Holly was late. Again. And Ms. Ainsworth was none too pleased. The young teacher's face was stern, her green eyes reprimanding. "This is unacceptable, Holly! You've been late nearly every day for the past two weeks! Punctuality is a virtue, young lady, one you have clearly been neglecting."

Staring at the floor, Holly felt a dark flush of shame bleed across her cheeks. She was all too aware of her classmates' eyes on her—some gleeful, others merely curious. She blinked back tears, willing her bottom lip to stop trembling. It was so unfair! It wasn't even her fault that she was late. She'd been ready ages ago. If only her dad hadn't taken so long with breakfast, she would've been on time.

Ms. Ainsworth, seeming to divine her feelings, softened. "I'm sorry Holly, but you understand why I'm upset with you, don't you? School is one thing, but what about curfew? What if you're late getting back to safety one night? It doesn't bear thinking about. Please promise me you'll try harder?"

Holly met her teacher's beseeching gaze. The same concerns Ms. Ainsworth had so innocently expressed had begun to plague her of late. Every day, there was another story in the paper, another rumor at school. A couple killed because they forgot to close and ward their windows. An old woman who, confused, had failed to return home by curfew, and was found ghost-touched and blue the next morning. She knew how close that reality was to becoming her own. At night, sometimes, looking out from her bedroom window, Holly could see them. Visitors. Wraiths and Phantasms and Cold Maidens. Just as they were described. Hovering there in the street or trailing slowly by.

Holly's parents were immigrants. Coming from a more polychronic culture, they had a tendency to take schedules more as guidelines than rigid rules. To make matters worse, they came from a country not yet affected by the Problem. Being people of science, they were naturally skeptical of what they couldn't see. Or rather, what they were now too old to perceive. Though they abided by the curfew, as it was the law, they did so somewhat grudgingly, haphazardly. Just the other day, her mother had nearly been late coming home.

What if one day they didn't come home at all?

It didn't bear thinking about.

Holly took a deep breath, looking Ms. Ainsworth straight in the eye, and nodded. "I promise."

At first, her parents were merely amused by their young daughter's insistence on the curfew. Holly wouldn't let it lie; she brought it up constantly—in the morning, before leaving; at the dinner table; when her parents came to tuck her in.

"Don't you think the curfew's important?"

Her parents exchanged bemused looks. "Sure, darling."

"Sure? Don't you mean of course? It's the most important thing! You've got to follow it!"

"We do follow it, sweetheart," said her mother, smoothing her pillow.

Her father was shaking his head, chuckling. "Already indoctrinated. My, Holly, what are they teaching in that school of yours? You shouldn't be so afraid of ghost stories, darling. It's all hysteria. It's not that bad. The Government just wants to keep people off the streets."

Holly sat up in bed, indignant. "Dad, they're not stories! It's all true! I've seen them!"

Her parents exchanged shocked glances.

"You…see them?" Her mother gazed at her with wide eyes.

Holly nodded. Finally they were getting it.

Her father looked hesitant. "What, exactly, do you see, Holly?"

Holly was only too happy to describe the grotesque figures she'd witnessed carousing in the streets at night. When she finished, her parents looked stunned.

Later, she heard them whispering to each other.

"—do you really think she saw?"

"Maybe we're putting too much stress on her…"

"The move wasn't long ago—"

"—last time she had friends over?"

Hurt though she was by their disbelief, Holly was not deterred from her goal. She continued to badger her parents incessantly about the curfew. Slowly but surely, she could see the first cracks of doubt appear in their cavalier attitudes.

It wasn't much of a surprise when, a few weeks later, her parents took her to see someone. An older woman; a practicing psychiatrist who'd immigrated from the same country as Holly's parents years ago. Someone they trusted.

The tests were a bit of the blur. An assistant took notes as Holly touched various psychic artifacts, brought out from locked silver-glass cases in the doctor's office. She had to fill out a few papers, too. Mostly, Holly simply talked with the doctor. She was nice, with smile lines clustering around her dark eyes, her shiny black curls touched with grey. At the end, she gave her verdict.

"Your daughter is gifted," she said, smiling down at Holly. Holly smiled back, proud.

"Gifted?" Her father prodded. "Gifted, how, exactly?"

The woman looked back at Holly's parents. "Talented, I meant to say. She's got the Sight."

Afterwards, she sometimes caught her father peering out the window for long moments, squinting, searching.

"I can't see them," he admitted one day, noticing Holly's gaze.

"I know," said Holly, solemn. "You're too old. Only children can see them."

Her father barked a humorless laugh. "Only children! Oh, what a world." Catching Holly's perplexed expression, he shook his head. "Never mind. Let's go eat dinner."

Her parents weren't quite the same anymore. A kind of fear entered into their every moment, strangled some of their earlier bonhomie.

But Holly had got her wish. Never again did her parents disregard curfew.

They were safe.

A/N: I know Holly Munro might not be the most well-liked character in the fandom, but personally I find her fascinating. I mean, she does prove herself in the last book. And well, Lucy is a bit of an unreliable narrator, so her rivalry with Holly might have led to her descriptions being a bit...adjusted from reality.

Lucy describes Holly as a ruthless perfectionist, someone who always looks just right. But when you look at some of the things Holly does, you've got to wonder...For example, when she sweeps crumbs up while people are still eating. That's a little beyond the purview of social nicety/hygiene. And, as we saw in that fight, Holly has teeth. So where do her perfectionism and her oddities stem from? I think insecurity, maybe anxiety. At least, to an extent.

So, this is my self-indulgent exploration of what makes Holly Munro tick.

Some notes: I read somewhere that Stroud mentioned the Problem hadn't spread beyond England, so I don't think it's too far-fetched for Holly's immigrant parents to have a little trouble accepting the Problem when they grew up somewhere without it. Also, I don't know how realistic it is for psychic talent to be evaluated in a psychiatrist's office, but we do see characters in the books who, despite being English, don't accept the Problem as real. So there must be some overlap, right?

Wow, this got long. Anyway...

Review please! Reviews give me life!