. Just grasshoppers chirping—I'd never heard so many. It was like a song and it made