Title: Lighthouse Part Two

Author: BombtasticSkittles

Rating: K

Word Count: 1,712

"You can see them can't you?" Lily looked up at the voice from her drawing. "The special people." She was still unsure whether to trust Miss Belle's man. Sensing her questioning of him Rumpelstiltskin continued, sitting down next to the child and her crayons. "They shimmer sometimes, the people that Mummy and Daddy can't see, don't they?"

"The Bad Man doesn't." Lily whispered. The Bad Man was solid, nothing like Claire or the tree lady.

"And this bad man, where is he? What does he look like?
Still observing the little girl, she seemed mature for her age. Nothing like her four years.

Lily shuffled her papers away and lifted the box of crayons into her lap. After rummaging around she revealed a crinkled paper and placed it into Rumplestiltskin's hand.

Smoothing the paper out on the table, Rumpelstiltskin held his face black as he absorbed the rough crayon drawing. It was of a man, but not quite a man. Its limbs were malformed and twisted, incredibly tall with wide shoulders and blackened features. "Where do you see this man?" He whispered no wonder the child woke up screaming, if a crude child's drawing could unsettle The Dark One.

"All sorts of places." Lily responded after some gentle prodding, she was more interested in her drawing. Not bothered when Rumpelstiltskin pocketed The Bad Man and left the room.

Her room was the first place Rumpelstiltskin went to, it was obvious to him now. The closet was its hiding place, yet it was strong enough to move the brick that had grown in size since his last visit. When one was paying attention there was a noticeable chill to the air, not horribly cold, but cool enough to make someone uneasy. Rumpelstiltskin couldn't afford to become uneasy, the child's fear was a smorgasbord of energy for it to feast upon and he was not letting it have his.

After he had pulled the cinderblock across the floor and unlatched the eye and hook that was also added on by Emma in an attempt to keep the closet door closed, Rumpelstiltskin was ready to face the thing that lurked within.

Lily's drawing hardly did it justice. The drawing did capture the size and distortion of the limbs but it missed the finer details, preferring to hide in shadow, still hiding in shadow. "A four year old child, what kind of a man choses a mere babe to frighten? Still as weak as you were when you walked alive, just a tad more unattractive. The child will grow out of her fear, and then what will you do?" Rumpelstiltskin said walking into the closet like a predator after some feeble land rodent. "You will be forgotten, completely. She probably will forget all about you before she reaches adult hood. Then you will simply disappear."

The air temperature in the closet dropped more; it was now more cold in the closet than just chilly. It was falling for Rumplestiltskin's plan, once it was out of energy, its façade would drop and the real entity would be revealed. There was a soft rattling of drawers filled with little girl's clothing as the entity's anger grew, the drawers knocking up and down, another waste of energy.

"If you were truly strong, or important, you wouldn't have had to wait for the child to be born. You could have had your pick of anyone, like others of your kind. They don't wait for a Sensitive to develop, they would have fix on the first person they found. This has always been the Booth's nursery, what was wrong with the other two babes. They preceded her by four years, and the eldest is fully grown. If the Sensitive hadn't been born, you would still be waiting, still a nothing. Now you're a goulie that only bothers her at night, hiding the moment another enters the room, and your time of doing that is just about done." The knocking was now a full out bang, the antique wood had cracked in a few places and socks were on the floor. The entity was still wasting energy, becoming smaller, and its limbs starting to resemble the human that it once was. The darkness that it shrouded itself in was quickly dissipating; it was becoming something which no child would fear.

What was once a dark twisted demonic like figure was replaced by an extremely small statured man. The man was in his late 40s, wearing old farmer's clothing worn thin with wear and time. He was balding, but that process was stopped long ago when the man had met his end, by an Indian's bow, if the wound on his should was any consolation. Finally noticing the change that had come over himself, the man looked down at his cracked leather shoes before picking a spot on the floor to fix his gaze.

Outside of the room there was a tapping on the stairs as tiny feet ran up them, drawn by all the noise in the otherwise empty house. Lily's feet and a child's curiosity carried her up the stairs and down the hallway toward her room where Rumpelstiltskin was. The room was a mess, most of her toys were on the floor and her bed was unmade. Rumpelstiltskin was standing in the closet, facing a man Lily had never seen before. He was obviously a special person but he was new. The Bad Man didn't allow others in her room, why wasn't the new man being punished?

Glancing around the room Lily noticed that The Bad Man wasn't in the room at all, even in the closet where he almost always was. The new man was staring at her, gray eyes looking straight at her, unnerving the little girl. There was something familiar about this new man, but before she could figure it out, the new man shimmered away, leaving a quiet peace in its wake.

"Mister, where did he go?" Rumpelstiltskin turned toward her voice, noticing she had entered the room.

"He left." Rumpelstiltskin replied leading the child from her room. "Let's go get your mummy."

"How many people are here right now Lily?" They were sitting around the dining room table, Rumpelstiltskin, Emma, August and Lily.

After a glance around the room, Lily answered with Five.

"Lily you know your numbers. There's only four people here. Mummy, Daddy, Rum and you." Emma said holding up her fingers to her daughter.

"What about Claire?" Lily said pointing toward the window, "She counts to Momma."

"Your daughter is a very gifted girl." Rumpelstiltskin said. "I haven't seen one of her caliber for a very long time."

Emma was horribly confused. "Caliber of what exactly?" she asked picking at her fingernail as she watched her baby scamper from the room.

"She is what would be called in this world a clairvoyant." He stated setting down his glass of tea. "In the Enchanted Forest she would be feared."

"A what?" August had never heard the term before.

"Your daughter can commune with the dead. Just as I can speak with you. Surely you know of this Emma, it runs on the maternal sides of families."

Emma was in full denial; her baby couldn't talk to the dead. She was a child; death didn't even exist to her yet. "This is all my fault then."

Later than night, after everyone else had gone to bed, Emma was standing outside of Lily's room. She was leaning on the doorjamb, holding a stuffed owl. Lily had left Heraldo in the living room, she always slept with him. Lily's small form rolled over toward the door and opened her eyes.

"Momma?" Lily asked in a sleepy voice, pushing herself up with one arm. Emma walked into the room; it felt warmer in there finally.

Holding up the snowy owl and kneeling down Emma looked at her baby. Blonde little curls were all over the pillow, rapidly becoming bedhead, her green eyes reflected the light from the lighthouse nightlight. Lily reached out and took Heraldo into her arms and rolled onto her stomach, her head still facing her mother.

"Nie-Night Momma." Lily said yawning, fighting to keep her eyes open. "Love you."

"I love you too baby."

And let's welcome Latinbeauty008 and Haleyjs86 who are our new followers. Dear Marcie Gore, I am I great lover of Hence (although I've never heard it that way, but it shall forever be so in my mind now) Lily is four, this is set around late August or early September. Gold is the 'hero' in this one, I just can't really write him mean for some reason. Dear NaomiBlue, There will always be more Henry time. I feel like I neglect him so much. Plus small children at a wedding are a holy terror. The next ones should be much more fluffy and happy. This one was a personal therapy session for me, if that makes any sense. I just feel bad that I put poor Lily though that. I developed my 'gift' (which is a horrible way to describe it in my opinion, you can return gifts) when I was two years old, and I've been trying to remember what happened when I was little. This is a little tiny crack in the box that my mind created. I didn't have Rumpelstiltskin to save me though, that would have been nice. I didn't really learn about Sensitives until I was about 10 when a neighbor noticed how jumpy I was. She was just a Clairsentience (she could just sense when a ghostie was hanging out) I'm pretty much Lily but on speed and crack-cocaine, (not literally, don't do drugs, stay in school) There are 7 different types of Sensitives and I am 5 ½ of the 7. This is a crazy long author's note. But if you guys have any other questions that I missed in the actual chapter let me know and I'll try to explain it. Thank all you guys so much for continuing to read these, or even just start reading them. I love getting the email alerts from comments, new followers and favorites, they are possibly the best part of my entire day. -Heather