Fleck brings toys to them, as many as she can carry in one trip; little trains and dolls and rubber balls that she finds discarded by living children in yards and sandboxes and playrooms. Once in a blue moon, she hits the markets at just the right time and trades a night's findings for bags of treasures.
As shattered and uncertain as this life is for her, Fleck returns to the old house on Maplethorp Lane every Friday like clockwork. The house is a pitiful thing, once a home and now left to rot in the fear of its own history. Wooden planks make up the walls, covered in chipped white paint that gives the shack the appearance of shedding its skin. The wood on the porch is the same throughout the house, but pockmarked by holes big enough to swallow a person whole. Sometimes Fleck likes to look into them and down into the musty darkness of a dirt floored cellar.
With the toys in her arms, she eeks around the holes easily and slips through the door as quietly as a mouse. She can feel them like a rush of cool air against the side of her face and sometimes she hears them. They laugh and cry and talk, but the very worst is when they scream. Those nights, those terribly long and dark hours, always end with Fleck curled into a corner of the abandoned-but-not home, her arms wrapped around everything and nothing at all. That's when she screams at the top of her lungs and apologizes over and over for a hurt that no amount of trinkets and poppets will ever heal. A hurt that she didn't cause.
Tonight she sits on the dust covered floor of the living room, legs spread out beneath the ruined remains of a dingy nightgown. In her hands is a ball, red and decorated with jolly circus elephants and clowns. She rolls it like a child might towards the opposite wall and watches with unabashed glee as it returns to her, slowly but surely. She does this for hours, the beast in her trapped somewhere beneath the crushing weight of broken memories and an odd brand of peace. Every so often they talk back to her, but sometimes they don't. Fleck thinks they're shy.
The living room. That's where Libby was when it happened and so it is Libby that keeps her company for now, the game of catch watched by four other pairs of invisible, envious little eyes. When Libby speaks, it's a young girl's voice that she uses and it bounces around in Fleck's head without ever making it to her ears, static and soft and easy to miss if one isn't listening.
"You're nice to us."
"You're nice to me, Kitten."
"He hurt us."
"I know. He hurt me too. Do you suppose he's sorry?"
The ball stops rolling, teeters and totters before staying still, and Fleck stares straight ahead. When she narrows her eyes and focuses, peels back the veil between the Lies and the Truth, she can make out the image of a scrawny young girl in a red nightgown, her dark hair in pigtails. The look on her face, a frown frozen in photograph, tells Fleck everything she needs to know.
"I'm sorry. I'll make it up."
A small stuffed rabbit is pulled from the pile of toys heaped behind her and tossed in front of the ball. It's only when she's on her feet and scooping up her presents that a tiny, invisible hand snatches up the poppet and draws it into oblivion.
There are three other rooms in the house, all filled with toys left from her previous visits. Some are caked in dust, sprinkled with small fingerprints while others still remain in their boxes. She moves into the bathroom and leaves a small posable dragon on the sink for Rory, who had been found in the bathtub. For Ellie and Pete, forever tethered to their bedroom, she leaves another ball and a bag of blocks painted with every letter of the alphabet. Remy, the youngest (who really should get nothing for pulling her hair last time, now that she thinks about it), recieves a coloring book and crayons.
Fleck never leaves anything for Sinda or Robert Calhoun because she's never seen them and what sort of parents, she thinks, would abandon their children like that? Libby had once told her that they had 'moved on', but Fleck had laughed and called her silly. Since when did people move on?
She backtracks through the rooms on her way to the door, surrounded by the echoes of children playing. The ball rolls towards her again, pushed by unseen hands, and she tuts beneath her breath.
"Next time, kittens. I have to go home. Be good until I get back, okay?"
The ball rolls back to where it had been and is lifted up and slammed against the floor hard enough to send it bouncing. Soon the house is filled with laughter and as Fleck reaches the door, she finds an ancient teddy bear hanging from the knob by an even older length of baby blue ribbon. She takes the bear into her hands and smiles brightly, casts one last look over her shoulder and hugs the toy to her chest before tearing off into the unsure darkness of another Rhydin night.
They're alike; the Calhoun children and Fleck. Ghosts of a different shade, trapped by something that they'll never truly overcome; tragedies stuck on repeat. But every Friday night she finds them and for an instant neither ghosts nor vampire feel forgotten.
As shattered and uncertain as this life is for her, Fleck returns to the old house on Maplethorp Lane every Friday like clockwork. The house is a pitiful thing, once a home and now left to rot in the fear of its own history. Wooden planks make up the walls, covered in chipped white paint that gives the shack the appearance of shedding its skin. The wood on the porch is the same throughout the house, but pockmarked by holes big enough to swallow a person whole. Sometimes Fleck likes to look into them and down into the musty darkness of a dirt floored cellar.
With the toys in her arms, she eeks around the holes easily and slips through the door as quietly as a mouse. She can feel them like a rush of cool air against the side of her face and sometimes she hears them. They laugh and cry and talk, but the very worst is when they scream. Those nights, those terribly long and dark hours, always end with Fleck curled into a corner of the abandoned-but-not home, her arms wrapped around everything and nothing at all. That's when she screams at the top of her lungs and apologizes over and over for a hurt that no amount of trinkets and poppets will ever heal. A hurt that she didn't cause.
Tonight she sits on the dust covered floor of the living room, legs spread out beneath the ruined remains of a dingy nightgown. In her hands is a ball, red and decorated with jolly circus elephants and clowns. She rolls it like a child might towards the opposite wall and watches with unabashed glee as it returns to her, slowly but surely. She does this for hours, the beast in her trapped somewhere beneath the crushing weight of broken memories and an odd brand of peace. Every so often they talk back to her, but sometimes they don't. Fleck thinks they're shy.
The living room. That's where Libby was when it happened and so it is Libby that keeps her company for now, the game of catch watched by four other pairs of invisible, envious little eyes. When Libby speaks, it's a young girl's voice that she uses and it bounces around in Fleck's head without ever making it to her ears, static and soft and easy to miss if one isn't listening.
"You're nice to us."
"You're nice to me, Kitten."
"He hurt us."
"I know. He hurt me too. Do you suppose he's sorry?"
The ball stops rolling, teeters and totters before staying still, and Fleck stares straight ahead. When she narrows her eyes and focuses, peels back the veil between the Lies and the Truth, she can make out the image of a scrawny young girl in a red nightgown, her dark hair in pigtails. The look on her face, a frown frozen in photograph, tells Fleck everything she needs to know.
"I'm sorry. I'll make it up."
A small stuffed rabbit is pulled from the pile of toys heaped behind her and tossed in front of the ball. It's only when she's on her feet and scooping up her presents that a tiny, invisible hand snatches up the poppet and draws it into oblivion.
There are three other rooms in the house, all filled with toys left from her previous visits. Some are caked in dust, sprinkled with small fingerprints while others still remain in their boxes. She moves into the bathroom and leaves a small posable dragon on the sink for Rory, who had been found in the bathtub. For Ellie and Pete, forever tethered to their bedroom, she leaves another ball and a bag of blocks painted with every letter of the alphabet. Remy, the youngest (who really should get nothing for pulling her hair last time, now that she thinks about it), recieves a coloring book and crayons.
Fleck never leaves anything for Sinda or Robert Calhoun because she's never seen them and what sort of parents, she thinks, would abandon their children like that? Libby had once told her that they had 'moved on', but Fleck had laughed and called her silly. Since when did people move on?
She backtracks through the rooms on her way to the door, surrounded by the echoes of children playing. The ball rolls towards her again, pushed by unseen hands, and she tuts beneath her breath.
"Next time, kittens. I have to go home. Be good until I get back, okay?"
The ball rolls back to where it had been and is lifted up and slammed against the floor hard enough to send it bouncing. Soon the house is filled with laughter and as Fleck reaches the door, she finds an ancient teddy bear hanging from the knob by an even older length of baby blue ribbon. She takes the bear into her hands and smiles brightly, casts one last look over her shoulder and hugs the toy to her chest before tearing off into the unsure darkness of another Rhydin night.
They're alike; the Calhoun children and Fleck. Ghosts of a different shade, trapped by something that they'll never truly overcome; tragedies stuck on repeat. But every Friday night she finds them and for an instant neither ghosts nor vampire feel forgotten.