( Author's Note: Lyrics from "Everything That Glitters (Is Not Gold)" by country singer Dan Seals, off his 1985 album "Won't Be Blue Anymore." Written by Dan Seals and Bob McDill, the song went to No. 1 on the Hot Country Songs Chart on July 5, 1986. )

Brooklyn, New York " September 21st, 1989

The little waif was no longer hairless, and much more interesting to hang around. Sometimes I caught her looking at me, well, not really at me, since I had no shape. It was my essence she felt, and I knew it immediately, and I heard whispers about the females of her family. Then I came to believe these whispers"

Her mother was dark haired and eyed, and nothing like the fairy thing I had been called to hover over. Gypsy ilk. When my charge ran a high fever, her mother turned to my unmeshed energy and hollered, then begged me not to take her.

Can you imagine the arrogance" But I must admit, I was slightly amused, though I knew nothing of amusement at the time, nothing more than that.

When my ward was well, she was often unleashed in the street to play, her favorite sort of play involving miniature versions of herself. I later learned they were called dolls. One happy September day, settled epicenter of a doll conglomeration, she asked me my name.

"What is its name?" I asked of her instead, referring to the babydoll in her lap, wearing a black and white polka-dotted jumper. It was the first time I heard the sound of my own voice, a voice as a human would hear, slow and slightly ring-toned.

"Kasey," she said, in her babydoll voice, the secret voice she used only on strangers and babysitters.

It was reminiscent of a country tune, played over and over that year on her parent's car radio. 103.5 WYNY' fated in 1996 to become yet another dance/contemporary hits station.

"Like the song. Will you sing it to me?" And as I pressed her, I realized I had begun to gather my ether faculties, forming something of a man beside her.

"No." She said, crossing her small arms over the doll, hiding her face into the doll's synthetic hair. It was the same color as her own, light brown, with accents of blond. Their eyes were mismatched, but the child seemed not to care. While hers were an offshoot of blue, the dolly's were a Liz Taylor violet.

I make that comparison now, by the by, not then. Never then. I was so young then.

"Ahh, but you are being shy," and she was, and she hated being called out. I knew that well enough. I had watched her run from birthday party magicians, only to creep back into the audience once teased.

"It goes like this," said my stubborn innocent, uncaring that I was a half-thing of light, an outline of a man.

"Little Casey she's still growing and she's started asking questions And there's certain things a man just doesn't know Her birthday came and you never even called I guess we never cross your mind at all??

Her song trailed away as her mother came round, and I was barely a blip on her attention span. Once the child was distracted, I found myself falling apart, and whisked back into the in-between, a neither here nor there state of things, returning to my sentinel post.

Interesting, I thought.

Brooklyn, New York " May 7th, 1991

With age comes wisdom, or in the waif's case, book-learning, and with every new school day, she absorbed more. I sat in her shadow, aware of the other watchers, but we never spoke. There is no water-cooler conversation among guardians. We may, at times, acknowledge one another, but we hardly discuss, philosophize, debate" But when we do, we do so with good reason. The knowledge of my ward's ancestry came through such whispers.

She liked to write stories.

A woman came in to tutor the youngsters in the art of storytelling, and even "publish' a few of their tales. But my waif was never published, due to page limitations. She folded page after page after page into twos and sometimes fours, producing tales that stretched into pages 40 or 50, magnificent journeys of her little gray dog, trials and triumphs which surely took on anything a large red dog accomplished.

Clearly, I realized, her genius was overlooked.

She was quiet too, but rambunctious when she wished to be. She belonged to a gaggle of girls, but was often the outsider due to her strangeness, the way her thoughts conflicted with those of the others, and her tastes were never on par with popular culture.

I grew with her, learned with her, and sometimes wandered, when I was to be at her side asleep. When my intellect surpassed that of an eight year old's, I sated my hunger for knowledge at the local library, in the after hours, drifting down aisle and aisle, row by row, supping on the aftertaste of thought. The readers who came by day left their essences and experiences in every nook and cranny. Sometimes I left with bits of Byron, other times Popular Science, other times Einstein's theory of relativity"

Then too, I journeyed with her to her fantastic imaginings, which increased as her parents fought. They fought as far back as she and I could remember, and when she was alone, or alone and with me, she would sometimes sing her story, sing their tragedy, sing in rhyme and rhythm. Sometimes her voice drowned in their screaming, her father's drunken tirades, her mother's terrible despair.

This broken home, I later learned, was a catalyst of inherent power. Children are so close to our realm, and it is not uncommon for them to catch glimpses of us at the corners of their young eyes. Happy children usually forget us as they grow. Their lives are filled with purpose. Lonely children cling to us, and seek us in their teenage years, us and everything else dark and dreadful and otherworldly. I did not weep then for my young one, for I delighted in the fact that she kept my company for so long. For in keeping it, I grew stronger and more corporeal.

She gave me her father's black hair and cold blue eyes.