Excerpt of Rosi's Castle by Edward Eaton

WITH a sigh, Rosi looked yet again at the clock above the door of the darkened doughnut shop.

One o’clock.

She was not happy.

After spending too much time wandering around Boston sightseeing and avoiding the station, she had missed the earlier train but figured there would be a car waiting for her.

There should have been a car waiting for her.

She had left a bunch of messages at the number the lawyer had given her. Who would leave a fifteen-year-old girl alone at a train station at one in the morning?

Looking around, she smiled as other late-night travelers yawned and straggled to their cars or their waiting loved ones. A few families with cranky children and snapping parents laden with luggage strolled out of the station and left. A couple of homeless-looking people came up asking for spare change. Rosi handed out some quarters and then pulled out a book hoping it would discourage further intrusion.

Soon, the parking lot was empty and the only people around were a pair of janitors blasting a radio and sweeping up candy wrappers and cigarette butts.

"You all right, miss?" one of the janitors called out to her.

"Just waiting for my uncle."

"Wanna wait inside?"

She shook her head. "No, but thanks."

Outside the station was creepy enough. Inside it just plain smelled. The concrete had a reassuring solidity to it and the lights made the place as bright as day, but the almost pitch black gloom looming beyond the parking lot made her nervous. She couldn’t remember seeing a night even close to this dark. Even though the sky looked clear above her, the gloom was partially filled by a heavy dark storm cloud that drifted on a breeze that had yet to reach the station.

Someone better pick her up soon, Rosi thought. That storm looked ready to burst.

And there was the silence.

Sure, there was the Latino rap from the radio, and the janitors were calling back and forth to each other. She could also hear cars driving by on a nearby highway.

Other than that, however, there was little noise. It felt too quiet to her.

Silence was not something that made her feel safe or comfortable. Her life was filled with noise: the traffic and the chatter of pedestrians on her way to and from school. Over the last few months, while living with her cousins, she had gotten used to their three small children crying, complaining, playing, or laughing at all hours of the day.

Born and bred to the constant vibrancy of Manhattan, Rosi was a city girl. She was used to a steady white-noise background of honks, sirens, and distant chatter. Every book she read, from fantasy adventures to trashy romances with pirates and damsels on the covers, had a soundtrack of punk or rap or this-week’s plastic teenager, a bass rhythm from the subway, and was backed up by the choir of New Yorkers that filled the sidewalks 24/7.

Here, out in the middle of nowhere, she half-expected her sniffs to echo.

It was certainly chilly. She was sure she would hate living way up here in the north. June in the city was warm. Perhaps it was all the cars and exhaust and lights that made the city warmer than the country.

Pulling an 'NYC’ sweatshirt from her suitcase, she slipped it on and pulled it down over her knees. There was little she could do about her feet. The only shoes she had brought with her were the flip-flops she now wore. She would have to wait until the rest of her stuff got here from home.

Oh well. She didn’t have to be happy about moving to the middle of nowhere, but she had to move, so she had no choice but deal with it. Of course, she could have raised a fuss and screamed and yelled and thrown a fit, but she wasn’t a little kid any more.

Rosi fingered the little silver St. Christopher that had been a gift from her father on her thirteenth birthday when he had taken her to Italy. That had been one of the best weeks of her life. Daddy had taught her how to drive a Vespa and the two of them had raced each other all up and down the Bay of Naples. She always won, of course. It had been her birthday after all, so it was only fair. One night in Rome, she had sneaked out of the hotel and gone dancing and had too much wine and had been brought home by a police officer. Daddy had been so angry, even though he’d laughed when the police officer told him that she had thrown up all over some guy who had been trying to kiss her. And the food in Italy sucked. It was supposed to be so great, but she couldn’t even get a decent pepperoni pizza there.

Rosi sighed. Thinking about that trip so long ago made her miss Daddy.

She stood and then walked around in front of the station. She looked into the window of the convenience store that was inconveniently closed. She even tried to see if she could exhale steam. That would be really neat. No go. It wasn’t that cold. The storm cloud seemed to be inching closer to the lighted parking lot, so Rosi decided to go back to her seat by the newspaper vending machines where she should be dry when the torrents of rain came.

She tried to read, but could not get into her book. To make matters worse, the battery in her G4 phone was dead so she couldn’t listen to her music.

Daddy always made fun of her taste in music. She had never cared all that much. She knew her taste in music was rather bad. It wasn’t really her fault that the singers everyone listened to didn’t write their own songs or play their own instruments, or even sing.