eased herself out of bed and went to her room.
Jane didn’t want to wake Ellen after she was asleep for an hour, and so Ellen had awakened on her own while needing to use the bathroom after five hours of sleeping.
Jane was in the living room while dusting off her wooden furniture, and when Ellen stepped in, she accused in an unhappy tone, “You failed to wake me.”
Jane looked at Ellen before saying, “You needed your sleep more than you needed to see your niece. Plus I’d never said that I would wake you after an hour.”
“Okay, well, I’m up now,” Ellen retorted. “I want to go to the hospital.”
“Would you like to eat first?” Jane prompted.
“I’ll eat later!” Ellen quickly and impatiently uttered.
“Okay,” Jane quickly agreed. “Let me finish what I’m doing—it will only take a minute—and then we can go.”
“Fine,” Ellen agreed unhappily.
“Oh and I called your school,” Jane said as an afterthought. “I told them why you wouldn’t be in school today and possibly for the rest of the week.”
“Thanks,” Ellen said in an appreciative tone. “School had never even crossed my mind.”
Jane grinned before saying, “I didn’t think it had… and you’re welcome.”
Ellen just responded with a slight grin.
Within twenty minutes Ellen and Jane were told to take a seat in the waiting room, and within an hour after that, the hospital staff gave into Ellen’s relentless nagging on wanting to see her niece.
Ellen’s niece was only wearing a pamper, and being that she was four weeks premature, Ellen and Jane were only allowed to look at the baby through the clear hood of the infant incubator that the staff had her in. Other newborns were in the room as well.
Ellen had only looked at her sleeping niece for a second before saying, “She’s beautiful.”
Ellen then noticed a birthmark just below her niece’s left collarbone that looked like a waning crescent moon. The birthmark’s diameter was seven-sixteenth of an inch, and to the right of it from an onlooker’s point of view (on the side towards the left arm) were three freckles. The first freckle missed touching the birthmark at what would be the moon’s equator by only one-sixteenth of an inch. Again from an onlooker’s point of view, the second freckle was one-fourth of an inch to the right of the first one. The third freckle was above the first two by one-fourth of an inch and centered. The third freckle was the darkest of the three.
“Oh my God!” Ellen uttered delightfully before pointing. Jane looked to where she was pointing. “There. I’ve seen pictures of my grandpa… my dad’s dad and he had the exact same moon-stars birthmark…”
“Cool.”
“Except my grandpa’s birthmark looked as if it was one day to a new moon while hers looks as if it’s three days to a new moon,” Ellen continued. After a short silence, Ellen told her niece, “I wish your mom and dad could be here, baby girl.”
Jane put her arm around Ellen’s shoulder while saying, “Perhaps they’re here in spirit.”
Ellen thought for a second before saying, “Perhaps they are.” Jane then heard Ellen’s stomach growling.
“Ellen Anderson, you need to eat something,” Jane insisted. “And don’t tell me you’re fine.”
“Okay, I’ll go to the cafeteria.”
“There are several fast-food restaurants around here. Wouldn’t you rather go to one of them?” When Ellen glanced at her niece, Jane continued with, “You can’t camp out here and be with her twenty-four seven.”
Ellen slightly sighed before announcing where she wanted to eat.
Jane nodded with a grin while saying, “Let’s go.”
“I’ll be back, baby girl,” Ellen told her niece before she and Jane left.
Forty-five minutes after Ellen and Jane had left the hospital, a nurse led Harris and Allyson to their niece’s infant incubator. As they were approaching the room, the nurse told them, “A teenage girl by the name of Ellen Anderson was here earlier.”
“She’s no longer here?” Harris quickly asked.
“She left… I believe to get something to eat,” the nurse said. “I overheard her telling one of the other nurses that she’ll be back.”
“Good, I need to see her,” Harris said as they reached the room.
The nurse continued through the door. As she stopped at the infant incubator, the nurse said, “I would like to introduce you two to your niece. She’s sleeping right now, and as of yet, she has no name.”
“When her other aunt gets back we three will come up with a name for her,” Allyson said as Harris stared at the moon-stars birthmark as if he was seeing the mark of the devil. “Right, honey?” When Harris didn’t respond Allyson turned to look. “Harris?!”
Harris broke the stare that he was giving his niece’s birthmark, and as he turned towards Allyson he uttered, “Huh?”
“Are you okay?” Allyson sympathetically asked.
Harris did a quick glance at the birthmark again before facing Allyson and answering with a façade pleasant grin. “Yes. I was just admiring our niece’s birthmark.”
“Yes, everyone here thinks that it looks like a moon and three stars,” the nurse said. “A unique birthmark to say the least.”
“Yes; it is very unique,” Harris agreed in a tone that Allyson detected a bit of worry.
Allyson stared curiously at Harris as the nurse said, “Okay, well, I’ll let you two have a little privacy with your niece.”
“Thank you,” Harris said as he turned towards the birthmark again.
As the nurse was leaving, Allyson accused, “You’re staring at her as if she was some demon.”
“She’s not a demon,” Harris said earnestly as he continued to stare at the birthmark.
“Okay,” Allyson said when Harris didn’t elaborate. “I’m glad that we agree on that. Would you mind explaining to me as to why you’re staring at her as if she was one though?”
“That mark ended with my great-grandmother,” Harris quickly said. “I never heard of it resurfacing… or becoming more prominent than before after vanishing from the bloodline.”
“Honey, don’t take this the wrong way, but you’re making as much sense as a rooster trying to lay an egg.”
“The birthmark, it’s the mark of Merlin.”
Allyson shot Harris a curious look before asking, “The mark of Merlin who?”
Harris
