EMILY’S MOTIVATION

     She had lost her way and a girl child rode upon her back.

     “Take her away,” she cried.

     Through mirrors dark and blessed with cracks, she searched. She told herself to reach out, to touch, to find. She gazed at the shadow, her heart holding on as she told herself to stay free and seek.

     “Go seek the one who will give and not take away.”

     On the edge of dawn, she stayed, naked with stillness. The night started to empty and her song began. She would take him in, make him happy, her swollen eyes were hard with echoes of laughter but the city’s thighs hid the truth.

     “What would it cost?” she asked, “to give a girl back her life? The girl who couldn’t tremble because she came without a name, looking for meaning and something, somebody to hold her together.”

     Love caught these fragments, swirling through the winds of night and her journey began.

 -1-

   Boxall said, “but I don’t understand. You remember that conversation we had right at the start when I told you about the case and the Visa card? Without that you would never have been involved.”

     Emily smiled a knowing smile. She knew that the conversation may have appeared fortunate to him, but she also knew it was nothing of the sort. She had known about the card before he had even introduced it to her.

     She had been briefed by her father. Her initial entry interview had been a set up and, once inside, she needed an access point to the case and that was it. She was on her own from then on, of course, but her father had complete confidence that she could ‘manage’ the situation. That involved using the resources of the police to their advantage without them realizing it or having to be informed as to why. There are always more ways of getting what you need than the most immediately obvious. It had also helped her in the battle with her terrible affliction. She had come of age as part of the secret elite team dealing with national security and her career path was set. She was on the way to finding out just who were the stones in her jar. Would she also find love along the way? It would be a lovely bonus, she thought. And she certainly needed it.