My parents died when I was seven. It had been rather rainy that night. I remember Matilda, the governess at the time, putting me to bed. I was frightened, not because of the thunder outside, but because my brother, Ian, would often sneak into my bedroom on nights my parents were not home and would wait for the perfect moment to scare the hell out of me.

He had many ways to scare me and had been perfecting his craft ever since I was of age three. In the beginning he would simply burst into my room and yell 'BOO!'. Then he learned that jumping out of my closet and yelling 'BOO!' was much more effective. At the time of my parents death, he found even better tactics of scaring me. One was waiting under my bed until Matilda had gone away and I had relaxed and was close to sleep. Then he would reach his arm up and slide it under the covers, grabbing my ankle and pulling me onto the floor and sometimes under the bed too, but his favourite way at the time was to hide under my bed and then when I was just drifting off to sleep he would quietly come out and swiftly put his hand over my mouth, effectively cutting off any scream, and would sweetly whisper in my ear "Beware the stare of Mary Shaw. She had no children, only dolls and if ye see her in yer dreams, make sure ye never ever scream." Now I have no idea why this scared me at all, I mean by the time he started whispering, I knew it was him, but something about it made me frightened.

I realize that there are more words to the...quite twisted children's poem, but that was as far as he ever got when I really did scream, wrenching away from his hand and sprinting out of the room screaming even more. That night was no different from any other. He had creeped into my room when neither I or Matilda had been looking. Then he had waited, patiently, as I slowly started getting heavier and heavier lids. Then he came up and did his trick. As all other times, it worked perfectly. I tore out of the room and down the hallway, as my brother ran after me chanting, "Wait , brother dear, I only want ter play."

I neither waited nor slowed down, but ran even faster. My other brothers, Sean and Gwydion, were promptly woken up from the ruckus my brother and I were making, or maybe not even woken up at all. This had become more or less a nightly happening, so, as far as I know, they could have very well been awake, just waiting for my screams of fear and Ian's cries of joy. We ran through the upstairs and down the grand staircase leading to the front hall. I could here little bits of yells from Sean and Gwydion telling Ian to stop chasing me and get back to bed, even though he was the eldest out of us all. But, that was just Ian. He never gave up the chase, not even when he was loosing. He was the predator and I was his prey. He was the cunning fox and I was the scared, little rabbit.

My footsteps echoed as my feet slapped the marble floor of the front hall and then the cedar floor of the smaller hallway leading to the kitchen, where Matilda would surely be, just waiting for my brothers and I to burst in. When we finally did, I saw her talking on the phone in a hushed frantic tone. Seeing my God given solace, who would surely scold Ian for being so cruel to me, I run right up to her, clutching to her leg sputtering out pleas of help as Ian coolly walked in, acting as though he had not done one thing wrong, an innocent, unknowing look on his face.

She paid no attention to me and for a few fearful moments I thought that Ian would surely realize this too and drag me away to whatever 'games' he had planned for us. Sean and Gwydion had come in by now, waiting for Matilda to say what she usually said when my brother and I got up to these kind of antics. I can't remember now what she used to say.

Suddenly she placed the phone onto the hook with a quivering hand. As she turned towards us I backed away, having the eerie feeling that something was off. I looked up at Ian and saw that his face was now serious. It scared me. I looked back at Matilda, hoping for an explanation. Then she said the words that have forever been burned into my memory.

"I'm so sorry boys, but there's been an accident."

Ian-Scotland

Sean-Ireland

Gwydion-Wales