March 1930
The
Little Princess


One

"Once upon a time, there was a precious little girl. Her friend, the Princess of the Red Rose, was always at her side... Then one day, her mummy and daddy died suddenly, and the poor little girl was sent away to a strange house..."

That's the first thing the unlucky girl heard. But it wasn't what woke her up. No, that was the rocking of the Earth. Or at least, what she first thought was the rocking of the Earth. Up, down—side to side, again and again. It turned out to be the rocking of the old bus as it made its way along an unpaved road in the darkness of night. Yes, the rhythmic up and down of rolling wheels on uneven dirt and the pounding of her heart in her arm. She had fallen asleep against her shabby little suitcase and her arm had fallen asleep along with her. Somewhere below consciousness, she felt her heart beat and the Earth move together in a strange rhythmic unison. It felt good. But even so, she wasn't yet awake. Not fully.

No, what finally woke her up was the boy.

"Jennifer. Jennifer!" There was that same voice again. A small voice and a big voice all in one. An annoying voice. It was a boy's voice. And it was drawing her away from her slumber. "Play with me Jennifer! Read the story! Please, read the story!"

Jennifer opened her eyes and there was a small boy standing there. A little boy with golden brown hair and a bowed head, and in tiny little outstretched hands, he held a pile of yellowing pages styled into a book. Above him, a moth circled one of the passenger cabin's ceiling light and it seemed that they must be the only patrons on this late night ride. The nondescript driver paid them no mind.

"What happens next?" the little boy asked; he was very insistent.

Jennifer reached out for the book, almost instinctively, and the little boy pulled the first page open for her before releasing it into her tired hands.

Blank. Only blank pages greeted her.

Confused, she turned the empty pages and asked the little boy, "What's this?"

But the boy did not respond. He continued looking down at the floor as the bus eased out and, with a long winded groan of rust and grime, came to a stop. Then the boy was gone—running down the length of the aisle and disappearing out of the vehicle's door. Jennifer caught sight of the boy as he ran outside, past the bus' left side windows, and although she pleaded for him to stop, his figure quickly disappeared from sight.

"Wait, please!" She tried to pursue him. Bewildered, she followed his steps off the bus and managed to spy his momentary form as he disappeared up a dark trail which extended into the woods. "Where are you going?"

And when she heard the bus' doors pull shut behind her, she feared she might have made a terrible mistake in getting so caught up in the moment and rushing off. The thought of her suitcase still on-board propelled her to take two or three shaky steps in the bus' direction as it took off without her but she gave up the chase right away. She had never been very athletic and the thought of chasing after a speeding automobile in the cold and darkness of the night scared her.

Keenly, Jennifer became aware that the darkness that surrounded her on all sides was terribly deep. Absolutely anyone or anything could be hiding in there, and she wouldn't know it... She took a few hesitant steps backward, toward the light of the bus stop lamp, and all she could hear around her was the chirping of crickets.

~Suddenly, the girl was all alone.~

Or something like that. That sounded about right—at least dramatically speaking, and Jennifer had always been needlessly dramatic. When she was scared; when she was alone; when she was hurt; she liked to... what? Give her thoughts a narrative voice? As if she were a character in a story? A character in a book? Yes. This was familiar. This was comforting.

I'm not alone. The invisible reader of the story... they must be here, watching her. And if this was a story, then it must have a happy ending. Everything's going to be alright.

~And so, the story begins.~

But it was also more than merely familiar, she was suddenly struck with a horrible sense of déjà vu. Jennifer looked around at the poorly lit bus stop she found herself at. It was a tiny little thing at the side of the road. There was a weathered bench nearby and the sole source of dim lighting was a pale lamp atop a pole. Nothing jumped out at Jennifer particularly, but still... Uncomfortably, she couldn't shake the feeling in the back of her mind that she had been here before.

~A mysterious, unthinkable, filthy tale. However, the young girl, Jennifer, had no choice but to surrender to the unsettling predicament...~

Yes. This was familiar. But Jennifer couldn't remember why it should be so. Why it should seem like this was not the first time she had thought this particular narration. Why it should seem like this was not the first time she had gotten off the bus at this dreary stop, having forgotten her suitcase...

~Oh, what an unlucky girl...~

Unlucky girl. Yes, that's right. Jennifer remembered now. That was her. Always her. That's the name she had given herself after her parents... After her parents...

After her parents... what?

What was it? She couldn't remember... but it was how she always thought of herself. For as long as she could remember (and that wasn't saying much at this point), she had been the unlucky girl.

The unlucky girl in the story of her unlucky life.

The chirping of crickets was all she could hear then. But there was something soothing in that ever-present background noise. It calmed her bubbling paranoia slightly and she steadied herself with a few deep breaths.

Jennifer stopped.

For fifteen seconds, the unlucky girl counted the chirps of the crickets. One... two... three... four... five... Fifteen seconds passed like that, and Jennifer had counted twenty-eight chirps. Then she added thirty-seven. She came up with sixty-five. So it must be sixty-five degrees Fahrenheit, give or take a few. So it was pretty brisk—Jennifer hugged her arms to herself.

Counting the cricket chirps and adding thirty-seven. It was something someone had taught her long ago... A nice man who had taken her in after...

After what?

Jennifer pushed the thought aside.

Jennifer looked up and, in the space of the road between a blanket of green foliage, she saw a shining silver moon floating amidst a dance of blue and purple clouds. That peaceful scene also helped. But only a little and not nearly enough.

She looked back at the bus stop sign and read the name of her stop. "Bus Stop: Rose Garden Orphanage."

And that sent a shiver down her spine.

For a long time, she considered following after the long gone bus after all. But the road it had taken was now obscured in the darkness of the trees that surrounded it and her mind kept replaying an image of her wandering into that blackness and winding up walking in a circle and ending up exactly where she had started.

And that terrified her.

Instead, she turned her attention to the trail the boy had disappeared into. It was a beaten path in terrible shape, along its sides ran white picket fencing—at one time it may have stood firm and clean and tidy but now it sat as a dilapidated mess, shambled in some segments and completely fallen in others.

The unlucky girl decided to walk in that direction. The incessant sound of the crickets compelled her forward; her confusion compelled her forward; her fear compelled her forward; but most of all, Jennifer decided that she wanted to see that little boy again. There was something about him. Something that she hated. Something that she loved.

He had gone up that trail.

And so she would go up that trail.

Darkness had never really frightened her. Made her uncomfortable, surely yes, yet it had never inspired true terror in her like it seemed to bear in others. But the prospect of being alone—that always did the trick.

So she followed the beaten trail as it curled around a strange hill. Having left the bus stop behind her, she now had to rely on the moon for her only source of light, and it was good enough for her to avoid tripping on the odd hole or fallen branch on the road. Eventually, the weathered remains of the picket fence also disappeared from her sides, forcing her to trust the dirt path she followed. A treasonous corner of her mind still insisted she must now be wandering the forest, lost, but the, the occasional segment of unkempt picket fence would appear on the side and this would abate her worries. But only a little bit.

Finally something new appeared on the path; the dirt road split into a fork that trailed two directions. To the right, picket fencing traced a path that turned downwards and out of sight. To the left, the road remained fence-less but it seemed almost to begin an ascent upwards. Against the fork, there was something that looked a lot like a sign.

"Left: Rose..." the unlucky girl whispered aloud but it was all she could make out. Half the sign was broken off.

Before Jennifer had enough time to worry about this too much, she was interrupted by the pitiful whining of an old friend.


Two

~As the girl approached the sign, she heard a dog's bark. It sounded strangely familiar to her, and beckoned her to come...~

Yes, that seemed appropriate for what she was feeling then. Each time she heard the dog's low whine echo in the air, she felt something small and very sharp dig into her heart. It hurt terribly as it clung to the dark and the pitiful whining just wouldn't stop.

The mysterious small boy temporarily forgotten, Jennifer decided to find the source of this new sound. The unlucky girl descended on the path to the right, letting her hand trail on the picket fencing as she walked; the trees were denser here and even the moonlight wasn't enough to ensure she wouldn't accidentally trip. The old fencing had a grimy feel and when Jennifer checked her hand, she found it coated with coarse dirt and dust. Strangely, even more so than the path in disrepair she had just walked, this area had a profound sense of long abandonment. The path opened up into a small clearing at the base of the hill. Here, a small wooden building emerged to the left—a shack, sitting prominently beside a forgotten well. The desperate whining of the dog only strengthened as Jennifer approached and now she could make out what sounded like the occasional sound of claws digging into wood.

Something in the shack was trying to get out. Something wanted desperately to see her.

The unlucky girl approached the building. It was an aged looking thing; on part of the front a green wiry plant had latched on and begun to spread along mildewy planks that looked absolutely battered by uncountable nights and storms.

There was an old, blasted looking padlock on the door, and inlaid on it was: COUNTRY ROAD BARN ENTRANCE. On closer inspection, Jennifer found that it was not clasped shut. She pulled it off and opened the door, rusty hinges wheezing in protest, and revealed a dark, unlit interior.

It was very dim in the shack, but not entirely dark. Two long streaks of pale moonlight filtered in through small openings cut high into the roof, and smaller beams twinkled from the small spaces in the boarded walls. But even before her eyesight had adjusted to the dim, Jennifer knew that there was no dog in here. There hadn't been a dog here for a very long time. Not anymore.

The incessant whining had ceased. The chirping of crickets was again the only sound she could make out, and she was very much alone.

The unlucky girl stepped further into the blackness of the shack. She peered intently around the room and could make out a few key details beneath the murk and cobwebs—there was something that looked like a scarecrow missing its head in one corner and a dilapidated wheel-cart laying on its side near the opposite side. The shack seemed to be a storeroom for gardening equipment since there was a watering can on the floor and even a few farming tools like a hoe and shovel leaning against the wall. A tired-looking plow dominated one side of the room. There were even a few clay pots and boxes stacked along the sides and corners. There was a large cloth draped across one half of the room, tied to a center wooden pillar and beneath it...

Beneath it...

Jennifer leaned over. There was something lying there, a little slip of paper tied to a dog collar, almost hidden beneath a thick, red plaid blanket.

The unlucky girl slipped the paper off the collar. Scribbled on the paper in heavy ink were the words BOARDING PASS accompanied by a picture of a fish. RED CRAYON ARISTOCRATS was written on the edge of the paper, under a dotted line. Underneath that was a familiar red shape reminiscent of a rose.

Jennifer stashed the paper away in her pocket. It held no interest for her; just an insignificant scrap of paper with a drawing on it

(or so she thought, but she held on to it all the same and she had never been the type of person to hoard meaningless junk. She didn't notice the goosebumps beneath her sleeves)

but the dog collar on the other hand...

It was a tiny little thing, light-brown leather and a buckle. But Jennifer knew this buckle. She couldn't remember when, but she knew she had held it before. She turned it, and looked on the underside. There she found the name BROWN written there, etched and scratched onto the leather, just as she knew she would. She remembered that she had written it there, but even so, she could not for the life of her remember when or why she had done so...

Someone laughed. A little boy's snicker of a laugh. A noise full of petty little small emotions that reflexively made her flinch.

And then she heard the dog's whimper again.

And then all Jennifer knew was terror.

This wasn't like the whimpering from before. Before, that pitiful noise had been one of hope and excitement. Now, all it conveyed was pain and hurt. The noises came from outside. And they were gone—fading—almost as soon as she had heard them, and still they had a profound effect upon Jennifer. In an instant, she was almost in tears.

And yet still she did not know why this should be so.

The unlucky girl turned around and lunged out of the shack. There was an emotion like fear and panic bubbling somewhere underneath the pit of her stomach and it propelled her feet forward. Out of the gardening shed and there were footsteps. She almost missed it, but for a fleeting moment she saw a tiny form disappear up the dirt trail. The white shirt giving away that it was the small boy from the bus.

Could he be the one who had snickered?

Could he be why the dog had given that terrible whine?

It was possible.

And so Jennifer ran. Back up the fenced trail, toward the fork with the broken half-sign, after the small boy. She reached the fork and rushed into the direction on the left, letting the dirt beaten path and the occasional segment of picket fence guide her. Every once in a while, she thought she could see the back of the boy's shirt as he rounded a corner and disappeared. But these visions were fleeting and were just as likely to be her overactive imagination at work than the actual little boy.

He was certainly faster than her, that was for sure.

She came upon one final turn and the path opened up before her. The dirt road doubled in size and further ahead, a giant mansion came into view. A great manse of a building surrounded by a thick cobblestone wall.

~... Following the boy up the road, she came upon a huge, old mansion. For some reason, this place seems familiar to the unlucky girl...~

Then she saw the little boy—he was making a beeline for the front gate. He ran past a metal fence gate, turned around for the tinniest moment to slam the gates shut behind him, and then turned and sped off, out of sight within the property.

Jennifer followed, hitting the wrought iron gate with all the force she could muster and yet it didn't give. She saw then that it was locked shut with a padlock (although she hadn't seen the boy produce one or stop to affix it) and completely impassable to her.

The unlucky girl turned her attention to the other side of the gate and was surprised by what she saw.

There were two kids on the other side—girls by their dresses—standing in the front yard of the mansion. They had paper bags on their heads, one short and one tall. Between them lay a brown sack on the stone brick floor, the fabric dark with some terrible liquid. The girl on the left watched as the taller girl on the right beat the sack with a stick, angry grunts escaping her as she worked her dark deed. Behind them, three steps above into the mansion's wide entrance door, the little boy from the bus watched Jennifer. He slipped into the house the moment he saw that Jennifer knew he was there, the door closing shut behind him.

But she couldn't care about him now.

The sack—the sack the girls were pummeling so eagerly. There was something familiar about that too. She couldn't stand to see them beat it so remorselessly. Each whack the sack took, Jennifer felt struck her instead. Each blow like a sucker punch, leaving her breathless with guilt.

Jennifer reached her hand into the gate, desperately screaming at the girls, trying to draw their attention, and yet they ignored her and continued on their grim task.

Horrified and feeling utterly powerless, the unlucky girl backed away from the gate.


Three

~Children with bags over their heads are beating something with a stick... The unlucky girl was frightened and back away from the fence...~

As usual, the narrative voice calmed her.

Jennifer turned her attention away from the scene beyond the gate, and instead focused her attention on finding a way past the barred gate. It was too smooth and too tall to climb, so she turned left and walked alongside the cobblestone wall, down its length, intent on finding some other entrance way through the wall and beyond the gate. She would climb a tree and use a branch to get over the wall if she had to. But she would not allow them to beat the sack an instant longer than she could help.

She turned a corner and began the walk that would lead her down the entire length of the mansion. The rear path, some nameless memory supplied her.

And then she was distracted by the sound of someone giggling. She froze and listened to the tone. It was higher and louder than the little bus boy's snicker she had heard earlier, inside the shack; a different child. She turned to the cobblestone wall and, for a second, she thought she saw a head peering at her before it ducked quickly, hiding out of sight on the other side. She continued her trek and saw two more heads before they moved to hide from her view. These were accompanied by lighter, more feminine laughter. Girls.

She rounded the last corner and found her path ended before a back door—the mansion's rear entrance. A thick wooden thing which smelled exceedingly musty; the same smell wooden benches get from years of standing in the rain.

It was locked.

Beside the door, above where the back door mail slot was, there was a sign: NO ONE ALLOWED WITHOUT A PASS.

Oh yes. Jennifer remembered then. It was this game. This stupid game of pretend that the others always played. Both foreign and familiar. Once again, Jennifer couldn't remember when or where she had last played this game, and yet she knew exactly what to do.

The unlucky girl reached into her pocket and removed the slip of paper she had found alongside the dog-tag back at the gardening shed. She straightened it out against the cobble wall and then inserted the slip into the mail slot, sideways.

Immediately, the door lock clicked and swung open. Behind the wall, Jennifer could hear a boy laughing as he bounded off, his breathing heavy and labored.

Jennifer stepped past the wooden door's archway and into the ancient house's property. The mansion's back wall stood directly opposite her. She looked to her left, and although all she could see was a wooden fence and door that obstructed her view, Jennifer knew what she would find beyond there: a pile of trash next to an incinerator. The laundry hung to dry. The laundry she had hung. The mansion's back door. And...

What was it? A... warning?

That's right. The LEGEND OF STRAY DOG. She... she had written it there for the rest of the us... just one of her warnings. Her first warning...

That day she told us that STRAY DOG KIDNAPS KIDZ.

But who was it? Who was she?

Jennifer's brow furrowed under a sudden light sweat. She just couldn't. She couldn't remember. It was like trying to remember a dream. A few minutes ago, she wouldn't have even known that much, but seeing the back of the mansion in person dredged out the memories from the murky depths of her mind. And even so, most of it was still unreachable, like trying to hold on to wet sand with an open hand. Only the open hand was her mind and she found herself dizzy from the effort.

She couldn't remember who had warned them. But she knew somebody had. Somebody had drawn a picture on the wall of a great big dog biting a girl. Below that chalk design, they had written out their warning. It was important. That day was very important because she...

She...

She what?

For a moment, she stepped in the direction of the wooden fence, where beyond she knew she would find the chalk warning drawn on the wall. Maybe if she saw it in person, she would remember. Maybe she would remember who had warned them. Maybe she would remember why that day had been so important...

Maybe she would remember why she felt so sick.

No.

Instead, the unlucky girl turned right. Towards the space that ran along the right side of the house. The space between the old mansion and the cobblestone wall. Here she proceeded forward, toward the front of the mansion. Jennifer passed one of the aged building's side entrance doors and next to it, she saw another chalk warning drawn on the wall.

Another LEGEND OF STRAY DOG. There was a picture of a dog with a wide mouth and it seemed to be spitting out candy. STRAY DOG GIVES US SWEETS.

Jennifer studied the drawn dog for a while. It was an evil thing, with sharp teeth and small little eyes.

It had been meant to scare everyone, but maybe it had another message just for me?

That thought came and went and before Jennifer even had a chance to chase its tail for a source, she forgot having ever even thought it. It was a disquieting feeling, knowing something one second and not knowing it the next. Something everyone experienced and very few ever felt. Jennifer had experienced it, but didn't know it, and so she shivered, mistaking her mental discomfort for a physical one instead.

And so Jennifer walked on.

The path along the house opened up into a wider area and here, underneath a metal sheet supported by wooden planks, empty animal cages were stacked up, and behind this, there was a small hole in the property wall, at the base. The unlucky girl hadn't seen it from outside the wall because it was covered and hidden with wooden planks, but it was just as well—it was a secret opening big enough for a child, and certainly not her. Not anymore.

A secret way to go play in the woods.

A secret way to go and find a new friend.

The unlucky girl turned away from the cages. There was a wooden fence here which separated the side yard area from the front.

Jennifer opened the door and walked past, into the house's front yard. Here, she was met with a familiar barren tree. Past that, she found that the children who had been savagely beating the sack were gone. Slowly now, she approached the mansion's front door entrance and again saw the sack—saw it and lost it again as it was pulled into the building, the heavy double doors closing wearily as it was lugged behind.

Almost hesitantly, the unlucky girl approached the mansion's front door. There was no artificial light source, but with nothing to hinder the moonlight in this open space, she was able to see clearly, and her eyes were drawn to a spot on the stone floor where the girls had been hitting the sack.

It was smeared bloody red.

There was something else here, on the floor. Jennifer walked aside, and found that something had been scrawled into the dirt here—a picture: a large fish, flying high above a group of children that held on to it from a line.

Jennifer felt queasy.

She gave this spot a wide berth and instead walked toward the house's front door.

The building looked old and worn, like some unsightly old man. Just like in the rickety shed, green plants had long since latched unto the walls and now grew against the building in abundance. The air was chilly and, still, the only thing Jennifer could hear, aside from the sound of her footsteps and strained breathing, was the chirping of crickets, the restless shuffle of the forest.

There was some terrible tension hanging in the air. Jennifer gulped and her nerves made it so that the dry thunk in her throat sounded like an explosion against her temples. She was sweating heavily now, a wipe of her forehead against her sleeve informed her.

She climbed the three steps to the mansion. There was a message on the door, on a piece of paper: ENTRANCE THIS WAY.

The unlucky girl grabbed one of the big, steel door handles and pulled it open.

Inside, Jennifer found herself in a small hall. There was a three side high line of lockers to her left. Towards the right, there was a large portrait of a severe-looking bald man on the wall along with a fern plant and a stand for umbrellas—

Behind Jennifer, the front doors slammed shut.

She jumped at the harsh noise, and immediately tried pushing on the door, trying to pry it open. Her efforts were futile. From the other side came a child's naughty laughter—this time a boy's—and then the hard clink of a locking mechanism fulfilling its duty.

Jennifer was trapped inside.


Four

Resigned, Jennifer proceeded from the small foyer to the greater central hall of the building.

It was a large room, with many doors decorating the walls in every direction and the large staircase serving as the main focal point—

There was a spry movement against darkness; and there was the small boy from the bus, springing up the stairs. Jennifer moved to follow him but was stopped when she heard laughter. A lot of laughter. It was many children and they seemed to be all around her. She looked around the room, but she was certain she was quite alone...

~The unlucky girl felt the chilling gaze of many eyes upon her... Yet, she was all alone.~

Yes. She had been here before alright. The very first time. The very first day, they had pushed her inside and laughed at her from out of sight... always from behind closed doors, and broken homes...

She moved to the staircase. There was a clock without hands hanging on the wall at the base of the stairs. It seemed oddly appropriate, for although Jennifer would never admit it to herself, her feelings of déjà vu had taken on a distinctly timeless quality. Before, she had been certain that she had been here before... but now, she was unsure if she was actually remembering the past, or the future itself.

She felt unstuck, out of time.

And she had a terrible suspicion that she had felt as such before. And often.

Up five steps up and the sixth was a small landing with a large royal crescent window face. The moon's gentle silvery-blue lighting filtered in through here and basked in the cruel darkness from the room, the light took on a noble and cold distinction. Something regal and dignified; the moon became a beautiful queen sitting atop her high throne. Something far, far away.

Something which was the complete opposite of her.

The unlucky girl continued up the stair case.

Nine steps and the tenth was another small landing. There was an old ladder leaning against the wall here. Absently, Jennifer rubbed her right shoulder. For some reason, looking at the ladder hurt in a dull, dreamy kind of way. But, once again, the small boy from the bus drew her attention away from the mirk of dark nostalgia. She saw him flee through a door on the wall opposite the next few step's landing.

The unlucky girl followed.

She pulled open the door and found herself in a small hallway. Here, a single wide window provided ample pale blue light and she saw two doors—one to the left and one to the right. Next to the door on the left, foul-smelling laundry baskets were placed on metal shelves. They were pungent things that reeked of chlorine and bleach. The door on the right had a wooden tag sign that revealed it was a lavatory.

She pulled open the door on the left. Actually, she didn't know which one the boy had entered, but something drew her to the left. A single disjointed thought: this was mine.

Inside, she found what looked like a bedroom. An open window in the corner drew a crisp wind that ruffled the curtains slightly. There were empty shelves against a wall and the terribly thin bed sheets was blackened near their center; dirtied from when the others had...

From when the others had filled my bed with leaves as a mean prank, but that was okay because I had turned around and used the leaves to sneak out of bed at night. I had just tucked the sheets over the leaves and none of the adults had known the difference when they checked the dormitory at night—

And then the thought was gone.

And where had it come from? For a moment, Jennifer could have sworn she was listening to someone else in the room speak aloud. But she was alone and the dirty sheets on the corner bed were just that. The thought had been a passing visitor in her mind.

But maybe it wasn't a visitor.

Jennifer got a strange thought then.

Maybe she was the visitor in her mind.

There was something attached to the wooden column at the center of the room. A creepy, loathsome rag doll dressed in a tattered dress was tied to the pillar. A mock dress which looked an awful lot like the dress Jennifer was wearing then. Jennifer ran her hands down her side. The fabric of her clothes were warm with her body heat and very familiar to her touch—

The rag doll's head collapsed, crumbling to look at the floor.

The unlucky girl stepped past the doll, refusing to look at it anymore. More queasiness than bravery or defiance. Behind the pillar, Jennifer found a suitcase. She was willing to bet it was the same suitcase she had forgotten back on the bus. It didn't make a single lick of sense, but Jennifer knew it must be. There was something else near the back of the room—an old photo was lying atop a small drawer, next to a vase of drooping roses.

Jennifer picked up the photo.

It was another old thing. A faded print taken in black and white turning tan with age. The picture depicted a group of children—three boys and nine girls—and two adults standing in front of the mansion. It emanated a certain kind of general happiness. Most of the children had their hands linked together and one of the adults—an elderly man in the right corner of the shot—had his hands fondly on two children in a paternal sort of way.

Then there was a boy's snicker.

The sound came from outside the room, in the hallway.

Jennifer put the old photo down. For some reason, it made her happy to look at the picture. A warm feeling bubbled in her chest and eased her worries and pain. But now was not the time for that. It would be too easy to stumble and stay here, looking forever at the good and happy. She had made that mistake too often, too long. No. Now...

Now she needed to find the boy from the bus.

Now she needed answers.

The unlucky girl heard his footsteps in the hallway, beyond the bedroom door. So she followed the quick pitter patter of his steps. She found the small hallway between the bedroom and the lavatory empty, but she proceeded out into the second floor of the building's entrance hall, and saw the boy again.

He fled at her intrusion. Down the passage opposite her, and into a waiting door.

And the unlucky girl followed, opening the door slowly, unsure of what to expect.

Here she found another hallway, but this one was longer than the tiny one she had wandered into before. She proceeded along its length, and here two windows allowed for blue luminescence so she was not blind. On the other side of the windows, Jennifer could see the middle of the mansion and it seemed that it allowed for a small inner courtyard. But it was nothing fancy. Just a cramped space of dirt and a few patches of long grass. Simple, and maybe with a taste of poverty. That was what Jennifer thought then. Poverty. But really, it was a sorrow the whole mansion gave her. Maybe at one point this building had been luxurious and grand and regal, but now... Now, even without the air of disrepair it held, occupied was a decrepit and dilapidated atmosphere.

A mansion for the poor.

Beside the first window the unlucky girl came to, there was a small flower pot. Here there were yellow floral decorations, wild flowers with four petals. Not roses, no. These were Wood Poppy. And although Jennifer wouldn't have known this, Wood Poppy were an exceedingly rare flower in England of the early 20th century. Long believed to be extinct, the idea that some poor orphan girl from this orphanage had found the wildflowers out in the forest and picked them for the empty vases in this hallway would probably send a horticulturist into hysterics.

There was something drawn onto the wooden floor at Jennifer's feet. Messily doodled with thick black crayon strokes, stick figure train tracks led from the door she had entered from, to another door on the left. Jennifer might have followed them, but the small boy from the bus was standing at the end of the hallway.

He was waiting for her.

But he wasn't keen on sticking around. She approached him and he fled, running down the corner and again out of sight.

Jennifer rounded the same corner and she saw him run down this passage and disappear around yet another turn.

There was something strange here.

Jennifer continued down the hall.

Just like on the other side, two long windows gave way to pale moonlight, and here too, Jennifer could see messy crayon drawings on the floor. But not imitation train tracks, no. Here, underneath each of the two windows, long squares were drawn. Rectangles really. Rectangles with intersecting lines drawn near the farthest side. They crossed in a T and it took Jennifer a moment to register what she was looking at. Windows. Someone had drawn windows beneath each of the actual real window frames. Silvery light touched the drawings and Jennifer could see that there was something more to these drawings.

A skull.

Or at least that's what it looked like. Inside the first window drawing, there was a skull drawn with a wide open mouth and teeth. Beside it, there was a message scrawled on the floor with an arrow indicating the skull drawing: SKELTAN. Skeleton.

There was a similar drawing on the second rectangle on the floor, but this one was even more poorly done and lacked the explanatory message.

Jennifer didn't know what to make of this.

Maybe the children of the mansion believed that a skeleton appeared here at night? A ghastly face grinning at them from outside the glass?

Jennifer looked up at the window and very nearly screamed. But she realized quickly that the pale silvery blue face looking back at her from beyond the glass was only her own reflection.

How stupid. How could I fall for that again?

… Again?

Another errant thought. Jennifer couldn't remember having ever been to this mansion and yet her sense of déjà vu wouldn't leave...

Actually, it was growing stronger. With each step she took, her conviction that had been so strong outside at the bus stop began to waver.

But she couldn't turn back. She really wanted to, oh yes. But she couldn't. Not anymore. And maybe not back at the bus stop either. Maybe she had never had a chance to escape this nightmare. Again, that image returned to her mind: chasing after the bus and losing her way in the darkness, only to end up back where she had begun. Why had she thought that then? Why was she thinking that now?

Maybe... maybe she was walking in circles now? Not actual circles, but... another kind of circle...

Maybe, maybe.

Even so, she couldn't stop those steps that were drawing her closer to the boy from the bus... The steps that were drawing her closer to her past...

To the déjà vu that wasn't déjà vu.

Jennifer proceeded down the hall and turned the final corner.

There was a door here. But before she could even open it, she could hear the laughter. The laughter of children. Many of them, boy and girl. A happy noise that should evoke pure pleasure and innocent glee, but in the darkness of that hallway instead evoked astonishing cruelty and ignorant malice.

Jennifer opened the door. Maybe she had expected to finally find the laughing children. She should have known better. It was empty.

She entered a room with a dark stairway. The passage continued on before her, but she ignored that hallway space. The boy from the bus was to her left, waiting on the stairs. He fled upstairs, taking the steps two at a time.

And so the unlucky girl moved in that direction. The wooden steps creaked under her weight and the safety railing was powdery with dust; she looked down, and although Jennifer couldn't see the first floor, she fancied that she could see shadows shaking excitedly on those steps. Ghosts of shadows really. Everything in this horrible mansion was a ghost. Or a ghost of a ghost. Or a ghost of a ghost of a ghost.

Just like the skeleton in the window. Just like her reflection in the glass.

Maybe she was a ghost too.

She reached the first landing and she saw the boy again. He was at the next landing, running off and out of sight. The hollow creak of a door opening. The same boy's laughter bounced and carried in the empty corners of the room. And the sudden knowledge that the chase was nearing its conclusion. The sudden idea that maybe she wouldn't like what she eventually sought.

Jennifer climbed the final steps.


Five

The unlucky girl stepped onto the attic.

The (admittedly quite aged) decor of the mansion dropped away here. No fancy paneling or artistic paint to impress anyone—here the wooden boards of the walls were visible to the naked eye. There were no fancy chandeliers or lamps, just a hanging light bulb with an exposed switch on the wall. And it was off, of course. She had left the possibility of windows or moonlight behind on the second floor. Here, gloom and shadows reigned supreme Jennifer had to pause for a while and let her eyes grow accustomed to the deep darkness, letting complete stark blackness could drain away to merely obscure gray.

There were two doors. One to the left and one to the right. But the unlucky girl didn't have to worry about taking the wrong door. The door on the left was ajar.

Jennifer stepped inside.

And to her surprise: light. Actual lighting, for the first time since the lamp at the bus stop. There was a lamp in the room, it was sitting on a table to the left. It looked like she had entered a storage space—an attic storage. There were chairs and desks and drawers and boxes stacked and stored away here.

Jennifer approached the table and there she saw horrifying things.

Metal tools with sharp edges and pointy ends. Metal tools that looked like they contracted and snapped and nicked and shaved and sliced and cut and peeled. Scalpels, dental forceps, scissors, and she couldn't even name the rest. And next to these were a pair of long surgical gloves. And there was something else. Just one more thing. Blood. There was red plasma smeared on the tools and on the gloves and on the table and Jennifer felt like she wanted to gasp, but before that she had to start breathing again—

The unlucky girl saw something in her peripheral vision. She turned and saw the boy from the bus turn and run down a passage that cut away, further into the storage room. He had been standing there all alone, but the light from the table and the... the things she saw there must have distracted her.

Jennifer followed the boy into the passage.

It was a narrow space where wooden support columns were visible.

She came upon a strange door. A strange protrusion; it looked like a broken wooden box was attached to the door. But strangely, the unlucky girl's eyes were not drawn to this. No, instead they looked at the door—something was drawn in fine red directly onto the wood.

Curves and lines stylized into the form of a rose.

And somehow this was worse than the terrible tools on the table.

Jennifer opened the door.

The room on the other side was wide and large. Larger than any individual room she had entered yet, except for the entrance hall. There were candles here to light the room, set in pairs against each other, one across from the other, leading to the end of the room. There, at the end of the candle lit trail, tables and desks were stacked atop another and they were mantled in long white cloth sheets and drapes. More candles were placed sporadically around the setting and red roses were placed as decorations, cut into the sheets and laying on the clothed tabletop. A red lined carpet adorned the center, giving the entire setup the look of a mock-throne. And to finish the effect: two chairs stood at the very top and center of the platforms.

The boy from the bus was sitting at the very top, on the chair to the left. He seemed to be studying Jennifer behind inscrutable eyes. His legs kicking back and forth, as if he were rather bored.

Jennifer approached the throne and her shadow withered and shrunk underneath her, in the cross light.

"My, aren't you a slow poke, like always." The boy laughed. He was too far up above her. The darkness of the ceiling above him and the lighting from the candles below him clashed badly in contrast, and the shadows that danced on his face made it hard to make out his facial features. He almost looked like two different people. "Here, read me the rest of the story. You know, the book I handed you."

The story book. The blank one from the bus.

She searched her pocket and was honestly surprised when she found it. The events on the bus had happened so quickly, she was surprised she hadn't dropped it on the road or misplaced it in her confused hurry. But miraculously, it seemed she had had the good sense to fold it up and stow it away.

She pulled it out and, upon flipping through a few more pages, was surprised again: it was no longer blank.

But she didn't have time to marvel at this. The boy sitting above her was looking down expectantly. The moment was sparkling with trepidation. Her lips were dry, so she licked them and it was only then that she knew she had no saliva.

At that moment, it felt as if the entire universe was waiting for her.

As if all along she had been in line for some great show.

Jennifer began to read aloud.

" 'The Little Princess.'

"Once upon a time, there was a precious little girl.

"Her friend, the Princess of the Red Rose, was always at her side.

"Then one day, her mummy and daddy died suddenly. The Princess, too, disappeared, leaving the girl all alone.

"And the poor little girl was sent away to a strange house. At her new home, the Aristocrat Club lived by the Rule of Rose. But the girl found herself very much alone..."

Jennifer flicked through the rest of the pages but they remained blank—

A gentle ringing tone sounded then, projected by the mansion's audio announcement system. This was followed by a gentle girl's voice: "We will now begin the funeral. All those attending, please gather around at this time." The ringing tone sounded again, ending the announcement.

"Come on, Jennifer. The funeral is about to begin," the boy said, atop his fake little throne. He failed to even try to disguise his wild glee. "It's a funeral for your dear friend."

But Jennifer could barely hear him. She was too busy having a mental breakdown.

The world was no longer sparkling with trepidation. The entire universe was no longer waiting for her. At that moment, it seemed as if reality had flipped. The entire universe was now determined to take everything she thought she knew and turn it upside down. Her will no longer mattered. She wasn't waiting in line anymore—and it wasn't a show. It was a terrible roller coaster and now she was strapped in, and all she could do was hang on for her life.

No.

Denial, of course, comes first. Always.

No. No, no, no, no, no, no. No. NO. NO! This couldn't be happening. No, not now. Not again. Not ever. Memories splurged together with pain and the tears that streamed from Jennifer's eyes then were blind. Something was bubbling in her head. She was distraught but she still couldn't understand why this was so. She was bawling, and something at the very center of her being felt as if it had cracked and broken, but she didn't understand having ever even felt this center, much less why it should feel broken. She couldn't breathe. She couldn't think. This wasn't just a bad case of déjà vu. This was déjà vu coming up behind her, kicking fer feet out from underneath her and then putting her into a chokehold.

She was having a panic attack.

Part of her knew that. Part of her knew that she should take a few deep and heavy breaths or she might just hyperventilate and pass out. Part of her knew this was bad, very bad. Another part couldn't be bothered to give the slightest care.

Part of her also registered that the boy had left his little play throne and that he had skirted around her, escaping away from her, out through the same door she had entered.

~Before she realized it, the boy was gone... and the girl was left in confusion.~

Yes. That helped tremendously. By placing the events happening to her outside of herself, by making herself into a third person watching the events, she could handle this. She could survive this again. She could—

The barking began then. A single pitiful wail followed by a dog's cry for attention.

And Jennifer took off. Away from the mock-throne, she sprinted to the attic door and nearly pulled it off its hinges.

The barking was so familiar, so intimately recognizable—

It hurt. That's what it was. The barking lit the fire in her that the storybook and mention of a funeral had put out. Helped her move her feet. No, forced her to move her feet. The barking was a magnet—no, that's not powerful enough. The barking was a rip current that had caught her in its pull and now refused to let go.

It would drown her.

But it was better to kick and try to swim than stay and grieve and die in the dark.

She ran out through the attic storage area and when she nearly tripped over a chair in her path, she wiped her tears with her sleeve and carried on, ignoring the suspiciously soft pain in her shin which meant she had probably drawn blood. Blood in the attic storage. That did something. A fleeting memory that wasn't a memory. She looked at the table, at the tools that weren't tools. The dog's barking was more compelling, and its sound urged her on. Past the door that led to the stairwell, and right down the two flights of stairs to the second floor.

And all the while, the barking squeezed her heart in all the wrong places.

The barking was coming from outside. She had followed the sound's origins so far but on the second floor landing, she was suddenly divided. The window. She could hear the barking echoing from the window. The dog must be out in the mansion's inner courtyard, so she should descend the stairs and find a door out... but...

But I'm scared of what I know I'm going to see—

But she might see the dog from the window.

And at that moment, the unlucky girl found she was unwilling to waste ten seconds running down the stairs if it meant she could see the dog now.

Jennifer approached the window.

The barking ceased.

There was someone down below, in the courtyard. Four someones. They were standing in a squared formation, looking down at something... but the window made it impossible to see clearly...

Jennifer opened the window's locks and pulled the glass pane open. She stuck her head out into the chilly night and yelled down at the people in the courtyard. But they ignored her exclamations. She motioned and waved but even so the four people continued to...

Wait... what were they doing?

Jennifer peered closer, angling herself dangerously out into the air.

The four people down below were short. Children. They were wearing paper bags on their heads, just like the children at the front of the mansion had, and it looked like they were looking down at a mound of dirt at their feet. They were whispering something, but Jennifer couldn't quite make it out...

The unlucky girl leaned out even further, feet dangerously off the floor, ears straining to just barely make out whispers carried in the wind:

"...Ashes to ashes... Dust to dust... Ashes to ashes... Dust to dust..."

That... that was a funeral prayer!

She nearly lost her balance then. She lunged backwards and rushed back to the stairwell, very nearly leaping all the steps down. The ground floor held a door on the wall opposite the stairs. She rushed to it and practically toppled out into the inner courtyard.


Six

The children were gone.

Jennifer moved toward the dirt mound. There was a stick stuck into the center of the pile. There was a shovel planted into the ground in front of the heap of soil. It could have been an innocent earth mound, maybe even a newly planted plant, but all Jennifer could think was that it looked an awful lot like a grave—

~When the girl went out to the yard, she found a shovel standing before a grave.~

Something had changed.

Jennifer grabbed the shovel and began to work. She scooped the dirt away in long arcs that wrung her hands from the effort. It wasn't hard going, but she had never had a particularly hardy constitution and so she heaved from the strain. The ground was soft and freshly dug, but after a few strokes, her shoulders ached in throbbing pain all the same.

Gravity had changed. Something wasn't actively attracting her here anymore, now it had become a repelling force. A force which her body automatically moved to counteract.

A force that burned against her effort to stay.

~The unlucky girl sensed that something very dear to her was buried here.~

Jennifer wasn't actively narrating anymore. It felt as if she was on autopilot, and her hands moved without her heed. Up and down, left and right, and up and down again. She dug down and moved the dirt aside. Before long, she was covered in brown stains from her effort.

~As if possessed, she began to dig furiously...~

As she worked on the "grave", so entirely compelled on finding what lay beneath the small hill of dirt, Jennifer missed what was happening behind her. Four children filed into the courtyard and took turns filling containers they carried with the water of a barrel. Their faces were masked by paper but behind that, their eyes studied the unlucky girl with a petty emotion that would have been called vivid disdain on a grown adult.

It wasn't long before Jennifer's struggles had born fruit. Having removed most of the fresh soil, the unlucky girl had uncovered a long wooden crate buried in the ground. A wooden rectangular box—

A coffin—

The unlucky girl tossed the shovel aside and it hit the ground with a soft thud. She was on her knees then, using her hands to clear the remaining dirt away. Sweat clung to her brow like morning dew on a leaf, like the run off of a cold toilet at night, and her nails were black with dirt. But when she was finally done she stood hesitant, it was almost like she couldn't bear to continue to the next step. She sat there for a few moments, looking at the crate and allowed herself a few deep breaths, listening to the crickets in the background, feeling the cool and cruel wind against her warm and sweaty skin, before she continued.

Reaching down, Jennifer popped the box open, bottom first. It was surprisingly heavy, but that wasn't why she heaved again. This far and now her body no longer moved automatically. She was no longer on autopilot. Like riding on a roller coaster to the peak of the drop and finding there that suddenly she could control the car. She could ease backwards, she could avoid the fall entirely. But if she did that, she would never know the truth. She wanted to see what was in the coffin, but she was terribly afraid of what she would find in there.

Those two competing urged warred in her until one won out. Until finally, squinting, she looked into the darkness of the crate.

There was something there. A lumpy shape.

Jennifer opened the lid further, and she let out a small involuntary gasp.

The sack. The bloody bag from the front of the mansion. The one the girls had been beating with a stick in front of the mansion. It was lying in the coffin.

The unlucky girl lifted the top off completely, throwing it to the side. The tears were coming again; a fresh wave of despair washed over her when she saw the burlap bag again and behind her, the four children had finished filling their containers.

They approached her.

Girls. They were girls in dresses. They wore paper bags over their heads but Jennifer could see their eyes through little holes they had cut into the paper. They were all looking down at her, from very far away.

The tallest girl, a girl with a fish drawn into her paper bag mask, stood over her with a water pitcher. "Just look at you! You're filthy!"

She was right. She was covered in dirt and salty sweat, she was crying into the night.

The tall girl tittered naughtily and began to pour the pitcher on to Jennifer. The other three girls moved at her cue, and emptied their containers over the unlucky girl as well. The water was cool. Physically, she was fine. A little chilly maybe, but the water was good in that sense. It washed away the dirt. It washed away the tears running down her cheeks. The water was cleansing, like a bath.

But it was also very bad. To let them do this to her without a fight was to give the girls power over her very life. Cleanliness was theirs to give; the goodness of the water became corrupted with spite and hatefulness. Accepting that, the water was not just cool. It was bitingly cold.

An arctic freezing touch. Running down her head, down her shoulders, chilling her to the bone.

There was something warm spreading on the ground beneath her legs. Jennifer wasn't sure, but she thought she might have peed then. Just a little, in the middle of that cold, impromptu bath. And that filthy action in the darkness of the night brought back a fresh wave of memories.

Yes. I used to go in the bed. That's why everyone called me filthy and the others put the leaves on my bed. It was a joke. A joke because I would have so many nightmares and wake up screaming with a wet bed and one day they heard when Martha fumed at me and said it would be better if I just slept on leaves. So every night they filled my bed with leaves as a joke. That's why my sheets were always dirty. That's why I escaped from the dormitory and into a free room by myself at the first chance possible...

The mansion's audio announcement system crackled then and a tone sounded. But this was not the gentle ringing tone of earlier. This was the sound of a small gong being struck five times. A noise foreign to the mansion. A noise from...

From...

From what?

"Ladies and Gentlemen," called out a voice then. But again, this was not a voice belonging to the mansion. This was a grown woman's voice, a grown woman that had never stepped foot into this manse. Or anywhere else after. "Thank you for joining us on our flight. Attention all passengers. We will be taking off in a short while. Please take all large luggage to Section 8 of the Freight Storage Compartment. Thank you."

The same audio crackle followed her message.

Jennifer looked up at the sky, as if trying to catch the message as it echoed and reverberated around the mansion's walls, and so she didn't see who pushed her. But someone did and she fell backwards, into the crate she had dug up, her head hitting the sack.

Above her, the girls lifted the box's lid and closed it over her. Jennifer tried to shove it off but its surprising weight had come back to her detriment and the weight of the four girls was pressed upon her, closing her in.

She could just make out a chanting all around her as she screamed.

"Dust to Dust..."

"No!"

"Ashes to ashes..."

"No!"

"Dust to dust..."

"Please!"

"Ashes to ashes..."

The crate was moving now, rocking to their prayers, like a lullaby. The girls had lifted it; it bobbed up and down and Jennifer's head kept hitting the bloody sack with a soft squish as it did. They were moving, carrying the wooden coffin as they walked. Chanting their funeral prayer, their steps a noisy back and forth against gravel and dirt.

Jennifer peered between the wooden boards of her prison as it swayed to and fro. She couldn't see much. But what she saw frightened her. Treetops, waving gracefully in the wind. A sight which should have been impossible since they had been in the inner courtyard and hadn't walked through the mansion. But it seemed possibility and improbability had not been invited along on this most terrible flight. Tonight, cruelty ruled atop reason and logic's blood red throne.

The beautiful moon was still sitting high in the far sky. But it wasn't full anymore; it had shrunk slightly, entering its waning phase. It peered down at her like an eye, vindictively between the clouds, and then disappeared out of her sight behind the trees.

Jennifer was glad to see it go.