Chapter 2

One thing about a half acre lot with a split level, four bedroom, two and a half bath with an attached two car garage ... nobody expects it to be the mansion of the Ruler of the Princessapalia. Jimmy was on time, he wasn't taking the Heir Apparent out to eat ... he was exploring possibilities. Jimmy didn't Know she was the heir apparent ... she was ... Wendy

Wendy Austin seemed like a pretty uncomplicated pretty nice pretty girl who was in his grade, and she didn't keep him waiting. Wendy was sitting on her bicycle waiting on him. Jeans, tee shirt, Levis jacket, and sports shoes. She sparkled. Her hair ... she was sitting in it. He had never seen Wendy with her hair loose ... that was a revelation. Wendy wore braids to school.

Since Mom cooks, Wendy V had never been to a 'fast food' place. Grease ... it's the reason burgers taste good. They taste better than they smell, and that's saying a lot. She ate. He liked that too. She didn't waste food and she didn't pick apart and complain about this, that and the other. She enjoyed herself.

"What?" she asked. "Do I have mustard on my mouth?" She dabbed at the corners of her lips.

"No ... nothing like that," he blushed when he said it.

"Well, what?" Wendy was curious, he couldn't seem to take his eyes off her face. This was unusual ... she had a mirror. She knew what she looked like.

Two eyes ... seaweed green, a nose ... perhaps a little offside, two lips ... indifferent red, with her troublesome red hair in a massive ponytail, her too small ears ... almost but not quite pointed ... showed. Her high cheek bones revealed a pair of dimples when she smiled. She knew her teeth were straight ... ish ... except for the two that had that gap at the top but touched at the bottom. She had an elfin look to her chin, her neck was too long and too thin ... no ... she was just a girl ... ordinary.

Her mom ... and Great Grandmother ... those two were beauty. Junior was born in 2000, was 60, looked 30, acted 18 and had a haunted look in her eyes. Junior had never gotten over ... Too. Wendolyn Wanzor Austin, Too. Too because she was the second Wendy but her mom... The Wendy ... lost in the Towers was The Wanzor and a real beauty. The family legend said she was living in time and she well might be...

"Earth to Wendy, earth to Wendy," Jimmy, his mouth moving to the words, said, "Welcome back. Where were you?"

"To be honest, I was thinking about my great great grandmother," Wendy brushed a tear.

"A sad moment?"

"She was in the World Trade Center on September 11th 2001, she didn't get out. They never admitted that she was even there. No records survived the burn."

Secretly, Jimmy was excited, there weren't very many people in the Princessapality who had a relative in The Fall. He knew one, now. But the forms must be observed..."You have my sympathy."

"The women in our family seem to die tragically. One of them," she waved a hand to indicate eons in the past but really it was in the late 1940's, "Was murdered with her husband in her sleep ... oh ... over a century ago." She looked startled, "That long? It seems like yesterday. Hmm?" That was one of the problems with Timing it ... if you knew they were dead ... nothing you could do would ever bring them back.

Chapter 3 »