The twilight casted an unreal vision upon the white washed of the home. It is true that during the day the small home of number four Pivot Drive looked perfectly normal with the sunlight pouring down, but when the moon emerged and everyone asleep- the house changed into something almost magical. But not in the magic that makes you experience that happy little tingle within your heart… this was the magic that made you doubt. That tells you that you are alone, afraid, and there is nothing and nowhere you can go to escape.
Aria had lived on this street for as long as she could remember, yet had never truly understood what made this strange house any different from the rest. Every night, right before bedtime she would curl up on the window seat with her stuffed lion and peek around the curtains across the street. The sight that greeted her eyes always made her shiver in fear and excitement.
She knew that she was lucky. She had a dad who played tickle monster with her and she had an older brother, who when he was home from boarding school would pick her up and twirl her around and ask how his little Cinderella was doing. She knew that she was not alone and that she was safe under her well-worn covers, yet she still felt a chill when she saw this strange sight each night.
But Aria was an inquisitive, little girl and on her seventh birthday she decided she was now old enough to explore the mystery of the Lonely House. So she packed a backpack up with all the necessities that a famous detective would have. There was the key ring flashlight that daddy had bought her at a gift shop of a museum and bird watching binoculars that Aria had found in the crowded space under the stairs. The bungee cords used for lashing the Christmas tree to the top of their battered van each year was also thrown into the bag… just in case. Then all the small things like her mother's locket for good luck and her stuffed lion named Majesty in case she needed someone to protect her.
Then after dinner of her favorite meal of chocolate chip pancakes and a home-made funfetti cake with skittles on top, she scrambled upstairs as quickly as her fluffy socks could take her and closed her eyes feigning sleep. Her father checked in, as she knew he would, and patted her cheek, but Aria knew that daddy would go straight to bed because he started his construction job really, really early.
She darted down the stairs so fast that she almost forgot her favorite hat with the pompoms, because teacher always said that cold, night air caused coughs in little girls. But Aria made it out the house with no incidents, carefully closing the door behind her and creeping down the wooden, front-porch steps. It was only then that she looked up to witness the full glory of the Lonely House.
The sight caused a cold wind to wrap around her heart now that her familiar bedroom was not there to protect her. She shivered and almost took a step back only to thrust back her small shoulders and walk determinedly forward.
Across her lawn full of dandelions, over the dark, midnight pavement (she DID look both ways), and up to the perfectly pruned bushes she crept. Then gathering up the last of her courage she stood high up on her tippy toes and peeked into the kitchen window.
The room was normal, and looked very familiar to her own brightly lit kitchen at home, yet there was something else in there.
It was a little boy, near her own age, who sat on the freshly scrubbed tiles staring blankly ahead.
The boy was average-looking, with ebony, messy hair and small frame. But it was his eyes that gave Aria pause. His eyes were the greenest green she had ever seen. They were green as a leprechaun's hat and green as the great, big bullfrog that hopped around the neighborhood pond. But not only were they that stunning color, they also had so much within them.
His eyes were shielded with a broken pair of glasses, yet that could not prevent Aria from seeing everything that was held in the very soul of that young boy. In fact, she now understood why that house looked and felt the way it did. For that boy's eyes held all the wonderfully, dreadful magic that had scared Aria every night. He was in essence the loneliness and the desperateness that had caused Aria to come here in the first place.
Gape mouth, Aria studied him. She tilted her head left and right and decided that this mystery was only half solved. She now knew what had caused the entire house to feel how it does, but the question on why this little boy was so alone in spirit that it physically hurt her, was still unanswered.
She had never seen this boy. There was a fat, whale man that lived here as well as a skinny, giraffe woman that often came in and out the door of this house. In fact, there was another young boy with beady eyes that sat at the back of her bus that lived here as well. But this green-eyed boy was new to her.
Right then and there she promised herself that she would solve the newly named mystery of the Lonely Boy. So she nodded to herself, pushed her pale, blonde locks behind her ear, and raised her small fist to knock on the window pane.