In time, the paint on her canvas began to mirror the scene on the wharf before her, realized with the sharp, angular lines and stylized figures unique to her in the Outside world, her passport to recognition in the San Francisco art community. Abby was excited about this new piece. In the last year, she had begun to be noticed, hailed (by those few who had taken an interest in her work) as an original and almost alien voice – recognition that she had struggled for over three years to achieve and had hoped was only the beginning of a long and rewarding career. But now, that longed-for future was in danger, and she was desperately working to solidify her reputation in the little time she had remaining before other duties could interrupt. Duties personified by the shadowy form she was seeing every night when she closed her eyes. That shadow was always in the back of her mind, a presence both sweet and threatening, promising everything she had dreamed of as a little girl and everything that would disrupt her life as an adult. The wind picked up, blowing strands of her waist- length black hair wildly about; to keep them out of her paint, she reached back and tied her tresses into a loose tail. One manageable distraction out of the way, she closed her eyes and shook her head, a quick jerk to either side to clear her thoughts and refocus on the task at hand. A car screamed by on the road behind her, windows rolled down and blasting what was to Abby’s ears nothing more than discordant noise. Four years
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