Guardian Angel

Chapter One

*Dahlia is a skinny teenager with long, wavy, golden-brown hair, brown eyes, and tawny-colored skin

Dahlia was on a plane heading to the great big countryside, where the sky supposedly looked bigger, the sun was warmer, and the birds were everywhere.

And she had never felt so alone.

She suddenly remembered the little girl she'd seen about three weeks ago in a stained green sweater, dirty jeans, and a weird pair of tall boots with mud all over them, trailing a haughty-looking couple with gray hair. She'd seen her hugging what looked like a horseshoe to her chest. Her eyes had been red and puffy, and she had been looking around in utter confusion at the tall buildings, bustling cars, and loud noises that defined the city. If she had to guess, Dahlia had thought, the girl had just moved there, probably from somewhere out in the country.

Now she was in that same situation, but reversed.

Looking out the window of the plane, Dahlia felt tears stinging her eyes.

All her life, Dahlia had lived in the city. She knew it like the back of her hand - where the best cafés were, even where each bus stop was. She was friends with pretty much everyone there.

She had never left Manhattan for long periods of time, other than trips to visit family in other cities. Basically, she'd always been in one city or another.

That is, until earlier this morning.

Dahlia, who was thirteen, her father, and her ten-year-old sister, Liliana lived alone in their tiny apartment in Manhattan. Her mother had died in a plane crash a couple years ago on her way back from a trip to Paris with her old friends from school. Since then, her father had never been the same. Dahlia, for the most part, had stayed unchanged. Of course, she had grieved the day she found out, and a couple days afterwards, but she had never had a very strong connection with her mother.

Dahlia's grandparents had been pressuring her father to move to the countryside with them in Tennessee, because they had two houses, and nothing to do with the second one. They were offering to give it to them to live in, because they reasoned that it was better than living in a small apartment in the city. Which Dahlia considered to be ridiculous, because she hardly ever actually spent time in the apartment, even during winter. She was always hanging out with her friends, maybe shopping, or even just wandering around the bustling metropolis where she lived.

Recently her father decided to take them up on the offer, and had been planning to take Liliana and Dahlia there ever since. During those few days between her father agreeing and them actually leaving, Dahlia had been forced to say goodbye to all of her friends - literally all of them, because she had only ever made friends in the Manhattan area. Now that she was leaving them for the first time, she regretted every fight that had happened between them, every time she had yelled at them or ignored them. She especially missed her two best friends, Julia and Stella. The three of them went everywhere together, sharing news, jokes, and food.

And she was leaving them. All of them. For who-knows-how-long.

Suddenly, the plane began to descend.

"Looks like we're here," said Dahlia's father, smiling at her and Liliana. Dahlia still had tears in her eyes, and she looked away from him. Liliana wasn't happy about moving either, but not to the extent that Dahlia was.

As she looked out the window of the airport at the meadow dotted with trees and houses, she didn't think this place would have much to offer. It definitely wouldn't be as favorable as her home in New York.

She had no idea how wrong she was.