"You've gotta be fucking kidding me right now." Taylor looks up sharply at the curse word, gray eyes wide in surprise since her daddy's never said the F Word before. "Baby, I want you to go straight inside and up to your room. Understood?"
"Yes, sir." She gets out of the car, shouldering her backpack and sending Flora a curious look as she heads into the house. Aunt Shelby had explained that Flora might not be coming back for a while, but it's only been three days and isn't she supposed to be in school tomorrow?
"Keep going, Tay. I know you've got some sight words to practice." She ducks her head with a scowl and marches up the stairs as her daddy begins to speak in his louder-than-normal lawyer voice. She usually only hears it when she refuses to pick up her toys, so Lee must have forgotten to do her chores or something.
She flops onto her bed and holds out a hand, smiling when Eve curls around her wrist like the thick bangles her mommy used to wear. Still content, if a little bored, Taylor pulls out her list of sight words and begins sounding them out, tongue tripping over some of them before she remembers what word the letters form.
She's just about to start on been—pronounced like Ben instead of bean, her teacher made that very clear—when Lee comes flying inside.
"I'm doing my homework," Taylor complains. "Tell Daddy not to get his undies in a bunch."
"Have you seen Flora?"
"Not since I came inside. Did Daddy yell at you because you don't clean up your messes? Cause I can teach you how to tune him out." But Lee isn't paying any attention, turning and storming back out onto the landing like it's personally offended her. "Well, that's just rude."
"Flora! Flora, baby, where are you?" Taylor sets her list to the side and slides off the bed, coming out of her room to tug on the hem of Lee's jacket. "Taylor, I'm a little busy right now." As if to prove her point, she heads for the stairs and leaves Taylor struggling to catch up.
"Wait! What's going on?"
"Flora!"
"Alright," Nico says, holding up a hand to get Lee to stop running around the house. "She's obviously not in here, so we'll have to split up and search outside. We'll each go in one direction and we're going to keep our cell phones on us at all times in case someone gets lost or we find Flora. Does that sound good to everyone?"
"No," Taylor says, stamping her foot," cause I don't know what's going on!" Nico sighs and rests his hand on Taylor's head, mussing the French braid that Shelby did for her that morning.
"Flora's playing hide and seek outside and forgot to tell us about it. I want you to stay right here in case she comes back. Matt, you got a landline?" Mattie nods and dashes into the living room, coming back a moment later with a cordless phone that he presses into Taylor's hand. "You know my number, right?"
"Yep."
"Let me hear it."
"Your phone number 213-555-0805 and I'm only supposed to call it in emergencies. Is Flora coming home an emergency?"
"It is today, pumpkin. No matter what, don't leave this house."
"Okay, Daddy."
The adults file out of the house and begin to run as soon as the door is shut behind them, Taylor watching out a window until the woods seem to swallow them up. She's pretty sure Flora isn't playing hide and seek; a little game wouldn't make grown ups freak out like this. Flora probably went into the woods with Priscilla to play and Taylor's not entirely sure if the older girl will ever come back.
Taylor moves into the living room, dropping down onto the couch and watching the clock. It seems to tick by slowly, dragging on for two hours before Shelby's racing inside and gathering Taylor up in her arms.
"Thank goodness you're alright," she mumbles into Taylor's hair.
"Course I am, Aunt Shel. I stay in the house like I'm supposed to." She wriggles her way free and studies her aunt, taking in the colorless cheeks and bite-chapped lips. "What happened? Is Flora okay?"
"I…." She trails off, breathless like she's been running. "I'm sure she's fine." She nods as though she's trying to convince herself more than Taylor, sniffling and wiping at her nose with the back of her hand. Something must be really wrong out there if Shel isn't using a tissue. "The police are going to be here soon and I don't want you getting in their way. They're gonna help us find Flora."
"Did somebody take her?" Shelby hesitates, liking saying it out loud makes it true. It answers Taylor's question better than anything and her lips twist to the side as she tries to think of where Priscilla might have taken Flora. "Maybe I can help."
"You'll be a big help by just staying here and not leaving the house. You're always saying you're a big girl and this will help prove it. Okay?"
"Fine, but I won't be happy about it."
"That's because you're a drama queen, honey. Don't worry, that little trait is genetic."
"So what am I supposed to do until you guys get back?"
"Eat junk food and watch Netflix for now. Nothing over a PG-13 rating and nothing that will give you nightmares. Do you remember how to get to it through the DVD player?"
"I'm the one that taught you."
"Alright, smarty pants. I'll go unlock the snack cabinet and you pull up Monsters Inc." Taylor does as she's told, settling in for a long night without adult supervision. It's not actually something she looks forward to, she thrives on constant attention and macaroni.
Shel takes longer in the kitchen than necessary and, even over the sound of Mike coaching Sully, Taylor can hear the quiet sobbing. Shelby's always been more emotional than Monica, always the one to cry during those commercials of the starving children in Africa or the dogs in the pound, but Taylor doesn't like hearing it. She slouches further down on the couch and turns the volume up until the crying is drowned out, knowing her aunt wants to be left alone.
When Shelby comes back into the living room, her eyes are red and there's tracks on her cheeks, but she's smiling and setting down a bowl of leftover spaghetti.
"I'll be back in a couple of hours to check on you."
"Okay, Aunt Shel."
"I'm going to lock the door behind me and you only open it if it's one of us. Got it?" Taylor nods, acutely aware of the ghost standing just behind her aunt, tall and thin and twitching spasmodically. She's Asian, Taylor thinks, maybe a teenager and definitely dead since her aunt isn't freaking the heck out about a stranger being in the house. "What's so interesting?" She turns and looks at where Taylor's watching, not even noticing the dead teen that crawls up the wall like a spider.
"I just thought I saw a bug, is all. I'll see you in two hours." Shelby studies her for a moment longer before pressing a kiss to her forehead and sweeping out of the room. Taylor's gaze returns to the dead girl, lips pulled down into a frown. "You stay up there and I'll stay down here and we'll both be peachy."
"She doesn't fully understand you," Edward says, stepping out of the shadows in the hallway. "She and her family moved here from Taiwan and were still in the process of learning fluent English when they were slaughtered."
"Ouch."
"Mmm, yes. I suppose it did hurt." He sits next to her, back straight and face powder perfectly intact. He's pretty and his brows have been carefully plucked, rouge coloring his lips a rosy pink. "Why, exactly, are you here by yourself with no one but ghosts for company?"
"Priscilla took Flora with her into the woods."
"To the place where the Butcher can't reach them." Taylor glances over at the not-question, fingers twitching over the skirt of her dress. It's black and she's got a pink sweater pulled over the top of it, making sure she stayed warm and cute when she was at school. "There's an area of the woods where only certain ghosts are allowed, only the innocents and victims. That's where Priscilla has taken her."
"She didn't take me."
"Because you have a different form of protection."
"The same form that sent me Eve?" Edward's lip curls in distaste at the mention of the adder currently snuggled up in the pouch of Taylor's sweater.
"Yes." She nods, remembering the vague outline of the little boy in the woods, the childish voice that whispered in her ear the night Eve showed up. He's her cousin, but that's about all she knows for sure.
"Did you have any kids before you died?"
"Do you enjoy changing the subject?" Taylor doesn't answer, raising a brow in response until he sighs and relaxes back against the cushions. "I had one child, a boy named Edmund." She stays quiet and Edward rolls his eyes. "He was two years old when I moved away from him and his mother, I couldn't stand his racket. I wasn't nearly so loud as a child."
"Kids are loud, dude. Mommy says you shouldn't have them if you can't handle being puked on at three in the morning when you're going on two hours of sleep." It's Edward's turn to arch his brow and she shrugs. "My aunt was fussy and my mommy didn't like her until she was five."
"Well, I was hoping for a little girl anyway. Sons were important back then because girls couldn't inherit, but little girls were…. They were quiet and they always seemed to look at their parents with such adoration. Little girls knew that all their power resided in being quiet and obedient."
"That's dumb."
"Yes," he says, huffing out a laugh. "It's also how it was back then."
"What would you have named your daughter? If you had one, I mean."
"Philippa, I think. Phillipa Claire, Pippa for short."
"If I ever have a kid, I want to name her Esmeralda. She'd be strong like the girl from Hunchback of Notre Dame, and she wouldn't take attitude from anybody."
"Is that one of those movie things you were trying to explain yesterday? The one with the villain that loses and gets killed after a fall?" Taylor sits there in silence for a minute, trying to figure out if he's talking about Hunchback or Lion King. It applies to them both, Scar and Frollo both end up falling at the end.
"Probably. Let's watch it so you can understand why Esmeralda's the best." She switches off of Netflix and slides to her feet, grabbing the well-worn movie case off a low shelf and sliding the tape into the VCR. She has an entire Disney collection on VHS that was passed down to her from both of her parents, taking up the entire lower shelf of the wide bookcase next to the TV.
"Dear God, television really is an amazing invention."
"Wait till you hear about cell phones, big guy."
Taylor spends most of the next three days by herself in the house, watching the ghosts get more restless as October approaches. Edward seems glued to her side during the entire time, dozing through the reruns of Hocus Pocus and grumbling his way through endless games of Candyland.
It's the afternoon of day four when her daddy shows back up and drops into the armchair, exhausted and scratched from pushing past tree branches. He can barely keep his eyes open, but they rest for just a second on where Edward is brushing Taylor's hair.
"Thank you," he mumbles," for taking care of my daughter while I've been out searching." Edward inclines his head in a slow nod, and Nico's eyelids slide closed before snores come rumbling out. Her daddy stays like that for the rest of the day, Taylor covering him up with her Tinkerbelle blanket and taking off his shoes.
The others come and go, Matt hanging around long enough to make sure that Taylor eats some oatmeal before he disappears back into the woods. She waits for another two hours before giving up on a kiss goodnight before slipping upstairs and into her bedroom. Eve is curled up on her nightstand, the tail of a mouse sticking out from its mouth.
She doesn't bother her pet, just gets cozy in her bed and lets her eyes drift closed. They'll find Flora eventually, not even the dead can hide her forever. So Taylor relaxes into the soft mattress and ignores the sounds that start up around nine that night when the others finally come back, the screaming and slamming doors.
As Mason is being killed, Taylor dreams of blood red skies and crows circling overhead.