Warnings: Slightly scary, dark, shounen-ai later (1x2)

Note: Set in Victorian England. I dunno where it's gonna go. We'll just hope for the best, ne?

Elfindell

Chapter 2

"You're having a joke, Heero," Wufei, an older boy, said, after Heero had finished his story.

Heero glared at him.

"Or maybe you're not," admitted Wufei.

"But still," Quatre, a little blonde lad chirped up nervously. "There can't be anyone else in Elfindell.I mean, why would anyone *want* to go in there?"

Trowa, a tall boy, nodded in agreement.

Heero found it hard to be as nervous as he was last night now, when the sun was shining in The Lane and Elfindell was hidden behind the towering bushes and iron railings. But still, he had known what had seen.

The other children all either didn't believe him, or didn't want to. The fun of ghost stories was all very well and good, but Heero felt there was actually something downright sinister about the house that all the children, however brave they liked to think themselves, found uncomfortable. Any hint of any real dark happenings and it was a bit too close to home. It was all too believable that Elfindell wasn't all it seemed.

The children never spoke about Heero's little experience amongst themselves again. They chose to try and forget it and stuck to the scary but much more fun stories of cauldrons and ghosts which they didn't really believe, but they were reassuring in their impossibilities.

But Heero couldn't forget it. He had seen the outline of another person in that window, talking to Relena. And once he had it fixed in his mind, he saw more and more things to suggest that there was more than one person living in Elfindell. Subtle things, but things, once he noticed them, that could only point to one conclusion.

The amount of food Relena brought home on a Tuesday.it was more than enough for one person and Relena had always been slim if not downright undernourished. If she consumed all that food on her own, and so quickly, she must have had had a huge appetite. Heero didn't think that was too likely.

One day, Relena had stumbled on a loose cobble in The Lane right outside Heero's house. She dropped her basket. Scowling, she stooped to retrieve her carrots and books.

Heero was sitting on his steps outside his front door. He bent and picked up something that had rolled out of Relena's basket to his feet. A small, wooden yo-yo. He looked at it then up at Relena as she once more got to her feet. He stood and took it to her. She thanked him curtly with hardly a glance in his direction; nothing in her manner suggested that children's toys in a young widow's shopping basket were unusual as far as she was concerned. She continued down the lane and shut the great iron gates behind her.

Heero took to watching the house from his window more closely than he used to. He saw the figure a few more times after he started looking for it. Only at night, brief glimpses in the candlelight. He could see how it had stumped him before: if he had ever happened to see it before, he could have thought it to be just Relena. But now he was looking, he could see that it could not possibly have been. Too small, a different shape: a child's shape. A girl, he judged, from the long hair. It took him a long time to even ascertain that much. Whoever or whatever the girl was, she was clever in trying to stay hidden. She never came to the windows during the day time. Heero could only occasionally catch fleeting glances of a figure moving through the depths of the rooms during the day. So, it wasn't a ghost. Ghosts couldn't come out in the daytime. Could they?

Heero's curiosity almost consumed him. He didn't speak to the other children about his findings. They really didn't want to hear about it. He thought they were even more scared than he was. But he just had to find out.who was the other person hiding in Elfindell?

Tuesday rolled around again. Heero watched eagerly from his house until he saw Relena head off down the street to market. As soon as she was out of sight, he slipped out of his front door to the large iron gates. Glancing around, he saw that all the other children where at the far end of The Lane, playing in the early summer sunshine. They didn't notice him.

He took a deep breath and turned back to the gates. The iron railings were tall and painted black. He clutched the bars and looked through into Elfindell's unkempt front garden. The bushes seemed to rustle ominously in the still air. The sunshine shone down on the house, but it didn't seem to dispel all the shadows that it should. The windows were dark.

Looking once more over his shoulder, to confirm no one was watching him, he pushed open the tall gate. It creaked on rusty hinges. His blue eyes surveyed the garden again as he slowly slipped through the open gate and shut it behind him. His heart was pounding with fear and excitement. He was in Elfindell's garden.

Craning his neck, he looked down The Lane over his shoulder. It looked a lot brighter and more appealing now he was on this side of the gate. He almost turned back right then, but no. He remembered the figure of the small girl.he had to find out why she was hiding.or maybe a prisoner?

Heero tip-toed down the broken old garden path. The silence hung thick around him, as if the entire world were locked out of this place. The house seemed to loom up above him, ready to pounce.

The first step up to the porch was broken. He hopped over it and clambered up onto the creaky wooden porch. All was dead leaves, cobwebs and peeling whitewash. The front door stood forbidding in front of him, large thick and heavy. He listened. Still the silence rang true.

Heero gathered his courage and, standing on tip-toe, lifted the brass doorknocker. He tapped, three times, loud, clear knocks. Nothing happened.

"Hello?" he called softly. He knew she was in there. Maybe she was too scared to come to the door. He knocked again with the knocker and then his fist and pulled the bell chain. He heard the creaky old bell ring within the house. Still no response.

Calling out, he peered in the windows next to the door, but all the curtains were drawn. Still no one came to the door.

"Hello!" he called. "I won't hurt you!"

He knelt in front of the door and pushed the brass letter box to peer through.

Two wide eyes were staring at him from the other side, just inches from the letter box.

He screamed and stumbled back. He fell down the broken step onto the broken stone path. He stared at the front door, eyes wide in terror. The brass letter box ad snapped shut, shielding the eyes from view.

Those eyes! A pair of eyes, wide and inhuman, staring at him, staring right *though* him, in that split second. Those weren't the eyes of an ordinary child.

He didn't wait to dare and try to figure out what the eyes belonged to. He turned and ran, not daring to look back.

TBC

Scared yet?