Sparrow, Sparrow in the sky.

         Bridgette had been hiking up the side of the Ozark Mountains when she fell. She had tripped on a tree root- one of the ones that found its way to sunlight ten feet away from the tree it belonged too. Even though a vast canopy of leaves and branches covered the forest the Fauna and Flora flourished with or without sunlight. Everything was vibrantly alive-trees, animals and even the rocks were numerous. And it was with her head on a bloody rock and the sun overhead that Bridgette regained consciousness. For a minute or an hour she did not know, but Bridgette felt like she had died.

         Bridgette felt like she had died and had come face to face with that blinding white light people describe when they say “near death experience.” Yes, she was faced with a blinding light and a vague recognition of who she was. But then there was pain! And blood! Blood that was coming from the back of her head, and had been on her hands. She needed help and yet, for the life of her, Bridgette couldn’t remember where she was.

         Looking around, unable to stand on her own, she found that if she reached out and grabbed a low branch then she could hoist herself to her knees and be able to stand then. Despite the pain she did exactly that. She reached, she grabbed, she pulled, and she stood. And then Bridgette, disoriented and confused, began walking to the left because she heard noise coming from there and loud voices at that. Things like “glass” and “paint” reached her ears and from this she deduced that it must be a crew of construction workers. A foreman and a few workers, maybe, and as she walked through more trees, a few more building materials reached her ear drums through the ringing in her ears. She came out of the trees to be faced with an enormous hotel.

Or was it?

         Whatever it was, it was very dilapidated but it had men working on it from all angles. As Bridgette’s eyes raked over the ivy covered limestone and the grounds she could see she took in the repaired part of the roof (now being painted plum instead of its drab brown) and she could sense this hotel was a woman. In her despair she was beautiful and like her name, La Luna, this hotel would go thru phases like the moon. Bridgette could tell that La Luna was waning now, but soon she would be full and beautiful again. Like a good woman, La Luna was sheltering and fruitful, Bridgette thought after noticing her five floors and many windows. Along with her hypnotic state, this grand lady brought along with her a reverie that took some of the pain and shock from Bridgette’s injury but it was the fountain that called to Bridgette something she couldn’t deny.

         The fountain that was half copper half green with age casted a spell with people since the first day it was erected. It may have been the horses that let the clearest water Bridgette had ever seen flow from their mouths. Or the fish that encircled the base seeming to support the horses lest they fall into the large basin of spring water below. Or it may have been the little fae, that held little scepters in their little hands, that seemed to smile and frown at the same time. It was the one little faerie baby who sat on top that really caught Bridgette’s eye. The one who seemed to know all the secrets that passed on the grounds of La Luna. La Luna was built in the late eighteen eighties and this little fae baby was witness to fifty one years of secret trysts in the night and lavish garden parties in the day. He was also the only part of the fountain untouched, completely, by green age and as such this made him king over all. He was glamorous and while striking a benevolent pose, he could be cruel. His eyes told her that and his eyes were the same eyes that she was faced with when a hand grabbed her shoulder and turned her around quickly.

         Benevolent, but they could be cruel and they were something. After all, having one eye a pale blue and the other green with brown points like a star was something. He started asking her things, but his voice was low and it couldn’t reach past the ringing she heard. The man, dressed in a doctor’s coat and a fine linen suit underneath removed his hand from her shoulder and both his extraordinary eyes and Bridgette’s were drawn to the blood on his fingers. Perhaps it was the shock of seeing more blood, or maybe it was the ringing in her ears, but it was most like the force of being turned around quickly coupled with a hard blow to the head, mixed in with shock that caused Bridgette to crumble to the ground at this doctor’s feet.

         Her eyes opened to be faced with a high ceiling, fourteen feet worth of high to be exact and Bridgette’s brown eyes raked over the meticulously carved crown molding to take in large, rectangular windows that were encased in lush purple drapes. The draped were pulled apart, held by silver brackets, and it was through a Jonquil yellow lace that light filtered its way through the room and laid a Chantilly pattern over Bridgette, who laid herself in a large bed. The comfort alone was fit for a king or maybe a queen, thought Bridgette, her femininity taking over and the lack of memory in her making herself ask silently, am I a queen?

         Or was it the woman in the corner, with whom Bridgette locked eyes that the bed and room belonged to. Bridgette’s warm brown eyes met her cold and insincere black ones. Although from the distance between the two they could have been blue or green. But for now, her eyes, coupled with the closed off way this woman held herself, they were as black as sin.

Bridgette could tell that this woman would not be much help to heras she, the other woman, just stared with disdain. She must have been in a deep thought, and the look of disdain must just be a permanent one, because then she stood as if she had just noticed Bridgette being awake. The woman started talking, moving her mouth but no sound reached Bridgette’s ears. She began repeating what she had just said, possibly louder for her mouth grew wider and she even started using gestures, but Bridgette could not hear a thing! And then she paused, and spoke again, this time putting her hands on her hips out of frustration. Bridgette shook her head and the woman pursed her lips.

         Bridgette sat up, mostly out of desire to get out of this woman’s vicinity and to find out where she was. It was nausea and the woman’s hands that forced her back down to lay again. And then she left Bridgette there in an unknown bed in the unknown room.

Minutes, maybe seconds after she left, Bridgette slowly began remembering. The mountain, the falling, the fountain…and something else. She had a very vivid memory of a green tie with a gold snake tie pin clipped to it. Minutes…was it minutes or was it seconds, as Bridgette complicated the tie pin that the man with the different colored eyes entered the room and was observing her while leaning against the doorway?
When Bridgette noticed him standing there she mentally screamed, but physically she appeared as unemotional as a piece of paper blowing in the wind. The window was open; her hair lightly blowing with the wind and as Bridgette stared at him he opened his mouth to reveal almost perfect teeth. She watched his lips form words slowly, almost like her could tell she could not hear very well, or could not hear at all.

         She made out the words “you” and “mountain.” Yes, the mountain she was walking up and then she fell…the fountain. Her hand moved to her head and ears feeling the gauze. “Hospital?” She half-whispered trying to figure a timeline that made sense in her head.

         He nodded and walked forward to the left side of the bed she laid in. His hands, himself, not dressed in a white lab coat but an expensive white linen suit (and somehow without the authoritative uniform he presence alone told Bridgette he was in command). But as his hands unwrapped bandages there, his, touch did not just say Iron-Willed-Doctor, but Iron-Willed-Doctor-with-a-Secret-Heart-of-Gold-Benefactor. He looked stern, but maybe that was just because he was concentrating. When he turned away to place the bandages on a tray he fears were concerned.

The blood on them made her think more about her head and without the comforting constraint of the bandages it began to throb. She made a quivering sound without opening her mouth that made the doctor stop and turn around. He held a small tin box in his hand.

“Can you hear me?” He said equally as formal as the way he held himself and his stare. Bridgette, being able to hear now, was transfixed by his eyes again. The eyes of the fae baby on the fountain and the eyes of the man who turned her around so fast- it was all true.

“Can you hear me.” He asked again but it was not a question.

“Yes,” Bridgette said in a small voice with an Irish influence. The doctor’s eyes widened for a few second, the Brogue taking him aback, and then returned to his authoritative state.

“That is good. I am Doctor Glen,” He opened the small box in his hand and took out a miniature syringe. “If I give you this, relieving you of your pain, you must be truthful with me.” He moved closer to her.

“What is it?” Bridgette asked, eyes wide. Bridgette did not like needles, her absent memory reminded her.

“Morphine Syrette…for the pain.” He said and then added a little nicer, “Don’t worry, you are not allergic.”

And deciding it was best not to ask how he knew she was not allergic, and really-what could he want to know from her? She nodded and held out her arm. He examined it and as if he was psychic, or maybe he had given her morphine while she slept (thusly answering the above puzzle of how he knew she was not allergic) he laid her arm back down and walked to the foot of the bed.

“It is easier here,” He muttered and tossing the blanket away he picked up her foot. Bridgette watched the tiny needle push through the skin on top of her foot and felt the liquid slowly, almost teasingly, rush in, “It will take thirty minutes.”

“For…?”{
         "For the pain to be alleviated, I will be back then.” He looked up, pocketing the box again. Dr. Glen walked back to her side again and made her lay back down, hands gently on her shoulders and then down to the blanket, grazing her body on the way. And then he drew the covers up, tucking her in like her father would. Dr. Glen stood tall and then looked almost like he was sizing her up, surveying her. But Bridgette was already getting sleepy and she did not notice, when she rolled on her side, the way his eyes drank in her form.

“Good night, Miss Bridgette.” He muttered and left the room closing the door.

++++++
Out of his examining room, occupied by her, Norman Focks sat at his desk. Yes, he lied but not entirely. Everyone here knew him by the name of Norman Glenn- Dr. Norman Glenn and Glenn was his middle name, but in his…former line of work using his real name so freely was not the best idea.

Norman Glenn Focks was not a real doctor, but he had a fantastic cure for certain diseases one thought incurable. One runs across those kinds of things when you were previous in espionage. It was Italy, where he found the medical material that had hundreds of cures from acne to terminal cancer. Of course it one was terminally ill, it just prolonged the life and if Norman could at least offer them comfort in their last days…and Norman did employ very skilled doctor’s …and he had learned from them back in Iowa. But his rival had been hot on his heels and well, the former hotel turned hospital in the Ozark Mountains was much more plush than the building in Iowa. Needless to say this was a much more calm and enjoyable, if not profitable, business than contract espionage.

But what of her? He glanced in the direction of the former-suite-bedroom-turned-examining- room. “What about her?” He murmured to himself pouring a scotch highball. He sipped away at it slowly and turned to face the chair where she sat her things. On the other side of his desk, in one of the less fine chairs sat a suitcase, a handbag and a gun.

“She’s hiding something,” he said, again to himself, as he leaned back in his chair. The burning scotch in his throat had long since become a feeling synonymous with deep thought. Through the window the led to his balcony, he added balconies to La Luna, a breeze carrying the crisp wind rolled in and floated over to him. He inhaled and decided she did not look like a threat, but that he would still ask her about her belongings, the gun, when she woke.

If she was running from something he could offer her sanctuary. For a price.