Chapter 6

Author's note- See my website for this story here http/ been reading up on Mary-Sue's to make sure none of my characters turn into one. I was a little worried about Louise because she's been described as beautiful and perfect so much… how ever the whole point of Louise is that that sort of thing is relative. Just wait, that's all I can say.

I apologize for the oddness of this chapter…er… Merry Christmas?


This is the silence of astounded souls

Louise had never liked keeping a secret. Her face could be kept carefully blank, her eyes could be closed to hide her thoughts but her insides raged with fire. There had been a time when they had all gone to visit her great aunt in Winchester. All of them had dreaded it, for it meant their nice dresses would be brought out and their hair ironed in thick round curls. Their great aunts house smelt like peppermint and cologne and she always was eating sweets but never offering the children any.

One day when Louise was five, she found the box where the chocolates were kept and filled her pockets full of them. When she got home she found she was too ridden with guilt to eat them, knowing she would now go to hell. Plagued with guilt she crept from the house in the dead of night and hid them in the garden. Still she could not sleep. Grandfather still tells how she came to him crying, confessing her deed to him.

This was far worse than any silly candy, far worse than anything she had ever done in a life time of acting first and thinking later. Torn and aching she sought solitude, unable to stay around her family long without hating herself. Julie's innocence and Danielle's righteousness was more than she could take.

1If in the morning you look up

Fake a smile and you sigh

Don't fear the future

Escaping them had never been hard, especially in the growing spring. Left alone with her own thoughts was no less tormenting, but at least safe. Louise had been so looking forward to summer, but now she could feel nothing but paralyzing fear. Her dancing had grown clumsy, preoccupied and sore. Her muscles screamed against use but she fought them, she couldn't loose even against herself.

In the years to come you'll learn

She had once loved the blue-green of the stream and the moistness of the soil beneath the full sun. Now she let it go, holding onto memories made them no more real, Louise had learned long ago. All the memories of the young mother who had left her were returning though she had always tried to keep them away. Danielle thought she forgot. Louise wished it was so.

I used to sit and watch the pouring rain

I used to wish to be back home again

I hadn't the strength then

I hadn't the chance to reveal it

Her mother often spoke in her dreams, beautiful and unreal as a china doll. Juliet watched her turn in her sleep, silent outside the door, cat like. Her eyes seemed to glow yellow in the light from the swelling moon.

Juliet saw more things than she understood. She saw when Pierre slide extra sugar into his sister's tea, she saw Danielle cheating at cards and she saw grandfather unlock the room down the hall. Now she saw Louise's eyes become shuttered and the way she wrapped her arms around her body when she slept, a cocoon.

Juliet usually went to Danielle for answers, but these past months Danielle had been so scared and strained, Julie didn't want her to worry about her little sisters plight as well. Instead she pondered it on her own, something she wasn't used to.

But it's all in your hands

It's all in your hands

The more she though about it, the more she felt it was her mothers fault for leaving them. She couldn't relate to her own blood at all, the thought of leaving even her dolls alone still made her heart wrench.

When do we begin?

Louise wished she could be angry with Alice leaving, she knew Juliet was angry with her own mother, forgetting that they had all suffered. But now more than ever, Louise knew her mothers fate.

Locked in her room for hours she wrote letters and refused to let tears stain them. She knew they noticed her absence but she also knew they were used to her phases being like day and night. Sometimes she though she heard heavy footsteps and someone standing outside her door, listening to the scribble of her pen.

Although you're so sad

Discover things never had

It makes you wonder

A life alone you'll learn

Perhaps it was that odd Christian. Louise didn't pretend not to notice how he looked at her; she had been looked at in many ways through her short life and never missed one of them.

Juliet tried not to fret over this odd phase, tried to tell herself it was indeed a phase. Louise dressed in dark grey the night she snuck out, squeezing through the fence alone. Was it really so long ago that she had slide between the bars untouched? As she returned home drenched in white light she felt something growing within her. The life she was leaving behind was already splintering away to reveal something beautiful.

When do we begin?