Author's Note: Yay, chapter one is up! Had a little trouble deciding where to start part one. I know exactly how two and three will go, but... well, ya know. Anyway, enjoy!

Part One – Isolation

Chapter One

Dinah stared at her aunt across the breakfast table, twirling her dark curls about her fingers nervously. She already knew what was coming; it was the same thing that came every time Jane Madison found her young niece in the attic. At thirty years old, the fair-haired woman had already lost her respect for youthful curiosity. So, she had resorted to sending the girl outside to entertain herself until school started.

But it wasn't as if Dinah was trying to sneak about the attic. She'd wandered up there by mistake on her way back up to her room this morning. The house was so large that it was easy to get lost. Aunt Jane had never even cared before she started showing her what kind of artifacts she found up there – rusty surgical tools and medicinal powders. The last straw had been a human ear in a bottle of embalming fluid.

"Dinah," her aunt said firmly, "if you're done with your breakfast, you should go play outside. You shouldn't be rummaging about the house like that."

Dinah wanted to tell her that she hadn't been rummaging, and furthermore, there was nothing for her outside, but it would have been wasted effort. Aunt Jane never believed anything she said. Instead, she rose up from the table, offering only a simple "yes, ma'am" in reply.

The weather outside was comfortably cool, but a strange chill still surrounded Dinah as she wandered away from the house. She pulled her knee length, brown dress down as far over her legs as she could and straightened the collar of her white blouse, shuddering. The cold made her skin crawl and prickle with goose bumps that didn't come from physical chills. She was ready for September, when she'd be able to start school again. At least, then she wouldn't be confined to this strange, old house anymore.

It was mid-August, and the leaves already blanketed the ground. Come to think of it, she couldn't remember any of them looking particularly green, even in late spring. Coming to Bizenghast had been like falling down the rabbit hole and waking up in a perversion of the real world. Time didn't really seem to pass in Bizenghast. It just was.

She kicked at the leaves before as she made her way down to the swing that hung from a tree at the edge of the property. It, too, felt older than sin, the white stone grayed with age and the ropes frayed and brown. It was a wonder that the rope could even support Dinah, but it provided the only amusement she had.

The whole town felt faded, she thought as she pulled herself up into the swing – a mass of browns and grays without any intensity. Even she herself looked faded since she came here. Her complexion had grown paler, her choice of clothing more subdued, and even she had noticed that her once resplendent blue eyes looked haunted. Something in the town drained the life out of her blood.

She stood on the seat of the swing, grasping the worn ropes tightly as she shifted her weight to bring herself into motion. The wind blew her coffee-colored curls about her face, and she smiled faintly. She could hear birds chirping nearby, trilling out their songs.

Dinah found herself humming along with them. She loved birds. Before she came to live in Bizenghast, she'd had a little yellow canary, but Aunt Jane didn't like pets, and she didn't consider a nine-year-old responsible enough to care for even a small bird. In the end, a neighbor had agreed to take the beloved pet.

The rhythmic creaking of the swing seemed to grow louder, as the rustling of the trees stopped. The wind had ceased to move the air, and Dinah realized suddenly that the birds had fallen silent. She dropped her humming in mid-note, perturbed by the sudden quiet, and brought her swinging to an end.

The air felt even colder than before, as though night were fast approaching, but it wasn't even midday. Then she saw it – a tall, skeletal figure, moving across the lawn in long, slow steps. At such a distance, Dinah couldn't be sure what it was, but it frightened her. The stiff, unwieldy movements struck her as unnatural, and panic rose in a tremendous knot in her throat.

She threw herself from the swing, and stumbled into a run, trying to put as much distance between herself and the intruder as possible. The leaves flew up around her, catching on her clothes and in her hair, crunching beneath her feet, but the only thing she felt or heard was the pounding of her heart in her ears. Somehow, she knew hollow, lifeless eyes were following her, watching her from all around.

Her lungs ached, and her legs shook, but she pressed on, refusing to stop until she reached the house. With a final burst of energy, she bolted up the steps to the porch and threw the door open, staggering inside. As she slammed the door shut, the eyes vanished from her mind; she was out of sight of them, now. She leaned her back heavily against the wall, away from the windows and slid to the floor, gasping. A shaky sense of relief washed over her, and she closed her eyes. For the moment, she was safe.