SHORT STORY LINKS

Set the pen down.  Turn off the recorder.  Listen to the story; this short story.

To answer your first question: I am over 4,000 years old; and no I am not a vampire.  Neither am I a demon or angel or any other such creature born of literature from the minds of brilliant men.  Truly there is little I know about where I came from, only that I am and that there are none like me­—none that I have met in those four millennium.  And as you can see I appear just as you do: I have flesh like yours to cover muscles; there are vital organs within my body; and when I am cut red blood will spill forth from the wounds.  Though your flesh is paler than my own and the muscles beneath my skin bulge slightly more, forming a masculine physic.

Of course you are not as interested in what I am as in what I have done—specifically what I have done in the past day—from this moment backwards a full cycle of the sun.  And what I have done is mostly related to what I am, for it is as I have already discovered and as you have yet to unravel. 

It was sundown yesterday night [Thursday] and things were going normally.  I speak of normality in the terms of what I see as normal because your perception and consequential definition would be vastly perpendicular to my own.  So let me speak more plainly about the details of the evening.  I was dressed in the full-length leather coat and also wore a pair of jeans with holes in them and an affliction shirt.  I am so very fond of the feel of bamboo flax on my skin.  As you want to know, yes, I was at the Dark Horse Tavern.   This is where normality begins to diverge. 

I sat in the corner, as I often do, avoiding the masses of humanity which sprawled about the shadows of the tavern engaging in vain attempts at procreation.  The men, if you can speak of them as such, were hunting the women with a Neolithic predatory instinct; however, their prey seemed the more intelligent.  Of course this differentiation has been witnessed on several occasions.  This pointed statement about the intellectual gap is important, most important later on, but important none-the-less.  The corner I chose is the darkest, wrapped in the deepest shadows, and then I impel the shadows to further the darkness around me as I relish the warm blood of my prey.  I feel the thick residue upon my lips and savor the iron-like taste upon my tongue.  Though the blood is only a taste I enjoy and not fully nutritional by itself, I take little time in devouring the bird in total making sure it is writhing, flapping is unnoticed by patrons.

Why do you look at me with such blatant disdain?  Plainly you devour the flesh of cattle and of foul and of swimming fish.  Because I chose to eat mine while they still fight instinctually for survival—futile as it may be—does not predispose the methods of my nutrition to be vampire-like.  It does prove the love of raw flesh and lust for warm blood...blood.  And this love of iron tinged and viscous fluid from the bodies of living creatures does not void my sanity.

The tolling of the iron church bells alerted me distinctly to the time—it being after midnight.  I wiped the last smearing of blood on the denim covering my upper right thigh and leaned back in the booth to watch the patrons do their nightly dance.  I personally took great pride in an unbiased opinion and observation of humanity.  For a very long time I actually figured I was part of your kind.   There was the issue of my long life, but even that took several hundred years to understand I was different from everyone else.  Then there were the other things: my ability to heal quickly when others would have been mortally wounded; my extraordinary senses—evidenced by hearing the iron bells; and the unnatural ability to control the environment. 

When I speak of the healing, it is because my flesh would knit together nearly instantaneously.  Lacerations would close without a scare in seconds and a gunshot wound would bleed for an instant and then heal from the inside out in but a moment.  Once when I was a child I fell from a high tree and the bone of my right arm jutted through the flesh with a sickening cracking.  By the time my brother got to my side the arm had healed though my body was covered in wet blood, but there was no sign of any injury and there was no more pain. 

And like I already mentioned about the chiming bells, I am able to hear with unparalleled ability.  For instance I can hear the steadily increasing thumping of your heart as we are talking and at the same time I can hear the conversations outside and the traffic and the birds and the vacuum from two doors down... and so on.  At times I wish it were just silent.  The sense of touch is just as keen and I can judge your weight by the footsteps you make as you approach me and I assure you I am within a pound of your actual weight: 194 pounds.  Lastly, my eye sight is acute, sharp, and able to focus on dust particles from a hundred feet away without sacrificing any peripheral sight.  To think I thought all people were just as I am with the only difference being the term of life. 

Very well, I will not bore you with the anatomical variances between you and I.  To keep it simple: you are human and I am something other than human despite the appearances to the contrary. 

So I was sitting in the corner of the tavern and enjoying the careful observations of the bestial men about the place who all preyed on the frail women who dared to tempt the shadows for a descent person.  Normally the people who thrive in such places have a distinct thread of similarity and I usually can sense when someone accidentally stumbles in—they are drastically out of place.  She was just one of those people.  She was out of place and did not belong.  Instantly I picked up on her accelerated heart rate and caught the glimmer of fear hiding within her eyes.  Emphatically I watched her as she slowly made her way around the edges of the room trying desperately to avoid the men in the tavern.  Clearly she did not want to be in the tavern and at the same time she refused to depart from the place.  And when her eyes settled on my dark corner she paused staring as her heart rate slowed slightly in my presence. 

Her hair was blonde with sporadic white strands strewn throughout and it was cut near the center of her back.  A dark purple shirt dressed the top portion of her body and though it was not tight fitting it did offer a form fitting appearance, while her jeans did the same for her lower body.  As she took a step closer I judged her weight to be 147 pounds and her height to be five feet and four inches. 

I shook my head.  There was nothing about this woman I wanted and she had no need to be any closer than she had already dared to be.  Still she approached me and so I put a hand up to signal her away, but still she took another wary step forward, tilting her head as she approached. 

"Who are you?" she asked pointedly. 

This was an odd situation to be in as the last time I had spoken to a human had been nearly 247 years prior to that very instance.  It is not that hard to believe as one can make it rather far on gestures and nods without having to verbalize any requests or demands.  I choose not to speak because conversation poses questions and questions demand answers and many of my answers cannot be understood and misunderstanding leads to fear—as you fear what you do not know or understand. 

"A hungry patron," I replied.  There was of course a brief hesitation.

Nervous tension poured from her body like a palpable sensation and though her fear subsided when she glanced over her shoulder at the door her heart took to a scary pause. 

"Do you mind?" she asked.  And as the words escaped her lips she sat down across the table from me. 

There was nothing I could do.  I stood up promptly and walked away.  Yes, she said something as I departed, however I have chosen to ignore what statements or queries she made at that specific time.  What I could not ignore was her light footsteps following me to the door.  Spinning on my heels I came face-to-face with her, stared into her shimmering blue eyes, and after holding her gaze with an imposing stare I turned and pushed through the heavy oak door into the ally. 

"Please sir," she pressed.

She had followed me into the narrow ally. 

"What could possibly be the issue or mortal complication to which you feel compelled to inquire upon a stranger who openly wants nothing to do with you," I answered never turning to face her.

"I feel you can help me."

"What?  You don't even know me.  For all you know I may be a murder or rapist," I shot back with a stern look to match.

"You’re not like them."

I caught the glimmer in her eye.  A shimmer which I had never noticed the eye of any mortal woman—baby, child, young, old, or otherwise.  With humans the eyes are gates to the soul and one can judge the absolute character of such a being with a brief glance (if you know what to look for) and with any stare you can read every bump in moral soundness.  This woman's eyes boasted something recondite and illusive, something I had only seen on rare occasions—and not in any human eye. 

"Who are you?" I asked.  "I don't know your name."  I had to gather more information quickly and ascertain this unique creature before me.

Her gaze never broke mine as she answered the query with quick whisper, “Lillithea." 

"Lillithea," I breathed back.

She bowed her head, taking her eyes from mine.  "Thank you for your assistance."

This is another strange situation.  I have yet to provide any assistance at all to her and yet she is thanking me most graciously for the assistance.  "I have yet to offer any assistance to you and so there is no need to be thanking me for it."

The words caught her Lillithea off guard and she took a step back.  "Pardon," she started, "there are times when I speak out of turn."

"Do you see things which have yet to come to pass?" I asked.

This time she turned from me and took several steps down the alley as if she was going to depart and leave me after she had followed me.  An odd curiosity since she had insisted on following my departing of the Dark Horse Tavern.  Still we stood in the alley and though more distance separated us we were still near enough to sense each other completely. 

"There are times I do," she softly sighed.  "And there are those who share that talent with me along with others—though I thought that none other existed."  She turned back to me.  "What do you see when you look at me?  What is within my eyes causing you to pause and consider the deeper contemplations?"

Indeed she tempted Fate and all her daughters with that statement and outright questioning.  I looked back at her and again our eyes locked keenly and within her eyes I discovered the truth of what she inquired.  As I said a moment ago there was only a few rare moments when I would see something deeper within the eyes, something more than a humanistic soul, and that was when I looked into a mirror.  Was this coincidence a mere situation of unexplainable proportions or was there an exceptional connection bound beyond even my sight which tethered Lillithea to me on some subterranean or dream-like level?

“What blood are you born of?” I demanded.  “How long have you trod this earth?”

She quickly stepped back at my snapping voice.  “I am of the thicker blood; and have been wondering the world for many years.”

“How many?”

“Thirty-eight centuries.”

“There are no others,” I snarled at Lillithea.  “Your tale is tall indeed and your whispers are a poison.  For too long I have wandered along and found no other beast or creature of my lineage.  And now you stumbled, weakly and in fear, into a tavern and expect me to assume your power is as great as my own and that you are similar to me?”

“As far as I know we are two out of four two remaining, you must believe me!”

I shook my head and questioned the state of things.  You see, in the last 4,000 years there was never a creature I found to match what I felt I was.  I had come to the conclusion I was not human or remotely related to the human race despite the physical and apparent similarities.  The previously stated differences drastically separated humanity from what I am and now I was faced with a frail woman who insisted she was similar to what I am? 

“You don’t know what I am you foolish girl,” I snarled again. 

“Once, a several ages ago, there were hundreds of our kind and we ruled this earth in a relative peace.  As our numbers dwindled down to near non-existence our fathers bore us into separate forms and spread us across the face of the world.  One of us was granted the history of our kind and the knowledge of some magic; one the strength of our kind who held our true form; and the other two I have forgotten over the ages though they had to do with our abilities and purpose.  I am one as are you,” said Lillithea. 

The notion she knew what she was speaking of struck hard and I felt a lead weight in the middle of my chest as it sunk into my stomach in twisted knots.  Are you listening to what I am saying?  At that very moment—in that instant—I discovered I was not alone in this vast world.  How does anyone absorb information as profound as the realization you are not as isolated and condemned as one always thought to be? 

“You were given our history?” I asked.

“Indeed I was and I know what we are,” said Lillithea, “but first we must move quickly and find safety from this place.”

“Safe?  There’s nothing in the ages past which has been able to harm me and though I have fought and been wounded death is not possible by any means possessed in this world or time.”  I stood proudly tall to my full six foot four inch frame. 

“You may be safe but I am not.”

The realization that because she instigated being of my kind did not implicate her as resilient or strong as I was and indeed Lillithea could be mortally wounded where I could not settled uneasily. 

“Very well Lillithea.  What do you suggest?” 

“We need to leave the city and find solace in the country so we can speak more freely about what we are.”

“Then I shall follow you.”

It was hard to give control over to another, especially one I have just meet and who so clearly fragile.  The only hope was that her mind was more agile and that she actually did know what we were and spoke the truth to me.  However, there was comfort in my own abilities.  If this was some elaborate trap by some deranged lunatic bent on trapping me after discovering my ancient exploits my escape would be wondrous and he would be left bleeding and cold on the field. 

Truthfully the intrigue of Lillithea’s statement about knowing what or who we are is what drew me in initially and compelled me to oblige her instances despite how odd they seemed to be.  For several millennium I have questioned what I was and why I was so different from the frail humans who surrounded me, raised me, challenged me, loved me, and died in my arms or by my hand.  And to have the answer to that lingering question dangled so dangerously near at hand was an irresistible circumstance.  What was I?  What manner of creation or beast am I?  Fear, compulsion, and wonderment each compiled to move me forward, following the swaying and hurried steps of Lillithea. 

She looked just like any other human woman—except for the remarkable depth to her eyes, which I explained prior.  But since you have asked, here are the detailed particulars of her form from the head down: Her hair is blonde with what appears to be threads of white strands strewn about within the pale yellow and is long, hanging down maybe ten inches past her shoulders.  Her eyes were an amazing sapphire color and appeared to be a deep blue with shards of lighter blue on top radiating outward from the pupil.  Waves come to mind as an image to describe her eyes.  Her skin is a pale white and is devoid of any blemishes or marks of any form and appears like a supple covering for a masterfully crafted form.  Her shoulders are broad, though she slouches slightly forward and her breasts are slightly smaller than average and would amount to an equivalent handful each.  As I mentioned her curving form, it is because of her wider hips which accentuate her womanly figure, which is set upon two muscular legs, which are capped with dainty toes.  Later I discovered she hated how her toes appeared to be so quaint and womanly. 

Lillithea had a body which was vastly different from my own.  Where I prided myself on the muscular tone of my body she seemed to have been provided a form which seemed to weave through the streets seamlessly and with a fluid grace, dancing around others who walked nearby.  Fragility was a presentable flaw in her.

“Park,” said Lillithea.

She did not wait for me to respond as she turned and headed into the park.  The park was two blocks wide and maybe six or seven blocks long and boasted several oaks and a host of pine trees.  A few benches were set along the winding path which made its way windingly among the trunks and bushes.  A few moments later she stopped and sat on one of these benches somewhere near the middle of the park and just looked up at me as if she expected me to say something.

“We are alone,” I said. 

I have to admit the situation was more than a little odd, but I shoved the concern to the side and waited for Lillithea to explain to  me why she was afraid and why she insisted on such solitude prior to disclosing the great secret she held so closely in confidence. 

“Do you believe in Dragons,” she asked.

“Dragons?  The mythical creatures from legends around the world?” I responded.

“Do you believe in them?”

The insistence of the question was interesting enough.  “I have heard many tales and read many legends concerning the beasts.  Myths call them giant lizard-like creatures who can fly, breath fire, and in some areas of the world they are revered with wonderment and in other parts with frightening dread.”

Lillithea’s face did not change.  “Do you believe in Dragons?”

“No, I have been alive for a very long time and never have I seen anything more than the tattered texts or heard old tales passed down through the years.  But I have never witnessed such a creature and have seen no evidence to convince me of their existence,” I answered.

“We are Dragons,” Lillithea said.

I took a quick step back at that statement.  Lillithea had just instigated the notion that I was—along with her—a dragon.  Dragons were supposed to be massive creatures of power, terror, strength, and legend. 

“Does this flesh look like scales?  Do my teeth appear to be the fangs of a monstrous beast?  Look at my back do you see massive wings to carry me off in flight?  And do you have scales or teeth or wings or the look of a dragon?  No, I am made of flesh and blood and don’t have rock hard scales nor do I have wings or fangs!  What foolish nonsense has polluted your young mind into fabricating such ridiculous lies?  And to think I thought you may have had an idea of what I—we—may be and then you speak of dragons with such an earnest tongue.  Dragons are mythical beasts and don’t exist.”

Those words brought Lillithea straight to her feet with incredible speed—far faster than I could react.  In the corner of her left eye a tear had formed and threatened to spill down her cheek.  Pain filled her face and she turned away from me and spoke with a soft, nearly silent, tone.

“Long ago our kind did rule this place and the dragons were massive and terrifying to behold as you said.  In that age some dragons sought to enslave the other races of this world and some fought to maintain a symbiotic relationship.  The resulting War of the Skies nearly annihilated our kind and in a desperate attempt to maintain the species we were altered and trapped within these forms by our mothers and then scattered to the corners.  There are four of us and Willow.  I was the only one granted the knowledge of our history and of what we are—the good and the evil.   For 4,000 years I have struggled to find at least one other of our kind and you are the first one I have found.”

Her voice was so gentle and fragile.  The very words seemed to pour from her, soaked in sorrow and pain, like flat musical tears.  Yet within those words was a sincerity which demanded attention and recognition and so I found myself stepping a slow step forward toward her back.

“Lillithea, I don’t understand.  Dragons are mythical creatures and despite our uniqueness I don’t see how we could be such beasts,” I said.

“There were four of us in total.”

There was a long pause after she said that last statement and as I did not know what to say I stood behind her in silence, but not another word was spoken. 

“You claim we are dragons and that is the thicker blood to which you alluded in the tavern?” I asked.

“Yes,” she said.  “You’ve been cut before and you know your blood is thicker and darker than the mortals around you.  Believe me or not, it doesn’t change what you are or who you may become.  You’re Dandorstien the Dragon of Stone and the Deep.  If you chose not to recognize what you once were then what we were has been lost at last to the ages long ago.”

Those were among the last words I heard from Lillithea.  The few other words she spoke before she departed were unknown to me and in a tongue I have not heard before—not in all my travels.  She paced a few steps away from me and turned back to face me with tears streaking down her cheeks and in the softest tone muttered words unknown and in a misty swirl dissipated into the night air.  In the wake of her shocking and unexpected departure I stood and listened intently, hearing only a faint hum in the air, which seemed most out of place.  The hum lingered only for a short moment and then faded away entirely.  Lillithea was gone, simply gone.

She left around four in the morning, though I can not be exactly sure of the precise instant of her disappearance.  I did not move from that spot in the park and remained standing a pace from next to the iron bench on which Lillithea had sat.  Lillithea had imparted an important realism to me: dragons may not be creatures in fables, but instead, creatures that do exist hidden among humanity.  Now I had questions and apparently the only one who may have shed light upon them has vanished in a wisp of vapor.   And in that moment she had left such a powerful impact.

The events in the next hour are the specific moments for which you have detained me.  Specifically the issue with the seemingly—though not—drunken man and the police officer who has now, as you claim, been declared dead by the medical examiner and is being retained at the corners office. 

As you can imagine, being a creature that is not human but one that looks—by all observation possible—human and so having just been informed of the possibility of being some form of dragon, I was in a state of very deep contemplation.  Please do not misunderstand me.  I felt the man approaching from behind me with his staggered steps as he wandered with a weaving pattern toward me.  His steps left a tell-tale mark upon the ground in the form of minute vibrations which to you would have gone unnoticed, but to me was as clear as a thunderclap.  Despite the knowledge of his presence and approach I chose to ignore him and continue my thoughts. 

It was this drunken man who made the first contact with me.  And it was most unexpected.  When he was still nearly a dozen paces away from me he charged me without cry or warning.  The reckless run was made with incredible speed and as I spun to face him the hammer hit me directly on the left side of my face connecting with my jaw and the cracking blow sent me spinning to the ground with a rain of heavy blood sailing through the air in wide arc. 

In the instant I saw this man, who I had thought drunk, prior to the hammer strike, appeared to be fully aware and absolutely alert.  The absence of any disorientation or drunkenness made me assume the staggering approach had been a rouse and this man was indeed assaulting me with intent to do harm.  Why he chose to attack me is still not within my grasp though I can make some assumptions, assumptions which I will not discuss at this moment.  Now back to the particulars of the assailant’s description.  He was maybe an inch or two taller than I and had a scar starting at the middle of his throat and running around to the back of his neck.  He wore an old brown leather trench coat and I did notice he was wearing black combat-like boots, which laced up. 

While I was kneeling on one knee with a hand at my broken jaw, blood dripping to the ground, I heard him speak in a loud voice.  It seemed like he was calling to another person and most certainly was not talking to me. 

“I’ve got him here and he is down!” he yelled.

By the time the words were out of his mouth my jaw had healed, which is why you do not see any traces of the hammer strike—save the blood smeared on the left side of my face.  I did not look back up at him at this time but was feeling the sensations of another person approaching from behind me.  This new person was 217 pounds and walked with steady paces.  The newcomer is the police office who subsequently died, though I did not discover that fact out until a few moments later.

“Stay down you beast!” the man who assaulted me screamed.  He took a step closer to me.  “Or I will make sure and put you down—six feet down.”

Obviously this fool had not conception of who he was commanding.  It was at this very instant I stood up and turned to face the man who had struck me with such force with the hammer.  The astonishment on his face was clearly evident as the wicked smile which covered his face melted into a smug frown with fear edging at the corners of his mouth.  Without a mark on my face from the hit, he had a right to fear what stood before him. 

"You're going to kill me?" I asked.    He had implied the notion of murder already, so my statement was merely a clarification of his verbalized intention. 

He visibly shook, despite attempts to remain rigid, and as I spoke and caste a very subtle and quick glance to the officer coming up to his side.  "You're an abomination!" he managed.

"I'm just a man," I countered quickly.  There was no reason for me to stay and argue any longer.  "Leave me be and let me be on my way, peaceably." 

A shot cracked through air and the bullet ripped right through my shirt, piercing my flesh and my chest, erupting out my back in a bloody spray.  The force of the impact staggered me and I stumbled back several feet.  I feel pain just like any other person and that wound hurt significantly.  My finger tips pressed against the hole in my chest and the thick blood stained my fingers and the iron scent filled my nostrils.  A second shot erupted in the night, but missed with a telling whistle past my right ear. 

"I wouldn't dare shoot at me again," I sneered at the officer.  I looked at the fool with the hammer.  "Walk away now."

The warning had been most sincere and I do wish he had taken the warning more seriously.  The man with the hammer swung again at me aiming high again as if to strike me in the head a second time.  It was simple enough to duck under the swing and step in behind his arm and from this angle he was completely off balance and vulnerable and I took full advantage of the circumstances.  With an iron-like fist I pounded away at his ribs, feeling them give way as they broke under the force of the impact.  Three solid hits and then I shoved him powerfully with all the might I could muster in that instant and he flew back like a rag doll and smashed into the tree twelve feet behind him.  Half a smile crossed my face as he crumpled to the ground in a heap while the hammer remained unmanned at my foot.

A third shot splintered the air and a second slug tore into my body.  This time the bullet struck my left arm, near the shoulder joint, and spun me nearly full around though I managed to keep my footing.  The officer had leveled the revolver, maybe a .44, at me and was taking careful aim for the fourth shot.  I heard the hammer click into place and listened to the very slight clicks of the trigger as he slowly squeezed and prepared to fire.  The bullet burst from the barrel, followed by the plumb of smoke, and I watched as it exited with force and sped toward my head.  With delicate precision I shifted slightly and watched as the slug slipped past and missed me by only an inch.  And the instant the lead had passed harmlessly I crouched and charged him, closing the distance with unexpected speed. 

The eyes of the police officer bulged with fear as I arrived in front of him and ripped the revolver from his hands, tossing it back behind me.  Before the gun had a chance to hit the ground and before he could have had an moment to react I swung high with my right elbow and caught him in the jaw, splintering the bone and slicing the flesh open with the fragments of bone.  Then I quickly reversed the motion of my arm and caught the opposite side of his face with a back-handed fist to the temple area of his head.  There was a sickeningly deep crack sound as the skull gave way, caving in nearly two inches with the force of the strike.  Thin blood erupted from the officers ear, eye, and nose.   And with a limp (and lifeless) thud his body fell to the ground without a word. 

This is when I noticed the small chain he had around his neck.  The chain itself was nothing more than simple and ordinary but the small pendant was unique and captured my keen attention.  It was a small dragon form with a sword set through it and an inscription in Latin; however, I was not able to read the inscription as it appeared to have been worn off.  Though I am sure I will get another opportunity to read the letters and decipher the words on the small pendant. 

Why you ask, do I think I will see it again?  And I say, because I have seen the pendant before, though I never really paid any attention to it.  To me it was always a basic and simple pendant worn by random people who were fanatics, but now I have discovered that exact pendant on the officer who shot me and around the neck of the fool who hit me with the hammer.  And the coincidence of the attack immediately after meeting Lillithea was more than disturbing and it created new questions to which I desperately needed answers and the one person who could have provided them has now vanished.

She had to have known they were nearby; had to have been aware of the possibility of an attack or she would not have insisted upon the park as a place to speak.  Maybe the fear I noticed was related to her being stalked by these two individuals.  There was no doubt in my mind, as by logical deduction and simple reasoning bears the same conclusion, that she was aware of danger.  The particulars of the danger may have eluded her, but she knew danger was still present.  What was most disturbing is that she sought me out and entangled me in the danger.  There is always the possibility that the danger was ever present and unknown to me and her presence brought the about the events which would have occurred anyways, meaning she was actually aiding me or at least attempting to.  The complexities and overwhelming plexical thoughts are amazingly complicated and are keeping a good portion of my mental capacities overly busied.  And now I must hunt down Lillithea as she had hunted me.  I will demand the answers from her as to my being a dragon of some kind and as to who Dandorstien of the Stone and Deep is supposed to be. 

As for this conversation, it is at an end, and you have your story about the death of the police officer in the park and how the drunken fool ended up in the hospital.  If you chose to write about it and speak the truth I would expect you to find your career as a legitimate author expired.  If you are seeking to write in the realms of fantasy, this story may be your best option, though it still must be unraveled and unveiled.  I may be a dragon and I may not be; but I do know I am not human.  And I have a story to tell.  If you wish you can follow me as my chronicler and you will have a story unlike any other woven before and the greatest secret is the truth within it.  You decide.  I go now to hunt Lillithea and these other three she claims to exist.