7.

'Hello Lexi, my name is Andrew; you can call me Andy if you like. We are gonna have a little chat right now, is that alright with you?'

'Yes ...' she says right away and with a smile while swinging both her legs as she sits on her side of a desk in Counselor Andrew Hardeman's office.

'Lexi is such a lovely name, like my name Andy is short for Andrew. What is Lexi short for?'

'Alexia' she giggles.

'Oh, such a pretty name ...'

She continues to smile and swing her legs; she clearly is a happy child. Andrew briefly considers the possibility that mum, and dad might be a little overly stressed and are unnecessarily worrying but it is early yet. This right here is intended to be an initial chat, information seeking only, no judgements, so he does not expect to be offering much yet. He will want to speak more to mum and dad then the trio as family with the thoughts of bringing them all back in a week's time and then take things from there.

'So, tell me Lexi, do you have any friends?'

'Yeah, I do ... I have some at school and more when I ...' she looks off to the right as if she were being distracted by something. '... and more when I am at home.'

'And what games do you like to play with your friends?'

She looks at Andrew when he speaks though before she replies she looks back over towards the right side of the room. 'Em ... em ... skipping and running and ... em ...'

'Do you have a best friend?'

'Em ... not really.'

'You don't, huh?'

'No ... I like everyone the same ...'

'You do? Oh, that is great. Is there anyone special, anyone you can tell things to?'

'There is the ... em ... the shadow man ...'

'Shadow man? And who is he?'

'He is my other father.'

'Oh, your dad just outside the room?'

'No ... em ... my other father ...' she says this in a manner stating the difference between a dad and a father.

'And do you talk to him?'

'Yeah ...'

'About what?'

'I'm not supposed to say ...'

'It's alright, you can tell me.'

'He ... em ... teaches me things ...'

'He does?'

'Uh-huh ...'

'Like what?'

'I am really not to say.'

'Why not?'

'He told me not to.'

'Oh OK. Do you think it is alright if I bring mum and dad back in for us all to have a chat together?'

'Uh-huh ... yeah.'

'Alright ... I will go get them. If it is alright, you can stay in your seat and I will be right back.'

'OK ...'

Andrew gets up out of his seat and heads just outside his office where Anna and Jonathon Hansen are waiting. Had he doesn't see it the shadow of a figure move through the office.

'She is a very bright girl' are Andrew's first words to Jonathon and Anna once he had come out of his office. 'I knew from the first day I met you both that good things would come your way ...'

'I sense a but coming' Jonathon says with a forced smile, trying not to show the full extent of the concern he certainly feels.

'Yeah, though I wouldn't say it may be something that would give me great cause to worry. Lexi may just have a very active imagination.'

Andrew may have intended to calm Jonathon and Anna but what he had just said gave them both further cause to feel concern.

'She has been talking with a shadow that comes to her to teach her and she calls this shadow her other father ...'

To Anna and Jonathon this is disturbing. They of course knew of this shadow; it is partly why they have come to talk once again with Andrew.

'If you both would like to come back into the office, we can talk some more ...'

Andrew re-enters his office. Anna and Jonathon take a moment, a moment with which they hear a brief crashing sound coming from inside the office, so they delay no more and head inside ... surprised to see that Andrew is not there.

'Honey' speaks Jonathon, 'where is the man gone? Where is Andrew?'

'He went out into the hall to talk to you guys she replies.

'Yes, he did honey but he came back in here ...' says Jonathon.

'He came back in here ... we saw him do so' speaks Anna.

'No ... he didn't.'

***

Andrew Hardeman, having had a conversation with eight-year-old Lexi Hansen before going outside of his office to have a brief conversation with Lexi's parents, disappears in a most peculiar way. After having briefly talked to the parents, he immediate returns to his office where he is completely caught off guard by the presence of a young lady in the room who had not been there prior to Andrew coming out ...

So caught off guard as he is he jumps with fright knocking over a container of pens from a shelf just inside his office ... she, the young lady who shouldn't be in his office, grabs him by the wrist and they both ... vanish. Little Miss Lexi does not see any of this as she is still seated in the chair with which she sat in from the moment she arrived to the office and this seat has her with her back to the office door so indeed she is completely unaware that Andrew came back in at all. When the noise occurred, she turned to see mum and dad come in the room though with no sign of Andrew being anywhere in the immediate vicinity.

There is another sound, one which may take Andrew Hardeman a moment or so to figure out and it is coming at him at a pace that does not allow him a moment or so to figure. A car horn, that's what it is, the car horn of a vehicle coming right at him. One second Andrew was re-entering his office and the next he is standing in the middle of a road with traffic coming right at him.

The immediate on-coming car manages to stop without hitting Andrew and does so with only inches to spare and in turn other road dwellers manage to avoid pilling up into said stopped car. From across the street and a hundred meters or so away there is one on-looker in particular who has a fair idea as to what is happening.

Seconds pass before Andrew realizes that he has not been hit by that on-coming car. He had shielded himself with his hands and arms ... as if that could have had done anything to protect him. His first thoughts are with the fact that he managed not to soil himself. A few more seconds pass and Andrew turns a three sixty in a half-hearted attempt to figure out what just happened. Where the hell is he and how did he get here?

'Come with me ...' speaks that on-looker when he arrives to Andrew.

'Who are you? What do you want?'

'Please ... come ...'

Traffic begins to back up sparking further car horns to be used.

'Not until I get some answers ...'

The arriving gentleman looks to be in his late fifties, a little more lived than Andrew perhaps and also looks like he may have a few screws loose, but the two men are in the middle of a busy road surrounded by many angered drivers.

'When are you from?' he asks.

'What?' responds Andrew.

'Tell me ... what date do you think it is?'

'The nineteenth.'

'Of what?'

'August.'

'What year ... what year?'

Andrew looks round, quite perplexed. The noise is confusing him all the more. Confusion? He is only at the beginning of that.

'2008.'

'Would it surprise you to know that it is actually the twelfth of May 1990 ...?'

'You're shitting me.'

'Look around ... does it look like I am shitting you?'

The stranger takes Andrew by the arm and directs him to safety. 'What's your name? I would call you boy, but I'm not one to show disrespect ... you probably aren't all that much younger than myself in all honesty.'

'I'm Andrew Hardeman ...'

'Nice to meet ya I guess. My name is Christopher Furlong, but you can call me Chris ...'