A Warning Over Tea

She stared at me, that little girl, and a sense of kinship she did beguile. She said, “sir please, come sit for tea. Oh, can’t you stay a while?” And so I sat, and that was that, and the tea appeared in front of me. And in a little pink chair with pink ribbons in her hair, she sat and stared as I sipped my tea.

“Oh little girl, I must confess, I know not what’s come over me. Last I recall, I gently slept, and roamed my dreams completely free”.

I saw her fret and added yet, “but I don't regret the company!”

She smiled and said with a tilted head, “don’t be afraid, you’re still in bed. It may not seem, but this is a dream, and I come to you because I'm dead.”

My tea I did splutter, as my heart surely fluttered, when I heard her words bounce ‘round my head. “Excuse me hon, did you say dead?”

“Why yes, good sir, though it cost me dear I journeyed here with an urgent warning of what I fear.”

I saw her shake in terror and I knew she was the bearer of a secret most horrendous I would hear. I put my hand on her shoulder which made her all the bolder and she quickly used her sleeve to wipe her tears.

“There is a man, a not nice man, who was not nice to me. This not nice man, with not nice hands, invited me for tea”. She closed her eyes and sighed, and when they opened they were wise, far more wise than children’s eyes had any right to be.

“Oh darling, my dear child,” said I, the fury in me wild, “what kind of monster could this be?”

But she held her silence longer, and my fury just got stronger, the sky turned ruby red and the ground it churned in anger like the sea.

Then she said to me, “it is time for you to awaken, see my warning's not forsaken, and maybe then you might just set me free.”

And with a peal of deafening thunder, my dream was torn asunder, and I tumbled into the darkness of a swirling cup of tea.

*

         I am awake. I remember that Annie had been sleeping in our bed while her mom was in Atlanta for a convention. My hand goes towards the small warm spot she had been curled up in. She isn't there. My eyes shoot open. She isn’t in the room. Throwing the covers back, I jump out of bed and run down the hall. I can see her in her giraffe pajamas. She’s talking to someone through the half opened front door. I can hear the man’s voice, it's soft and inviting.

        I hear him ask my daughter, “would you like to come to my house for a tea party?”

        On the hallway dresser there is a baseball bat. I grab it, and that was that.