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The footprints of passersby in the snowbanks were deep, and leaves collected in them until it seemed Fall had been tiptoeing through the landscape to see what his brother had done with the place. It was a reminder of seasons that had passed and of things that had passed away with them. As Casia looked out from the window of the nondescript van the people from the orphanage were using to bring her to another new home, she saw Fall's footsteps and looked away. She didn't want to be reminded of the past. Not yet, not while it still stung even to think of her Anna's face.

It was the most cruelly ironic that of all days to have found a new home she had found one on New Year's Eve. The day for new beginnings was when she would start yet another, go to another house which with any luck would become a home. The people from the orphanage had explained it all to her when they had come to take her away. They had said she was a very fortunate girl, which was funny because she didn't feel all that lucky. Sitting in a grody old van, and driving away from Annabel's house, the place she had found family and love for years? Groovy. She didn't know how she could possibly contain her enthusiasm.

They had told her to make a New Year's resolution, and the siren had clenched her fists and resolved to kick the bogue wearing the blue sweater in the shins the moment she got out of the van. It wasn't that he was annoying the way he smiled so widely and chattered about how her new guardian was going to the bee's knees. It was that he was stealing her in the morning fog, taking her away from Anna and everything she held dear. And the flashes of Meanie-shade-blue at the edge of her vision every now and then made her heart jump. But the Meanie was a secondary concern that was bothering her, as was the fact that the Beatles hadn't jumped through the window to rescue her yet, and even that Fall's footsteps brought up painful feelings. What really got Casia was that despite the 'what ifs' and the nervous flutterings of fear that had long plagued her at night, she had never expected today.

But here she was, wearing a Screamin' Strawberry jacket and mentally screaming thoughts that felt too bitter to be hers. She felt something bubbling up inside her, all the determined energy she had thrown into hissy fits with Anna, into paintings, into playing, was curdling into angry fear in the pit of her stomach. She felt it, and as it writhed around inside of her, it spawned these thoughts, these resolutions that weren't her, but she didn't seem able to deny them. Why shouldn't she kick the Blue Meanie in the shins? Why shouldn't she expect anything different from her next mom?

She didn't expect anything. She was mentally exhausted as it was, with all the negative feelings inside of her gnashing at each other for dominance. She couldn't deal with it, she wouldn't. The more she looked for inspiration or hope or something to just cling onto, some cheerful thought to keep her from going zappy, the less there seemed to be. It was as if Casia was being displaced by a new girl to match her new last name and her new house and her new parent. She didn't struggle as the malevolent thoughts washed over her. This, too, felt wrong but feeling wrong on this backwards day almost felt right. Casia would gladly let the new girl deal with today. She didn't want to hear this Jane Greystone welcome her to a strange house. She didn't want to hear someone else make promises they couldn't keep. The siren closed her eyes, turning away from the window. She was tired, tired of looking at the window, of seeing the Blue Meanie, of humans, humans, humans, moving her around like a music note that didn't sound quite right.

The Blue Meanie was looking at her. She scooched closer to the window, and as she shifted she heard a faint crunch. Reaching into her pocket, she felt a piece of paper that she couldn't remember having been there before. Casia furrowed her eyebrows and pulled out a note, written hastily on the back of a receipt for paint. It was short and it wasn't even in her mother's own words, but it was just so Anna, so like the guardian. She covered her mouth gingerly and began to tremble. The paper held lyrics to a Beatles song that she used to sing at night when she thought nobody could hear her, but it seemed like she hadn't been so quiet after all.



She must have scribbled it down in a hurry, the writing was sloppy and slapdash. But as the girl read it, she felt something inside her break like a sheet of ice on a lake, or the crust of snow as Fall's leafy feet trudged through it. Warm tears rolled down her cheeks and she felt the anger crawl back down into the dark. She had been trying to sing so quietly at night, but there was always someone to hear her. There was always someone to save her, not from Blue Meanies, but from herself. And now the song swept away the bitterness, her shoulders sagged and the words filled her up like a mantra, leaving a deep feeling that wasn't quite hope and wasn't quite love, but zen. A feeling of peace.

What Casia made at that moment was stronger than a resolution. It was an oath, backed by every fiber in her being, to remember the feeling no matter what the future held, be it one guardian or ten. As they pulled up into the driveway, she emerged from the van looking straight at the future. She was hurt and she was changed, but at that moment Casia Greystone felt she could flap her wings and rise above. She closed her eyes and whispered the melody as she touched the pavement.