“C’mon, chicken,” Hawke sighed as she looked up at the sign for the flower shop she’d been standing outside since her coffee was warm. Her gaze traveled across the word Iander’s then back down to the window, crowded with plants. “This is no harder than meeting the psychologist.”
She scarcely recognized the face reflected amid the blooms and brambles, though she should have. It was the same dull-eyed stranger who had been drifting in and out of her bathroom mirror at home: too wan and too serious.
Determined, Hawke twitched her arm and captured the door handle, stepping out of the world of drab marble and lowering clouds into what looked like a scene out of Fern Gully.
“Hello?” she asked the dappled shadows. “I’m looking for Iander.”
Nothing.
She ventured a few more steps into the shop, wondering fingers drawn inexorably to the leaves around her. “I’m Hawke. Merrill’s friend?”
Marian Hawke 