Ha'ven's Song Read Online Free PDF

so light on her feet.”
    Alice’s soft chuckle echoed in the quiet
room. “She was amazing.”
    Emma listened as her mother talked about
things she had heard a million times growing up. They went for a
walk around the gardens and Emma took her to the recreation room
where she played the piano for her mother and sung the songs she
had grown up singing, silently hoping that the music would wake her
mother up and help her remember who she was.
    She stayed for over four hours, helping her
mother with her bath and into her nightgown. She fed her dinner
before helping her into bed for the night. She leaned over,
brushing a soft strand of silver hair away from the lined face
before giving the wrinkled cheek a light kiss. Straightening up,
she smiled down at the innocent look in her mom’s cloudy eyes
before she walked toward the door.
    “Honey,” Alice’s tired voice called out as
Emma opened the door to her room.
    “Yes, Momma?” Emma asked, holding tightly
onto the door.
    “I… I wish I had a daughter like you,” Alice
said quietly. “You are a good girl. One day you will sing a song
and a wonderful man is going to hear and come snatch you up. You
just wait. My darling husband did that. He heard me sing and said I
opened his heart. I was his nightingale,” she murmured before her
voice faded as she fell into a sleep filled with wonderful dancers
and a tall, lanky man who swept her off her feet.
    Emma stood at the door to the room for
several long minutes gazing at the relaxed face of her mother. A
single tear coursed down her pale cheek as she remembered the love
her parents shared. She could only hope she could overcome her
shyness long enough to meet the man who would fill her life the way
her father had filled her mother’s life.
    “I know, Momma,” Emma said as she brushed
the tear away. “He loved you so much you could dance across the
clouds and never touch the ground. I love you, Momma. Sweet
dreams.”
    *.*.*
    She had left for Colombia three days later
for a two month tour. The performing troupe had signed a contract
for a twelve city tour to promote the arts. When they had reached
Florencia, Colombia, a month into the tour Emma thought she had a
chance of breaking through the overwhelming shyness she had
suffered from her whole life. That was one reason she had loved her
parents so much… with them she didn’t have to look for friends
outside of her home.
    Working with the children in the different
cities helped her realize they weren’t the only ones benefitting
from the workshops that were sponsored by the Performing Arts
Company that was hosting the Reaching Kids through Music program.
It had been the day before they were to leave to travel to Brazil
that she and Betsy, another girl from the troupe, were kidnapped
from out front of the small hotel they had been staying at as they
returned from dinner at a restaurant across the street. Two other
members of the troupe had tried unsuccessfully to help them. Emma
could still hear the gunshots and see the blood as the two men were
gunned down.
    Emma’s mind closed in on itself as she
fought to bury the rest of the memories of what happened. She had
tried to protect Betsy but things became foggy after her head had
been slammed into the stone wall of the small cell they had been
tossed in. She could do nothing but watch helplessly as Betsy was
brutally murdered in front of her. She could still hear the
beautiful girl’s anguished screams as she died.
    *.*.*
    Emma jerked, her eyes opening wide in terror
when she felt a hand against her cheek. Her mouth opened to scream
but nothing came out. It was as if her vocal cords were frozen and
couldn’t move any more. Her unfocused eyes finally cleared and she
found herself staring into Sara’s warm brown eyes.
    “We are going to a dinner tonight,” she said
quietly. “I think it would be good for you to go. You have hardly
been out of our rooms at all.”
    Emma wanted to protest that she didn’t want
to be