A huge, gigantic, immense, great, big, fat thank you to all of my reviewers (you know who you are). I really love your support and thank you for calling my story "well written"--though I don't think it's all that.
Not Even Human—Chapter Two
"Go on—go, already!" Yelled the impatient young mob at the shivering little girl.
The neighborhood kids had walked the girl all across the neighborhood up to the black, bleak House. The whole trip had been in almost unbroken silence, except the sounds of their cold breath and the snow crunching beneath their feet. Lucy had heard adventure stories about pirates forcing people to walk the plank, and that's exactly how she felt right now, a person being pushed off a plank into a deep, black abyss.
"I ain't gonna stand here all day!" A boy shouted at the back of the crowd, followed by a few equally disgruntled children.
Lucy could feel her nose tickle, her face grow warmer, and a few fat tears welled up in her tiny brown eyes.
"Oh, look, she's crying!"
"I'll bet six whole bucks she'll only get half way up to the gate!"
"I'll take that bet! I say she won't even make it half!"
The cold wind was starting to become high and shrill, and some of the kids looked like they wanted to go home and be warm. The snow fell quickly, as if in a hurry to get away from the blackish-grey clouds that hovered on top of the small, dainty town. .
Lucy, despite herself, swiped off her sticky tears, straightened her coat with a heroic air, and charged through the mob.
All eyes were on Lucy as she charged through the crowd, and she gallantly pretended not to notice the smirks and whispers. She kept her pace until she reached the weed-tangled, black-brown gate and then she walked as if in water, slow and unbalanced. Dwarfed by the enormous size of the gateway, the tiny child looked cautiously upward. The gate was a stately, albeit time-worn, piece of twisted, rusted iron; and the crumbling gargoyles on the large stone wall around the castle were the stuff of nightmares.
"Well, open it!"
Lucy put her glove on the snow-covered handle of the iron gate, and, violently trembling, she pushed it open. The gate gave a loud screech, making the little girl—and all the others, as well—jump up with pure terror and excitement.
The little girl crept inside the snowy courtyard, as quiet as a mouse.
The kids gasped and gawked, all eagerly anticipating what would happen. Some expected a huge, hairy man to burst out of the topiaries and slice Lucy to bits, others expected a half-iguana monster to leap out and swallow little Lucy whole.
But nothing happened.
Snow-sprinkled animal topiaries swayed lazily with the wind in the icy garden. For a moment, Lucy rubbed off her tears and paused to survey the area. Even though it felt cold and freakish—it was much prettier than other gardens she had been in, and she was sure her mother would like it very much. But it was a strange, eerie kind of prettiness, the kind that made you sigh and shiver at the same time.
One stupendously unnerving thing about the garden was a larger-than-life topiary of a human hand, set exalted above all the other topiaries—as if it were a statue of a famous president put on a pedestal. The rest were beautiful things; hearts, angels, dogs, cats, flowers, birds, fish, and even something that looked like a flamingo plucking out its feathers.
By now, the children waiting at the gate couldn't see her, since she was in the inner part of the garden. Some of the kids poked their necks through the gateway's bars to see Lucy's progress…but they saw nothing but thick, wild snowfall and a few tossing topiaries flowing back and forth. They began to wish she would just come back to them crying, so that they could all go home.
As the air was picked up by a flood of wind, more snow fell down in the garden. Lucy happened to look up and see the snow blowing out of the roof of the House, like leaves blowing off a tree—it struck her as oddly curious but, the little girl disregarded it, as she was too cold to really care.
Lucy—like all small children— was always weak in extreme cold and was prone to fainting dead-away. But—oh, golly!— she was so close to the door now. So close to that mammoth, rotting-black door. Then she could go inside, get something—anything—and then run to freedom.
Her head swam round, as the corners of her eyes went fizzy, and she felt the ground slip beneath her as though a carpet had been pulled out from under her feet. Startled and disoriented, the girl tried to lift herself up from the ground, but her arms and legs didn't budge. Trying to call for help, but with no one coming, tears started to freeze on her cheeks. Eyelids exhaustedly fluttering, Lucy suddenly felt sleep creep up on her. She was very sleepy, indeed…
But sleeping was bad in the snow, very bad—Mommy always said never to—
Deciding to close her eyes, Lucy fell deep asleep.
…She's just a baby.
A leather-clad figure watched a small speck of a girl glide along below him. His pale plastic pink lips smiled. Although he was somewhat glad to see a visitor, it made him shake with terror as well. It was like seeing a great thunderstorm crash through the sky when a child came into the courtyard, because it would cause great awe and fear at the exact same time.
He never wanted to scare children but, from his memory, he always made them to cry, stare in horror, or run away. Except that time when Kevin Boggs took him to something called 'Show and Tell' at Suburbia Elementary School, and, as Kevin put it "showed him off". That was the first time children had looked at him with wonder, and, he liked to imagine, even respect.
The young "man" leaned against the open window, staring down at the tiny girl. He had seen many children scurry in and out of his courtyard before, and each time he wished they would come inside, if only for a little while. And some did almost come inside, but as soon as they touched the threshold, they would run, full speed, back down to the gate.
The sounds of whimpers came up from the courtyard. He quickly hid away from the window, thinking the girl had seen him, but the little girl kept crying. She wasn't crying because of him.
He peered out the window again, curiously.
He wished he could go down the stairs and help, but he knew better. He knew that if he was stupid enough to do that, he'd only make things worse. Besides, he was supposed to be dead, and wasn't meant to come out, or else he would certainly get Kim into a horrible amount of trouble. And, at the thought of what the town's people might do to her… the mechanical man gave an involuntary shudder.
He felt slightly better, after he noticed that the girl was admiring at the garden topiaries.
His father had taught him many things about etiquette, but he never needed to use etiquette—because he was always alone. But, nevertheless, one interesting thing his father had taught him was how to handle children, the voice of the old, kindly inventor still echoed in the boy's metal head—'Be especially gentle with children. Children are fragile things, much more fragile than adults are, and they are very sensitive to first impressions. They like stories and toys and sweet candy. They hate medicine and household chores and taking baths. It's your duty, Edward—as well as everybody else's duty—to protect and comfort them.'
Absent-mindedly chipping away at some of the ice sculptures, he peeked out the window every now-and-again. He expected the girl to run, like the rest of them, and it would only be a matter of time before she did. And, so he kept chipping—waiting—for the sounds of feet running through snow. And then she'd be gone, and he'd be alone.
But nothing like that happened, and this confused him a little. The mechanical man, snipping his silver scissor hands, looked out the window again. A sharp terror slit right through his fake heart, as he saw the little girl sprawled out, limp as a rag doll. Strangely, her small eyes were closed, yet she didn't look like she was sleeping.
Oh…!
He rushed out of the attic, down the long stone steps, and pushed open the incredibly heavy front door. Since he couldn't spare any hands to help her up, so he knelt down and carefully picked her up with what he could use with the rest of his arms. He was particularly careful to check that his abnormal hands were a safe enough distance from the tiny creature, and he gingerly brought the unconscious child into the House on the Hill.
Lucy woke up on a hay mattress and she felt her jacket drip with cold, chilling melted ice. The air was wet and dark and smelled of cookies. And, she realized, it hadn't been a dream. As she was certainly not where she was before, Lucy's first thought was that she had died. Dust got into her nose, and before she could properly cry, she sneezed loudly—the sound echoed slightly in the drafty, gloomy room.
"Bless you..." Said a low voice in the shadows. It was weirdly polite. Yet Lucy started at the sound of an alien voice and, after some time, peeked out of the blanket she had used as protection and saw a slim, grey shadow kneeling at the side of the bed. After a moment of acknowledging this grotesque spectacle, the little girl let out a horrified scream.
The shadow jolted, surprised, and got up; it retreated backwards, against the darkest wall. Lucy also backed up against the wall covered in clips of magazines, book illustrations, and newspapers.
Lucy's grew frantic and she began to cry like a child half her age. In utter despair, she curled up in a ball and shook terribly. She had heard her parents talk about kidnappers and murderers who took little children and did terrible things with them—and, at the end of it all—those children's pictures ended up on the back of a milk carton.
The girl's eyes began to sting from crying, and salty tears flowed down her round face. A sort of unimaginable terror grabbed her very spirit. Lucy's eyes were far too blurry to see the soft-voiced shadow now, but from the sounds of creaking floorboards, she knew the shadow came slowly closer and closer. There was a shimmer of something sharp. She gave a short scream, and pushed harder against the wall.
Immediately, the shimmer disappeared into the velvet black shadows.
"Don't kill me,don't kill me," Crying, in a very pathetic way, she said "… don't kill me!"
The shadow stood there for a long time, trying to blend in with the dark. It lowered its head, "I won't." The thing paused slightly, shifting nervously in the protection of the darkness. A clickity-click and snippety-snip noise and a sad, tired sigh came from it. Lucy wondered if she could get away before it would take the chance to kill her.
Lucy used the blanket to get the tears off her face. After doing so she could see the shadow more clearly; it was a tall, crazy haired, and incredibly gaunt man—with very long knives in his hands. She wondered if the man would stab her to death and she became perfectly silent.
"Are you going to kill me?" The little girl hardly believed a thing going on.
"No."
"Your hands," Lucy saw a bright gleam of two or three knives attached the man's shiny arm, "Ss-scissors?"
The man nodded his head, politely but still very shaken.
"Are you Edward?" Lucy asked, now amazed.
Once again, a cordial nod.
There was a long, dry silence. To Edward's amazement, the little girl's face transformed from terror beyond reason to a politely cautious and skeptical countenance.
"You're not as tall as I imagined." The little girl noted, a bit critically, "But did you save me from the—snow and stuff out there?"
Edward blinked at the first comment and said, "Yes," to the second.
"Oh." A long pause followed and then, "Thank you, Mr. Scissorhands."
Am I Mister Scissorhands…? Edward thought, puzzledly, while slowly becoming aware that 'Mr. Scissorhands' must've been some sort of honorary surname. But, he supposed, it made sense enough—since, indeed, his hands were made of scissors. In fact, it was a nice change to be referred to by a last name.
"My name's Lucy." Said Lucy, being very friendly, as she stared into the huge shadows in the room. "I've heard about you, Mr. Scissorhands. But...you're not as scary as I thought you'd be, really."
"Nice to meet you..." said Edward, his voice becoming quiet again.
"It's very nice to meet you, too."
Feeling brave enough to get out of the straw bed, her attention shifted from Edward to the ice sculptures. They were tall, glittering things, that were far grander than any ice sculpture she'd ever seen at any of her cousin's weddings. She went up to a particularly pretty one, an angel with large, feathery wings and a sweet, smiling face.
Lucy pointed to the angel, while also admiring the ice sculpture with two birds kissing. "They're like those bushes outside. They're all very pretty."
Lucy kept on looking at the ice sculptures and moving from one to another, nodding her head, as she had done in art galleries. Edward watched her from the shadows, his hands snipping, curiously.
"Do you live here, Edward?" Lucy asked walking towards him again.
"Yes." Edward replied, making sure he was a good distance away from Lucy.
"All alone?"
Edward stopped and nodded his head.
Lucy felt like bringing Edward home to Mom and Dad, and asking if she could keep him, like she had done once with the stray cat, but her parents said no with the stray cat, so they would probably say no to Edward, too.
Lucy walked up to Edward, and he continued to back away from her. "Why are you doing that?" She asked, not so much curious as frustrated.
"I might cut you," His hands snipped. Edward had become very conscious about how his scissorhands could damage people, since he cut Kim and Kevin...and pretty much everyone in Suburbia... many times during his long ago stay.
"Oh..." said Lucy, frowning, "But, if you put your hands behind your back, maybe you won't?"
Edward tried it, and stepped one small step closer.