April 1930
The Unlucky Clover Field
Seven
When Jennifer knew consciousness next, she was alone.
She blinked awake and the dim lighting was refreshing, a cool wind against her tired and sore eyes. Somewhere far above her, there was a slow twisting metal sound; something hollow and dreary and large. Like a slow spinning turbine; like a dying wolf howling into a moonless sky. The unlucky girl tried to stand but she found she was bound. Ropes were tied around her body, holding her in place next to something cold. She tried to stand but the bindings wouldn't give, not even half an inch.
(like a rag doll)
She was in a room. That's what she knew next. A room that's only source of dim lighting was a portable lantern lying to her right, on the floor a few feet away. And the casket. The wooden box she had unearthed and which the girls had cruelly dumped her into. It was there too, next to the lantern. The heavy lid leaning against the crate's farther side. The room's floors were piled leather and the walls were the same, stitched together in a way that bulged outward like a full stomach.
~When the girl awoke, she found herself in a strange room.~
For the next few minutes, Jennifer struggled against the rope. She leaned to the left, to the right, she even tried once to bend low and touch her chin to the floor mat. None of which helped—her futile escape efforts were sound tracked by the groaning metal that howled somewhere far above her.
~It was a cold, lonely, stinky room.~
And boy wasn't that the truth. Everything in this room emanated a heavy, pungent smell; an offensive musk that attacked the nose and eyes mercilessly. In the brown light, Jennifer actually thought she could see it. How the odors danced around her, shuffled around the room, like floating dust motes. Trapped by the thick, filthy leather that made up the floors and walls, the stench grabbed everything it could and made it its own.
Finally, there was something new. A crisp rolling, buzzing sound. The light feedback of an audio system. Jennifer ceased her struggles and peered into the darkness of the room, trying to find the source of the noise. But, as with her efforts to free herself, this was futile. It seemed the sounds were coming from somewhere behind her.
Then there was a gentle ringing sound. Like the sound that had accompanied the funeral announcement when she was in the mansion's attic. The sound that signaled the start of a broadcast. Jennifer froze, straining her ears for whatever would follow. In the quiet, she could make out someone's light breathing being amplified. It was the tense sound of excitement.
"Good morning, Jennifer." The voice she heard then was the boy's voice. The small child from the bus. It was a little distorted from the audio system, slightly crackled with static, but it was him all the same. Light and haughty, and most of all, very annoying. "How do you feel? Let's have a little chat, shall we?"
Jennifer agreed, nodding her head meekly. Anything to get out of the bindings.
"Hmm. Good girl." The boy said, a patronizing ring on the good girl. The words of a king addressing the servant. No. The words of a master addressing their pet. A very small and weak and dumb pet. Like a rabbit. Or a rat. Or maybe a worm. "Jennifer, you know you've been a bad, bad girl. And bad girls need to be punished, don't they?"
Sure, why not. Again, Jennifer mindlessly agreed, closing her eyes and nodding her head.
"Hmm. You're a brave girl." That last word was accented oddly. As if the speaker was hinting at some inside joke. As if the speaker didn't really believe a word of what they had just said. Well, to be fair, Jennifer didn't really believe she was very brave then either. "Anyway, I'll be the one giving the orders around here, okay?"
Yes. Yes that was fine. The unlucky girl's arms ached in a silent throb where the rope dug into her. Her shoulder sockets burned with pain and her legs had fallen asleep beneath her and even that numbness hurt. She whimpered her agreement.
"Hmm. Clever girl." Again, the tone of someone praising their pet. But now with a rougher undercurrent. Almost cruel, but not quite. Jennifer hated it. She didn't like being treated like an animal. "Now, I'm going to give you your first order. Every month, you need to find a gift and bring it to the Aristocrat Club. If you don't, I'll kill you." The abrupt threat hung in the air for a moment. Something unreal. Something fantastical. Like a bad joke. But for some reason, Jennifer got the impression that the boy was not kidding. "Is there anything about this that you don't understand?"
Jennifer said no. The unlucky girl was near tears. She would have answered in the affirmative to anything the boy wanted. And the boy seemed to sense this, because his response was shaking with restrained anger.
"No? Hmm. Oh, well it doesn't really matter what you say. You see, Jennifer, there are really only two kinds of people in the world: those who take orders, and those who give them. And from now on, I'll be giving the orders."
Jennifer bit down on her lip, her fingers pulled into tight fists where they were tied. The boy was right. She hated it. She hated a world where people so easily and perfectly fell into the dichotomy of strong and weak, of important and meaningless. Valuable and expendable. Royalty and filthy. But the boy was right. That was exactly how the world operated. That was the rule that structured and encompassed everyone and everything. The one truth. The one promise. Jennifer knew it, and she hated it because it seemed so entirely unfair.
"Not fair?" the boy said, correctly reading her despair. "Well, dear Jennifer, nothing's fair here." And then there was laughing. It wasn't a happy sound, it was black and white—utterly small and carefree and at the same time larger than life and cruel; an almost forced cry. It wove in and out of each of the boy's words and made him sound maniacal and egotistical and just downright mean. Jennifer did indeed cry then, and she sincerely hoped the boy wouldn't see because she somehow knew this would enrage him and fuel his passion. That's how it always was. Sadness and fear and shame—those pitiful emotions were like fuel for the wrong type of person. A person like the boy holding her hostage then. "You will follow my orders, or else. For I am the Prince, and the Prince rules! This is your life, but you'll play by my rules." And for the next while, all she could hear was the sound of his dark merriment in the dimness of the filthy room.
"Let the games begin, dear Jennifer!"
And when his laughter was cut off by the audio system being shut down, Jennifer knew only relief.
Something clicked and then there was the sound of machinery. Whatever it was that Jennifer was tied to began to vibrate softly—the result of some unknown action out of sight. Something was descending.
And then fear struck her. She didn't like this. She didn't like being tied and held down while some unseen thing fell upon her. She didn't like the way the cold metal that her hands touched behind her reverberated with a trembling that resembled unwinding excitement. She didn't like the feeling of being helpless and powerless in the pale light of this room while reeking stenches wrapped themselves around her and violated her flaring nostrils. This was too familiar. This was too painful. It didn't matter if the rusty, creaking sounds of the makeshift contraption made it obvious that it was not remotely human, if there was one thing Jennifer loathed more than being alone, it was being confined and trapped. Being at someone's mercy terrified her because that someone invariably never wanted to help you. Only themselves. Even if it meant hurting you.
Then there was the pull of something contracting. The tinniest sound of a struggling snip between the sound of creaky machinations, and then abrupt silence; the machine had been turned off. The ropes that bound her sides loosened and the unlucky girl struggled one and twice and found that they gave way and fell off her easily enough. As she worked to pull off the remains of her bindings, she heard the turning of a pulley. Jennifer managed to stand and finally she saw what she had been tied to: a metal structure pillar. Behind it, something was rising up. Jennifer stepped around to get a better view and saw a pair of rusty, old scissors hanging in the air. They were fast being pulled high and out of her reach by the same system of pulleys that had lowered it previously to free her. The apparatus was installed above the pillar, running along the fabric ceiling and disappearing out of sight behind a softly, billowing wall.
~And so... The rope was cut: snip–snip... and the girl joined the Aristocrat Club. Congratulations! Congratulations!~
The Aristocrat Club... How ghastly sounding.
But of course this was just like the first time... the first time...
Jennifer felt sick. The floor was rolling beneath her feet. It wasn't anything sudden or rough, but it moved in lulling rhythmic churning that probably would have seemed soothing to a dozing baby. But to Jennifer, the motions only made her queasy. It always had. It was the same kind of feeling she got when she was on a boat. A rocking boat out on the relentless sea. A disgusting feeling. A filthy feeling. A long time ago she had felt sorry for the fish, the fish of the sea. They had to live in the rolling sea, in that sickening feeling. They probably felt sick all the time, like they would vomit at any moment.
Or who knows, maybe they got used to it eventually. She knew all about that.
A strange thought struck Jennifer then. The slow movement of the ground beneath her only fueled it. She was out at sea. But not on a boat. No, she was in a fish. She was trapped in a large fish swimming through the sea. The room around her reeked with chlorine and bleach and the odors became twisted in her imagination to become the salty and sweet smell of a rotting fish.
A filthy fish...
Jennifer snapped back to the present. Away from her twisting trail of thoughts and ideas and she was still in the disgusting smelling room. Alone. The dim light behind her allowing her to examine the rest of the room that had before been out of sight. And it was pretty unremarkable, but she had expected that. With one exception that is.
To her left, against a wall, there was a headless stick scarecrow crafted from broomsticks and rags that had been tied together. At its base stood an aged chalkboard, but it was smudged and unreadable. She approached it and realized she had seen it before. It was the same scarecrow from the gardening shed outside the mansion. The one where she had heard dog barks coming—
"Lass, please help me find my head. Once I am whole again, I'll return the favor," the broomstick figure said. It spoke simply enough and its voice had a rather down to earth tone. A very real sound. As if to imply, yes I am speaking—and that is not strange at all, why shouldn't I be able speak?
It was only natural. Like the attacking and retreating tides of the sea. Like the unfaltering sound of crickets at night. Like the turning of the planet. Like Jennifer being the most unlucky girl in the world. That this scarecrow could talk was as natural and right as any of those things. Yes sire, that's what Jennifer thought then.
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 broomstick figure's head was sitting on a chair beside the door. It was a bucket. And when Jennifer approached to fetch it, it too spoke. "Lass, please put me back atop my body... back on top of the headless scarecrow behind you. If you do, I'll help you in return."
She fitted the bucket on the broomstick figure, its positioning mocking the form of a head. Or a helmet.
"I am the Bucket Knight, keeper of promises," the scarecrow said. "... Yet, time can be so cruel, for I have aged and cannot remember the past. You know what I refer to, and I know that you know... However, you do not know at the moment, nor can you remember."
Yes. That was right. Jennifer did know. Or rather, didn't know. Jennifer didn't know what the Bucket Knight was referring to and in that it was correct. But the unlucky girl had no idea as to what memories the knight was speaking of. And all this talking about knowing and not knowing was confusing her a little bit.
"Let us recall our memories together in order to remember our promise," the Bucket Knight said and then settled into silence.
Jennifer waited patiently. She had expected more from this, her only friend in the dark, rocking room she had found herself in. But the scarecrow remained silent. Eventually, she nudged the bucket with one shaking hand.
And in response, the Bucket Knight spoke. "...If memory serves me correctly, the order you've been given is the reason you are here. It may be unpleasant, yet you have no choice but to follow it. A
tribute to the Aristocrat Club... That's your only clue." And then the scarecrow was silent again.
Jennifer turned to the door of the filth room. Yes. The Bucket Knight was right. She would get nowhere by just staying here. She had to leave. She had to be brave and proceed forward... She had to...
Jennifer pulled open the sliding door and stepped out into the unknown. Not for the first time, and not for the last, she desperately wished she was back in her old bed, tucked under familiar covers and embraced tightly by her mother... But the thought was fleeting and if someone had asked her what mother she had been thinking of, her expression would reveal bewilderment. She wouldn't be capable of remembering such a person.
Remembering, after all, can be very painful.
Eight
The unlucky girl found herself walking along a wooden corridor, and it seemed that this pathway must be suspended up high. One end of the hallway actually had a metal railing and when Jennifer had first looked over it, she had been met with only stark darkness. Peering into that impenetrability, her legs had seized up and queasiness rolling in her gut had only intensified. For a terrifying moment, it felt like she might actually topple over into that blackness. But then the moment passed and she had stepped away. Stepped away and promised herself that she would not repeat that action. For her own safety and mental well being.
Protecting one's mental well being was important. It's something she had learned long ago. Sometimes it's okay to treat one's self to an extra creamy dessert treat, or spend a day napping in a country park. Or promise one's self that they will absolutely never peer over an exceedingly long drop and imagine plummeting over. It kept a person in good spirits, and that was important if one didn't want to spend their life as a dreary, awful person locked indoors, muttering to no one.
Jennifer had no idea where she was. For sure, this wasn't the old mansion—the orphanage. The metal howling kept repeating from somewhere far away and each shaky step she took offered a small little echo response. She was suspended up high and the space must be huge... Inside somewhere metallic. Inside somewhere hollow. And the ground kept rocking ever so slowly. Like a boat. Like a fish.
But not quite, and again, she had the distinct feeling that she had been here before.
When she had first left the filth room, she had found a posted message. In tattered paper taped on the nearby wall: YOU ARE INVITED TO THE ARISTOCRAT CLUB. An arrow had pointed the unlucky girl down the suspended walkway and so she had proceeded. She had passed a few doors but had not bothered to check their contents. Jennifer suspected that if she needed to enter these rooms, a marking or a hooded person or an annoying voice or something would have informed her. And she was right. When the hallway opened upon a large room filled with stacks of items and boxes, Jennifer found another taped post pointing the way. A light source was suspended from the ceiling and a little green butterfly fluttered around it aimlessly. The room seemed to be a supply or cargo area and, aside from the ever-present metallic and hollow moan, the unlucky girl could make out the rambunctious sounds of small machinery here. A certain chugging and grinding and growling. The rhythmic chugging brought a sewing machine to mind, and as for the rest—an image of a red, bulging face flashed in the unlucky girl's mind, teeth gnashing together bitterly. The source of the sounds was nearby but when she came upon a post that directed her through a door to the left—and away from the queer noises—she did not stop to investigate it further.
And that was probably for the best.
Jennifer found herself in a room with a cold, metal staircase. THE SECTOR 8 STAIRWAY the unlucky girl had read outside the room. Here there was another unknown door but Jennifer instead climbed the steps. There was another guide posted at the base of the stairs directing her upward, and as she had been directed her, she would do.
She hated that aspect of herself.
The unlucky girl climbed the twenty-one steps. The door at the end of the stairs was an unremarkable sliding thing, but there was one thing of note. Next to the door was a wooden plaque which had at some other time indicated that this had been the staff stairwell. Now however, scratched and etched into the wood: AN ARISTOCRAT'S SOCIETY.
The unlucky girl stepped through.
And the room she was met with was different than anything she had seen yet. The first class guest sector. Gaudy carpeting lined the floor and the walls were a fine paneled wood. The chairs that lined the hallway walls were puffy, ornate things and the single fern stuck into the corner gave the air a thick, musky taste. Very distinguishable. Very high class. Very expensive.
Jennifer thought it was all a little bit silly.
There was a message hung directly to her right: SOCIAL RANK. REFINED CLASS. DUCHESS DIANA. COUNTESS ELEANOR. BARONESS MEG. And spaced a little lower from that, under a line: LOWER CLASS. POOR AMANDA. BEGGAR—
BEGGAR JENNIFER.
The unlucky girl touched her name on the notice. It had been scrawled on a piece of paper and then glued to the sign. But it was done in a messy little scrawl that was different from the rest of the words on the bill. The higher class names had been written carefully, very meticulously, in red. Red for the rose. Red for the aristocracy. Even Amanda's name (Jennifer's only company in the lower class) above her had been written rather neatly, but with no distinct care; in a way, it said that whoever had written it didn't have any special feelings, good or bad, for her. But Jennifer's name was different. The loops of the letters had been pressed in and then smeared, as if someone had run their hands over the lettering afterwards. There was a sloppiness that was distinctly more characteristic than any of the other words. Whoever had written her name had been different than, say, the person who had written Amanda's name. Sloppiness could mean disorder. Or it could mean disdain.
For some reason, it bothered the unlucky girl.
Jennifer turned away from the note. There were two other posted bills in the room. One was a map that outlined the hierarchical positions of the Aristocrat Club. An illustrated version of the social rank post, but different in that it mentioned three other positions, two of which that where higher than the Duchess, Countess, and Baroness rank. Two slots at the absolute top: the Red Rose Princess and the Bear Prince. And one rank, Bourgeoisie that was apparently below the Duchess, Countess, and Baroness, but above the Poor and Beggar.
The final posted message was titled THE RULE OF GIFTS. It expanded upon what the boy had told Jennifer when she was tied down in the filth room. FIND A GIFT OF THE MONTH. ALL MEMBERS MUST PARTICIPATE. TARDINESS, CHEATING, AND STEALING ARE PROHIBITED. JUNK, TOYS, AND MORE! NO REFUNDS. ONLY EXCHANGE. RED CRAYON ARISTOCRAT.
Three different hallways led three different ways, left, right, and directly ahead. But Jennifer needn't have worried about which way to go. The path in the dead center ended at a familiar door. A door with a strange box hanging from its face. Like the door from the mansion. The door from the attic that led to the boy's throne room.
~The girl has found a strange door, but where does it lead?~
The unlucky girl walked down the length of the hall. Honestly, the container affixed to the door sort of resembled a mail box. Jennifer yanked the knob but the door resisted her futile attempts at trespass. There was a little note taped to the door, above the box with the words: THIS MONTH'S GIFT. Drawn in red, there was a butterfly. Next to that, underlined: ONE PER PERSON.
And when the girl simply stood helplessly before the door, unsure of how to proceed, the door began to speak in a surprisingly spry tone. "Give me a beautiful butterfly, one per person. Is that clear?"
Jennifer tried to say no. That she didn't want to play this stupid game. That she didn't want to find a butterfly. That she didn't even know where she was or why she had been brought to this terrible, stupid place. But the door cut her off before she could even start.
"No gift, no entry. Is that clear?" The box door said, unsympathetically. "... Give me a butterfly... Give me a butterfly. Find one and you shall be invited to join the Aristocrat Club..."
Jennifer turned away from the door. It was all she could do then. She would not be getting around it. Not like this. And it wouldn't do her any good to argue and shout. To cry. To resist...
Two girls ran past, right to left, directly ahead of her, at the end of the hallway.
The unlucky girl followed. There were doors here, two on either side. But she ignored them, intent on reaching the end of the hall. Intent on finding someone, anyone, to explain to her where she was and what was going on.
But when she reached the end of the hall, those thoughts were wiped away.
There was a line of diagonal windows here, and looking through that glass, the unlucky girl could see an ocean of clouds framing a dark sky. She had thought the steady rise and fall of the ground had resembled a great boat, but looking at the dark skyline skimming by, she realized how wrong she had been. No, not the sea. The sky.
An airship. A rigid airship.
A fish swimming through the sky.
And then Jennifer screamed.
Nine
~Looking through the window, the unlucky girl saw that she was above the clouds. The airship slowly swam through the sky, carrying the helpless girl inside...~
Jennifer stepped away from the line of windows. It wasn't good for her stomach or her mental well being to look at that scene for too long. More than queasy, it made her head feel light. And strangely giddy, like a naive child riding her first roller coaster, unaware of the terrifying plunge.
There wasn't much more at this end of the hallway. Just a little dead end space. So the unlucky girl turned back, back toward the little lobby. Room plates supplied the names of the areas beyond. Library to her right. Sickroom to her left.
The sickroom...
Jennifer stopped.
She was always sick...
Jennifer's hand's grabbed the door knob.
Is she...?
The unlucky girl pulled open the door and stepped inside. The sickroom wasn't what one might expect for a grand airship. It was too small, more fitting for a school maybe. Just a little room, a single small bed, a few chairs and stools, a little lamp sitting on a tiny little cabinet table, and two crayon drawings attached to the wall's flower and line wallpaper. The floor was lined with wood and there was a faint smell of antiseptic.
But she wasn't here.
Jennifer walked around the room uneasily. Who had she been expecting to find here? Why couldn't she remember? It had seemed so important a few seconds ago. So important that she had plunged thoughtlessly through the door. Jennifer felt silly. Scatterbrained. And a little bit lonely too.
One of the drawings on the wall was of a large flying fish. Beneath it, the cute picture depicted children playing happily together, holding a line that was tied to the fish overhead. Above this picture was a drawing of a rabbit. For some reason, Jennifer got the impression that it meant a lot to its owner. The fish drawing wasn't labeled but the rabbit one was. Just RABBIT. Below that it looked like someone had misspelled rabbit (raper, rapist) and scratched it out angrily.
There was another door, on the wall facing against the bed. The unlucky girl thought she heard a voice coming from the other side so she decided to investigate.
This room was even less well lit than the sickroom. It was a little clinic. A little sick bay. Again too small for the needs of a flying airship and all the crew that entailed. And there were actually people here, two of them. One was a large man, sitting hunched over at a cramped, little study desk. The other person was a girl, but not a young child. She was a tall, a girl standing on the precipice of adulthood, a teenager wearing a yellow shirt and looking down so that her brown hair concealed her eyes. It seemed like she was holding something of herself back and away in a different world.
First Jennifer approached the man, the one closest to her. He seemed to be very busy writing something down on a ledger but still Jennifer thought it important to speak to him. His shoulders were slacked but large. An imposing figure of authority. Yet before Jennifer could even greet him properly, he insulted her:
"Dirty wretch," the man said to Jennifer, flicking his arm and making a stabbing motion with his pen. "Why are you always shirking your duties?" Having said that, he turned away and waved her off.
~The unlucky girl met Hoffman, the strict teacher. When Hoffman caught Jennifer looking at him, he snapped at her.~
Feeling entirely dismissed, Jennifer decided to try the girl next. She was sitting on one of the two examination beds. The one with the leg rests for gynecologic examinations that always seemed so high and unkind to the unlucky girl...
"How dirty," the teenage girl said. She refused to look Jennifer in the eye, always looking down at her skirt. Her nails were very short and the skin on her fingers looked like it had been picked a raw, soft pink.
~The unlucky girl met Clara, the frightened Princess. As the Princess looked down, she spoke to the girl with a feeble voice.~
"Dirty wretch," Hoffman said behind Jennifer, quietly. Then, unexpectedly, he laughed, a nasty short brown sound. The laughter that might accompany a perverse little joke. Only there was no joke here in this room. There was only Jennifer and Clara and Hoffman and the wells felt like they were stuffed with awful, morbid secrets.
Jennifer didn't like this place. A clinic should be a safe place. Like the sick bay in the other room. A place of goodness and refuge from the pain of the world. But this room felt small, and closed, and dreary, and the people here were hunched over figures who cared only for themselves. The very atmosphere of the room was heavy with an indescribable sadness. Some awful unspoken sin. The poor lighting didn't help the atmosphere.
And the smell...
It was too clean. Too pungent with antiseptic and chlorine. Putrid. The aroma that was meant to mask and hide other, dirtier odors...
Jennifer moved to leave the room through a door on the other side of the cramped examination space but her progression brought her against a small little cabinet. Jennifer didn't even give it a sideways glance, she would have passed by it completely, but when she approached it Clara jumped from the examination bed and the unlucky girl froze. The frightened Princess pushed Jennifer away from the cabinet, finally looking her in the eyes.
"Don't look," she said while shaking her head, eyes red and puffy. She was in tears.
Jennifer left the room, nearly running. Out in the hallway, she leaned against the door, panting. The air outside was better. Less congested with the horrible miasma that had infested the sickroom. She moved back toward the line of windows that showcased the sky. And even that helped: the lightness her head felt from the churning view distracted and numbed her. Soon, Jennifer felt better.
She moved down the hall, back into the first class guest sector lobby, back to the door that had led her to this place. She slid it open, climbed down the metal staircase, and walked through the door into the cargo bay.
And then she remembered. Her first walk through of the cargo storage area earlier, she had seen the beautiful green insect flying around the hanging bulb. There was a butterfly here!
Jennifer saw it again almost immediately, fluttering near the matted floor. A beautiful green, little thing. She tried to approach it but it soared higher and away, behind the cargo crates, into the high hallway and out of sight. And then something large and bulky followed. A fat little girl with an awkward gait.
Jennifer followed down the hall. The unlucky girl reached the fork that parted one way to the filth room in which she had awakened and another yet unexplored door. But this unexplored door was ajar and at its base was a boy peering back and forth warily. Jennifer approached and he fled.
Jennifer opened the door and entered the darkness beyond. Here there were the sounds of relentlessly chugging machinery. The unlucky girl approached the smoking generator and was shocked to see something inside a caged-off central area. A brown shape swinging, suspended by rope. Jennifer found a door in the chain link fence and stepped into the area.
The sight broke her heart. The brown shape was a dog bound feet, jaw and all by heavy rope, it's tail dropping down, unsupported. It whined sadly as it rocked like a pendulum and Jennifer wanted nothing more than to free the poor thing. She knew exactly how it felt to be captured and bound. But the knots wouldn't yield under her fingers and as she struggled, the bindings actually seemed to tighten. Jennifer eventually was forced to step back when the dog gave a pained yelp as one of its legs hitched higher. She could seriously harm the dog if she continued her thoughtless efforts.
~The dog was all alone, tied up and hung from the ceiling. With no means to cut the ropes and free him, the unlucky girl could only stand and watch the poor creature struggle...~
She patted the dog sympathetically but it was all she could do... She promised to return with help and then left the noisy space, refusing to look back at her helpless friend.
But truthfully, Jennifer did not know how to proceed at all.
She felt mildly sick. Not in a motion sick kind of way or a terrified out of her mental well being kind of way. Rather, she felt ill in a very personal, very spiritual manner. If queried as to what exactly ailed her, she would not have been able to describe it. Probably, she would have lied and said she felt fine. Not because she was one to dissuade the fears of others, but because, to a point, part of her didn't realize there was something wrong at all.
The fear of something which is inevitable. That's what it was—the closest thing identifiable to the emotions that the unlucky girl felt then, on that airship swimming across the sky.
So Jennifer wandered around. She felt ungrounded, afloat in a strange place, unsure of where to go or how to proceed or why she should even proceed as such in the first place. Lost, not just in place but in purpose.
So she took and deep breath and decided to find her bearings. And she decided that a good first step would be to map out her place on the airship and identify the different floors and rooms.
(Just like she had when she had first come to the Orphanage all those years ago.)
For starters, the airship seemed to be divided into two floors. The first, lower floor was very ruggedly built. Icy metal loomed out over a padded floor and if she looked out, into the darkness that appeared at her sides, she thought she could see a rippling canvas of fabric whipping in the wind. But that may have been her imagination. It really was too dark to tell. The bottom floor was dirty and thick with the smell of gasoline and metal. It was also cold and badly insulated, the metal echoes from the machinery that kept the airship afloat sounded plainly and loudly around her rhythmically as they worked tirelessly to keep the entire thing in the air. The second, higher floor was completely different. Paneled and closed in and decorated wildly. The sounds of machinery could be heard there, yes (one couldn't really escape those awful sounds anywhere on the ship). But they were quieter, as if they were further away.
It seemed fitting, the higher class lorded over the lower class from above, from their shielded and muffled haven.
~The unlucky girl met Diana, the strong-willed Princess. As she gathered her courage to speak to the Princess, the Princess cursed:~
"She's such a pain!" the haughty girl said and rolled her eyes, her expression containing anger and mirth in a scary combination.
Diana was sitting at a table in the Sector 10 Crew Cabin, in a space surrounded by shabby looking bunk beds hanging off the walls. The strong-willed Princess was beautiful in a scary kind of way. Like a lion or tiger could be beautiful. Like a ravenous predator might appear beautiful to its prey. She was a girl bordering on womanhood, maybe she had already taken her first shaky steps over that precipice, but in another way, she still seemed very much like a child. She was not older than Clara in the sickbay, at least. She was an obstinate girl sitting at a table with red tipped wine bottles, so of course Jennifer fell in love with her at first sight. Not in the romantic sense, rather in a terrified, admiring sort of way. Her beauty, her bravery, her confidence, her strong will—the unlucky girl thought then that the strong-willed Princess was everything she hoped to one day be.
(we all felt that way. some stronger than others)
~The unlucky girl met Eleanor, the Princess as cold as ice. Inside the acrid room, the Princess shot an icy glare and said:~
"Yes, she is a pain." The short girl didn't look ashamed or annoyed when she insulted Jennifer. Rather, she looked bored.
Eleanor was sitting in a horrible, squalid space between lined shelves of flapping, screeching chickens. They were tiny little things that carefully inspected their tiny homes with beady eyes. The smell was unbelievable, the aroma of bird feces and feathers and filth wormed all around in a tepid stew of heat. And by god, it was too hot. Jennifer actually stepped back when she first entered the Starboard Livestock Room. Not from the smell, but from the sheer heat. It was warmer here than in any other room she had explored in the airship. The struggling and shuffling chickens stuck in their wire cages worked together to capture their body heat in this room and the leather walls was a very good insulator, not only for the rancid smell, but the heat.
And the cold Princess stood in the midst of this awful hell of taste and sight and didn't look ruffled at all. She was short girl dressed in a simple mustard yellow dress and her hair was cut short, in a bowl shape. Jennifer almost overlooked it because of all the chickens around, but the cold Princess was actually holding something in her right hand: an empty birdcage. But she never even looked at the unlucky girl, she had eyes only for the terrible, strutting chickens all around her.
~The unlucky girl met Wendy, the lonely Princess. The Princess saw that the girl was confused, so she smiled gently and said:~
"You're the new girl aren't you?" Wendy coughed, pulling a fist in front of her mouth. "I'm Wendy. It's nice to meet you." But the cough forced her attention away.
Jennifer liked Wendy immediately. She wasn't like anyone else the unlucky girl had met yet on the flying airship. She was actually nice and had an atmosphere of gentle patience about her. The Lonely Princess was crouched down, in the back of the Port Livestock Room, near a pile of empty cages. This room smelled too, but not nearly as strongly as the Starboard Livestock Room, and the stench wasn't a brutal overpowering thing either. Not the acrid essence of birds squirming over their own waste that burned one's throat with each breath, this was an aroma one could easily relate to a cozy old farm. With nice, stupid animals wandering around and a fat little farmer with a pitchfork working the fields. Like that rhyme, old Macdougal had a farm. And, unlike the room with the cold Princess, there was no uncomfortable ever-present heat. There were only a few animals caged in this room. A filthy pig and two little, shivering goats were in their pens. And—
"She feels unwell when she's lonely." Wendy said, looking down solemnly at a white rabbit in a cage. "Are you sad when you're alone?"
But before Jennifer had the time to answer: to answer in the affirmative (yes yes, she loathed to be alone—to be alone sickened her and was, unmistakably one of the worst feeling in the world), Wendy spoke again:
"Are you looking for a butterfly? I saw one flying around on the first floor."
Was there really a butterfly on the upper deck? There hadn't been one when she had checked the first class guest sector, but maybe she should explore further into the airship? It was undoubtedly a huge labyrinthine construct, there must be much more to it than the little she had yet seen…
It was better than doing nothing.
For now, she would pretend to play their stupid game.
(forgetting that pretending is tricky and sometimes you stop and you don't even know it)
When the unlucky girl turned to leave the room and begin her search, the lonely princess bowed her head and sighed. "No one wants to be alone."
Ten
Walking into the 3rd Passenger Corridor, there was the sound of someone sobbing. The unlucky girl listened carefully to the sad wails and concluded that it was coming from somewhere above her. The unlucky girl hadn't seen one behind her so she assumed there must be a ladder or stairway ahead.
Toward the end of the passage corridor Jennifer saw a very large woman working on all fours, angrily wiping at the floor with a dirty rag. When the unlucky girl proceeded down the hall, toward this woman, a fat boy stuck his head out of a door to her right. The obese boy looked at Jennifer, turned and looked down the hall at the cleaning woman, grinned broadly, and then audaciously pulled Jennifer into the men's lavatory.
~The unlucky girl met Xavier, the gluttonous Prince. As the Prince chewed with his mouth full, he spoke to her.~
"Heh heh... Did you hear the news?" Xavier said, sagely. He stood in the doorway of an open toilet stall, grinning up at Jennifer as if she were something small and simple and not nearly a woman fully grown that towered over him. The boy was filthy, always. His striped shirt was littered with crumbs and stains, one side awkwardly untucked into his shorts. And for such a fat boy, he always spoke in such a low murmur of a whisper... It unsettled the unlucky girl. "Witches must love to clean. They always carry brooms, right? That witch over there has only got rags, though... Well, you should clean up like they do or else spooky things will come and do it!"
The sallow flower wallpaper inside the lavatory made the unlucky girl's stomach churn, and the mention of spooky things made her wince visibly as an uncomfortable shiver went down Jennifer's spine. Xavier seemed to notice her discomfort because he seemed compelled to add:
"Heh heh... Did you hear the latest?" the gluttonous Prince asked, always eager to share his disjointed thoughts. "The witch keeps a very important key. I forget what the key's for, though."
Key?
"I'm telling you... We're in trouble now," Xavier said, in a whisper that made her shiver when he lifted his round belly and slapped it while it bounced wildly. "You're especially dirty, so the spooky things are sure to come and clean you up. Even Mr. Hoffman said you have to clean up, or else get cleaned up," the gluttonous Prince warned, darkly.
That was his problem. Xavier always mistook the agitation he caused for shock and awe. He thought that if he surprised and dismayed someone, it meant they would respect him. Think him unique and interesting. He was wrong.
The pranks he caused with Nicholas—they weren't amusing, they were annoying. And his play rivalry with the pig, his dream of joining a traveling carnival as the sideshow fat man? It wasn't fascinating, it was disgusting.
The unlucky girl retreated, toward the door, but on her way out chanced a look into the lavatory's oval sink mirror, on the wall to her right. Could it be because it was cracked? For a moment, the reflection in the mirror looked like an old orphanage... And for a moment, Jennifer felt like that girl, Alice, from the book, Through the Looking-Glass. The sequel to her adventures in Wonderland. Alice had entered the mirror and found the Looking-Glass Land beyond it to be a strange and foreign alternate world. And just then, Jennifer thought she knew exactly how Alice had felt when she had wandered into that nightmarish land and had to start listening to things talk that had no business speaking or thinking at all in the first place.
Alice must have felt like she was going mad.
And the only thing that had stopped her from balling up on the floor and spending the rest of the story weeping was the hope that she was wrong. That it wasn't her that had gone mad, but the rest of the world instead. She was still quite sane, and she could hope to escape the madness she found herself in. But only if she stayed calm and happy and didn't have a panic attack.
Back outside in the 3rd Passenger Corridor, Jennifer could hear the sobbing again. She proceeded down the way, toward the cleaning woman. Yes, Jennifer's suspicions had been correct, there were stairs here. A large metal stairway that ascended upward, toward an unseen room above—and presumably the source of the crying.
~The unlucky girl met Martha, the Queen of cleaning. The Queen glared at Jennifer as if she were filthier than dirt itself.~
The large woman sat up, quickly inspecting Jennifer from foot to head, before finally dismissing her with a flick of her rag. "Filthy wretch." Then the woman returned to her work, ignoring Jennifer in favor of the floor.
The unlucky girl moved toward the staircase, but was sidelined by a sudden strange cry.
"Choo choo!"
Choo choo?
Jennifer's curiosity got the best of her. She put the crying coming from the top end of the stairs aside and proceeded toward a door to her left, across from the busy Queen of cleaning.
On the other side of this door Jennifer found herself in the Smoking Room. A dim sitting room lined with sofa chairs installed into the wall, a grandfather clock, a small table and a slowly spinning ceiling fan mimicking the movement of a boy settled on the room's floor. This boy was the origin of the choo choo sounds, he guided a little toy train as he circled round and round and made his play train noises.
~The unlucky girl met Thomas, the mischievous Prince. The Prince, who'd been busy with his antics, finally stopped and spoke to the girl:~
"A new girl, a new girl!" The boy said in an odd sing-song tone. He was filthy, but not like Xavier, the gluttonous Prince had been. This boy's clothes were tattered in grime and worn in a savage manner. It was evident that he had been wearing these clothes for a long time—and refusing anything else. Like most of the others she had encountered on the ship, when he spoke it seemed half directed to her and half ignoring her, like she wasn't there at all. And his incessantly repeated spinning around the floor and singing made him appear stupid to the unlucky girl. "What's she like? Really scrawny..." And then he gave a hitched little laugh.
Jennifer decided to leave the boy be. She moved to leave but again she was distracted by something. There was a newspaper lying on one of the sofa chairs. There was a prominent picture of a dirigible—of an airship. The unlucky girl walked over and read the short accompanying article.
25 APRIL 1929. THE WORLD'S LARGEST AIRSHIP TO TAKE FLIGHT. IN ANTICIPATION OF THE COMING ERA OF AIRSHIP TRAVEL, BRITAIN ANNOUNCED THE COMPLETION OF THE WORLD'S LARGEST AIRSHIP. IN ITS LONG-AWAITED FIRST FLIGHT, IT WILL LIFT OFF AT CARDINGTON AND FLY TO INDIA BY WAY OF LONDON. ALL OF BRITAIN EAGERLY AWAITS THE INAUGURAL CEREMONY. ALONG WITH THE MAYOR AND THE COUNTESS, CHILDREN FROM THE LOCAL ORPHANAGE WILL PARTICIPATE IN THE RIBBON-CUTTING CEREMONY.
Something about reading this made Jennifer lightheaded—or rather more so than she had been feeling already. She wasn't sure if she was breathing and she felt oddly as if she was stepping away from herself, if that made any sense. Almost like she was observing herself reading the newspaper and leaning against the sofa seat. From somewhere very far away, she thought she heard an explosion. Someone was screaming. Oh no, that was herself. Jennifer forced herself to put the newspaper down. She leaned back on the couch seat and let the mischievous Prince's endless circling lull her into an almost hypnotic peace until she felt alright again; until she could breathe normally without gasping. She didn't know what that had been about, but she didn't want to find out.
Not yet.
The room had a faint resin smell of tobacco and fumes. That also helped, somewhat. The strange boy on the floor paid her no mind, and not being alone then in that moment but not having to worry about pretending to be okay to the benefit of another—that helped too.
(she remembered the dog)
She was okay.
Jennifer left the Smoking Room. In the 3rd Passenger Corridor, she was again greeted by the sound of crying and the large woman cleaning heatedly. She moved to the stairway, taking note of the words and pointing arrow drawn onto the wall next to the steps: CLOVER FIELD.
Eleven
Upstairs, the unlucky girl found herself in the Guest Room Hall. It was lavish, of course, just like the First Class Guest Sector had been. The walls were beautifully paneled wood, the floor was carpeted thickly, there was even a statue of a nude child reaching upward upon a pedestal, little stone wings indicating an angelic nature. Next to this sculpture was the source of the crying that Jennifer had been hearing for a while now. There was a small, crouched figure—a girl. She was stooped in a fetal position, weeping over a small, green butterf—
A butterfly!
~The unlucky girl met Olivia, the tearful Princess. As the Princess cried on, the girl gathered her courage and spoke to her... The tearful Princess just cried on and on.~
Was the little green insect Olivia's? Jennifer tried to ask, but the weeping girl ignored her and just sobbed on and on. Eventually Jennifer grew impatient and, against her better judgment and self-control, moved toward the green butterfly on the floor, reaching to take it—
A fork slammed down, piercing the butterfly, dangerously close to hitting Jennifer's hand. The unlucky girl jumped at the motion, and found Olivia standing, red puffy eyes glaring at her furiously.
"You deserve to be gobbled up," the tearful Princess said nastily, as she walked away, down the stairway and out of sight.
Jennifer took a few deep breaths to clear her bewilderment. When she was calm, she turned her attention back to the green butterfly pinned under the dessert fork. She lifted the fork, extracting the remains of the butterfly from the sharp prongs. It was dead, of course. Its wings were tattered and mostly fallen off, but it was a butterfly nonetheless. Surely, she thought, this would fulfill the gift requirement for the stupid game. She pocketed the fork and butterfly.
Her task now complete, the unlucky girl did not want to linger in this place. Strangely, the upper deck's high class appearance disturbed Jennifer in some strange, underhanded way. She knew that it was only natural that the lower deck scare her—its very nature of cold metal and deep darkness and groaning machinery was frightening, but looking upon the polished paneling and lush carpeting, Jennifer felt a queer sense of restlessness here. She felt the same way in the First Class Guest Sector. It was an odd feeling. Fear, yes. But fear of what? Usually it was only too easy to identify what caused one to tremble and fidget. Darkness and sudden noises and terrible heights. But here… There was fear. Fear of...
Fear of what was to come; fear of something inevitable—something sure to occur. Destined. Ordained. Impending.
Doom.
And then Jennifer shivered. That was enough of that.
Before the unlucky girl returned down the stairs and the path that would send her to the First Class Guest Sector, she felt obliged to check the many doors that lined this room. There were four, but none of them opened at her press or pull. They were all locked. Interestingly enough to note, each door had a painted symbol to denote it: one room had a one-leaf clover, another two, another three, and the last four. Jennifer figured that this had been drawn by the same person who had lettered the arrow denoting this room as the CLOVER FIELD below. There was something else: next to the Four-leaf clover door was a chair, and upon it was a small little copper leaf. It seemed strangely out of place (but what wasn't on this airship?), and for no real reason at all, Jennifer pocketed it as well.
Then Jennifer moved, back down the stairs, back through the 3rd Passenger Corridor, through the Sector 10 Crew Cabin, through the noisy Sector 9 Turbine Area with the hanging dog that stabbed at her heart, through the Sector 8 Cargo Bay—
The unlucky girl stopped. Someone was crying ahead. In the cargo storage compartment, someone was crouched, stooped in a fetal position, weeping... Olivia? Was it the tearful Princess again?
Jennifer approached slowly, unsure of what to do or say to comfort her—the image of the angrily slammed dessert fork still prominent in her mind—but before she completely reached the weeping figure, she froze.
This wasn't Olivia.
It wasn't a person at all.
(the spooky things are sure to clean you up up up)
The pale thing lifted its head, turned to look at the unlucky girl, revealing a bald little head and dark holes where its eyes and mouth should have been. A nightmarish monster out of her secret blackest dreams.
An imp.
The little creature rose and stepped clumsily toward the unlucky girl and all she could do in response was scream and scream.
Some part of her knew she had to do something. She could simply stand there and let the horrible devil reach her—
And yet a larger part, a part seemingly entirely at the helm of her body's controls, that couldn't get past what she was seeing. It was impossible. More impossible than talking scarecrows and doors, more impossible than waking up in a flying airship that seemed unmanned by any real crew except children and the odd adult. The thing standing before her, stumbling toward her, simply couldn't be—
When the little thing jumped at her, Jennifer toppled backwards, and the monster fell after her as she crawled away. The imp was horrifying. Its skin was pale and ragged and all it wore was a black rag draped around it emaciated body and its face—that was the absolute worst thing. Jennifer had once been told that the eyes were the windows to the soul. And in those black eyes one could see only hell.
The imp staggered to its feet and stepped after the unlucky girl, reaching for her legs. Jennifer kicked out, forcing the creature backwards, she looked around, but there was nothing in this hallway that she could use to defend herself. In her desperation, she plunged her hands into her pockets and found the copper leaf, the worn dog collar, the fork—
The dessert fork!
It wasn't much, Jennifer thought then. But it was sharp and long and that would have to be good enough. The imp lunged after Jennifer, reaching for her, and the unlucky girl closed her eyes, turned her head, and stabbed.
The creature screamed a bloodcurdling sound that ended in a bitter hiss. The unlucky girl opened her eyes and found that she had plunged the dessert fork into the creature's neck.
In the moment that followed, Jennifer actually considered apologizing. Oh, I'm ever so sorry about stabbing you—are you okay, little imp? That's how terrified and bewildered she was. She let go of the fork, letting it hang from the creature's fleshy skin. The imp stumbled, grasped up and pulled the fork out of its own neck—three long prongs revealing three deep gouges on its collar. And then the creature slumped to the floor, dark blood gushing from its wound.
The unlucky girl did not wait around, she stepped over the creature and fled down the passage, through the cargo storage area, and into the Sector 8 Stairway. Away from the nightmare.
Twelve
In the Sector 8 Stairway, a child reading aloud could be heard faintly... The unlucky girl listened.
"Once upon a time... There was an unlucky girl..."
Jennifer ascended the stairs, toward the First Class Guest Sector, green butterfly in hand. And too late she realized that the bizarre unease had returned and set upon her. After her encounter with the imp, a calm numbness had settled over her mind like a comforting fog, but now it slowly receded as she walked the steps upward. She forced herself to stop and breath when she realized she had been crushing her butterfly in tightly clenched fist.
"All she want-All she wanted was to be happy. So, she went to a clo-clover field."
As the reading child stuttered on, the unlucky girl reached the top landing and pulled the sliding door open. Letting the unease wash over and past her, she stepped through the portal.
"She found a one-leaf clover... but she dropped it on the road..."
In the fork that led left, right, and center, she paused for a moment, determining that the reading child was coming somewhere to the right. For a second, she considered heading over and peeking into the keyholes and spying into the rooms, but then thought better of it. She had been warned before that peeping was... peeping was...
(such a filthy, nasty habit)
was what? Jennifer blinked. She didn't know.
"She found a two-leaf clover... But it slip-but it slipped into the sh-shadows... Shadows."
As Jennifer moved forward, down the hall toward the gift box door, she readied the torn and crushed remains.
"She found a three-leaf clover... but a witch hid it away."
She read the posted sign taped above the receptacle box again: THIS MONTH'S GIFT. Followed by the red drawn butterfly and: ONE PER PERSON.
"She wanted to find a four-leaf clover... but she was too unlucky."
Looking at the crumpled butterfly in her palm, the unlucky girl had misgivings. Even so, she lifted the strange box's latched lid and scooped it inside.
And then the gift box door spoke: "You call this a beautiful butterfly? Are you blind?" A small cabinet box emerged at the base of the door, suddenly enough to cause Jennifer to gasp. The tattered butterfly lay inside, rejected as a gift and returned to Jennifer. "Give me a beautiful, beautiful butterfly, and then you shall be invited to join the Aristocrat Club..."
Dejected, the unlucky girl turned and walked back down the hall. Two girls ran out from the left hallway. Probably the same girls who had been reading the story aloud. Jennifer followed after them but hesitated in the main corridor. The girls exited through the sliding door that would lead them down into the lower class deck, but Jennifer saw that one of the girls had actually dropped something. When the unlucky girl was alone she moved to pick it up. It was a key. A key with a twisting shaft that ended in a single leaf adornment.
A one-leaf key.
A clover.
She found a one-leaf clover, but she dropped it on the road.
And then the unlucky girl knew that this key would open the one-leaf clover door in the Guest Room Hall.
So she went, into the Sector 8 Stairway—
And stifled a scream.
There was a large man standing on top of the stairs, directly before her on the other side of the door. He was garbed in a brown coat and cap, and as he towered over Jennifer, he offered her something: a storybook.
~In front of the unlucky girl stood a man in a brown coat that she had never seen before. The man quietly handed her a storybook...~
Something about this man frightened Jennifer deeply. Looking into his stony, blank face made her want to scream and scream but, just as she had with the boy in the bus, the unlucky girl took the handmade storybook, almost instinctively. She turned to the cover and began to read:
" 'The Clover Field.'
"Once upon a time, there was an unlucky girl.
"All she wanted was to be happy. So she went to a clover field.
"She found a one-leaf clover, but she dropped it on the road.
"She found a two-leaf clover, but it slipped into the shadows.
"She found a three-leaf clover, but a witch hid it away.
"She wanted to find a four-leaf clover, but she was too unlucky."
When the unlucky girl looked away from the storybook, the strange man was gone. As suddenly as he had appeared, he had vanished. And the unlucky girl was relived to see him departed. In his presence, her legs were paralyzed in abject terror and it was only with his disappearance that she could urge them to move.
(but he's still here still on this ship not gone not really)
Jennifer proceeded down the stairs and into the Sector 8 Cargo Bay, but not before hesitating. Her earlier encounter with the imp was still forefront in her mind and she dreaded stepping into the corridor and seeing the little creature's fallen body, the bloody dessert fork lying nearby... But to the unlucky girl's surprise, she couldn't find the imp's corpse. It was just... gone. No little spooky thing, no blood, no fork, no nothing. It was all gone. It was as if it had never been—as if Jennifer had imagined the entire encounter. Befuddled (but relieved), the unlucky girl proceeded into the hallway—
A door to her right was open. She stuck her head inside but saw no signs of movement from within and so, now sure that there was no unexpected surprise waiting for her inside (like an another imp or the hulking man), she stepped into the dark room. Inside she found various broadcasting equipment. She flicked a switch and a familiar ringing sounded. The same ringing she had heard earlier when she had been bound inside the Filth Room. The same ringing she had heard during the funeral... There was a hole in the wall. Actually, on the walls were crudely drawn cat faces and eyes, but where one of the eyes should have been there was instead a hole. It was the only source of light in this dark room. The unlucky girl peered inside and saw the same Filth Room in which she had first awoken, bound to a metal pillar.
Jennifer realized that this must be where the nasty little boy had been watching her from when he had taunted her earlier. And if this was where he had watched and spoken to her from, then this was where he had activated the machinery that had freed her... This was where he had activated the machinery that had lowered the big scissors that had been strong enough to cut through her thick bindings...
The unlucky girl was right. There was a button next to the hole. Jennifer pressed it and the clunking crunching sound of machinery started again. She looked into the hole and saw that the scissors had been lowered into reach.
Jennifer moved back into the Sector 8 Cargo Bay hallway and into the Filth Room, retrieving the now lowered tool. And she really should have expected it by now, but the unlucky girl nearly dropped the rather rusty scissors as she examined them because they suddenly spoke:
"No thanks necessary... No thanks necessary... You might have been better off bound than being free to feel pain. So scary!"
With the scissors in hand, and mad ideas of the airship itself groaning out a sentence or two soon enough, the unlucky girl realized that she now had what she needed to free the dog... Her friend.
From behind, a voice suddenly spoke. Jennifer jumped, she had forgotten that the scarecrow, the Bucket Knight, was in this room. And then it said in its calm and grounded voice: "...If memory serves me correctly, the green butterfly you offered was too filthy, and was rejected. Your beloved friend is tied up and hanging by a rope. Cut the rope and remember... Remember the name of your friend. Remember your bond with him... That's your only clue."
She didn't have to be told twice.
In the Sector 9 Turbine Area, Jennifer finally cut down the whimpering dog. The unlucky girl clipped the ropes with the scissors and freed the hound. Released from captivity, the dog seemed quite happy. But it did not jump or yelp or even run away—it simply stood there and wouldn't move. Waiting. It looked up at the girl expectantly, as if wanting something, waiting for her reaction.
Jennifer didn't miss a beat. Just like the first time so long ago, she removed the dog collar from her pocket and knelt down to place it around the golden retriever's neck. Inside of the collar was scrawled the name: BROWN. The unlucky girl remembered his name, remembered this dog. Remembered her friend.
"Brown!" she called, and the dog barked gaily in response. The unlucky girl laughed. At that moment, she didn't feel quite so unlucky.
Thirteen
Jennifer and Brown together moved through the Sector 9 Turbine Area, through the Sector 10 Crew Cabin, and back to 3rd Passenger Corridor. And here in this hall that ended in a metal stairway, the unlucky girl saw something that she wished with all her heart that she could forget.
Martha the Queen of cleaning tumbled down the metal stairs, her heavy body slamming on the steps. The woman turned, saw the unlucky girl standing further off at the end of the passage. Saw her standing there, frozen at the strange and violent sight, and she screamed for help. She lunged out, reaching between the stairway railing bars, screaming, pleading. Help. Help. HELP. And then she was lifted away. Something from out of view grabbed her lower body, grabbed and then lifted her, yanking her away, her heavy bottom hitting each step on her way up. But even if the unlucky girl couldn't see the woman anymore, she could still hear her. Hear her scream and cry out as she was beaten and hauled, a terrible thumping noise echoing down the passageway. Thud thud thud. And when the thumping and screaming stopped—because they wouldn't let her or because she couldn't scream anymore—that's when it was the worst. That's when Jennifer didn't feel queasy or dizzy or guilty—that's when she wanted to throw up.
The unlucky girl didn't know how long she stood there, her body frozen in churning waves of searing heat and numbing cold, but eventually Brown nudged her gently. She blinked and tasted bile in her mouth. She swallowed the vile musk and then turned to Brown at her side, who barked. She nodded. She would be okay. She knew she had to do this. She must.
Jennifer urged her paralyzed legs onward, she climbed the steps and entered the Guest Room Hall, and what she found there again made her want to scream. She settled for kneeling and clutching at her dog's side.
Martha's hat was on the floor. That's all that was left of her.
The unlucky girl scooped it up. The white cap worn by Martha, who was accused of being a witch.
While she was looking at it, Brown approached and sniffed it once. Then he turned and walked toward the two-leaf clover door. The dog pawed at the door, indicating that whatever it had smelled on the hat, whatever odor, it was now emanating from beyond this door. In other words, Martha, the Queen of cleaning, was on the other side of this door. In order to find out what had become of Martha, she would first have to find the two-leaf key. But for now...
Jennifer used the one-leaf key to unlock the one-leaf clover door. She pulled open the sliding door and entered. On the other side she found splitting hallways with many passenger bedroom doors; this was the 2nd Passenger Corridor. And just like any part of the upper deck, it was done comfortably with paneled walls and carpeting. And it was here that Jennifer found Nicholas.
~The unlucky girl met Nicholas, the sloppy Prince. With a look of annoyance, the Prince clicked his tongue and mumbled at her.~
"Why you! Go away! Go away!" Nicholas was leaning against the paneled wall strangely, one hand on the wall, one on his side, his foot tapping away to an unheard beat. "... I'm a shadow, a shadow."
Shadow?
She found a two-leaf clover, but it slipped into the shadows.
Unsure (but without a better idea), the unlucky girl looked at the sloppy Prince's shadow, illuminated across the hallway space, over a carpet that lined the way. Her suspicion was correct: tucked under the carpet was a key. This key also had a twisting shaft and a single leaf adornment, but it also had a missing end that made the key look like it might be missing a leaf. She fetched the copper leaf she had found earlier from her pocket and attached it to the bare end. It was a perfect fit—the one-leaf key became a two-leaf key. And although it might seem like a trivial thing (the adornment, after all, did not affect the bit (the end of the key that fits into the keyhole to disengage the lock), but Jennifer somehow knew that if she had tried to open the door with the key that only had one leaf, even this key, the correct key, it would simply not open. The unlucky girl accepted all this in the same way she accepted talking doors and keys and scarecrows.
Nicholas fled away, down the hall, turning a corner out of sight. Jennifer considered chasing after him briefly, but decided against it. If he didn't want to be caught, she wouldn't be able to find him. That's just how it was. Besides, now that she had the two-leaf key, she would now be able to enter the two-leaf clover door in the Guest Room Hall. So she turned back and walked back down the hall, back to the so-called Clover Field room.
The unlucky girl unlocked the two-leaf door with the newly complete key, pulled open the sliding door, and stepped into the 1st Passenger Corridor. Jennifer could see right away that it was another area of the airship similar to the 2nd Passenger Corridor—that is to say, splitting hallways with many passenger bedroom doors. But there were fewer rooms in this corridor, only about half as many bedrooms. Also, it seemed the hallway had been made impassable with a blockade. Trays and chairs and tables had been stacked in a way that blocked the hallway and stopped Jennifer from exploring the rest of the corridors. All of it had been nailed together into an unwieldy mess that made it impossible to unstuck or move aside with only Jennifer's strength. And maybe the unlucky girl could climb over it, but she didn't want to risk mounting the construction only to find that it was incapable of carrying her weight and having it collapse underneath her, sending her crashing to the floor. That's all she needed, really. To fracture an ankle or crack her skull and end up buried in the makeshift rubble. So no, Jennifer decided it might be best if she did not struggle with the blockade.
Instead, Jennifer did what she had originally intended. She held Martha's hat out to Brown. The great dog sniffed the cap intently before turning to a door to the left of where they had entered. Brown began scratching against its base, barking once to gather the unlucky girl's attention. Jennifer understood. She pushed the door open and stepped into Room 9.
This cabin was pitch black—completely and utterly without light. Jennifer wandered inside and banged her leg against something sharp. When she yelped out in pain, Brown barked in alarm and she had to comfort the dog. She couldn't see anything. She bumbled around in the dark for a while before deciding to leave back into the outside corridors. She needed to find a way to see. So she called upon Brown, who pushed his wet nose against her hand in the dark. Again she offered him the Queen of cleaning's cap. The dog sniffed it and walked off into the dark. Jennifer followed by grabbing onto his side and soon they were stopped in the middle of the room. Brown was pawing and barking at something on the floor. Jennifer grasped the object on the floor and found that it was a dirty rag. It smelled rankly of cleaning detergents.
And then, in the dark room, an unknown occupant spoke in a shrill voice. "...I was a mighty witch. Yet now, I am but a powerless wretch. Rubbish and dust... My precious, precious key. I hid it secretly... I hid it in a pure and dirty place. Your eyes cannot find it. You are truly a poor, unlucky girl..." And then the voice was gone and Jennifer didn't know if she was really alone, or if there was someone in the dark with her. Was it Martha? Was she the witch? Was she now just rubbish and dust?
Jennifer left the cabin, dirty rag in hand. Outside, she saw the Cafeteria. With nothing better to do, she stepped inside. It was an expansive hall space, eight tables laid out with an accompanying bar and line of windows that viewed out into the passing night sky. The dining room was dark, but not nearly as much as Room 9 had been. She could at least see in this room. But... Something was odd. All of the tables were set with tableware and flower vases, but there were a few platters and utensils strewn on the floor. All but two of the tables were tucked with white tablecloth, but one table was missing it entirely and another seemed to have had its sheet yanked, sending everything sitting on its face cascading onto the floor. Jennifer cautiously proceeded down the hall, between the tables, toward the bar while Brown split off to wander beneath the tablecloths, investigating this new place with a wagging tail. Above the bar was the only light source, a single ceiling light.
On the bar was a newspaper. Jennifer tried to read the prominent headline: KENNEDY ASSASSINATED.
She scanned the newspaper from across the pond but she couldn't make a lick of sense of it. She didn't recognize the politician's name it mentioned and the dates it talked about were just plain wrong; far into the future and meaningless to her.
The unlucky girl put the issue of the newspaper out of her mind and focused on the item that was lying behind the bar. Jennifer bent to pick it up—a paring knife. A small, sharp knife used for peeling fruit. The unlucky girl remembered her encounter with the imp earlier in the Sector 8 Cargo Bay. She had lost the fork in that confrontation. She didn't like the idea of being unarmed if she was attacked again. She pocketed the knife.
She felt strange with the knife in her pocket. Nothing that the unlucky girl had carried so far had she carried with the express intention of using as a weapon. Keys and slips of paper and collars and rags, but this... This was different. Even the fork she had used to stab the imp, she had merely pocketed by accident. But now, now she carried the knife for one express purpose. And even if that purpose was merely her own defense, Jennifer felt weighted. Burdened. Encumbered.
Afflicted, plagued.
When the unlucky girl moved from behind the bar space and Brown approached, he whimpered when he saw the expression that Jennifer wore then. She tried to smile for him but it felt raggedly forced on her lips so she dropped it and moved on.
Fourteen
Jennifer followed Brown into the 1st Passenger Corridor, through Guest Room Hall, down the stairway into the 3rd Passenger Corridor, through the Sector 10 Crew Cabin, past the strong-willed Princess (who glared disapprovingly), and into Sector 11 Maintenance. Earlier, in the Cafeteria, she had let Brown sniff the dirty rag they had found in the Room 9 cabin and now the dog energetically led her along the aroma trail, obviously happy to be doing something that might distract his master from whatever dark thoughts she had been muddling in back in the Cafeteria.
Inside the Sector 11 Maintenance area, Brown bit and began to pull at a fabric wall. Jennifer approached the struggling dog, looking around the maintenance area. It was strange, she concluded. This section of the wall was the only one made of cloth, every other wall was metal. Brown's efforts were eventually rewarded—the mesh string that held it in place tore and the piece of fabric crumpled to the floor revealing an interior space behind it. The unlucky girl praised the dog for its find, patting its head. Inside, just as Jennifer had expected, was the three-leaf key.
She found a three-leaf clover, but a witch hid it away.
And where else would she hide it but here?
With the new key in hand, the unlucky girl and Brown continued down the Sector 11 Maintenance passage, through the Smoking Room (which was now empty of Thomas, under the spinning fan), into the 3rd Passenger Corridor, up the stairway, and into the Guest Room Hall.
Jennifer unlocked the three-leaf clover door with the three-leaf key, but before she pulled open the sliding door, she paused a moment to look back, at the four-leaf clover door. She remembered the last line of the "Unlucky Clover Field" story.
She wanted to find a four-leaf clover, but she was too unlucky.
Something told her that she wouldn't be opening this last door.
(not this time not until i can recall these days and laugh instead of scream)
The unlucky girl pulled open the three-leaf clover door and stepped through, into the 1st Passenger Corridor. Now, through this door's opening, she had access to the portion of the hallway which had been blocked off. Slowly, she proceeded down the hall. But she saw nothing strange at first. She followed the corridors, turning when forced, counting the cabin doors as she passed them by. Eventually she came upon the same blockade of trays and tables that had impeded her before, only now of course she was on its opposite side...
The unlucky girl turned back to the corridors, ready to begin her search for a clue again, and saw something strange: light. Walking directly ahead from the blockade, on the second door on her left, light was streaming out from the edges of the door, from an open crack between the door and the frame. Someone was inside. Someone had neglected to fully close the door. She would have overlooked it—she would have been forced to check each individual cabin... But now...
Jennifer peered into the open crack.
And inside the room, Jennifer saw the same fat girl she had seen earlier. The same fat girl she had seen chasing after the green butterfly in the Sector 8 Cargo Bay. She was sitting ungracefully on the floor, giggling as she admired a square object she held high. It was an... An insect collector's box. But there was only one cataloged item inside the glass case: an orange butterfly.
Was this the girl's monthly gift?
The unlucky girl decided to go ahead and step inside. Into cabin Room 11. Maybe the girl would be able to help her find a butterfly... But when the unlucky girl approached, the fat girl quickly pounced to the floor and crawled away next to the bed, hiding her coveted treasure with her bulky body.
~The unlucky girl met Amanda, the small-hearted Princess. The Princess's round face loomed large as she spoke to the girl.~
From the floor, the fat girl wheezed out: "I found this butterfly!" She buried her head into her arms and shook angrily. "It's mine. I won't give it to you! I won't lose to you!"
Jennifer didn't know how to respond to this. She wanted to soothe the girl, to tell her that she didn't intend to steal her butterfly (even if it hadn't been against the rules), but when she touched Amanda's shoulder the girl quivered wildly and growled. "You dirty newcomer. Out with you...!"
When the unlucky girl saw that the small-hearted Princess would neither say any more or move from her position next to the bed, she decided to take her leave and exit the room.
Outside, when Jennifer had stepped away from the door and further off into the corridor, she heard the door to the cabin slide open. Amanda waddled out, giggling. She was no longer carrying her insect case, instead holding something gingerly in the palm of her hand. She seemed jubilantly excited until she saw the unlucky girl. Her grin turned into a grimace of surprise, her mouth opening stupidly. Then, it was almost as if she thought better of the situation. She regained her grin and she held up her hand, as if to taunt Jennifer with what she held there. She plucked it up, holding it for the unlucky girl to see: a large orange butterfly with clashing black camouflage eye dots. Showing off her gift—the gift that would place her in higher esteem than the gift-less unlucky girl. But then she stepped back, her courage wavered and the fear seemed to creep upon her again, and she fled, away from Jennifer down the hall.
The unlucky girl didn't want to admit it, but she was happy to see her go.
Back inside Room 11, Jennifer retrieved the insect case Amanda had left behind on the floor. She didn't know if it would work, but maybe Brown could retrieve the scent of a butterfly from it and lead her to another one? The unlucky girl sighed. Just how many butterflies could one airship possibly hold, anyways?
Brown didn't have to smell it for long, he barked almost immediately and led her out of the room, into the 1st Passenger Corridor, between the halls and doors until they reached a corridor that lined the side of the airship, revealing a line of windows.
Sitting upon a handrail here, against the glass, was a single blue butterfly. It was hauntingly beautiful, the color of its wings vivid and electric beyond anything she had ever seen. It was perfect—it would make an ideal gift for tribute.
Jennifer planned to approach it silently and capture it, but she forgot to account for Brown. The dog barked eagerly at the butterfly, obviously trying to tell the unlucky girl that they had reached the end of the smell trail, but it had the secondary effect of surprising the insect into taking off. It fluttered away, over Jennifer's head and flew into the nearest corridor. The unlucky girl followed. The blue butterfly was just ahead, Jennifer walked toward it, ready to capture it... No, not one. It was two. Now it was two blue butterflies flying directly ahead. They fled again when Jennifer approached. The unlucky girl followed. But upon turning another corner, again she saw that she was wrong. No, it wasn't two butterflies—it was four. The flying, dancing butterflies again multiplied. Now eight. Jennifer realized that she was running now. Running to keep up and count the parading insects. She had turned too many corners, passed too many doors, and somewhere from behind, Brown was barking, agitated by her behavior. The blue butterflies multiplied one last time, now too many to count. They formed a steady blue line rounding one last corner and they converged on a door at the end of the corridor. The unlucky girl thought that perhaps they were perching to rest, but no, again she was wrong. They were actually squirming into the door's crack, escaping into the room beyond.
Jennifer stopped outside this door, panting. That had been a rather strange experience, but not altogether unwelcome. For a moment, she had almost felt possessed—drawn forward as the vivid blue butterflies had lead her on and on, and they had been all she could see. Almost like a waking dream... Where was she now, anyways? Which door was this? She honestly didn't know...
The unlucky girl stepped through. She found herself in the Guest Room Hall. She was unsettled for a moment, she wasn't expecting to be brought here. She looked around, looking for the multitude of butterflies that she had seen flee into this room, but she only saw one. A single blue butterfly resting against a wall.
And that's when everything went terribly, terribly wrong and the waking dream became a nightmare.
Jennifer approached, ever so slowly, not wanting to scare it away. And again she found herself dumbly captivated by its sheer beauty. She had thought its coloring was electric blue before, but no. That wasn't apt enough—it's coloring was too vivid; too bright. Almost otherworldly, glowing with some faint spark of the divine. Of pretty, fantastical things that had no business inside an awful creaking airship doomed to fall out of the sky—
Surely this butterfly would make a most satisfactory offering.
The butterfly took off, flapping its gorgeous wings. It actually left a faint residue of blue sparkles wherever it flitted. Absolutely gorgeous.
Something was being pounded. A slamming noise coming from another room.
The unlucky girl watched as the blue butterfly danced around her, her thoughts focusing on the act of catching this marvelous insect and presenting it to the gift box. Gift. Tribute. Sacrifice.
Now there was a swishing sound accompanying the thudding, impact noises. A lonely metal wail echoed out, the soundtrack of the airship.
And then she remembered.
Place wastepaper in the rubbish bin and laundry in the filth room...
As the butterfly fluttered and clover-leaf doors around the hall rattled open, the old legends drifted back into Jennifer's mind, as clear as the day she had first heard them. When she had first warned them all—
Stray Dog gives us sweets...
Brooms were emerging from the slowly opening doors. Brooms gripped in strangely pale, small hands... The unlucky girl retrieved the paring knife from her pocket, grasping it with taught knuckles.
Stray Dog kidnaps kids...
Uncomfortably, Jennifer realized that she was surrounded. The butterfly flitted closer and closer to the ceiling light overhead.
Stray Dog comes at night...
Those old stories, the stories they used to tell, that she used to tell... The stories that let her control everybody.
Children who don't clean up will be punished...
The stories that turned everything into a nightmare. The stories that transformed the orphanage from a heaven, into a hell...
Hello, boys and girls.
The beautiful blue butterfly finally touched the ceiling light and, amid acrid sparks, it fell away to the floor. Dead as a nail.
It's time for some cleaning.
They came out, the imps. Hordes of tiny little creatures, waist high devils, some carrying brooms and some not, but all of them with the same holes for eyes, the same awful, pasty skin, the same high-pitched scream. The same desire to get a hold of Jennifer and clean her away...
The unlucky girl didn't waste any time, while Brown jumped forward, distracting the first wave of the little imps, Jennifer scooped up the blue butterfly from the floor. Then she fled down the stairway, jumping over a tripped imp in the process. Yet even in the lower deck there was no escape. An imp leapt at her from the base of the stairs, but Jennifer managed to swing her knife, not cutting but managing to knock it away. She sidestepped the rest of the ghoulish little imps in the 3rd Passenger Corridor and fled, Brown at her heels. She ran through the Sector 10 Crew Cabin, but she was momentarily overwhelmed in the bunk bed area. A group of ten imps managed to intercept her. One of the creatures jumped on her back, another straddled her front—then they began to bite and scratch and thrust.
Brown bit the imp on her back and ripped it away. Jennifer tried to throw the one hanging from her front off, but it was persistent and another imp managed to strike her thigh sharply with a broom twice.
The pain infuriated her. She stabbed at the imp that had hit her with a broom, sinking the blade into its shoulder twice and it collapsed soundlessly. Then she grabbed the little head of the imp still groping her—she pulled it back as far as she could and then plunged the knife into its back. That creature collapsed off of her too like so much dead weight. Brown fended the rest off with the threat of bark and bite, and then they were off, running down the corridor, into the Sector 9 Turbine Area. They were here too, the monsters, so the unlucky girl ducked into the Starboard Livestock Room. Eleanor was gone, but that was fine. Here, finally, was a haven from the horrid little creatures. Jennifer regained her breath before venturing back out, through the Sector 9 Turbine Area, through the Sector 8 Cargo Bay, dodging lunging imps all the way, toward the—
An imp whacked the unlucky girl, sending her tumbling. Jennifer had been sidestepping the little creatures very easily so far, but this imp... This imp was different. The girl stumbled to her feet, shaking hands raising the knife. Jennifer got a good look at the imp. Yes, this one was different. Instead of a small little head with dark holes, this imp had a strange, slacken rat head. Rat imps. There were two of them, the unlucky girl could see now. And they were fast. Where the others imps walked with a strangely dull gait, these creatures managed a brisk pace. They were all the more dangerous because of this. Jennifer couldn't afford to be distracted like this... Already other imps were swarming. Soon the situation would go from dangerous to precarious to fatal if she didn't do something about it.
Instead, the unlucky girl tried to run through, but again the rat imp used its speed to intercept her, swinging its broom at her—
Jennifer allowed herself to slam into the creature, sending it sprawling, catching the thing before it could complete its swing. The momentary repulsive feeling of rat hair against her cheek was worth the opening. The unlucky girl jumped to her feet and escaped, through the cargo area and into the Sector 8 Stairway.
Fifteen
The Sector 8 Stairway was free of the imps, rat or otherwise. Jennifer climbed the steps and entered the First Class Guest Sector—the Aristocrat Club.
She saw Amanda, the small-hearted Princess, far ahead, at the end of the hallway, depositing something into the gift box door. Probably her butterfly. As Jennifer approached the same door, she saw Amanda look into the now open door, look and be pulled in by whoever or whatever was on the other side.
Pulled into the darkness. It's what they all wanted to greedily.
The unlucky girl faced the same door and made her offering. She lifted the gift box's lid and slid the blue butterfly inside. Then she stood back, awaiting her response.
"I don't know..." someone said.
"Oh, why not?" another asked.
"What?" someone said.
"No!" someone denied.
"It's her first time," someone said in a whisper.
"Yeah, she's new," someone agreed.
"So... pass?" someone asked, confused by the consensus.
The gift box door slowly swung open. Jennifer grabbed the door, stepping around, cautiously looking into the other side. She couldn't really see anything and the darkness frightened her terribly—
She was so focused on the opening in front of her, she didn't hear the steps coming from behind her until it was too late. Suddenly someone jumped out, kicking her into the darkness of the Aristocrat Club.
Just as it was the first time, so it would be forever.
The unlucky girl tumbled down the steps and into the large hall room. She was greeted by a familiar sight, a sight from the orphanage attic room: two rows of candles lining a red rug, leading up to a layered structure of tables, all draped with flowing white cloth sheets and decorated with candles and rose petals. All of this focused around the two thrones. But of course, this time, the annoying boy from the bus was not here, and instead the aristocracy now reigned in the court.
They were all seated leisurely in various locations amongst the throne construction, the various Princes that she had met earlier: Amanda, Diana, Eleanor, Susan, Olivia—and another that she had not yet met but she vaguely recognized as having seen earlier, running off with another girl. Before she had received the Clover Field storybook. Meg.
"Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to the Aristocrat Club," Meg cried from the center, the speaker of the club's agenda. On either side Diana sneered and Eleanor fidgeted with the bird cage at her side. Amanda sat huddled, shaking from fear and excitement. Meg went on: "Thank you all for gathering here today."
Sitting on top of the structure, in the Princess of the Red Rose's chair was a doll garbed in a flowing red dress. The stand-in for the highest authority of the aristocracy..
Diana moved, lowering herself from her position to the left of the throne and moving toward the fallen unlucky girl. She swung her arms widely as she walked, imitating an official march. Jennifer remembered: Diana didn't like that she wasn't the Red Rose Princess. She didn't like not being the head, not being the one in charge, so she sometimes performed her duties with a sense of mockery. Well, it suited her arrogant personality so it was fine.
There was a jar sitting near the throne. It was absolutely stuffed with various colored butterflies—the gifts of all the aristocracy members.
When the strong-willed Princess stood before the unlucky girl, she curtsied in her exaggerated manner. Head tilted, eyes brimming with unsaid cruelties. When this girl smiled, it could only be because someone, somewhere, was crying.
She kneltbefore Jennifer, softly giggling, holding Jennifer's head between her hands. They stood like that for a few moments, Jennifer forced to look up into Diana's eyes, and Diana looking down into Jennifer's. Candlelight flickering around them, the strong-willed Princess's small giggles framing their relationship as her light hands caressed the unlucky girl's face. Jennifer could feel the pounding of her heart in her temples, where the strong-willed Princess held her, Diana's hands urged them to sway to some unheard rhythm. And then the moment changed—the unlucky girl could only see malice and the strong-willed Princess could only see terror.
"You're a disgrace," Diana said. She leaned away and began to swing Jennifer's face back and forth widely. "Nothing! Worse than nothing!" Jennifer could only bemoan in fear, but then the strong-willed Princess ceased her vehement violence. She steadied the girl and looked her in the eyes again. "Your gift is worth NOTHING!"
And at the last word, she threw Jennifer aside, slamming her into the rug. The unlucky girl looked up, staring up at the strong-willed Princess looming above her. And in her face there was not a single hint of friendship or benevolence. Not even the facade of it that she usually wore. Just contempt. Just anger. Just evil.
Then Diana smiled. The sight of the unlucky girl on the floor seemed enough to finally sate her wrath. She turned her attention to the small-hearted Princess and called her name, "Aman-da!"
The fat girl did not need to be called twice. Still in her whimpering, huddled state, she approached the strong-willed Princess, who pulled her close and patted her head. "There, there, there." Diana crooned as Amanda brimmed with tears.
Clapping. It started with one person. Meg clapping alone, calling out Amanda's name repeatedly. But then the action carried. Everyone began to clap. Everyone began to chant. Aman-da! Aman-da! Aman-da! The noise carried, spun, and soon it wall all anyone could hear. Amanda became the center of the Aristocrat Club.
And then, the small-hearted Princess was given the stick. The pole with the struggling, wriggling rat tied to its far end. Diana stood back, urging her forward. Amanda stepped forward with her awkward gait, unsure. She hesitated many times, but the chanting, the clapping—it urged her forward and cleared her trepidation. She pointed the stick at Jennifer, held it above her head. The unlucky girl stuttered and cried, but she dared not run away. All she could see were the ugly rat's beady eyes, its little arms grasping towards her.
The small-hearted Princess closed her eyes. But then opened them a moment later. And there was not a hint of reluctance or shame anymore. She wouldn't have to shut them to complete this task. She actually smiled with pleasure. She was the center of everyone's attention. Everyone's eyes were set upon her. In this moment, she was more important than beautiful Diana or the powerful Rose Princess. And everyone was chanting her name. Clapping for her.
Amanda laughed.
Jennifer felt the hairy rat's body press onto her face. Its wet nose and fur pressed into her cheek. Its small, sharp hands grasped her nostril and reached inside. It smelled awfully warm and foul. Its pitiful squeaking cry muted the chanting and clapping. Its little heartbeat pounding away on her skin.
And as the small-hearted Princess laughed on and on, as the Aristocrat Club chanted on and on, as the strong-willed Princess stood back and sneered, the unlucky girl fell into a dead faint.
Sixteen
When the unlucky girl awoke, she was back in the strange room. Only now it was empty of the aristocracy, of Diana, or Amanda, or even the rat on the stick. Instead, the small boy from the bus—the bear Prince—was sitting atop the throne, reading a storybook.
When her movement made it obvious that she was awake, the boy looked down with knowing eyes and spoke to her. "Well? Do you remember now what a bad girl you were?" The boy giggled, the airship's metal wailing carrying on and on. "You haven't gotten your memory back yet, have you? Well, you've really done many, many bad things. You'll just have to remember them little by little! And when you fully remember what a bad girl you were, this game will end.
"Now, take your stupid dog and continue with our little game, dear Jennifer." And then the boy laughed and laughed and amid this black sound, the unlucky girl felt her consciousness slip away from her. Her last lucid thought shamed her faintly—she hoped she would never find it ever again.
