Sorry for not updating sooner.
xXx
In the autumn shades of the afternoon light and the backyard of a house sat two chortling children. Girls to be precise, one redhead, one violethead. An array of plastic cups and plates, with real cookies set on them, was displayed before them on a rather squat play table.
Lammy picked up a pot, pouring imaginary tea into a plastic cup. Smiling, she dropped it and grabbed her trusty pickle plushy. "Would you like some tea, Mr. Pickles? I brewed it myself, and I can add sugar cubes or cream if you prefer it that way?" She put her ear to its chest, nodding understandingly as they shared some unspoken language. "Alright, if you say so."
Flaky had grown accustomed to her friend's antics of talking to an inanimate object. It was still eerie at times, mostly during their sleepovers where she'd wake at night to hear her whispering, but she wouldn't judge. If it made their playdate run smoothly, it was just fine with her.
She unknowingly fidgeted, staring back to the house where Flippy was apt to be making lunch. She had insisted that Lammy spend the afternoon with her; they could find amusement in the tea set and idle games.
The reason was ostensible and masked her real motive of the want of security from a trusted friend. The truth was, she wasn't feeling particularly secure in her own household. It was foolish, but still, she wouldn't take the omen lightly. The augury had to have a meaning. She could be paranoid beyond belief, but this was a whole different subject. Things as limpid as that just didn't happen . . .
"Flaky, something wrong?" Lammy captivated her attention, lowering the pickle to sit next to her. She was evidently scrutinizing her, an eyebrow springing up at her friend's jump. "Why aren't you drinking your tea? Are you all out?" She tilted the kettle and poured an invisible stream until she guessed the cup was filled. "There you go. Good as new."
Flaky turned her eyes upward, hand shading them from the sun, and caught sight of a crow perched on a telephone pole. Bad sign. Looking back to the cup, she could imagine the chocolate colored liquid facing the sky. The clouds drifted by, white fluffs reflected off the pool of auburn, and exited the circinate, chestnut mirror. "T-thank you," she said in a docile manner.
Glancing back to the light pole, not even the distance between the crow and her could stop her from seeing its beady scarlet eyes. Glowing rubies against the cloak of a dark night. Blood red rubies. She could vaguely remember reading, or hearing, somewhere that crows, ravens, blackbirds, were shadows, demons, that disguised themselves as creatures. Hence their raucous caws, coarse sounds, and discordant songs.
While the other birds chirped and twittered about light and life, the black birds would glare imposingly from their perches. It wasn't shocking no winged creature dared to hop near them; with their size and trench coat of black feathers, they were the outcasts and feared of the bird world. The piercing red the color of claret drove a stake of worry into any animal or man, or little girl. Infelicity and dire portent.
An example of how far their extent of bad tidings went had appeared in the time of adversity, for a friend. Cuddles, the dare devil of a child, had heard rumors that said if you were to ever throw and hit a crow with a stone, you would bring years of misfortune upon yourself. Just old folk talk, nothing more than urban legends a batty man had thought of after being isolated on a mountain top for so long Cuddles claimed. But one couldn't be sure, as they hadn't heard about anyone who'd ever struck a blackbird before.
Day after day the blonde would gather rocks in his pockets. These were the objects he hurled at fences, wires, and trees, wherever the prowlers would lurk at. The blaring of car alarms going off as windshields were cracked sent him running, leaving branch-like fissures in his wake, but didn't halt his attempts. He was determined to be the first amongst their friends and the town to say he'd hit a shadow—what he named the evasive birds.
The friends stopped heeding him any mind and went on with their lives. Until the blonde ran into their group one day, exclaiming in exaggerated detail how he had managed to hit one of the night dyed creatures. They weren't stereotypical, but it did come off as unsettling that he'd actually stricken a crow. The friends could barely get in a five foot radius of the birds before they flew; they were alert animals after all; how had Cuddles pelted a stone at them without the bird detecting it?
That day went by without as much as a single scratch, which wasn't very rare, seeing how the children would always scratch and bruise their delicate skin during school hours. As the next day rolled by and the new day was commenced, they began sensing that something was amiss. Cuddles hadn't been there in his seat. Without his obnoxious laughing and comments that vexed them all, the room was uncannily quiescent. His sudden disappearance could only be related to the crow; it was what the class believed, anyways.
Apparently, the athlete had slipped off his skateboard and fallen into the road. On impact he had twisted his arm; nothing major. Though, what caused his crash stirred up interest in the group? An egg, crushed under the wheel of the board, but distinctively a crow's. The shell's blue hinted, creamy tint and its brown blotches said that much, but what were the chances? The possibility that it would be the boy who'd hit the harbinger of ill fortune?
Since then, at the first sight of any member of the thresh family she immediately thought: obstacles and tragedies lay in the road ahead.
The crow croaked and polished its already lustrous plumage before taking flight. A really bad sign.
"So, what do you wanna do? I already finished my homework so my mom said I could stay later than usual. What if she picks me up at ten? Or midnight? Or even tomorrow! Maybe I can spend the night here!"
"Spend the night?" squeaked Flaky. It came out sounding like what the schizophrenia-suffering child had offered was a terrible suggestion; Lammy clamped her lips. While playing with her plushy, she shrugged and whispered something that sounded like 'Or I can just stay for the afternoon.'
"N-no no I didn't mean it like that!" Flaky amended hurriedly. "I-I just—! I have soccer practice later on, a-and you wouldn't want to wait an hour for me to be done. Sorry Lammy, but w-when I'm free you can sleep over!"
That seemed to lighten her spirits. Considerably. Lammy smiled at the reason, moving Mr. Pickles to lounge on her lap. "Oh! Don't you play on the same team as Toothy and them? That sounds like fun! I've always wanted to play soccer, but the dirt is too gross and Mr. Pickles doesn't do well when he's sitting alone." Her giggle was like an elf's, high-pitched and tinkly.
The redhead laughed breathlessly, finding she thought it as believable. "Toothy's a g-good soccer player, but Cuddles plays too rough sometimes. If you played, d-don't expect the guys to go easy. If they did, it wouldn't be as much of a challenge!"
"Yeah, well what do you expect? They're boys, duh!" Lammy tittered, but her laugh ceased within seconds. Her eyebrows furrowed in seemingly deep thought as she motioned to the empty platter. It had once held the cookies, but all that was left were crumbs.
How had that happened? The plate had been stacked with the baked goods only moments before, before she'd turned her gaze to the crow. But in her stupor many things could have gone by unnoticed; perhaps Lammy had arrived more peckish than usual. A comment or question dealing with her appetite might prove to be offensive, and Flaky wasn't keen on humiliating the violethead by interrogating her.
"T-they're gone," Flaky stated the obvious. "Never mind though, I-I think that Flippy bought another box today. I'll just tell him we were hungry, he won't m-mind." She stood and took the tray, returning the smile Lammy sent. "Y-you can keep playing, Mr. Pickles looks kind of thirsty; don't you think?"
Flaky left and entered through the backdoor. Flippy was nowhere to be seen, but he could be taking his midday nap that he'd made a habit of having. She threw a row of cookies onto the plate and went back out the door. And was met with a not so pleasant surprise.
The chair which Lammy had occupied was empty, the yard desolate and the tea set derelict. The fence was still shut like it had since the French girl arrived, so she couldn't have left. Why would she leave? Lammy didn't possess a short attention span, unlike some friends of theirs, and wouldn't easily pursue something that held nothing for her. So the chance of her seeing a ball or doll was out.
Mr. Pickles wasn't around either, he must have gone with her. Correction: Lammy must have taken him; he couldn't accompany her of his free will. Though she asserted he did.
Flaky put the platter down and searched the seats. In the time she had known Lammy, she'd learned one thing. Lammy adored playing hide-and-go-seek. Apparently, before she had moved to the town she'd been from a picturesque city in France. The adults were beauties, she'd admitted, and each child, with their olive toned skin, was as lovely as the next. She had repeatedly fawned over her old life and the trinkets she'd owned. Enough to cause Flaky to presume she was homesick and missing the home she'd once had.
But hide-and-go-seek: the game she'd most commonly play with the school children. The childish rush of running from the opposing player, the Seeker, and concealing yourself from their view, as to not get caught. In a way it was even deeper than that. Why was it bad to get caught? Why run and hide? Because you didn't want to be captured, you wanted to remain hidden from their eyes.
A game of cat and mouse, but of a lesser degree.
However, that wasn't how Lammy looked at it. She found pleasure in being like a swift doe, escaping the grasps of her foes and assimilating with her surroundings. It reminded her of the happiness in the earliest years of her life. That was her justified reason for running off when she could.
In the last year of their friendship, Flaky could estimate a number of times she had ran to play. And that number varied as high as twice a week. When the game would end, Flaky having found her after hours of hard labor—the Frenchie had mastered the element of stealth and invisibility, so finding her was no trip to the park—Lammy would giggle. Acting like she just hadn't made the redhead worry and tire herself.
If this was another time like that, Flaky wearily exhaled, then their tea party wouldn't advance soon.
"Lammy? Lammy, are you around here?" Only people with no brain would answer in a game of hiding, Flaky thought with a light scowl. The games really did get tiresome when played every day, and when she wasn't gifted with a turn. Lammy wasn't selfish, and Flaky dubiously assumed she was aware of the trouble she brought upon her friend, but this game, it tried her. It wasn't anger that welled in her, but utter annoyance that Lammy had been invited over only to have her way again.
After searching the yard—reaching into the pile of dried leaves Flippy had gotten around to raking, peeking through the hole in the fence planks into the neighbors backyard, crawling into Pitch's doghouse while he slobbered over her—she found herself in the living room. Quite anxious, she began hoping Lammy hadn't chosen to ensconce herself in a closest . . . or her bedroom. Flippy had specifically told them to take their games outside where their boisterous laughter wouldn't cause a disruption for him. Aside from his naps, he had work to do. Which he went out of his way to keep Flaky from finding what it was. And loud children, which was mostly referring to Lammy, rampaging through the hallways wouldn't help him finish.
"Lammy," said Flaky testily, "F-Flippy said we had to play outside. If he finds out we're in here and we didn't l-listen, he might be mad. Then I'll get in trouble."
Flippy's snores resonated from behind his room's closed door, but Lammy wasn't as foolish enough to disclose her spot.
Well, she could always check outside again. Lammy couldn't be far . . . Flaky was internally fighting; check the backyard again, or sit and wait for Lammy to reveal herself. It was back to searching the grounds outside then.
She would have gone on her way out the kitchen door again, if a smudge of green hadn't appeared in her peripheral vision. Placed directly in the center of the hallway, the cause of the sense of unsettledness that washed over her, was a six inch, rounded crescent shape. Two black button eyes and a stitched smiled, accompanied by a mustache and top hat, were angled at her.
"Mr. Pickles?" Flaky inched closer, hesitating should Lammy have jumped out and affright her. As she picked the toy up, turning it in her hands, she mumbled, "Why are y-you out here? I thought you n-never left Lammy's side, or that's what it l-looks like anyways."
The pickle's smile stayed abiding and changless as he merely listened to her talking.
"W-when Cuddles touched you at school I remember Lammy got s-so mad. She was screaming and s-shouting that you weren't clean now, then Mr. Lumpy had to send Cuddles to the principal's. . ." Her finger trailed over the velvety feel of the plushie's material. It really was a nice toy, but the everlasting smile could get creepy at times.
"Haha."
A muted laughter like wind chimes in a passing breeze. Quiet, light, and hidden. There wasn't such a thing as ghosts; that's what Flippy told her whenever she was scared, her paranoia getting the best of her and causing her mind to play tricks. Though, with the translucency the sounding giggle had she began weighing the truth of his statement.
"Lammy?" Her voice came out squeakier than she thought possible. "Are you there? I-I found Mr. Pickles, if that's what y-you were looking for. Lammy?"
"Hm~"
When had her friend started taking the creeper pill? It took another laugh, but Flaky found where the ghostly chuckling was coming from.
Down the hall, past her room, and in the closest Flippy told her not to open for fear that an avalanche of old garbage would fall.
"L-Lammy? Is t-that you?" The shakes started up, even if she was sure it was the French girl who was making the nose. Step by step she drew closer to the closed door, one she was forbidden to go near. Not that she would have liked to, considering the hall was almost always dimly light or dark—Flippy hadn't muscled up the energy to change the burned out lightbulb. If she didn't know better, she would have believed in the ghost nonsense.
There was a crepitation and crinkling from inside the closet with a short thump following it. Mr. Pickles' eyes might as well have bulged put with the mighty grip Flaky had him in. It was now or never, was she a girl or a mouse, no going back. She twisted the knob.
And got knocked back on her bottom when a combination of papers and a ball of white and purple rolled out.
The ball uncurled, a mess of springy hair that was kept tamed by a fleece hat and bow falling back on the floorboards, and the hidden girl was no longer concealed. Lammy sat up, a crumpled paper in one hand and a worn rag doll in the other. "You found me! I almost thought you had stopped looking!"
Flaky was recovering from her own fall. The start of a nasty headache, a result of her unshielded head hitting the floor, touched her temples. "Lammy?!" the redhead said in whispered outrage. "I-I told you Flippy d-doesn't like us playing in here!"
"Yeah but if I hidden outside you would've found me in, like, three minutes!" Lammy defended. "But in here there's so many places to hide! And I also found some cool stuff, why didn't you tell me you had dolls in that closet?"
Dolls in the closet? Flaky raised a thin brow. "Dolls? Lammy . . . I don't play with dolls, you k-know that."
"Oh, yeah, you like action figures and Hot Wheels! You're such a boy~" She dropped the crushed paper in favor of holding the rag doll, pinching one arm in both hands and bouncing it. "If this isn't your doll then whose is it? Oh! If you don't want it, can I please have her? Mr. Pickles has been begging me to get him a new friend."
The doll was frayed and smelled musky, oldness and some other indistinguishable scent radiating from it. One of her two button eyes had popped off and left only black, crisscrossing strings in its place. Her mouth was irregularly stitched, unlike the precision used on Mr. Pickles' smile. Yes she looked ragged, her dress torn and dirtied with black chalk, and the cloth used as her skin was threadbare, but she was pretty.
Or had been pretty in her former life. The half inch wide curls that covered her head were sticking out like someone had chopped them, or given her a bad haircut, were a dull red. They must have looked fiery when she was new. The single button was chipped and unraveling from its yarn, about to follow the path its other twin had taken and fall off. But the most noticeable thing for Flaky was a tiny pink heart sewn on the left side of her chest.
Why would a doll need a heart?
"Isn't she the cutest thing ever?!" Lammy gushed. "If you let me have her I would take her home and patch her up! I did it before! Please Flaky, please can I have her?!" She clasped her hands together, eyes as large as a puppy's as she pleaded.
"Can . . . can I see he first?" Flaky took the doll, frowning at its bare shoulders and arms. She had come with something, what was it? A sweater? It was something like a sweater, and she had little booties before. Now they were both gone. "I have her petticoat," Flaky said quietly. "I have it in my room. I didn't k-know what it went with since I-I don't have dolls, but I think it'll fit."
Lammy was given back the rag toy as Flaky got up and ran, checking to see if Flippy still slumbered, to her room. It took some searching, which was tedious since she couldn't make much noise, but she eventually found the small clothing piece in a box. It was the jewelry box she never used and had forgotten completely about, the one Flippy bought her in hopes of her dressing a bit more feminine.
As she came back, she took the doll and pushed its thin arms through the sleeves. Fixing the petticoat until it looked normal, she scrutinized the toy closer. There was beauty hidden under the black chalk. She was broken, damaged, but that didn't mean she was ugly. She was . . . special.
Flaky gingerly brushed a curl from her face, frowning softly when she turned over her hand and saw the smudged tips of her fingers. The chalk had rubbed off. Hesitating, she felt the overpowering compulsion to sniff them.
They carried a biting acidic, sulfur smell. Gagging, she instantly thought of the day a fire had started in the bushes behind her school. Was the black chalk soot?
"Flaky!" Lammy snapped her fingers inches before her face. "Hey! I was saying that I also found this weird picture thing, did you hear me?"
"What? I-I'm sorry Lammy! I w-was just thinking right now." She reluctantly put down the toy. She wasn't one for girlish things like Barbies, but she felt like she needed to hold the doll. Like her was her objective in life. To hold the doll, keep it safe, and feel its warmth against her chest as she conserved her from the harmful world.
"I kinda figured that already," said Lammy as she smoothed the crumpled paper from earlier. The two girls bent over it, eyes running over the small print and browning corners of the gray sheet. It was a newspaper article, an old one at that, considering that it was dated from over six years ago. Well . . . it was old to them.
Some words were smeared, dried circles covering most of the ruined letters, the way a book would get if one were to drop water on it. The edges crinkled with every swipe of Lammy's hands, rough to Flaky's sensitive ears. On the front page there were two pictures, one more enhanced than the other, and a bold heading that read "HOUSE BURNED AT TOWN LIMIT, KILLER STILL AT LARGE."
"Burned?" Flaky scratched her throat, fearful of what the opening paragraph would tell. Still, she read on.
"Such a devastating tragedy to occur in our sweet town, but it is the way of life. It was a dark, desolate night when neighbors claimed to see spirals of smoke and climbing flames. Upon seeing the house of her two close neighbors on fire, Mrs. Chip called the fire station to report the scene.
My assistant and I came right away when word spread, and by our arrival time half the town was gathered on the street before the house. The firemen had driven up only minutes before us and were desperately trying to quell the conflagration. But with half the building engulfed in flames and the ratio of the time it took them to expand against the water extinguishing them being 2:1, things were looking bleak.
Then, a shriek came from the crowd, a female screaming, 'Wait! There are people in there! Christ, help them!'
But with the door blocked and the air thick with smoke, none of our firemen could barge in. It seemed like hours passed, the fire enveloping the whole house slowly until it proved futile to keep trying to quench it.
The town watches in anticipation, sobs wracking a few of the faint hearted, and the roof begins to cave in. Some turn away, parents with young ones covering their eyes, and they wait for the deafening crash. But then, what is it, a shadow is seen threw the soot stained windows. It's becoming enlarged, growing closer, until it's at the glass. Shattering and screams are heard as the shadow breaks through the window. Who is it?
Two firemen, our good friends Lumpy and Pop, rush to aid the person. Gasps are heard as the man refuses to get up, panting heavily and clutching something to his chest.
When he does look up, the crowd backs away, fearing the—"
The next words were crossed out furiously. Whoever had done it must have been angry, angry enough to grip the pen so tight as to rip the article.
"—the child in his arms is unconscious, and the man also seems faint. They were both rushed to the hospital, where I later got to ask the hero a few questions, though he refuses to give out his name.
'Are you proud of what you did?' I asked in the following interview.
'Proud of what? All I did was save her, I shouldn't be proud. I should be grateful that she wasn't ripped away from me, she's the only one I have now.'
The girl is awake now and recovering quite quickly, but she seems to not have any recollection from that night, as well as she hasn't uttered a word to anyone who isn't the hero. All for the best. A child of that age shouldn't be weighted with such a tragic memory, perhaps it's for her own good that her mind has been able to retain the horrendous event . . ."
Flaky stared even after she was done. Why would this be in the closet? And who had written it? She looked up to the writers listed below the headline, eyes widening to extreme proportions.
"Article written by Splendid S. and The Mole."
"U-uncle Splendid?" Her uncle had been there? And the man she had seen been killed?
Lammy gulped. "That really happened here? My mom never told me about this!"
"Flippy didn't tell me either," Flaky mumbled distantly. Why wouldn't he tell her . . ?
Their heads whipped back as the floorboards creaked, a person taking long strides to them. Flaky and Lammy shrunk at the larger form that was the army veteran.
Flippy's eyes were abnormally cold as he stopped where they sat. He looked down the bridge of his nose to inspect what they held, lips firming when he came to the article Flaky was gripping. Something passed through his expression: fear. "What are you doing?" he asked gruffly.
"W-we w-were just playing hide-and-go-seek but didn't k-know that we'd e-end up in h-here," Flaky somehow said through her stammers. "A-and we were just looking—we didn't m-mean to wake you up! I-I'm sorry!" She winced when he stooped lower and snatched the papers from her, uncaringly cramming them in his back pocket. Gulping, she pushed the doll behind her and out of his view.
"I told you never to go in there, and still you didn't listen. You despicable brat—"
"It was my idea!" Lammy cried, flinching when his eyes fell on her. The strangest part was she almost believed she saw the left as a tender emerald, and the right as a piercing gold. But after he blinked, they were both a hardened green. "I'm sorry, too! I was the one who came in here, but I didn't know she wasn't allowed. Sorry. . ."
Flippy rubbed his chin, muttering something and walking past them, but not before he shut and locked the closet. "I have to drink my pill. Flaky, don't you think Lammy should go home now?"
"But she was only h-here for an hour!—"
"You have soccer today," he cut her short. "Or did you forget? Why don't you call her mom to come and get her? We're leaving in half an hour, so that should be enough time for her to be gone."
Flaky passed an apologetic glance, which Lammy received with understanding.
Flippy was always in a bad mood before he drank his pill. . . .
xXx
"Today I caught Flaky going through things."
"Oh yeah? What kind of things?"
Two heads of hair, one green, the other blue, were turned to watch the field where children ran after a black and white ball. Flippy and Splendid. The war man and the hero sat back idly on a park bench, though Flippy was obviously more troubled than Splendid.
"Bad things," Flippy said.
"Bad things?" echoed Splendid.
"Yup. Bad things. I didn't want her to find out until she was older, maybe a teenager. Old enough for her to start asking on her own where they're at."
"Ah."
They entered a silence, Flippy's eyes on the running redhead as she kicked the soccer ball, and Splendid's half lidded eyes moving to inspect the army male.
"When do you think she'll really figure it out?"
"I don't know. I was hoping for never, but that's not going to happen."
