Chapter 8 Mistakes Were Made

I ran up to the front door, shivering in the breeze. I rapped on the wood paneling, since we didn't have a working doorbell. No answer.

I sighed, and bent down to retrieve the spare key from under the door mat. After unlocking the door, I stuck the key back under the mat and opened it quietly, stepping into the cooler air inside. The hall was dark, but I went in quickly and closed the door, wanting to find some clothes as soon as possible.

I turned around just in time to see a baseball bat come whistling toward my head. I ducked, thanking the Lord that I still seemed to have my dragon reflexes. The bat went crashing into the coat rack, knocking it over and spilling the coats and hats all over the floor.

I didn't wait for my attacker to recover their balance, and zipped to the stairs at the other end of the hall, bare feet slapping the wood floor wildly. I felt a hand grab at my arm as I went past, but it slipped off and I continued to the stairs, where I hid, shivering, behind the bannister. I heard my father's voice, "Did you catch it? Is it one of those creatures?" My heart seemed to stop. They thought I was some sort of creature! I couldn't help it. The tears just welled up out of nowhere; spilling over as all the trauma of the last few days came back all at once. I began to sob uncontrollably, shaking with cold, fear, and shock. It hardly registered when a warm blanket was draped over my nude form and two pairs of warm arms encircled me.

Finally, my sobs slowed, and then stopped. I took a few deep breaths, punctuated by hiccups, and finally noticed my mother, sitting beside me, stroking my hair, and my father, his arm wrapped securely around my shoulder. I looked up, into my mother's face, and then my father's, finally managing to squeak, "You don't hate me?" My mother looked genuinely shocked, "Fiona, we could never hate you! You are our daughter, no matter what you look like or where we found you!"

I looked up sharply, "found me? Found me where? You mean I'm not really your daughter?" Emotion swirled around me, and I clung to my father more tightly, sure that if I let go, I would be swept away by the vicious torrent.

"Oh, honey, we love you as if you were our own, but, well... the thing is..."

"What your mother is trying to say, Fiona, is that we found you one day, wandering down a hiking trail back by the camp." My father interrupted " We asked around, we even notified the police that we had found you, but nobody ever showed up to claim you." He sighed.

"Even to this day, we have wondered how you got exactly where you did. We tried various methods of finding your birth parents, over the years, but nothing ever came up. We eventually gave up searching. However, we love you, and if you wish to begin searching again, that is up to you, and we will help you in any way possible."

I looked up at him, feeling rather dazed. "You would do that for me?"

"Of course we would! You are our daughter, and even if you wish to live with your real parents, we will support your decision and love you none the less." He smiled down at me. "Now, why don't you go run up to your room and put some real clothes on. Then we will discuss why we mistook you for another one of those monsters."

I suddenly remembered I had no clothes on. "Oh! Yes, of course!" My cheeks burned. I stood and turned to run up the stairs, feeling thoroughly embarrassed.

Suddenly, something on the floor caught my eye. A scrap of black cloth, thin and tattered, lay almost hidden by the banister on the floor. I picked it up, thinking it must have come from the strange gray things that had attacked the house before. I walked the rest of the way to my room, fingering the rough material, and thinking.