House of Four Seasons
A Special Need
By Layne
Adjusting her glasses, Sarah Lincoln gave another look around the bus station. Someone was supposed to be meeting her--someone named Andy--but it was ten minutes past the time he should be there. Sighing, she took out her laptop and turned it on, taking another look at the pictures of the house she'd rented for the next year. It was rather average as houses went, the outside giving no hint of all that was supposed to lie within.
Sarah had become acquainted with Toni Thorne at the library. Sometimes it seemed to Sarah that she had spent the majority of her life in libraries. At college there'd been many days when she had been the first to arrive in the university library and the last to leave. Since then, she'd spent a lot of time there too, preferring losing herself in books to the harsh realities of life. And, of course, during her childhood there'd been all the times when the library had been the place she'd run away to when things got too bad at home, which had been often.
"Stop that!" she told herself firmly. This was no time to be thinking about her childhood and how bad things had been. She was twenty-four now, even though it seemed she ought to be at least forty. She was taking this year to try and become a new person, someone different from the shy and timid girl she'd been since childhood.
Toni Thorne. She'd met her at the library when Toni had sat down in the chair next to hers, exclaiming, "I've never seen this place so crowded!"
Sarah had smiled politely and made an offhand remark about the book Toni was holding. That had started a long conversation and an invitation from Toni to have lunch. During that lunch, she'd found out that Toni was a writer and her husband, Terry, in some sort of security business, which Sarah couldn't remember very well. She'd told Toni about her job as a social worker, most of it dealing with abused children and how depressing it could get, even though she'd only been at it for three years.
Somewhere in the conversation Toni had told her about the house she had for rent, the magical house where one could be with a companion for each of the four seasons--could find love with those companions. She'd told Sarah about those special companions.
Anyone else might have laughed at that, but Sarah took it all to heart. She'd never felt loved or that she had loved anyone in return. This had to be fate. It had to be her chance. As a social worker she was not rich. It would take all the money she had in the world--even if she sold most of her things. She would end that year broke and with no job to return to. But she had to do it. So she'd made the arrangements with Toni.