Sunlight illuminated the floor as the girl entered the room for the first time. Small specks of dust were sparkling in the air as her body motion made it move. The room hadn't had another human being in it for a few years, nobody dared to enter it because of the atmosphere it gave. Yet, now this family was bold enough to enter it despite warnings they had received from many people. She hummed quietly, pointing one toe as her foot made a half circle shape on the floor. A small smile appeared across her face as she took a small skipping step, noticing the grip her sock was getting. The hard wood was exactly something she wanted.
"Oh my god, would you look at that." Her mother entered the room with wonder in her voice. "The design is exactly as we imagined, it's perfect!" She came closer to Brandy, embracing her small body with her warm one. "What do you think hun?" Her long fingers gestured towards the whole room. Overall, it was pretty spacious, compared to the last house this one could work more.
Brandy took little delicate steps with a purpose to them as her eyes studied the room. "I like it." A soft voice flowed from her mouth as her eyes darted back and forth. Her mother came closer again, placing her hands on the girl's shoulders to encourage her. "That's what I thought." Her mother didn't try to hide the pride placed on her face." I was thinking we could put the mirrors all around on these walls, they're very smooth and it shouldn't be difficult to find a good size. Brandy moved up one side of her lips in agreement. "Oh!" Her mother exclaimed, placing a hand on her protruding belly. "I think the baby agrees too." She made small circles on her belly to calm the baby. A small giggle escaped Brandy's mouth while making rare eye contact with her mother. "Now how about we help the rest of your brothers and sister with their things?" Brandy nodded rapidly, placing the dance box on the floor so she could carry more things. She did her special dash, which was a mixture of skips and hops, out of the room to the moving truck. As her foot steps echoed away, the smile on her mother's face seemed to slip off it. She sighed with a small mutter to herself. "What have I done? What have you done Donna?" Talking to herself wasn't a solution, but it made her feel better when there was no one else to talk to. She didn't want to move, but the nursing job here was a good opportunity for the family and with a new child coming, there was no room in the old house. Besides, bad memories from that house didn't help with their family life, things were stressed and restarting was the best way to fix it all.
"Mom!" She glanced to the floor, completely unaware of the yell as she explored her thoughts. There was a want for something more, for something to fix the mess they were in. She gasped quietly as her son hit the wall to get her attention. "Mom! Matthew threw the ball on the top shelf and I can't reach it!" Riley exclaimed loudly. He ruffled his messy blonde hair nervously as he gawked at her.
"Did you break anything?" She asked suspiciously. She could tell he was guilty by the look in his eyes. Riley shuffled his feet side to side. He shook his head quickly with hands hidden behind his back. Sneakily, he fluttered his eyes up at her in hopes she would drop it, but was only greeted with stern expression . "Just a small light, we didn't mean to." She nodded as she considered how bad the damage really was. Her older daughter appeared from around the corner, holding two stacked boxes to move to her own room. "Carly, will you help your brother get the baseball? " she asked as a quick solution. The light wasn't a big deal, they could buy one later when they traveled to the department store. Carly let out a dramatic bit of air from her in nose, looking to the ten year old who seemed hopeful. "Fine, where is it?" She answered reluctantly, out of all the kids, she seemed most upset about the move. Especially since she had to leave her high school full of friends made all the way from elementary. When her mother mentioned the plan to move, Carly argued more than all the other kids. She threatened to run away and even mentioned killing herself. Something Donna found over dramatic since this house was a few hours away from the old one. It took almost two weeks to finally convince the girl the move was the only choice they had.
"Living room, top shelf." Donna answered as the teen took no time to think once she received her answer. Carly stalked to the other room, leaving her brother little time to gather himself. "Oh and take your toys to the back Riley, we don't need to be breaking more expensive things." Riley nodded as he moved to follow his sister. Donna gave one more inspecting stare of the room before she moved back to get more boxes into the house.
Brandy's POV
We finally finished getting the boxes into the house around dinner time. Each of us were set up with our own rooms. While the boxes weren't completely unpacked, our bed were set up so we could sleep for school tomorrow. Yes, we were going straight to school after the move. Nobody wanted to, but mom insisted the more we missed the more we would be behind. She didn't want us taking classes all the way into the summer. I had just started middle school and it was difficult for me. I was small compared to all the middle schoolers and the joke of me being in the wrong school had gotten old. It was hard for people to believe I was a seventh grader.
The one thing I had to look forward to was the fact my school would be a arts school. My mother put a huge emphasis on us doing things we liked and she thought that this school would help me more than the other one did. I wasn't stupid, I did fairly well in school. Subjects such as English and math I got off with B grades which weren't that bad. It was the fact I had more of an interest for dance than I did for school. I loved ballet the most, especially since I was on pointe earlier than most kids my age. My dance teacher was the one who mentioned the school to my mother. Because of her I was finally enrolled in a school that was a dream come true.
With the dance room my mom promised, I wanted to practice in it tonight so I was ready for auditions tomorrow. I was nervous, but confident in making it. I didn't consider myself a terrible dancer since I was coordinated in my movement. And the dancing always felt like a small escape from the real world while I did it.
"Pizza's here!" Carly yelled loudly, her voice held a small aggressive tone to it. As if she didn't want anyone to take more time to come downstairs. Carly was the oldest out of all of us and the only other girl in my the family. I guess most people would think we were close, but we just weren't. Carly had a personality distinctively different from mine. Unlike me, she was popular in school, she ran on the track team and had no problem with talking to people. Sometimes I found her voice to sound obnoxious, but even mentioning something like that to her would only bring her wrath upon me. In the recent year, she acted a lot different from her usual self, I guess more gloomily because of the hard turn all our lives had taken. Mom told me it was because she didn't want to move, but I knew it stemmed from something way before that.
"Brandy get down here now!" Carly yelled as she increased the aggressiveness to her tone. Quickly I ran down the stairs, I was in no position to receive the rath of my sister. The pizza was ready and mom wouldn't let anyone eat until we were all seated.
The smell of melted cheese entered my nose, causing my stomach to rumble in reply. I slipped into the metal fold up chair crossing my arms to fit in. Carly spoke to herself, "Finally." It was as if she thought I couldn't hear her even though it was loud and clear to my ears. I slipped my fingers into the crust of the greasy slice as I took my first bite. We ate silently just as we had been doing for months. We didn't talk, but ate as a family like our mother wanted to. It was better this way since most of the time we tried to avoid each other all day. "Are you guys excited for school tomorrow?" Quickly that ice was broken by my mother who had clear intentions to change the quality of our family life. Nobody replied as we each quietly bit into our cheesy pizza, hoping it would be dropped.
She glanced at us expectantly, which was a sign nobody would leave the table until she received a reply from all of us. I nodded, giving her a smile. I was excited and I knew the school was of high quality. "I heard our school has a sick playground!" Matthew exclaimed excitedly with hands thrown into the air. "And, and I have recess at the same time as Riley so we can play together."
"Wow, but remember you guys still have to go to your classes, I don't need a call from the school saying one of you is missing from school." Mother explained carefully. Matthew and Riley were the youngest, for now until the baby was born and they had the most mischievous personalities out of all of us. They got in trouble so easily for small things, it was a good thing that they only did small things.
"What about you Carly? "Mom asked my sister who was still busy into her pizza. Carly looked up, wide eyed as she was hoping Mother would ignore her even though it was never the case.
Carly looked at all of us with eyes asking to change the subject before realizing she was trapped in this and had to give a reply. Her words were simply and rude. "No." She didn't try to explained herself as she went directly back to her pizza. Mom bit her lip at my sister's words. She was trying to fix things and Carly had no intention to help her at all. I inhaled sharply as I recognized the expression on my mother's face, mixed with anger. A fight was about to go down and we had only been in the house for five hours.
"Why?" My mother's voice was very authoritative. She was questioning my sister and she knew very clearly where these words would take her. Carly wasn't timid at all and she would take no time to argue against mom.
Carly dropped the pizza on her plate, practically glowering at mom's fake worried expression. "I think we al know why we really moved, you're just trying to avoid the memories we had at the other home, it hurts you doesn't it?" She sneered angrily, directing her words to something hard in front of everyone. "Carly, don't you dare say that. Drop this right now." My mother suddenly becoming very dark at my sister's words, Carly was intentionally trying to hurt her. "It hurts you to know that he walked around that house with you, made so many fond memories."
"Stop it Carly! Your siblings don't need to hear this right now!" Mother leaned across the table, warning my sister.
With those words I felt myself snap, why were they trying to hide this from us when we knew everything? "Shut up!" I screamed, slamming my fist on the table. Everyone stared at me with shocked eyes, Carly included. "I know dad's dead, we all do. There's no need to act like it never happened, how are we going to deal with our problems if we avoid this?" I spoke very quickly, paying no attention to the harshness of my words. I breathed deeply for a few seconds as everyone sat in the silence. I stood up, making my intentions clear about today. "I'm going to bed, goodnight."
Normal POV
Brandy shifted in her bed with an uncomfortable expression. After dinner something felt wrong. Her room felt wrong, before it was new and exciting, but now she could feel an unsettling feeling. Her eyes snapped open as she looked towards the source of her discomfort. A pale girl with wild curly hair, and a ruffled apron stood at the end of her bed. The girl who was younger than her seemed perplexed, yet pleasantly surprised. After a minute the girl finally spoke. "What are you doing in my room?"