A/N: ...also known as Rage Point's Birthday Present, Take 1. Nothing here belongs to me and I don't pretend it does. Enjoy.
AUNT MARY'S HELL-BEAST
by Remus J. Lupin, Age 7 1/2
Ma and Da told me not to tell. They said that if I tell, that I'll get in trouble and they'll get in trouble and Taryn'll get in trouble worst of all. But I want to tell, I really do. I'm afraid that if I don't tell it'll eat me up and there won't be anyone left where Remus Lupin was, and I wanna be Remus Lupin. So I'll tell.
I remember real good. Sometimes I forget, but not this. It was cold, and it has been since Ma and Da left, and I thought it would be till they came back. They went somewhere that has a long name and starts with an 'R' and I don't know where it was, but they wouldn't be back 'til a long time and I missed them. Sometimes I just liked to sit and think about them, but most of the time I didn't. It made me sad.
I was staying with Aunt Mary, who is a strange old lady. She had hands like a bird's and a face like a tree and she smelled like potatoes and cigarettes. Her voice sounded like she was chewing glass and it hurt to look her in the eyes, they were a funny blue color, and she was Da's only sister that was left. She was just a couple years older than him, too. She had a daughter, but I wasn't allowed to see her 'cause she was always sick and there was something odd about her sickness. Her name was Taryn and last time I saw her I was five, but I remember she had hair the color of the muddy old creek in my backyard and that were big and greenish-gold, almost like this one rock that I have that I keep on my nightstand that I don't know what it's called. She's always in bed, anyway, and Ma always says that keeping her alive is the hardest choice Aunt Mary ever made, whatever that means. She was two years older than me and sometimes, when I should have been sleeping and I was at Aunt Mary's, I could hear her crying. And sometimes, I heard her howling.
But that was only sometimes, and it wasn't thatday.
Thatday was the first cold day. We took a car cause Da didn't like to Apparate holding on to me and floo makes me sneeze too much and I always end up in the wrong place and anyway, it's a dumb way to travel. Anyway, that was the day that Ma and Da took me over the bridge to Aunt Mary's house in our big green car that had a name but I forget. I didn't like going over the bridge 'cause on the other side it was always darker and the trees scared me. They were big and dark and had long pokey branches that looked like fingers and they wanted to pull me in and catch me in their big fat trunks. They never did, though. Aunt Mary lived after a whole lot of trees, and after where the road stopped being a road and was just a big line of dirt that kicked up in my face when I kept the car window open. There weren't any houses around Aunt Mary's, just hers, and it was big and creaky and old, and greenish-brown and ugly, with a big front porch. Ma and Da said it was lived-in. I think that means scary.
We got out of the car and Ma took me inside. Da went around back, and he said he had to go check some things over before he said hello to Aunt Mary. Ma gave him that look that I get a lot from her a lot, the one that says 'don't you do anything stupid, Remus J. Lupin,' except since this was my Da so it would have said Joseph Lupin instead. But then me and Ma went inside.
Inside Aunt Mary's house was even worse than outside. It was all green, not nice green like outside and like the garden, it was ugly green. Green like... green like the inside of Aunt Mary's house. I don't think anything else is that color, it's too horrible to be anywhere else. There were lots of dead things everywhere, animals with big fake eyes that Uncle Matthias killed back when he was alive. That was a real long time ago, he died right after Taryn was borned and I wasn't alive when Taryn was borned. All Aunt Mary's furniture was blue, but not nice blue like Da's eyes or the dress Ma wears to Church. It was blue with brown flowers on it, and the blue wasn't blue in some places. It was white.
Aunt Mary made me and Ma sit down and brought some tea out for Ma and gave me a glass of milk. I didn't like Aunt Mary's milk, it was kinda sour and old, like everything else in the house except Taryn, and sometimes I thought Taryn was old, too, old and just pretending to be young. Anyway, I drank my milk because Ma would give me her look if I didn't, and Ma and Aunt Mary talked while we drank. Ma asked how Taryn was, and Aunt Mary said, oh, you know, she's doing all right for herself and God willing she'll be doing all right for herself tonight. Ma said that she tried to get something for Taryn, and she said the word but it was big and didn't stick in my head, but it made Aunt Mary happy and she said, oh God bless you Kate Lupin, God bless you and yours and let Him bring you all the luck in the world. Her eyes lit up and they weren't so scary anymore, they were happy for once.
Maybe Aunt Mary was only scary when she was sad.
After that Da came into the room, Aunt Mary gave him a kiss and said God bless, and did the sign of the Cross. She gave Ma a big hug and an even bigger kiss, and their cheeks were pink with happiness or maybe something else, I don't know, I don't know what makes grown-up's cheeks pink. Sometimes Ma's cheeks get pink when she drinks from those funny glasses with the long stems and it's wine in the glass, but she didn't drink any wine so I guess she was happy. Anyway, they left after that, and I was all alone with Aunt Mary and Taryn.
Aunt Mary told me to take all my things to my room, the one I always stayed in when I was in her house, the one with the picture of Jesus on the wall and the bear with the one eye against the head of the bed. She followed me up the stairs, and then she told me the same rules that she tells me every time I go to her house, that I can't outside after dark and I can't run around too much and I can't be too loud in the upstairs or I might scare Taryn, dinner's at seven every night and if I don't like what's being served then I don't eat, and that's that.
Then she tilted her head to the side and smiled and said, oh Remus, you're growing up so fast. And then she left.
I don't know why grownups always tell me I'm growing up so fast. I'm not. I'm only four feet and six inches and I've been that tall for months now. Maybe I'll never grow again, I don't know. But anyway, I'm not growing fast and that's my point. Grownups say stupid things to kids sometimes, like we don't know the truth.
I watched her leave and then I unpacked my clothes. I made sure she was gone first, because I had underwear in my bag and girls can't see boy's underwear. I think it's a law in Ireland. Moms are allowed to see their son's underwear, because they have to buy it, but that's all. No other girls, ever. But so I unpacked my things and then I went downstairs because it was almost time for dinner.
After that, it was a boring day. Dinner was very bad, but maybe that's only because I didn't know what it was. All Aunt Mary said was that it was good for me. But when she went to take a plate to Taryn, I threw all my dinner away and found some bread to eat. When Aunt Mary came down the stairs again, she looked very sad. I told her I ate all my dinner and she said she was very proud.
I don't like lying, but sometimes it's okay.
After dinner was even more boring. Aunt Mary doesn't have a television. she just has the Wireless that's always on a news station, and everyone knows that news is boring. But she sat in her chair and listened to it like it was the best thing on earth, and I just sat on the floor near the big bookshelf that was Uncle Matthius's until he died, and waited, but I don't know what for. The man on the Wireless was talking about some new thing with the Wolf's something, and Aunt Mary was leaning over in her chair like she couldn't hear, even though I know she could because I could hear, and I was all the way on the other side of the room. I didn't want to hear, though, I just wanted to do something, and I didn't care what so long as it wasn't boring. I asked if I could please see Taryn, but all Aunt Mary did was give me a look that was almost as bad as the one Ma gives me. So I took a book off the bookshelf and started to read it.
It was almost as boring as the news. But it was about magical creatures like the kinds Ma and Da study, and it made me think of them, and it made me kind of sad and happy at the same time. I really missed them, but it was all right because I knew they'd be back and they'd have presents for me. But not for a while.
Then the man on the Wireless stopped talking, and Aunt Mary switched it off and told me it was time for bed. It wasn't even really dark out yet, and the moon wasn't up at all. I told her that I don't go to bed at home until at least nine o'clock at night, but she said well Remus this isn't your home it's mine and you should do as I say. That made me feel bad, so I went up the stairs into that room that Aunt Mary gave me.
The sun was just almost done setting out the window, and it casted all kinds of strange shadows over the room. Ma used to tell me that shadows can't hurt you, they just look scary and that's it. But it sort of makes me wonder what sort of things I can't see are making those shadows. There was nothing in that room that looked like those shadows. I think that things that are invisible can make shadows, 'cause how else would they be there? And invisible things can hurt you, like ghosts and thing. But these weren't ghosts, I knew that. But I think they were worse.
So I turned on the lamp and that made the shadows even worse, but I ignored them and pulled out the comics that Ma boughted me for this trip. They were Muggle comics, with heroes with stupid names and stupider powers, and when they hit the bad guys there's stupid sounds like Bang and Pow and Wham. But that's okay, Ma got them for me when she went to America and she thought maybe I could laugh at them. And I did.
It was about an hour later when I finished reading them. There's no clock in that room, so I don't rightly know, but I guess because the shadows were just about done being scary and it was all dark out. I didn't have anything else to do after that, so I turned off the light and just layed in the dark for a while. And then maybe a couple minutes later, I could hear Aunt Mary coming up the stairs, and it sounded like she was running. I never saw Aunt Mary run before, so I was thinking maybe something was really wrong. She went into Taryn's room, and all the sudden I could hear weird noises, like a growl but like a little kid crying, too. It was scary, even scarier than those shadows from before because it was more real. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it was something bad. So I pulled the old smelly blanket up over my ears and eyes and just layed there, praying to God and Jesus and Mary and Joseph that nothing would happen.
It was just a couple minutes later when I heard Aunt Mary run back down the stairs, and the weird growling crying noises went with her, and every second they were more growling than they were crying. Aunt Mary was screaming out something like I never heard before, I think it was another language but I'm not sure. I only know one world in Gaelic and that's because it's what Seamus at school calls me, but I don't think I'm supposed to say it. It's bad and it means I live in a place that's not in the city. But I like my house, I don't care too much.
Then the back door slammed, and there was a scream like something dead that didn't want to be dead, and then the door slammed again. I was shaking so hard I was afraid the bed would break and that Jesus on the wall would yell at me, but nothing else happened. Aunt Mary stayed downstairs.
I think maybe a could hours passed, and the moon was high in the sky, and I still wasn't asleep. I was still scared, but I didn't pee the bed. Only babies pee the bed, and I'm not a baby. Not anymore. But anyway, that's when I heard that noise outside my window. It was coming from the ground, the yard right outside the room where I was. It wasn't a noise like anything I ever heard. It was... well, it sounded like when Miz Keating's dogs howl at the moon, but it wasn't that. Dog's aren't that loud, and they don't talk.
I said dogs don't talk, and they don't, but this thing did. When it howled, it was like it was calling to me, like it was howling Remus Lupin, come play. Come outside and we'll play. It's didn't really say that, I know, but it felt like it. That's all I mean. I pulled the blanket up over my head so that nothing could see me except maybe whatever it was that had been making the shadows before, and I wasn't worried about that at the moment.
So I tried just ignoring it, and I tried putting my fingers in my ears, but I could still hear it, it was like nothing else and it was weird, but I wanted to go outside and see what it was. I was still scared, you know, but I wanted to know what was calling my name. So I took the blanket down and I got up out of bed and looked out the window, and I didn't see nothing there, but I could still hear something calling me, and it was louder. it said that's right Remus, come play. Come play with me, I'm so lonely. I just kept looking out the window for a long time, looking at the moon that was so big and round and pretty, and all the sudden I wanted to go outside.
The stairs in Aunt Mary's house are real old and creaky, so I was real careful when I walked down them, on my toes and slow, as slow as I could without going backwards. Everything in the house was so quiet, I could hear Aunt Mary snoring and I could hear Uncle Matthias talking to her while she slept. He came back to her sometimes, his ghost anyway, but he didn't want her to see him so only when she was sleeping. I could hear the wind, and I could still hear the whatever it was calling my name. It was laughing, too.
The door was opened already, I don't know why because it was real cold out. I closed it behind me, real slow so it wouldn't slam, but not so slow that it creaked. I took a step outside, and all the sudden the voice just stopped. Just like that, it was calling me and then it wasn't anymore. I looked around and I called out hello a couple times but nothing answered me. And then I was scared.
And then I heard something move behind me, it sounded big. I turned, and there was a big, greyish-brown dog, but it wasn't a dog, and it was staring at me. And its eyes were green and gold and red, too, and I didn't know what to do so I just stood there.
And then it got down on its haunches and it jumped up at me, and it hurt and then something else hurt, and it hurt more and I could feel blood and then I couldn't feel anything anymore.
It was a couple days later when I remember anything else. I was in hospital, there was a doctor and Ma and Da and Aunt Mary and a skinny little girl hiding behind her. They were talking with all kinds of big words, ones that I didn't know and didn't want to know. Aunt Mary kept saying she was sorry, and Ma said it was all right, but it didn't look like it was all right. I didn't know what was going on but I didn't want to ask. They kept on talking and they didn't even see me awake, but the girl stepped out from behind Aunt Mary and looked at me, and her eyes were sparkling and green and gold and black, and her hair was long and mud-colored.
And then she said, real quiet so the grownups didn't hear, now I have a playmate. And she smiled.
AUNT MARY'S HELL-BEAST
by Remus J. Lupin, Age 7 1/2
Ma and Da told me not to tell. They said that if I tell, that I'll get in trouble and they'll get in trouble and Taryn'll get in trouble worst of all. But I want to tell, I really do. I'm afraid that if I don't tell it'll eat me up and there won't be anyone left where Remus Lupin was, and I wanna be Remus Lupin. So I'll tell.
I remember real good. Sometimes I forget, but not this. It was cold, and it has been since Ma and Da left, and I thought it would be till they came back. They went somewhere that has a long name and starts with an 'R' and I don't know where it was, but they wouldn't be back 'til a long time and I missed them. Sometimes I just liked to sit and think about them, but most of the time I didn't. It made me sad.
I was staying with Aunt Mary, who is a strange old lady. She had hands like a bird's and a face like a tree and she smelled like potatoes and cigarettes. Her voice sounded like she was chewing glass and it hurt to look her in the eyes, they were a funny blue color, and she was Da's only sister that was left. She was just a couple years older than him, too. She had a daughter, but I wasn't allowed to see her 'cause she was always sick and there was something odd about her sickness. Her name was Taryn and last time I saw her I was five, but I remember she had hair the color of the muddy old creek in my backyard and that were big and greenish-gold, almost like this one rock that I have that I keep on my nightstand that I don't know what it's called. She's always in bed, anyway, and Ma always says that keeping her alive is the hardest choice Aunt Mary ever made, whatever that means. She was two years older than me and sometimes, when I should have been sleeping and I was at Aunt Mary's, I could hear her crying. And sometimes, I heard her howling.
But that was only sometimes, and it wasn't thatday.
Thatday was the first cold day. We took a car cause Da didn't like to Apparate holding on to me and floo makes me sneeze too much and I always end up in the wrong place and anyway, it's a dumb way to travel. Anyway, that was the day that Ma and Da took me over the bridge to Aunt Mary's house in our big green car that had a name but I forget. I didn't like going over the bridge 'cause on the other side it was always darker and the trees scared me. They were big and dark and had long pokey branches that looked like fingers and they wanted to pull me in and catch me in their big fat trunks. They never did, though. Aunt Mary lived after a whole lot of trees, and after where the road stopped being a road and was just a big line of dirt that kicked up in my face when I kept the car window open. There weren't any houses around Aunt Mary's, just hers, and it was big and creaky and old, and greenish-brown and ugly, with a big front porch. Ma and Da said it was lived-in. I think that means scary.
We got out of the car and Ma took me inside. Da went around back, and he said he had to go check some things over before he said hello to Aunt Mary. Ma gave him that look that I get a lot from her a lot, the one that says 'don't you do anything stupid, Remus J. Lupin,' except since this was my Da so it would have said Joseph Lupin instead. But then me and Ma went inside.
Inside Aunt Mary's house was even worse than outside. It was all green, not nice green like outside and like the garden, it was ugly green. Green like... green like the inside of Aunt Mary's house. I don't think anything else is that color, it's too horrible to be anywhere else. There were lots of dead things everywhere, animals with big fake eyes that Uncle Matthias killed back when he was alive. That was a real long time ago, he died right after Taryn was borned and I wasn't alive when Taryn was borned. All Aunt Mary's furniture was blue, but not nice blue like Da's eyes or the dress Ma wears to Church. It was blue with brown flowers on it, and the blue wasn't blue in some places. It was white.
Aunt Mary made me and Ma sit down and brought some tea out for Ma and gave me a glass of milk. I didn't like Aunt Mary's milk, it was kinda sour and old, like everything else in the house except Taryn, and sometimes I thought Taryn was old, too, old and just pretending to be young. Anyway, I drank my milk because Ma would give me her look if I didn't, and Ma and Aunt Mary talked while we drank. Ma asked how Taryn was, and Aunt Mary said, oh, you know, she's doing all right for herself and God willing she'll be doing all right for herself tonight. Ma said that she tried to get something for Taryn, and she said the word but it was big and didn't stick in my head, but it made Aunt Mary happy and she said, oh God bless you Kate Lupin, God bless you and yours and let Him bring you all the luck in the world. Her eyes lit up and they weren't so scary anymore, they were happy for once.
Maybe Aunt Mary was only scary when she was sad.
After that Da came into the room, Aunt Mary gave him a kiss and said God bless, and did the sign of the Cross. She gave Ma a big hug and an even bigger kiss, and their cheeks were pink with happiness or maybe something else, I don't know, I don't know what makes grown-up's cheeks pink. Sometimes Ma's cheeks get pink when she drinks from those funny glasses with the long stems and it's wine in the glass, but she didn't drink any wine so I guess she was happy. Anyway, they left after that, and I was all alone with Aunt Mary and Taryn.
Aunt Mary told me to take all my things to my room, the one I always stayed in when I was in her house, the one with the picture of Jesus on the wall and the bear with the one eye against the head of the bed. She followed me up the stairs, and then she told me the same rules that she tells me every time I go to her house, that I can't outside after dark and I can't run around too much and I can't be too loud in the upstairs or I might scare Taryn, dinner's at seven every night and if I don't like what's being served then I don't eat, and that's that.
Then she tilted her head to the side and smiled and said, oh Remus, you're growing up so fast. And then she left.
I don't know why grownups always tell me I'm growing up so fast. I'm not. I'm only four feet and six inches and I've been that tall for months now. Maybe I'll never grow again, I don't know. But anyway, I'm not growing fast and that's my point. Grownups say stupid things to kids sometimes, like we don't know the truth.
I watched her leave and then I unpacked my clothes. I made sure she was gone first, because I had underwear in my bag and girls can't see boy's underwear. I think it's a law in Ireland. Moms are allowed to see their son's underwear, because they have to buy it, but that's all. No other girls, ever. But so I unpacked my things and then I went downstairs because it was almost time for dinner.
After that, it was a boring day. Dinner was very bad, but maybe that's only because I didn't know what it was. All Aunt Mary said was that it was good for me. But when she went to take a plate to Taryn, I threw all my dinner away and found some bread to eat. When Aunt Mary came down the stairs again, she looked very sad. I told her I ate all my dinner and she said she was very proud.
I don't like lying, but sometimes it's okay.
After dinner was even more boring. Aunt Mary doesn't have a television. she just has the Wireless that's always on a news station, and everyone knows that news is boring. But she sat in her chair and listened to it like it was the best thing on earth, and I just sat on the floor near the big bookshelf that was Uncle Matthius's until he died, and waited, but I don't know what for. The man on the Wireless was talking about some new thing with the Wolf's something, and Aunt Mary was leaning over in her chair like she couldn't hear, even though I know she could because I could hear, and I was all the way on the other side of the room. I didn't want to hear, though, I just wanted to do something, and I didn't care what so long as it wasn't boring. I asked if I could please see Taryn, but all Aunt Mary did was give me a look that was almost as bad as the one Ma gives me. So I took a book off the bookshelf and started to read it.
It was almost as boring as the news. But it was about magical creatures like the kinds Ma and Da study, and it made me think of them, and it made me kind of sad and happy at the same time. I really missed them, but it was all right because I knew they'd be back and they'd have presents for me. But not for a while.
Then the man on the Wireless stopped talking, and Aunt Mary switched it off and told me it was time for bed. It wasn't even really dark out yet, and the moon wasn't up at all. I told her that I don't go to bed at home until at least nine o'clock at night, but she said well Remus this isn't your home it's mine and you should do as I say. That made me feel bad, so I went up the stairs into that room that Aunt Mary gave me.
The sun was just almost done setting out the window, and it casted all kinds of strange shadows over the room. Ma used to tell me that shadows can't hurt you, they just look scary and that's it. But it sort of makes me wonder what sort of things I can't see are making those shadows. There was nothing in that room that looked like those shadows. I think that things that are invisible can make shadows, 'cause how else would they be there? And invisible things can hurt you, like ghosts and thing. But these weren't ghosts, I knew that. But I think they were worse.
So I turned on the lamp and that made the shadows even worse, but I ignored them and pulled out the comics that Ma boughted me for this trip. They were Muggle comics, with heroes with stupid names and stupider powers, and when they hit the bad guys there's stupid sounds like Bang and Pow and Wham. But that's okay, Ma got them for me when she went to America and she thought maybe I could laugh at them. And I did.
It was about an hour later when I finished reading them. There's no clock in that room, so I don't rightly know, but I guess because the shadows were just about done being scary and it was all dark out. I didn't have anything else to do after that, so I turned off the light and just layed in the dark for a while. And then maybe a couple minutes later, I could hear Aunt Mary coming up the stairs, and it sounded like she was running. I never saw Aunt Mary run before, so I was thinking maybe something was really wrong. She went into Taryn's room, and all the sudden I could hear weird noises, like a growl but like a little kid crying, too. It was scary, even scarier than those shadows from before because it was more real. I didn't know what it was, but I knew it was something bad. So I pulled the old smelly blanket up over my ears and eyes and just layed there, praying to God and Jesus and Mary and Joseph that nothing would happen.
It was just a couple minutes later when I heard Aunt Mary run back down the stairs, and the weird growling crying noises went with her, and every second they were more growling than they were crying. Aunt Mary was screaming out something like I never heard before, I think it was another language but I'm not sure. I only know one world in Gaelic and that's because it's what Seamus at school calls me, but I don't think I'm supposed to say it. It's bad and it means I live in a place that's not in the city. But I like my house, I don't care too much.
Then the back door slammed, and there was a scream like something dead that didn't want to be dead, and then the door slammed again. I was shaking so hard I was afraid the bed would break and that Jesus on the wall would yell at me, but nothing else happened. Aunt Mary stayed downstairs.
I think maybe a could hours passed, and the moon was high in the sky, and I still wasn't asleep. I was still scared, but I didn't pee the bed. Only babies pee the bed, and I'm not a baby. Not anymore. But anyway, that's when I heard that noise outside my window. It was coming from the ground, the yard right outside the room where I was. It wasn't a noise like anything I ever heard. It was... well, it sounded like when Miz Keating's dogs howl at the moon, but it wasn't that. Dog's aren't that loud, and they don't talk.
I said dogs don't talk, and they don't, but this thing did. When it howled, it was like it was calling to me, like it was howling Remus Lupin, come play. Come outside and we'll play. It's didn't really say that, I know, but it felt like it. That's all I mean. I pulled the blanket up over my head so that nothing could see me except maybe whatever it was that had been making the shadows before, and I wasn't worried about that at the moment.
So I tried just ignoring it, and I tried putting my fingers in my ears, but I could still hear it, it was like nothing else and it was weird, but I wanted to go outside and see what it was. I was still scared, you know, but I wanted to know what was calling my name. So I took the blanket down and I got up out of bed and looked out the window, and I didn't see nothing there, but I could still hear something calling me, and it was louder. it said that's right Remus, come play. Come play with me, I'm so lonely. I just kept looking out the window for a long time, looking at the moon that was so big and round and pretty, and all the sudden I wanted to go outside.
The stairs in Aunt Mary's house are real old and creaky, so I was real careful when I walked down them, on my toes and slow, as slow as I could without going backwards. Everything in the house was so quiet, I could hear Aunt Mary snoring and I could hear Uncle Matthias talking to her while she slept. He came back to her sometimes, his ghost anyway, but he didn't want her to see him so only when she was sleeping. I could hear the wind, and I could still hear the whatever it was calling my name. It was laughing, too.
The door was opened already, I don't know why because it was real cold out. I closed it behind me, real slow so it wouldn't slam, but not so slow that it creaked. I took a step outside, and all the sudden the voice just stopped. Just like that, it was calling me and then it wasn't anymore. I looked around and I called out hello a couple times but nothing answered me. And then I was scared.
And then I heard something move behind me, it sounded big. I turned, and there was a big, greyish-brown dog, but it wasn't a dog, and it was staring at me. And its eyes were green and gold and red, too, and I didn't know what to do so I just stood there.
And then it got down on its haunches and it jumped up at me, and it hurt and then something else hurt, and it hurt more and I could feel blood and then I couldn't feel anything anymore.
It was a couple days later when I remember anything else. I was in hospital, there was a doctor and Ma and Da and Aunt Mary and a skinny little girl hiding behind her. They were talking with all kinds of big words, ones that I didn't know and didn't want to know. Aunt Mary kept saying she was sorry, and Ma said it was all right, but it didn't look like it was all right. I didn't know what was going on but I didn't want to ask. They kept on talking and they didn't even see me awake, but the girl stepped out from behind Aunt Mary and looked at me, and her eyes were sparkling and green and gold and black, and her hair was long and mud-colored.
And then she said, real quiet so the grownups didn't hear, now I have a playmate. And she smiled.