**Author's note: Hello! ^_^ Thanks for reading! And a thanks to and Yukio Lover for reviewing! I loved your opinions and I'm just glad that somebody is reading this! :-) And thank you to everyone who's followed and favourited! You guys rock!
So please, review, follow and favourite if you like!
PS I still don't own Kuroshitsuji... Just my OC!
Peace! **
Inside the washroom, there was a very old, cracked full-length mirror, propped up against the wall as soon as Haven walked into the room.
She stared at the reflection in complete and utter astonishment.
She...
Was this her normal appearance? For an odd reason, the girl she saw in the mirror was not who she had been expecting to see, not the slightest bit.
It was beyond her, what she had originally looked like, though, so maybe she was supposed to be this... This...
Haven gaped at the mirror, and the girl who gaped back had long brown hair, with some shorter strands hanging about her pale face. She had large eyes, which were such a startlingly vivid violet colour, she had to do a double take. Her lips did indeed look cracked, and she was wearing a white commoners' dress, which was ripped and torn, and covered in blood and dirt. The small corset, which some commoners' dresses had, was halfway done. The bottom of the dress was ripped and torn, so everything below her knees was bare and visible.
Her face was also streaked with mud and blood.
"What... did I do?" Haven asked herself, in bewilderment.
What had happened?
As she stood there in the doorway with her mouth gaping open, Undertaker approached her from behind and handed her a stack of clothing.
"Put these on, dearie," he said. "Right now ya look like I've just plucked ya from the dirt, ya do."
He laughed in an obscenely loud manner, his hat almost falling to the floor with the degree of his amusement.
Haven took the proffered clothing, and the undertaker stumbled off back into the previous room, still holding his abdomen and laughing.
She shut the door behind herself quickly, getting an odd feeling from the man who had rescued her.
Rescued her?
Why had that thought popped itself up into her mind? She didn't know anything about this Undertaker. She wasn't certain that he had saved her from anything.
She couldn't remember enough to know anything about this man... And he hadn't offered any of his own information when she'd asked.
Trying desperately to hold on to the snippet of memory she had attained, she tried to conjure the image of Undertaker rescuing her...
But, nothing.
Maybe she had just had a momentary lapse of sanity. Maybe it wasn't actually anything at all.
With a sighed dredged from her heart of hearts, Haven took off all of her clothes, and ran water in the small wooden tub.
She relaxed into the water and washed every speck of blood and dirt from her pale skin and frazzled hair.
When she was sure she was clean, Haven let out the water and walked warily back to the stack of clothing that Undertaker had given her.
Picking up the dress from the top of the small stack, she held it up in the air and eyed it curiously, wondering where a man had attained such clothing for a woman.
Maybe he had a wife or daughter.
Haven slid the dress onto her body, and tied the small corset as best as she could by herself, and turned back to the dusty mirror to examine herself.
The dress was black, and seemed very thin. It billowed down to the floor, but was just long enough to not sweep the dirt as she walked. The neckline was a bit low, but the sleeves were short and very comfortable. The bodice was plain, with a few jewels on the side. Purple, she noticed, the exact shade as her eyes.
It was almost as if this dress had been prepared for her specially, she thought, suddenly feeling a nauseous turn in her stomach.
Her legs were wobbly, as if they were new to her, and Haven took a deep breath to steady herself.
She walked back out into the main room, where Undertaker was sitting on a coffin.
With a start, she realised that he was now surrounded by people.
Surprised, Haven blinked at them.
When had they gotten there? And who were they?
There was a very tall man with asymmetrically styled hair, wearing what looked to be the threads of an upper nobleman's butler.
He turned his red eyes in her direction but she'd glanced off to take in everybody else.
There was also a young boy, with black hair and an eye patch. The single eye of his that did show was a blue that changed shades in the strange lighting.
The boy gave her a disinterested stare, so she turned and looked at the last man who stood in the room.
He seemed to be a detective of sorts, maybe an undercover police officer. He wore a tan trench coat, and had a black hat. He looked up at her in a confused yet somehow still professional way, so Haven finally met eyes with Undertaker.
For some reason, having these people around disturbed her.
She approached the man slowly, giving him a questioning glance.
"Undertaker," the young boy said in a commanding tone that didn't suit him at all. "Who is this girl, and why has she just interrupted our conversation?"
Undertaker laughed loudly and reached a hand out toward Haven, who was unsure whether or not to take it.
She did anyway, because she had nothing else to do, and he pulled her close to his side.
"Never mind her," Undertaker replied. "She's just my Haven, she is."
The tall butler made an approving noise, a cross between a hum and a chuckle.
"That's quite an interesting play on words, if I may say," he added, putting a hand to his chin. His expression changed from amusement as his gaze met hers once again. He eyed her face suspiciously for a moment, and Haven looked down in surprise.
"She seems familiar somehow," the butler said again.
"Sebastian, now is not the time to be people-watching," the boy snapped. "We have a job to do. And we are pressed for time, I might add."
"We have plenty of time, Earl Phantomhive," the detective cut in, giving the boy a curious glance. "It's not so pressing."
"You call a mysterious man killing innocent people at random intervals not a pressing manner?" the boy demanded. "He's already killed several women and young girls."
"Killed?" Haven spoke up, in surprise.
She hadn't been aware that there was a murderer loose in London, and the fact disturbed her.
"Of course," the young Phantomhive replied to her. "Haven't you heard? There have been three deaths in this week alone."
Haven was so distraught by the surprising news that the butler tried to smooth things over a bit by giving her a bright smile.
"You have nothing to worry about, of course," he said. "As long as you're accompanied by Undertaker, you should be perfectly fine. As far as we can tell, all the victims have been women, and all were alone at the time of the attack."
"Oh," Haven mumbled, not feeling any better about the situation. She felt a bit nauseous, for some reason.
She hoped that she didn't turn out to be a weak woman; one who fainted at the sight of blood or worried incessantly about small troubles in life. She wanted to be strong, and she could feel deep down that she was indeed a strong woman, and that she was disturbed by Phantomhive's news for a different reason altogether.
"This bloke's a slippery one, eh?" the detective asked them all, with an almost playful elbow into Sebastian's side. "We've all thought we'd caught him twice already."
Undertaker perked up at this information and leaned forward in his seat, giving the group what Haven assumed was a devious expression.
"Now, ya've already caught the man twice?" Undertaker asked. "And what is it exactly that makes you believe it's the same man?"
The young boy knit his eyebrows together at the question, but the detective was the one who answered.
"That's Scotland Yard's information, very sorry," he replied, with an expression that brought to mind the face one would make while choking on a snake.
"Oh, just tell him, Abberline! We came to him, remember?" the young boy asked in an irritated and exasperated manner.
The detective sighed and turned back to Undertaker, taking his hat off his head and holding it across his heart. A sad expression overshadowed his young face.
"The killings were all done in the same manner, from what I can tell," he finally explained. "Each woman and girl killed was branded with the same mark."
Haven's eyes widened at the word, and Undertaker put a hand to his chin.
"Branded?" he repeated, interested.
"Afraid so," Abberline replied. "The man attacks women, kills them, usually by knife, and then brands them with a hot iron."
The detective truly seemed about to be sick at the thought, even though he had been investigating the crimes up until then.
"What does he brand them with?" Haven inquired, her mouth still feeling dry.
"Some sort of enigma," Abberline said. "The symbol of a circle with an X crossing through it."
Haven gulped, and felt the tension in the room build as everyone thought.
Undertaker ended up giving them all advice that Haven did not hear, because a memory was flickering at the back of her mind, like a candle lit into a dark and foreboding room.
Everyone stood up to leave, and the butler even bowed at Haven before he exited, but the girl didn't get the chance to acknowledge him, because the longer she tried to grasp at the memory, the dimmer it became, until it disappeared as if someone had blown the candle out, leaving the room black as pitch once again.