Night.
A time to reflect,
A time to remember.
Remember before.
Before the Dark Woods…
A young girl, no more than ten or so, walking through the streets. Average height, with curly brown hair cascading down her back, and curious brown eyes, walking alone. She flitted through the crowds, looking for her mother. For her brother. For anyone. Alone, a word she was not fond of. Alone, she could see them, those things. Strange things. But no one else could see them. They never could.
Alone. She was all alone. "Always alone." She murmured softly. And just then, a sound jolted her out of her thoughts. She could hear a bell ringing and horse hooves clattering along, against the gravelly ground she stood on. Being the curious young girl she was, she glanced around, peeking between the forms of people hurrying along. She soon forgot all about finding someone she knew. The things were gone, for the time being.
It took a while, but she soon found the source of the noise. A little horse-drawn carriage, with a bell dangling from the front. Though, the interesting thing was that there was no driver. The horse had been pulling the carriage along through the streets without anyone. "Alone." She said. Funny, how things keep turning out like that. She giggled, and the horse turned its' head to look at her. As it did so, she gasped. The horse had no eyes. So…how did it know where to go?
She walked over to the horse and reached out to touch it, and gently pet the creature. At this point, she looked around to see if anyone else could see the carriage. She frowned. Of course, she should have known. Nobody even gave her a passing glance. They couldn't see it. It was just another one of those things, those images that popped up in her mind. She glared at the horse. "Go away. You aren't real." She said to it and turned on her heel, leaving.
Then she remembered why she had been out on the streets in the first place. "Mama." She said softly and jogged through the crowds, searching. A woman, tall with blond hair turned as the young girl hugged her leg. "Oh, there you are sweetie. Come on, let's go find your big brother, okay?" the woman said with a loving tone of voice. Seeing the young girl nod, she smiled and grabbed her hand gently, leading her away from the strange vision.
They walked along for a while, the mother looking for her son, the girl constantly looking over her shoulder, only to see that the horse and carriage was following her. Typical. Why couldn't these things just leave her alone? It wasn't fair! She sighed, and then saw a paper, high up in the air. "Mama, look!" she said, pointing it out. The mother looked up and smiled. "Yes, there seems to be a flyer." She said and reached up, catching the paper and handing it to her daughter. "There you go. You wanted to see it, right?" she asked with a smile.
The young girl nodded. "Yes Mama." She said, pulling her hand free of her mother's. She grasped the flyer in both of her hands, looking at the picture. It was of a large red tent with a star on top. She looked at it for a while, imagining things dancing under that grand tent, animals and people alike. She looked at the rest of the picture, seeing the words "Drop by, to the Dark Woods."
She held the flyer out to her mother. "Mama, mama! Can we go see? Please?" she whined, bouncing on her heels. The mother took the flyer and stared at it for a while before she spoke. "I suppose so. It's just a circus, right?" the woman smiled. "Okay hunny, we can go see it tonight after dinner." She said, handing the flyer back to her daughter who gave out a joyful cry.
"Thank you Mama. Thank you!" the girl said happily and blinked, seeing something out of the corner of her eye. She turned to look, and saw two people staring and smiling at her, holding a handful of papers. Flyers? Were they the ones who had thrown the flyer in the air for her to see? Perhaps. She smiled back and waved to the people. They looked about her age, both blond with blue eyes. They might have been twins, but she wouldn't know. But, they were standing awfully close together.
Why are they standing so close? She wondered. But as she saw them turn around to leave, she had to gasp. They weren't standing close. They were attached! She looked back at the flyer, and her eyes widened. The words and image had changed! It was a picture of the two, and underneath it now said "One with two heads." She had the urge to ball up the flyer and throw it away. But at the same time, she didn't want to. She held the flyer up to her mother. "Mama look!" she said, and the woman looked, and then waved it off. "Hunny, I said after dinner." She didn't see the things that were different about it. Just one more thing only the girl could see.
She clung to her mother and walked along until they found her brother by the fruit stands. Of course, he was usually around the stands. "Brother!" she called out and let go of the mother, running over to the boy. He looked about thirteen or fourteen, and he was. A little shorter than his mother, with her blond hair. "Hey. How's my favorite girl?" he asked, hugging his kid sister. She smiled and hugged him back, showing him the flyer. "A circus? Did mom say it was okay?" he asked, and looked to their mother who smiled and nodded. "Well then, we'll most certainly have to go." He said, laughing as she smiled.
And with that, they left. They made their way back towards home, the boy talking to his mother while the girl clung to the two of them, excited to make and eat dinner so she could see the circus afterwards. As they got back home she ran to her room, grabbing some tape and putting the flyer on her wall, next to her bed. But as she looked on her bed, she saw a second flyer. She raised an eyebrow, confused. How did this one get here? She looked around her room, then out the window. And she could have sworn she saw goat legs. But…they were connected to a girl, not an animal. She stared, and saw that the girl was blindfolded, as well. She looked back at the flyer. Again, it had changed. Instead of the two-headed one, it showed the full picture of the girl and read, "A deformed diva."
"Wow." She whispered, and then jumped as she heard her mother call her to come help with dinner. "Coming!" she yelled back, looking out the window again. But the girl was already gone. "Weird." The young girl said, But, she shrugged it off and scampered out of her room and down the stairs to help her mother. She smiled at her mom. "What's for dinner?" the girl asked, grinning wider as she heard the response. "Meatloaf, your favorite."
Her favorite, indeed. The girl so enjoyed her meat, most of it raw or red and rare. She liked the juiciness it gave, the way the juice tasted and how it ran down her throat. She enjoyed it like other kids did soda, or candy. The girl hurried over to her mother and helped her mix the spiced, and a few times she snuck a bite of meat or two.
Once dinner was in the oven cooking, the girl washed her hands and went outside to play for a little while. Well, actually she went outside to look for that girl. She watched the trees, and looked around before she ran off into their cover. After a while of searching for the goat-legged teen, she gave up with a sigh, deciding that the girl must have already left. "Hmm." She said aloud, thinking.
Giving a sigh, she plopped down on a large rock, covered in moss. "Maybe I'll see her again tonight, at the circus. Maybe she works there." She said, thinking out loud more than anything. Hearing a twig snap, she turned her head, looking around. As she scanned the trees, she saw another flyer on the ground at her feet. "Another one?" she softly murmured, picking the paper up off the grass. As she did so, she saw feet about ten feet away, facing her.
She looked up and saw a blue haired boy standing there, just watching her with a hungry look on his face. At first, she wondered why the boy didn't wave, or say something. He didn't do anything, just watched her. Which was kind of creepy. But, then she realized that he couldn't wave. If he could speak, she didn't know. But he had on a straight jacket. She looked at him, and wondered why he was wearing such a thing. It didn't look comfortable. Then, she thought for a moment, and looked at the flyer. This one had a picture of him on it, giving some creepy smile, showing off teeth that were sharp, like fangs almost. "A blue beast that loves to eat things cold." It now read.
She looked at the boy. "'Eats things cold?'" she asked, confused. Then, she watched as the creepy boy gave her an eerie smile. At that, she turned tail and fled back to her house. The others weren't scary like he was, they just looked odd. "Deformity." She said, thinking. Deformity. They were deformed. Then, she smiled and spun around in circles, singing a song. How she knew it, she could not explain. She just did. "It's fun, so fun! This circus is so fun. Rotten fruit, to dissolve my eyes. My skin festers, reflected on my eyes."
She gave a dark chuckle at the end and stopped spinning, seeing that she had made it back to her house. She blinked, returning to her normal self, with no recollection of the song, or spinning her way back to her home. Of course. More of her weirdness. She smiled though, and went inside, just as her mother pulled the meatloaf out of the oven. "Thanks Mama!" she said and grabbed one, taking it over to the table, where her brother had set plates and silverware.
Smiling, the girl set the meatloaf on the table and her mother began serving them. She glanced to where her father used to sit, but he was no longer there. He had died in war a few years ago. But, that was the life of a serviceman. And he was no different. Still, she smiled and began to eat her dinner, talking and laughing with her family, ignoring the visions that danced in her mind. She saw a few different things, monsters pretending to eat her brother and mother, things that could only be described as demons, dancing circles around the living room.
Unusual for her, to be seeing them when other people were with her. But she ignored them to the best of her ability, talking and laughing. And when they finished eating, she helped her mother with the dishes as well, pretending to be sane. Always pretending. After they finished with the dirty dishes, her mother told her to go upstairs and get ready, and she did, pulling on her shoes and grabbing a jacket and the first flyer she had gotten that day. And they left, her seeing the eyeless horse with the carriage following them the entire way.
As they arrived she clapped happily and smiled wide. There weren't a whole lot of people there, but there were some. Enough to fill the tent. It wasn't as big as she had imagined. But, things are never as they appear. She sure learned that lesson in life fast, with the things that she saw. She saw each of them, except the creepy boy. She didn't see him at all as they arrived. Looking around with wide eyes, she saw two people, who were extremely tall, almost as tall as the tent itself. One with white hair, one with blond, however the others couldn't see the two. They smiled and waved her in. And she could have sworn they looked directly at her and spoke.
"Drop by and see him…"