Unfamiliar Territory

It felt like it only lasted an instant between watching the blood spill from my mouth and waking back up again. So, I was surprised to find myself lying on my stomach, in a fairly comfortable bed, with six pairs of eyes watching me.

I cried out in shock. Some of the children cried out in response. They were all olive skinned, dark haired, and dark eyed. There were some boys and girls—six children, in total, and looked to all be wearing the same matching blue pajamas. I watched them scamper away, tumbling over each other in their bid to escape the bedroom.

Before they could reach the door, it opened, a very surprised Kat on the other side. She froze, rooted in place, as the children scampered through her and past her. Once most of them were gone, I could just make out, through the moonlit room, a single girl clinging to Kat’s bare legs. By the way her shoulders moved up and down, I assumed she was crying.

“Er...” Kat said, placing what looked to be a basin of hot water on top of a nearby book shelf. She patted the girl on the head. “It’s alright. You shouldn’t be scared of him.”

The young child continued to sob quietly and Kat looked up at me, completely helpless. I was about to try and offer some advice when a stern voice called out from beyond the door. “Elizabeth! The children should be in bed right now, what are they doing up?”

“Sorry, Master, I’m coming!” Kat called back, scooping the child up in her arms and leaving the room in a few swift movements. I was left alone in the dark, staring out through the partially opened door.

Then my back began to sting—no, more than sting. It was like a heated blade was being driven into me. It was so bad I had to bite down on the cushiony pillow just to keep from screaming out. I felt tears escape from the corners of my eyes.

The pain eventually passed and, when it did, I just remained there, face in pillow, wondering where the hell they had taken me to this time. An abandoned orphanage?

I could hear the light treading of many little feet outside the room. The kids were laughing and shouting so I could assume our frightening encounter had already long left their minds. I wondered what they saw. I still never had the chance to see a mirror. Though, if my face was as bad as the rest of my body, maybe I didn’t want to.

I peered out from the pillow. I couldn’t see much but, from what I could see, the room was in pretty good shape. The window was more of a bay window—large and letting in a lot of light from the moon. The decoration was conservative, but sturdy.

The bed was huge. When I saw just how big it was, I almost believed I had been transported to a land of giants. Though, it was probably more that I had just become that small.

There were some paintings, but I could not make out many in the darkness. Trees, a lake, a beach, a farmhouse.

As I looked around more closely, I began to notice a few things that were...out of place. Like the strange, intricate symbols carved into the solid wood walls, similar in appearance to the chalk symbol Mr. Copper had wiped away. And, when I looked back at the bed, I realized I was lying on top of a quilt.

There were many, many sewn pictures in it. The few I could actually see, closest to my face, were of some small figures playing in the middle of a swamp. Another had one of the small figures in the center, creating fire from its hands while the others looked on in wonder. The final one I could see was of a great fire which burned through most of the design while two of the small figures and two larger ones ran in fear. It just hit me that the figures were supposed to be humans when someone called out into the room.

“Foxy? You still awake?”

I angled my head back towards the door and immediately saw green eyes flashing in the moonlight. There was a head peaking from behind the door.

I couldn’t help but shudder as a moment of terror came and went. “Yeah, I’m awake.”

My throat was hoarse again. After all the vomiting I was doing, I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised.

“What the hell...happened to me?”

“A bad infection,” Kat said, coming into the room and closing the door. I watched her pick up the water basin and check the temperature with a finger. “It’s too bad you’re awake. You won’t want to be for this.”

“You call that an infection? All that blood? That did not seem like any infection to me!” I insisted, trying to move away from her and finding out, all at once. that I was tied to the bed posts by my arms and legs. “Hey! What are you going to do to me?!”

“Keep your voice down. The children are trying to sleep.”

She walked over to me and, after placing the basin of what I no longer thought was water down, she shoved a block of wood into my mouth. “Bite down on that or I will have to knock you out the hard way.”

I had already done as she asked the moment she shoved it in. It tasted like regular wood—dry and terrible. It only made my slime encrusted mouth that much harder to bear.

I watched her dip a towel into the basin and squeeze the excess liquid back out. “Wha is tha?” I said, with difficulty, as I continued to bite down on the wood.

“Something to fight the infection,” she said, looking back into my bewildered face. “You don’t want the details, Foxy.”

“Yeh, I oo!” I urged through the block of wood. “Yeh I oo, Aa, ell ee-!”

I was cut off when Kat placed the towel on my back without warning. If I thought it was burning before, now it was literally on fire. Kat had to throw her arms on my shoulders to keep me from flailing as I screamed into the block of wood. It was muffled, but it still sounded loud to me.

I nearly blacked out again from the pain, but it was thankfully brief. When the majority of it passed, I thought I would melt into the bed. I was breathing so fast it made me dizzy. Chilling sweat poured down my body as the towel continued to slightly burn.

“What the he—!”

Kat slapped a hand across my mouth the moment the block of wood fell from it. “Quietly chew me out,” she whispered before releasing my mouth.

“What the hell was that, Kat?” I hissed, glaring white hot daggers at her. “I thought I was going to die!”

“You would have, if Mr. Mallard and Mr. Copper didn’t bring you here,” Kat said, sitting down on some empty space on the bed beside me. “Now lie still.”

“It’s not like I have much choice,” I pointed out, indicating the rope. “You guys really have a thing for tying people up, don’t you? And where is ‘here’ exactly?”

“Always with the questions,” Kat sighed, lying back.

I held in a breath when the back of her head came to rest on my backside. “Wuh-Well, if you guys could just sit still for more than a few minutes, and if I could stop blacking out every other day, maybe I wouldn’t have any more questions!”

“Well, you appear conscious enough now, and it seems I pulled the short straw.”

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means that, before I pass out, I’d be willing to try and answer a few of your questions.” She angled her head towards me and I was staring into those green eyes, still aglow from the moonlight. “I promised I would, didn’t I?”

“Yeah, you—Wait, you’re going to fall asleep? There?”

“Yeah, why not? I have to be around, and your butt is actually quite comfortable. I guess it was the only part of you that retained fat.”

“Good to hear,” I mumbled. I couldn’t tell if she was trying to be funny, but if she was her sense of humor was pretty morbid.

She yawned. “I feel myself drifting away, Foxy. I’d hurry with those questions if I were you.”

“Oh, right, um...”

A thought struck me. This could be a way that I could learn more about her. But, did I want to still want to know? That was the old Alex, the one who didn’t know that his feelings for Kat were fabricated and that she and everyone else in that club were just using him to get Mary back.

But, wouldn’t that mean that it was over? They still insisted I was one of them. Mr. Mallard seemed sure I was still part of this insanity no matter what my personal feelings were. But surely they had given up on using their love spell, or whatever it was, to control me. They had me where they wanted me. What would be the use of still using it?

So, then, why...

“Why do you draw?”

“What?”

Kat looked at me, but I had to keep looking away. Her eyes were the spell. I just knew they were. If I looked away, then I wouldn’t be under their influence if it was still there. Then, I could discover the truth.

“Why are you asking that?”

“Because I want to know.”

I felt Kat’s stare for a good while. I kept looking out towards the window. It was angled in such a way that I could not see outside of it, so I just stared into the bright moonlight that poured in. I thought I could see dust floating around inside the light.

Damnit. If she kept staring for too long, I knew I would crack.

Thankfully, she sighed before turning away from me and closing her eyes. “It’s none of your business.”

What.

“What?” I said out loud, nearly risking looking at her face.

“It’s none of your business,” she repeated. “I promised I would tell you what’s going on with you, not what’s going on with me.”

“Well, I think what’s going on with you—with all of you—has a lot to do with what’s going on with me.”

“What are you even saying?”

“I’m saying that I’m supposed to be one of you. I’m supposed to trust you guys. How can I even start doing that when none of you tell me anything about yourselves? You all risked your lives for me and yet I still don’t know any of you any better than those students that attacked us.”

“It’s not important, Foxy.”

“Yes, Kat, yes it is! You guys knew everything about Mary. I bet you all know a good bit about each other. Maybe you even know everything about me. But I know practically nothing. The only things I know about you, Mutt, and Stallion are things that, for all I know, you guys made up as a front to trick me into thinking you were normal! Even Mary never talked about herself. I talked with her every day for several weeks and all that I know is that she likes to read!”

“That’s all you need to know, Foxy. Mouse likes to read, I like to draw, and Mutt likes everything. That is all you need to now. Knowing anything more is dangerous.”

“Dangerous for me?”

“For everyone.”

Kat sat up and looked back over at me. I stared into the moonlight like it was the most important thing in the world.

“Foxy, look at me.”

I watched the dust twirl and dance.

“Foxy—”

I looked at her, but not at her eyes. It took all the willpower I had, but I focused instead on that cartoon cat face. Just a bunch of circles and triangles.

“We are doing this to protect you,” Kat said. “Mutt and Stallion joined the club at the same time; they were already friends, so it was too late for them. When I joined I...had a thing going on with Stallion, and when Mouse joined she was an open book. So it’s already too late for us.”

“Too late?” I tried to control my voice.

I wasn’t staring at her eyes, but something inside hurt when she mentioned her ‘thing’ with Stallion. Why was it still happening?

“Too late for what?”

“You are the only one who has the opportunity to not get hurt,” she said, looking straight into me. “The less you know about us, and the more you hate us, the better.”

There was something in her voice. So helpless. So hopeless. But at the same time, so sure.

I couldn’t stop myself. I looked into her eyes. They were cold--barred—just like they always were. I saw them widen as I felt the hot tears pour down from my eyes.

“Foxy...?”

“It’s too late!” I nearly shouted, but chocked on a sob. My heart writhed in my chest as I saw the horror on her face. “I like you, Kat! I really, really like you! I’ve liked you since the first time I saw you!”

“What?”

How could she look at me like that? So shocked, so horrified? Like it wasn’t part of their plan. Like they didn’t do this to me.

How could she?

Kat didn’t say anything more. She stood up and took slow steps away from me. Then, her back still to me, she stopped, squared her shoulders. “Foxy—”

“It’s your fault!” I shouted. She flinched. I watched through bleary eyes as she took off running. I yelled after her with all I could muster. “It’s all your fault!”

She slammed the door behind her and I was alone with my sorrow. I buried my face into the pillow and I screamed and sobbed. I wanted to suffocate in it.

How could I so quickly forget that these people were monsters? That their entire lives were devoted to torturing me? That’s why they risked their lives to save me. Death would be too quick—too easy.

Why did she look at me like that?

After awhile, I ran out of energy to be angry and sad. I turned my head away from the pillow, prepared to pass out, and saw a little girl.

It was the same little girl I had seen hugging Kat and crying. She had two little pigtails tied by red bows. I looked from them to her hands as they placed something in one of mine that was still tied to the bed post. I couldn’t see what it was, but it felt small and soft as she closed my fingers around it. She then began to look to me and instinct told me to close my eyes. So I did.

I held my breath as I felt a small, warm hand brush aside the hair from my forehead. I almost let it all back out when I felt her kiss. Soft. I could have mistaken it for the wind tickling my forehead. There was a muffled pattering of footsteps and I opened my eyes just in time to see the little girl scamper out of the room.

I held the soft thing in my hand as I finally allowed myself to drift off to sleep. I hoped it would still be there when I woke up.