It was one of those fall days that Sarah loved. Bright spears of sunlight spilled through the dark cloud cover here and there as gaps opened and closed in the shifting mosaic of the sky. The air was sharp, but still kept the biting chill of winter at bay. Clumps of brightly colored leaves that lay dying on the stark pavement, were thrown into the air with childish exuberance as the crisp winds swept down the empty street. Sarah walked along in the road since there weren’t any sidewalks and there was rarely any traffic on the quiet back road. Every once and a while she stopped and bent over to inspect a particularly bright or interestingly colored leaf, but mostly she occupied herself with her thoughts. It hadn’t been a good day. In fact, since she never really ever had a good day, she supposed that it was a particularly bad one.

It had started with a bad morning: plain oatmeal thrust at her in the kitchen by a surly maid and a note from her mother reminding her to take her new backpack to school, to make sure her shirt was buttoned correctly (that had only happened once in her three years of high school, for goodness sake!) and to please, please try to do something about her hair. Sarah’s mouth twisted into a wry smile as she thought about the note. She took a quick survey of her current appearance.

Her chocolate-colored hair snarled and knotted with bits of leaves and twigs trapped in its tangles. Her shirt even though it was properly buttoned, was half tucked in, half out over her school skirt. She knew without looking that her knees were dirty and skinned. As she continued walking, she caught sight of her shins and found that one grubby white sock surprisingly in place; the other was not so surprisingly in an undignified pile around her left ankle. Farther down, her shoelaces were fraying even more as they trailed behind her shuffling feet.

She knew her mother would have a few things to say to her about her appearance if she saw her when she got home. Sarah’s mother, Elizabeth, whose appearance and style were as elegant as her name, never understood why Sarah came home looking the way she did, on those rare occasions when she was home in time to catch Sarah before dinner. Sarah rarely caught more than glimpses of her mother, except across the dinner table, but when she did she found her to always be impeccably groomed and dressed. She was the perfect socialite.

Her mother’s long chestnut hair gleamed like polished wood; her blue eyes shone from beneath perfect make-up; her milky skin was smooth and clear. The perfect accessories adorned wrists, ears and neck to give whichever beautiful gown she was wearing just the right touch. Her mother would never understand why she came home looking the way she did, but then, she thought with a sigh, her mother had probably never had to crawl through the prickly underbrush in the woods behind the school so she could eat her lunch without being teased incessantly or having parts of her lunch stolen.

Despite having to spend the second half of the day looking as if she’d been in a fight with a tree, Sarah found that the time she could spend in her private sanctuary were a very welcome respite from the otherwise torturous school day. Sarah was not particularly well-liked, and she wasn’t terribly quick with book learning either. She never seemed to be able to get her head around numbers or mathematical concepts, and foreign language and grammar made her shudder just thinking about them. The only classes she excelled at were art and music. She was quite talented on the piano and even more so at drawing. She spent most of the school day dreaming and drawing. Her notebooks were full of people she’d never meet and places she’d never go except in her mind.

Of course, if she thought about it, it probably didn’t help her schoolwork to be drawing instead of taking notes. But she didn’t think about it, because she was usually off in her dream world. It was the only way to cope with all the things that usually happened to her at school. Today some of the other students had forced slices of rotten vegetables through the slits in her locker. She’d also been tripped in the hall twice, and elbowed in the stomach. She was really looking forward to escaping during lunch.

However, when she pushed her way through the bushes into her usual lunch spot, she found several of the senior girls waiting for her. She hardly had a chance to turn before two of the girls grabbed her and shoved her into a pile of leaves and mud, holding her there while the others sifted through her lunch. One of the senior girls began eating the cookie that had been at the top of Sarah’s lunch.

“Eww, bologna! That’s disgusting,” one of the girls exclaimed, dropping the sandwich on the ground like it might contaminate her. As if it were the cue the others were waiting for, they let her go and hurried out of the woods. With a sigh, Sarah stood up and brushed the dirt and bits of leaves off of herself as best as she could, before retrieving her abandoned sandwich.

She sat down on the ground again in an ungraceful heap and looked the sandwich over. Her two least favorite sandwich fillings were bologna and mustard, which could only mean one thing: her mother had packed her lunch. Rosa, the cook, who normally made the food for the household, knew that Sarah hated both bologna and mustard, amongst other things, all of which her mother never bothered to keep track of. The sandwich meant that Elizabeth and Rosa had been fighting again, which meant that Rosa wouldn’t cook for at least a couple of days until either an acceptable apology or raise was offered, depending on why they were fighting. It also meant that Sarah probably had another meal of lukewarm oatmeal to look forward to that evening.

 She decided that she’d better eat the bologna and mustard, as much as she hated it, because she knew she’d be hungry all night if she only had oatmeal for dinner. She peeled the dirt-coated bread from the mustard covered bologna and discarded it. She forced herself to eat the bologna. She could feel the cold meat slide down her throat and settle into her stomach and quickly gulped down water from a canteen from the stiff new leather and canvas backpack to get the taste out of her mouth. Even as she walked down the street a couple of hours later, she swore she could still taste the grease from it in her mouth. Tomorrow, she would pack her own lunch.

Sarah followed a leaf’s path into the air as the wind whipped it from the ground in front of her, and was surprised to find that she was at her destination: Green Gates Cemetery. She knew it seemed odd, but she had always gone to her aunt (on her father’s side) when she was feeling upset or just needed to talk to someone who would listen without criticizing. Since her aunt had died two years ago, she’d been coming out to the cemetery to talk and collect her thoughts. She didn’t really think her aunt was listening, but felt that it was comforting to speak to her anyway; just to be near her and feel her presence. Also, Sarah knew that having a captive audience was the only way anyone would listen to her, anyway. Despite its name, Green Gates was enclosed by high stone walls with heavy black iron gates that were always locked except during a funeral – locked, but widely spaced.

Sarah slid the new backpack off her back and looked at it, wishing it was her old green canvas pack that she could just toss through the gate into the dirt on the other side. She knew how upset her mother would be if anything happened to this trendy new bag, so she let the backpack hang from arm, the thin leather straps cutting into her pale, slightly pudgy forearm. She stepped through the gate backwards and sideways, bringing in the arm with the backpack last so she could keep it from snagging on the somewhat rusty bars.

“You’re not supposed to be in here!” a man’s voice said from behind her. She jumped, very nearly dropping the backpack. Regaining her grip on it, she instinctively clutched it to her chest, as she spun to face the speaker. It was an elderly man, with a polished cane grasped tightly in one gnarled hand and a coat that was far too thin for the quickly cooling weather. His white hair poked out from beneath an odd Sherlock Holmes-esque hat. She was puzzled because she had never seen him before. He continued to speak, “I oversee the caretaking here, and you are trespassing!”

“If you’re the caretaker, why haven’t I seen you here before?”

“There has been some grave desecration lately.” His reply was short and curt. He eyed her suspiciously.

“I’ve been visiting my aunt here for two years. I just like to talk to her when I’m having a bad day. I swear,” she told him, on the verge of tears. The caretaker looked at her even closer, his grip tightening on the dark cane as he leaned forward to inspect her. She felt even more acutely aware of her disheveled appearance than she did even under her mother’s disgusted gaze.

“You’re missing a button,” he said approvingly, though his expression didn’t change. She looked down to discover that she was, in fact, missing the very last button on her blouse. She decided she liked this man and his apparently strange way of judging character. He was like someone she’d draw in one of her cartoons; eccentric and endearing all at once. She wanted to talk more with him, but the old man had turned and started off along a path with surprising agility.

 “Thank you, Mr. – ”

“Abrahms!” He shouted back over his shoulder.

Sarah made her way cautiously, but steadily through the mismatched, bizarre assortment of headstones, obelisks, monuments, and statuettes that lay tumbled across the hilly lawn in uneven rows. It was an odd cemetery, but comfortingly so. Sarah never felt as out of place there as she usually did. The dead were always soothingly quiet. And they never pushed you into the dirt. She easily found her aunt’s headstone; it was right next to a monument with a crumbling stone angel perched atop it.

She had never seen a more beautiful angel. There was a loving sympathy in her expression and the way that her head was tilted just so made it seem like she was eager to listen; it was what Sarah had long ago realized she would never get from either her mother or her father. She knew that they would never look at her so intently or so lovingly. Sarah glanced up briefly at the angel before setting her backpack carefully down on the surprisingly green grass. She stepped up to her aunt’s tombstone and said “Hello, Aunt Jessie,” as she knelt to gently brush some moss off of the rough stone where it had lodged in the carefully carved letters of the epitaph. The stone was surprisingly cold beneath her fingers.

 Suddenly, she realized that the patchy clouds were now a thick grey blanket and without the sun the temperature was considerably cooler. She was a little worried about it starting to rain or even snow before she got home because she didn’t have a coat with her, but then she wasn’t planning on staying long anyway. Sarah sat down in the grass to the right of the grave so she could speak to where she thought her aunt’s head must be and see the angel that was situated to the left.

“I had such a bad day today! And I’m really going to catch it from Mother if she sees me before I get a chance to shower and change. She’ll…well, you know how she is,” Sarah started conversationally, before a slight movement from the side of the angel caught her eye. She got up and put her backpack on, ready to flee, but her curiosity overcame her fear of grave robbers and tomb desecrators. Cautiously approaching the monument, she felt her heart beating uncomfortably fast. But when she reached the far side of the monument she found a young man, looking as white and still as the stone statue above him. He seemed to be about twenty or so.

His flushed cheeks and pink mouth stood out in his otherwise colorless face. A long black coat cloaked most of his physical features, but she could tell that he would be pretty tall if he stood. His eyes were closed, the long black eyelashes splayed upon his snowy cheeks, and he didn’t seem to be breathing. She leaned in a little closer. She wasn’t entirely sure that he was real. What if she was back at school imagining all this? She worried that she couldn’t tell the difference between her fantasies and reality. Was she going crazy?

“Sarah.” The voice escaped his mouth in a puff of smoke from the warmth of his breath on the cold air.

She drew back, startled for the second time since she’d gotten to the cemetery, but grateful because he sounded too real to be in her head. But wait, had he just said her name? She decided he couldn’t have said her name. Maybe he’d said Clara or Lara. This explanation satisfied her somewhat.

 “I’m sorry, sir, who are you looking for?” she asked politely.

“I’m looking for you,” he said with a weak laugh that quickly dissolved into a deep cough that made his whole body shake.

“But I don’t even know you,” she protested, leaning in closer to make sure. It’s not like she knew so many boys that such a handsome one would have slipped her mind, but it never hurt to look closer. She’d only been on two dates in her life and there was no way that this man could be either of them. Still, she thought, one should be thorough about these things.

“I’m so sorry. I wish I could help you. But I’m quite sure we’ve never met before.”

“I knew you would come,” he told her quietly. His eyes fluttered open and she found herself staring straight into his shining silver eyes. There was something so deep and trusting in his eyes that made her step back. The emotions were so pure, they were almost child-like.

“But I almost didn’t! Mr. Abrahms nearly kicked me out…” A small, smug smile crept onto his face. Sarah frowned. This whole thing was very weird and dreamlike. She really hoped she wasn’t crazy, but the alternative, that this strange and beautiful man somehow knew her even though she didn’t know him and had been waiting for her in the cemetery seemed even worse than her not knowing that she was imagining this whole thing.

 “I knew you would come.” He was speaking in a near whisper now. If she hadn’t leaned towards him she wouldn’t have heard him at all. His eyes were closed again. She was worried that he was delirious. Clearly he was sick, and somehow he knew her name. Sarah suddenly realized that it had begun to snow. She hadn’t noticed how much the temperature had dropped in the past few minutes because she had been too preoccupied with this man who both was and wasn’t a stranger. Now she was acutely aware that she was only wearing a lightweight blouse.

“I don’t know what to do! I can’t leave you here, because clearly you’re sick and need help. Besides, if I leave you and you freeze, then am I responsible for murdering you? But I don’t even know you!” She was talking to herself, the dreaminess of it all seeping into her logic. Despite being cold and muddy and the snow falling on her skin, which was all admittedly rather un-dreamlike, Sarah still couldn’t shake the feeling that none of this was real. She felt that at any moment she might wake up in the middle of fifth period math.

She looked at him again; his face was so pale and sad amidst the black of his coat and hair. Even if this wasn’t a dream, she just couldn’t leave him. At this point it didn’t matter whether he was a stranger or not, he was obviously ill and it was growing colder rapidly. As she bent over him, trying to figure out how she was going to get him up, let alone anywhere else, she heard the caretaker’s voice behind her. “…to see if you were okay because…” his voice trailed off as he spotted the young man.

“He’s my cousin. He’s very sick. That’s why he left school and found me here. I need to get him home right away,” Sarah said quickly. Mr. Abrahms looked at her in a way that made it clear he knew that this man was not her cousin. Still he said nothing but, “Help me get him to my car, I’ll drive you both home.”

In the backseat of the car, Sarah sat with the stranger’s head in her lap so he could lie down as much as possible across the seat. Aside from Edgar Pellington (who’d kissed her on their date last year) it was the closest she’d ever been to a man so near her age. But she was surprisingly unselfconscious about it all. Actually she felt like she’d fallen down the rabbit hole, like Alice. It was just like the part where Alice was trying to figure out which of her classmates she’d become. Sarah felt similarly quite sure that she couldn’t possibly be herself, because she would never do this sort of thing.

The young man coughed, bringing her attention back to him. She looked down at him and brushed back a lock of his long black hair that had fallen in his face. His skin felt warm and damp, he was definitely feverish. He was still coughing intermittently, but his breathing seemed to be easy enough. Her mind inevitably drifted on to what was going to happen when she showed up at her house with a sick stranger draped over her shoulder. She was coming to terms with the fact that she probably wasn’t going to wake up in math class any time soon. As it was began to seem less and less likely that this was a dream, Sarah realized that she was probably going to need a plan for when she faced the house staff and her parents. Unfortunately, well before Sarah had worked up any sort of reasonable explanation, the tires of the car were crunching on the frozen gravel.

“Thank you for the ride, Mr. Abrahms. Drive home safe,” Sarah said as she got out of the car. The young man was standing on his own, but swaying with the strain. The old caretaker shot a distrustful look at him before speaking.

 “Shut that door, you’re making it cold in here!” Sarah shut the door and the car took off so fast it sprayed gravel into the lawn.

She helped the stranger into the house by supporting his weight on her shoulder and wrapping her arm around his waist. They had made it through the side door and up the back stairwell without running into anyone, but their luck ran out as they reached the top of the small staircase.

“Oh, Miss Sarah, you’re mother’s been looking for you! You better wash up and get to her room quickly,” the maid said before she saw the man. Her eyes widened but she didn’t say anything.

“Emily, this is…” she realized suddenly that she didn’t know his name; but then, somehow, she did. “Alexander. He’ll be staying with us for a little bit. Take him to the guest room and bring him some hot tea and warm pajamas at once. I’m sure Father has some old ones, he won’t notice if you take them. Then send for Dr. Fells.” When the maid didn’t move, Sarah sighed with exasperation.

“Quickly please.”

“Of course, Miss, I’ll take care of it right away. You better get to your room and get changed. There’s to be formal dinner tonight.”

“But Rosa – “

“Josephine is filling in tonight.”

“Oh, and it would be best if you didn’t tell Mother or Father about our visitor just yet.”

“Of course, Miss Sarah.” The maid crisply took control of the stranger and led him down the long hallway towards the guest room. Still feeling somewhat out of sorts from the afternoon’s events, Sarah hurried to her room. After a hot shower she felt a little refreshed, but she was preoccupied as she put on the dress that had been laid out for her. It was a fussy dress that was too young for her. It had too many layers and lots of little buttons, the sort of thing that she usually hated to put on, but after everything else today she hardly even noticed. She absently brushed the tangles from her hair. She was looking in the mirror, but all she could see were his startling eyes and their absolute trust and love.

Finally she put the brush down and put the thoughts of the strange man aside. She didn’t want to admit it to herself, but she was excited to have a dinner with her parents. She was trying to quell the happy anticipation because she knew she’d probably be let down again. It had been at least a week since she’d seen her mother, and longer since she’d last seen her father.

She hurried down the hall and up a winding flight of stairs to the master bedroom. She knocked on the door to the bedroom and heard her mother call from within. A little tentatively, Sarah opened the door and entered the room. Her heart sank. She knew at once that she wasn’t going to be having dinner with her parents. Even worse, this was all too normal to be a dream, which meant that either she was going crazy or there was really a stranger in the guest bedroom.

Her mother was dressed in a stunning turquoise ball gown, the kind Sarah always wanted to wear, rather than the childish frock she had on now. Gold glittered from her fingers, wrists and ears and delicate pearls lay softly against her chest. Sarah sank onto the bed, the disappointment rising like bile in her throat as she watched her mother’s hands pull her gleaming hair effortlessly into an elegant bun. She followed her mother in the reflection like she was hypnotized as Elizabeth carefully applied lipstick and began applying eyeshadow.

“I’m sorry, Sarah, we’re going to have to have dinner another night. A new client wanted to talk about business at this benefit tonight. It’s very important that we be there. You know how things are with new clients. We’ll have dinner next week.” Her mother wasn’t even looking at her, even though Sarah’s eyes were following hers in the mirror, hoping for a brief glance in her direction.

“Elizabeth, we have to go!” Sarah’s father’s voice called from the stairwell.

 “Alright, Jules, I’m coming!” Elizabeth called back, the laughter in her voice. She grabbed her handbag from the corner of the vanity and stood up.

“You understand, don’t you?” Sarah nodded even though she knew her mother wasn’t looking. She found herself blinking back tears and sighed with anger at herself.

“Don’t sigh, it’s unbecoming,” her mother said absently, as she picked up a perfume bottle from the dresser. “Anyway, Rosa will make you some dinner. Which reminds me, please let her know that it will be only you tonight. You’ve always been better at talking to her than I am.”

“Josephine,” Sarah corrected her mother’s back.

 “You know I’ve never been able to keep track of all of them.” She laughed and replaced the perfume on the dresser. Then, with the rustle of expensive fabric, she was gone.

Sarah couldn’t help but think that her mother wouldn’t know the difference if she sent one of the younger maids to dinner instead of herself one of these days. Not that it was looking likely that there would be a family dinner anytime soon, she thought as she followed her mother out of the bedroom. She didn’t go with her mother all the way down the stairs though, just to the landing on her floor. She held onto the posts that held up the banister and slid down to the ground. Looking through the banister she could just make out her father’s top hat, the back of his tuxedo coat and one gloved hand lightly resting on a black cane.

Sometimes Sarah worried that she wouldn’t recognize her father on the street since she rarely saw more than his well dressed back. As a little girl she used to have nightmares where something bad had happened to her mother and she knew she had to get her father so she’d run out onto the street where a man in a tuxedo was standing with his back to her, but when she tapped him and he turned he didn’t have a face. She would run to get away from this unfinished man, but all around her in the street would be crowds of faceless men in tuxedos streaming past her. She used to wake up from this nightmare with her heart pounding and her mouth as dry as cotton.

This thought struck her now and she tilted her head to try and get a glimpse of his face. But, just when she managed to turn the right way to see him, her mother came into view and the two of them swept out of sight. Unhappily, she stood and started to go back to her room when she remembered Alexander. Better go see if he’s real or if I called the doctor for a figment of my imagination, she thought. Well if he is a figment of my imagination I’ll need the doctor anyway she amended and sighed, not caring that it was unbecoming.