From the Ashes:Prologue

    Elizabeth put the last sweater into the suitcase on the white lace-covered double bed. She looked around at the familiar room overlooking Central Park; the room that had been hers for as long as she could remember. She looked at it now in all its white lace and satin glory and imagined what it had looked like when she had been brought home from the hospital, a child unwanted by her parents but already adored by her grandparents. Her grandparents - Diana and Devlin, her beloved Gram and Pap. How grateful she was to them. Without them she would not be Elizabeth. They helped to give her the identity she had, the values she knew and the life she had known for sixteen years. She wrapped the blue cashmere cardigan sweater around her woman's body to ward off the slight chill of the air-conditioning as she thought of the man who had helped her find and know herself.
    She walked to the vanity and sat to look at her reflection in the round gilt mirror. A porcelined skinned, oval face framed in long blond hair looked back at her. The green eyes, as green as a Brazilian emerald showed the wisdom of someone much older. Was she only sixteen? Sometimes it seemed that she'd lived a hundred years. As she looked at the reflection in the mirror, she thought of the men, beginning with her father, who had already used and abused her body for revenge, for selfish pleasure. They had never really taken her spirit for long. They had taught her the pain, but one extraordinary man taught her the pleasure. Neither the pain nor the pleasure should have been experienced by anyone in only sixteen short years.
    Pleased that she inherited Gram's wonderful gifts, it was still very frightening at times to know things before they happened. She still didn't understand everything about what and who she was, but she knew that with Gram's help, she would continue her journey to find herself and be the person she was supposed to be.
    Elizabeth was leaving today. Leaving the home she loved, the only real parents she had ever known. Leaving her beloved teacher of life, the man who brought out who she really was. Sure, her parents were alive, but they really weren't a part of her life. Not in any real way. They hadn't been for a very long time. The pain of that was less now and hopefully was behind her.
    She felt queasy. Queasy and scared to death. "How do people get along without subways?" she wondered. It wasn't the lack of subways that frightened her. What would she do without the daily guidance and mentoring? She just wasn't ready to use her gifts on her own. They were still too frightening. She knew in her soul that she was starting on the rest of her life. "Well," she guessed, "I'll soon find out." Elizabeth was going to college in Washington, D.C. It was a very exciting time in Washington. Jack had been elected President just two years ago, and had transformed the Capital into Camelot. Her grandparents were opposed to her going away to school at first, but then realized this was something she needed to do to fully become the person she needed to be.
    Elizabeth closed her suitcase and locked it. Gram and Pap would be home soon, expecting her to be ready to leave for the train station. She began wandering around the Fifth Avenue apartment, touching all the things that were dear to her. Things that were familiar and filled with the memories of a lifetime. She walked into the dining room with the chandelier reflected in the cherry wood that had been polished to mirror perfection. She could hear the voices of her childhood as the family gathered daily for dinner. She walked into the living room, where the family pictures were displayed on the marble mantle over the fireplace. This room brought back memories of joy and pain to her. The pictures reflected the events of a lifetime. As she picked up the picture of Ian in his Army uniform, she shuddered as she remembered seeing everything that happened to Ian in the horror that was Korea. The pictures reflected memories of a lifetime. Births, graduations, weddings, tears and joy. Not just her lifetime, but the lifetime of her Gram and Pap.

How different her life had been. How very different her life could have been.....

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