When he was a body length from me, I made a show of tripping over my own feet, stumbling backward and rolling to my hands and knees. I was able to mov... several crawling steps before I heard a growl behind me. I froze and the audience went still. Preta was suddenly on my back.“Ladies and gentlemen,” Sylvia spoke over the microphone, “I am sure you now recognize Annie’s intimidating looking feline companion, Preta.” There were murmurs and nervous laughter as the guest regained their composure. Then he kept stroking the outer edges of her unmentionable parts. That was making her more and more nervous in a way she had never experienced previously. She thought of asking him to stop.Asking him to stop raised two problems. This was his right as a husband. If it was wrong to ask him to delay what would hurt her, it seemed silly, as well as probably wrong, to ask him to stop entirely what merely made her nervous. Then, too, she was quite clear what the next action was. If she asked him to. ” She spoke slowly as she looked at the sleeping child “Let it be so” she said at last. Mal heard her words and turned, eyes wide as the fairy undone the conclusion of her curse. Alas, she knew she could not change it now, the ceremony was concluded. She left the palace as loudly as she entered, the door banging behind her, the echoes startling everyone back into life. Mal watches from the shadows as her curse comes to fruition and Briar falls into a deep sleep. As she is placed in the tower. To them, she was just another lost soul going about her lonely life.Turning south on East End, she made her way down the short edge of a hundred year old housing tract. Muted lights burned in the old homes, but none offered her the slightest warmth. She was on her own and the pain of her loneliness ached in her heart as she made her way toward the future she had reluctantly chosen for herself.‘Goddamn you, Mick! You said you loved us! You lying bastard! How could you just leave us like that?'.