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Chapter One: The Beauty of Broken ThingsKelso paused for the shot, because it was perfect. It was not the bridge over the river, cloaked in a rolling autumn fog, and it was not the distant, hazy forms of the buildings, gray against a grayer morning sky. It was not the dark waters of the river itself, lapping along endlessly in their dance, or even the fog-cloaked hulk of the East River Ferry, in the distance that made the image.The perfection of the shot was the girl and the dog. The moment when the sunlight of the late fall broke through the gray clouds to illuminate her, a single ray, on the form of the girl. The one ray of light hit her sidelong, at just the angle to cast her shadow long across the broken concrete as she looked out on the water. It was what the image said of the universe, the shadow and the girl's gaze, for just that moment, perfect companions, sympathetic.The shadow stretched long and away, even as the girl looked out across the water, long and away, lost in whatever contemplation a girl accompanied by a three-legged mutt contemplated on such a morning. Kelso captured the shadow and the light, the dog on its two good hind legs, likewise observing the stretch of the waters and the distant towers. He captured the profile of the girl, an almost palpable look of sadness and longing in her dark eyes. It was perfect.Kelso knew from long experience that the perfect shot, truly perfect, rarely came by chance. There were good shots, even great shots, but the perfect shot happened often by design rather than happenstance. He could count on one hand the number of times he'd been presented with it at just the moment when his camera was at the ready, and the undeniable feeling of rightness at those moments was one that he thought was akin to glimpsing the inner workings of the universe itself.An image was a suspended moment of infinity, something unique, that in all the wheeling billions of years that composed the past, present, and future, would never happen again. When he was able to capture it, to freeze it, to pass that moment on to the rest of humanity, that was when he felt purpose most of all.That perfect second passed. The clouds moved again, drifting lazy through the sky, unconcerned for the goings on far below. The single ray was swallowed up, vanished, the colorful form of the girl muted with its passing, and Kelso felt the entire world was just a bit sadder for it. The girl turned at the click of the shutter, the dog swiveling with her. For a moment she looked across at him, standing in his trench coat, camera in his hand.All the loneliness of an unkind and uncaring reality informed her person, wrapped as tightly about her as the dingy and ripped red puffer coat she wore against the chill. She flipped him the bird and scampered away in the opposite direction with the mangy little dog hopping along behind.Kelso sighed and watched her round a bend, disappearing into the fog as though she'd been a dream. He had his moment, though. Content with that, he strolled on himself, thinking about the girl, the dog, building his imagined story of her circumstance in the bigger tapestry of things. The cogs of his imagination turned, placing her and her companion among all the rest of the bits that floated along in the sea of time, two broken things, just like all the rest, but no less beautiful for their flaws.Chapter Two: UnderthingTessa liked the river for many reasons, only one of which was the smell. The river didn't smell dirty, like most of the city, and it certainly didn't smell as bad as the Underthing. There'd been a time that the hot, wet, cloying scent of the place had repulsed her, but that had been long ago. She'd gotten used to the smell, though, and now it didn't reek of disgusting things so much as it did of home. Because it was.The way into the Underthing wasn't an easy one. Combined with the smell it was a deterrent to everyone else but the waif of a girl, who could lift the broken edge of the mesh covering the pipe and wiggle inside. One of her lucky finds, a little pen light, lit her way through the twists and turns of the place, until she emerged into a small pocket of warmth. Gathered about the place were the collected bits of a street girl, those tiny treasures that she'd happened upon and found value in.A sleeping bag with a tear in the side, mended with a strip of duct tape. This, not so much a treasure as a necessity. A bucket with a broken handle, again a necessity for her necessaries, but easy to carry, dump, and wash under the leaking pipe just two turns and one bend away from her refuge. The real treasures were safe in a small, wooden chest that was missing one handle and a hinge, but still closed nicely to keep the damp out. It hadn't been an easy thing to force it through the mesh grate, but Tessa refused to let it go. She'd managed it.Inside the chest was a backpack, canvas and army green, with a drawstring closure. Inside the bag she kept spare clothes, half of the package of batteries for the pen light, and The Gift. The Gift was the most precious thing of all, a thing she'd earned on a chance errand from Alan, the old guy at Tales