Disclaimer: I do not own 'The Forbidden Game', which is coming out in a few days with a fancy new cover and a convenient three-books-for-one deal.
Written for 365drabbles and fanfic_bakeoff at LiveJournal (secret ingredient: willful). As I missed the deadline for the Secret Ingredient, I've expanded it. 465words. OneShot. Compelte. UnBeta'd for viewing confusion.
Handle With Care
Lucinda didn't really like kids; had to overcome a ridiculous awkwardness around fragile creatures that stood at her knee or lower. Her maternal instincts cringed at snot, blood, and vomit. She was never changing another diaper. In fact her mother could just look to her brother for any grandchildren.
But Lucy, who was currently doling out arithmetic answers to the soft background noise of a foxy Robin Hood wooing his bitch, knew how to fake it enough to get paid at the end of the night. Normally she would take quiet little Jenny over that willful Locke brat -Tommy was so not worth ten bucks for three hours. Or at least, he hadn't been in comparison to the others, not before the Thornton's became so overly protective of their offspring upon their return trip from nowhere, Pennsylvania. Now there was a list a mile wide of rules and an honest to god schedule the kid needed to follow.
Good Christ, she needed a cigarette. Because no matter how she threw herself into her studies (she was so achingly close to valedictorian and the scholarships it came with) there was something off with the Thorton's house and it was starting to creep her the fuck out. She didn't care what Jeremy said, she wasn't going to come back without a bible or some holy water or something because this shit was Something Evil and The Changeling combined.
She didn't blame the kid for having night terrors, Lucy might be having some of her own, because the shadows in this house had a tendency to move. Slither. Weave. Waver. Whatever she wanted to call it (not, that she wanted to voice her sudden fear for the dark and growing suspicion of the supernatural because she wasn't, you know, like crazy or anything).
A nurturing individual would have been reluctant to part with a defenseless child in these circumstances. Lucinda's survival instincts were far superior however, so when the clock struck eight it was in relief she hustled the kid to bed.
Like last time, the shadows seemed to pay more attention to the blonde-haired girl and the brunette was never so grateful. She didn't even feel guilty for it. Well, not really.
When she left that night it was twenty dollars richer and with a bleeding wound on her left leg. If asked, she tripped, lack of light and abandoned rope. But she knew what it really was. A hissing snake, dark and liquid, that struck in the shadows.
If Lucy was a kinder, more gentle soul with a fire to save a kid's life she might have rounded then and there to confront what common reason said was impossible. But she didn't. Just mumbled a half-hearted prayer for a child that must be the devil's own.
movie notes: Something Evil is a made-for-tv horror movie from 1972, directed by Steven Spielberg; The Changeling is a horror movie that came out in 1980 directed by Peter Medak; Robin Hood is a 1973 Walt Disney production and referenced through the use of 'foxy Robin… wooing his bitch'. LJ Smith's The Forbidden Game was published in mid-90's so I figured that this is early 80's time frame. Thus the older horror and Disney flicks.
location notes: the book places Jenny's uncle at Monessen and the Shadow World theme-park the teens travel to in the third book was based off of one in Kennywood Park in Pennsylvania... thus my assumption of 'nowhere, Pennsylvania'. If somebody has the correct location (I'm guessing here, my collector's edition is packed away and Wikipedia only goes so far with book details) I'll be willing to write it in and give you credit.