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Prologue

     The glossy pink ribbon slithered through the air like a snake bobbing this way and that.  It curled in the breeze and wound it's way through a stand of trees followed by squeals and an innocent peal of laughter.  Her fingers brushed against it, nearly grasping it before a gust of wind sent the ribbon spiraling out of reach. Her hand begins to fade from view and soon disappears entirely. 

     Anna awoke to find herself reaching out as if she could grasp that hand and stop the dream, the memory, from spiraling away just as the pink ribbon had escaped her little Ara. It was a dream she had been chasing for months, the last fleeting memory of her baby sister before she disappeared.  Arabelle had been only five years old the day that it happened. A tiny, delicate little girl with a huge personality.  Their mother always insisted that they make time to spend with one another, but the truth was, at the time Anna wanted nothing to do with her little sister. She didn't understand why her mother insisted that they try to get along. Why she thought it was so important that they stay close even though they had so little in common.  What did it matter?  They could not be more different and as soon as they could escape their mother's reach, she knew that they would most likely go their separate ways.  Besides, their oldest sister Izzy could take care of Ara. She didn't need two big sisters constantly watching over her.  She like Izzy better anyway.  Everyone loved Isabelle.

     Anna knew she was different from the rest of the family. She was quiet and reserved. She didn't care that she was the "weird" one.  She wasn't interested in getting to know the other villagers.  Where Ara couldnt stand being alone, Anna felt the most like herself when no one else was around. She often snuck away to the clearing in the woods where she could lie down in the tall grass and watch the clouds dance across the sky. Izzy and Ara always found pictures in the clouds and would giggle as the pictures changed and they made up stories together.  Anna could never see what they saw and felt more alone when with them than she did when she watched the clouds by herself.  She preferred to watch in silence and listen.

                                                                         * * *

     "Mao!"

     Anna sat abruptly. Her wandering thoughts begrudgingly giving way as she came back to the present.

     "Maoooooo!" a beautiful, white kitten with blue eyes and orange striped ears and tail demanded again. At her ginger feet lay a tiny gray mouse with pink polka-dots.     

      "Hey Mao-mao! Do you want to play? Do you?  Here you go pretty girl!"  Anna picked up the mouse and threw it as hard as she could . . . right into a patch of nettle.  So she was never going to be a star athlete.  She got up and retrieved the mouse then threw it again.  The kitten leapt up and ran after it as fast as she could, catching it in her mouth just moments before it hit the ground.   Mao-mao returned the tattered mouse, but Anna had retreated to her memories once again.  Searching once more, for some clue, some sign of what had happened, some idea of where Ara had gone.  

     The belle sisters, as her friend, Damon, called them, were each born five years to the day from one another.  They celebrated on the fifth of May every year.  Their parents would throw a town carnival with games, rides, food, and entertainment in honor of their three beautiful daughters. Annabelle wanted nothing to do with any of it. In fact, if it weren't for the petting zoo, she would have hated her birthday. Instead she spent her birthdays petting ponies, cuddling coati's, and galavanting with goats. To her, animals made the best friends and most trusted confidants. She liked them so much better than people. They seemed to understand her in a way no person could and she thought she understood them better than most people did.

     Her older sister Isabelle was fifteen this year and enjoyed rides and carnival games with her friends and listening to the music acts features on the stage.  While her younger sister Arabelle loved it all. She never thought anything out or made plans. She just drifted from one activity to the next.  The only constant being her bright smile and cheerful demeanor.  She was a free spirit. Most of the time, it was beautiful to watch someone who loved the world with such abandon and remained so innocent and free.  Other times, it got her into a lot of trouble. Like the time she twirled and leapt right into the small end table, knocking over mother's favorite vase. Or the time we went camping and she got lost in the woods. She had wandered away looking for the perfect flower. She found the flower but not her way back to their camp.

     The festival her parent's held for their fifth, tenth, and fifteenth birthdays was the biggest and best one yet.  The petting zoo was filled with beautiful and exotic creatures. Everywhere you looked you would find something new and exciting. Ara was so happy she didn't know where to begin. She flitted from one activity to another.  A butterfly drunk on the fullness of spring.  Ara  wore a stunning blue dress and her bouncy brown curls were tied back with a pink ribbon.  She was a whirlwind of energy.  She begged her sisters to take her on one of those rides that spin you so fast, you feel for a moment that you are out in space freed from the earth's gravitational pull.  Izzy was busy with her friends and the cute new boy in her class at school. Anna was only interested in meeting and learning about the new animals at the zoo.  Especially the young Joey who had lost his mother.  At first, she just ignored Ara's pleas but then she began to get frustrated by her sister's relentless begging.

     Ara had the baby sister thing down. She knew exactly what buttons to push to get under Anna's skin.  She could make her crazy like no one else could.  When she started to whine that no one had time for her and they didn't love her and it wasn't fair that her sisters never wanted to do what she wanted . . . Anna had had enough.

     "Ara, just leave me alone!  Why do you have to be so annoying?! Just grow up!" She snapped.

     Ara's face fell. She turned and ran out of the petting zoo not wanting to let her sister see her cry but at the same time hoping that Anna would run after her and show her that she really did care. Anna didn't follow. She turned back to the animals for the soothing comfort only they could provide. It was a choice that would haunt her for a long time.