"Wake up sweet heart," the mothers voice whispered urgently. She hurried about her daughters room quickly packing a few essentials the young girl would need into the oversized back packs. Her curly sandy red-brown hair was pulled back tightly into a braid, her long bangs falling loosely into her honey and brown eyes. She was young, or at least younger than you would expect the mother of a thirteen year old girl to be. Her daughters bed was pressed into the farthest corner from the door, her mini mouse sheets peeking out from under the purple comforter and a pink penguin tightly clutched in the girls hands.

"Mom what are you doing?" the young girl was the spitting image of her mother but with darker hair and lighter eyes.

"I will tell you everything later, but I need you up and dressed. Here put these on," the young woman tossed her daughter a pair of green cargo pants and a brown shirt along with the girls zip up black hoodie and her hiking boots.

The daughter began to dress as her mother instructed slightly peeved about being woken up. She walked into the living room and glared at her mothers back, "Mom its three in the morning and I have a math and history test tomorrow or today actually. Mom!" the girl shouted trying to get the womans attention.

"Not now, just do as you're told for once please!" the girl was startled by the panic in her mothers voice.

The woman turned around and crouched in front of her child, "Arms up," and put a belt around the girls waist. "Don't touch these unless you have too. And don't worry about your tests. It will be fine." The mother kissed her child on the forehead trying to give the girl what comfort she could before hastily pulling the girls hair back into a pony tail.

"Now go wait for me in the car and turn it on for me,"

"Where are we going?" the girl was scared now and she wanted answers.

"Please wait in the car," her mother pushed her daughter towards the door as she strapped on one of the packs tightly on.

"No! I don't want to! Mom you always do this just tell me why I'm thirteen. I'm not a baby anymore!"

"Aubrey! Get your ass in that car now!" the girl jumped, her mother rarely yelled at her. Aubrey grabbed the keys she had dropped and quickly walked out the front door. Her mother was watching her.

The woman waited until she heard the car turn on and saw the lights flood through the kitchen window of the tiny two bedroom house before she took the lid off of the gasoline can and began pouring it over everything in the living room. Picking up her daughters pack she paused, the lighter in her hand. This was their home. They had stayed here for three years. That was the longest they had ever stayed in one house, in one city. It had finally become home but now they had to go. Exhaling she lit the lighter and leaned forward and set the small worn blue couch on fire. It was an ugly thing they had bought from a Salvation Army store. And she fled with her child.

It was nearly noon when they stopped at a McDonalds to get lunch. They had only stopped once before and that was for gas. Her daughter was asleep in the back seat, lying down under a blanket. She stared at her in the mirror as she waited in the drive-through line. She had made a decision when she was young but she never regretted it more than she did now. She knew they had to go back, she had to take them back.

She looked so much like her father. Evelyn watched her feeling regret well up knowing she had made a huge mistake by running from her problems. And that mistake had cost her daughter her father.

She could feel the pull. She punched the gas as they pulled back onto the high way willing the old '93 cadilliac deville to go faster. She sang along with the enya cd as she pulled off at the all to familiar exit that led to the place that changed her life.

She followed the signs for Rickets Glenn Visitor Center and pulled off to a small parking area separate from the larger public one. She shook her daughter awake. It was approaching dusk. The mother had given her daughter a sleeping pill with her lunch. The transition would be easier for Aubrey if she was partially asleep.

Aubrey was just barely awake as she followed her mother down the slopes. "Mom I'm tired and it's dark. Why can't we just sleep in the car." Her mom didn't answer her, just held her hand out to help her down one of the steeper slopes. Rickets Glenn was well known in Pennsylvania for its water falls.

Aubrey had been here several times, her mother always chose small towns closer and closer around the park. They came here once a year, always at night and always in the fall. But never before had her mother set the house on fire first. She was scared and angry and sleepy. But her mother kept going until they reached one particular water fall. Aubrey didn't like this part, her mother would walk through the water fall and a few minutes later would come back out. Then they would walk back to the car and then to a hotel and then the next day Aubrey would have a new name, school, house and everything else. She hated it. Her current name was Rose Parker and her mother was Hannah Parker. But their secret names were Aubrey and Evelyn.

Aubrey sat down on a large boulder, she called it the waiting rock. It was where she always sat while waiting for her mom. But this time she didn't have to wait long. Her mother came rushing out from the water.

"Bree hurry! Now!" Aubrey didn't want to get wet, she skirted around the side of the small deep pool to get to the falls. She got closer to the falls, the mist making her damp.

Her mother had disappeared through the water again. So she called out for her. "Mom…Moooommm?"

Her voice was cut off as she tried to squeeze between the water and the stone wall. It didn't work. She was immediately drenched and came out behind the water spitting water out of her mouth. The cave was small, maybe only ten feet back. Her mother had her hands pressed against a boulder, she could see light coming out of the crack as her mother pushed harder.

"Bree help me," her mother grunted. Bree hurried over and as she placed her hands on the boulder to push they both let out a scream as it moved like melted butter on a hot pan. Evelyn felt her scream disappear as her arms wrapped around her daughter and they fell into a blinding, searing blackness. The blackness was all to familiar, she remembered it from last time.

Her head pounded in a familiar way and the dizziness hit suddenly. Evelyn rolled over and vomited on the stone floor. Aubrey, where was Aubrey? She reached out in panic as the dark spots began to fade and searched the cave for her daughter. She was slumped against the wall next to her. Aubrey's short bangs covered her eyes and she appeared to be sleeping.

Evelyn sat up and felt something wet plop onto her chest, it was a damp washcloth. And there was a blanket lying over her and an attempt at a fire at the caves mouth.

The woman stood felling slightly disoriented and pushed past the thick vines and just barely managed to squeeze through the hole her daughter had cut. While they were the same height, her daughter was much slimmer than her. They both stood at a proud 5'10", her daughter sprouting three inches in the last year alone, but Evelyn wore a size twelve and her daughter a four. Her daughter looked older than she was while Evelyn looked younger. Evelyn was nearing seventy but looked a mere twenty, possibly thirty. In the last few years people thought them sisters rather than mother and daughter. But Eveyln made sure that Aubrey knew that she was the Mom and not sister even though she longed to be both to her soon to be teenager. She knew her daughter would be a beauty and was beyond the point where she could be mistaken as a gangly boy.

Evelyn finally managed to squeeze through the hole and popped up looking around. The clearing had filled in, in the twelve and a half years since she had gone back to the world she had been raised in. She had stumbled upon Middle Earth when she was but sixteen, the home of her birth.

She walked down the small slope and was surprised to see the log cabin still standing. She had built it herself, having lived the first four years of her life in this clearing after her arrival. She smiled as she breathed in a deep breath.

By the time Aubrey awoke and had climbed out of the small cave in a slight panic Evelyn had the cabin mostly aired out.

"Good afternoon sweet-heart. How did you sleep?"

"What the hell is going on? Where the hell are we?"

"Come and help me with these beds," Evelyn sat back on her heels. She was sitting in a pack of dirt, a pile of weeds at her side. Aubrey kneeled next to her mom and put on the pair of offered gloves and began to pull out the grass and weeds.

"Before you were born, I was sixteen, I stumbled across this place by accident. I had fallen while hicking in Ricketts Glenn and crawled into that cave. The next morning when I awoke I was still in a cave, just a different cave. The one we woke up in to be specific. I was alone and scared. I built that cabin and taught myself to hunt but about four years after my arrival an old man knocked on my door. He was tired and hungry so I let him stay for awhile. His name was Gandalf the Grey. Sound familiar?"

Aurbre had stopped and was staring at her mom. "That's the name of the wizard form those books you read to me when I was little."

"Precisely, It wasn't until then that I realized where I was. I thought him insane but I knew it wasn't a joke. He was the first human I had met or somewhat human since my arrival here. I was just grateful to meet someone. I told him my name and how I got here and he at first didn't believe me but after awhile came around. About a month later we left this place and he took me to Rivendell. Yes the Rivendell."

Aubrey couldn't breathe, she stood quickly and backed away from her smilling mom. Why was she smiling? Why did she look happy? She put her arms behind her head, her arms pressing hard against its sides as she tried to remember how to breathe.

"You can't be… that isn't….no…you're lying….this isn't real…that was a made up place…those were only stories. You have gone insane! YOU HAVE TO BE INSANE!" her voice had slowly risen to a piercing shriek.

"Aubrey sit down."

"No! I will not sit! Sitting will not help anything! You are lying! This place is made up. It isn't real."

"It is quite real, I lived here for fifty something years before leaving while I was pregnant with you. I was bitter and hurt, I was wishing my life here had never happened. When I went back I did not yet know I was pregnant with you, and when I went back I was a young sixteen year old girl again. After I found out I was pregnant I went back to that cave every year around the time I had first crossed over and tried to get us back trough. Aubrey wait please listen…"

"You, why is it always about you! You wanted to get away so you ran with me! I had to grow up without a father because of you! I had to grow up without being allowed to have friends, pets, a father, a real family! I hate you!You bitch I hate you!" Aubrey began to stomp towards the cabin, "You know I always thought that we were running away from something dangerous and I thought you were a super hero in disguise or something but you are nothing that a selfish hearless bitch!" Aubrey screamed as she slammed the cabin door shut.

Evelyn slumped down on the ground shaking, her body ached with grief.

It was a nearly a month before her daughter would even speak to her. She was teaching Aubrey how to use a bow and a long sword along with knives just like she had learned. Evelyn was a little rusty but by the time the snows came and went and fall came again her daughter was adequate. Their small garden was just enough to keep them fed and there was enough game to keep them full.

Aubrey was constantly irritated, it had been over a year since their crossing and Aubrey was now fifteen. She glared down the shaft of the arrow and pulled back the string until her hand was shaking and let go. The arrow hit close to the center of the circle but further than her last shot.

She went and pulled the arrows out of the tree, checking their sharp metal tips before putting them back into the quiver. She strapped the quiver onto her back and grabbed her belt from the ground and put it back on before walking around the garden and back towards the cabin.

"Hey mom I'm going up to the strawberry patches, I'll be back before dark." Aubrey didn't wait for her mother to answer before she began to head for their small barn.

"Wait, oh wait Bree. Here, before you go can you milk Darla and make sure you're back before dark this time. " Aubrey just nodded as she took the milk bucket her mom handed her through the window and headed back towards the barn. The barn was sheltered by trees, outside there was one large pen and a larger paddock. They had used the trees as fence posts and had lashed large branches around them to make the enclosures. They had two cows, a milk cow, a bull and a recent male calf that they would trade in the spring. They also had four chickens and two horses. One horse was about four years old and her colt was nearly two.

She patted Darla, the cow, and ignored Gus, the bull, as she scooted past them into the enclosure. Almost half an hour later the milk was sitting down in the root cellar and had her horse saddled. Her mothers horse, Cleo, lipped the back of her shirt looking for a treat.

"Sorry Cleo not today, it's just Scout and I." Her mother had helped her train the foal and told her he was her responsibility. He looked similar to his mother but instead of her chesnut coloring and white markings that made her look like a thorough bred he lighter brown with one white sock and a dark black mane a tail. He was also slightly larger than his mother and stronger. But he was hers and she was his and ever since he had been born they were best friends.

She mounted him and nudged him into a gallop she heard her mom yelling after them as they leapt the fence and took off north out of the woods towards the strawberry patch. Their home was in the foot hills of the Blue Mountains. At first she had hated it and hadn't spoken to her mother for several months but then her mom took them to the Gray Havens, a town south and on the other side of the river. The trip could only be described as magical, she had seen dwarves and elves and a couple of folk she learned were hobbits. It was straight out of her mothers stories. They went into the Gray Havens every three months, except in the winter. It was a two week trip there and back but only because they had to go further north along the river to cross it and in the early spring it sometimes took even longer if the ferry at Riverside (a town) was washed away again.

Aubrey had learned the area well, in her time when she wasn't speaking to her mom she had explored and learned to love the area. She had found the strawberry patch in their first year and had kept its location secret from her mother because it was her place.

Her mother had begun teaching her the languages of the elves and dwarves and would not let her speak in English anymore than was necessary. Starting during their first week her mom would speak only in a language called the common tongue. By the end of the first year Aubrey was translating back and forth. She hated it but her mom made her learn the languages and made her learn the various plants and berries.

It was well past dark when Scout and his rider headed back home. She knew her mom would be pissed but she really didn't care. She sang happily as she rounded one of the hills and down into the small valley that was home.

Her voice stuck in her throat as a the faint scream of Cleo and the cows reached her ears. Without thinking she kicked Scout into a gallop. His leap forward nearly unseated her as they raced down the path, she could her shouts and growls.

"Mom!" she screamed as she fumbled with her bow, she pulled hard on the reins and Scout reared nearly unseating her. She clung onto the saddle, her body shaking as his hoofs hit the hard packed ground. They were the ungliest things she had ever seen. Her legs shook like jelly as she slid out of the saddle and pulled back an arrow not remembering drawing it. She aimed at the nearest creature to her mom and let it go. It hit the thing in the throat. It let out a gargle and fell where it stood. That was when they noticed her, she saw her mothers face turn white in the dark. She could see the terrified look and the blood on her face.

"RUNN BREE RUNN!" her mother screamed as she lunged and cut into another creature.

Alright now it's time for readers choice: I like to give my readers a bit of control over the stories. Who would you like Aubrey's father to be? And who is Evelyn Really? Check out the polls on my profile and you can choose up to two answers. The polls will close four days after 1/11/12.

And let me know if you would like more detail of their lives before the attack.