Page 1 of Haunt

She never once spoke a word to anyone that did not stand to unsettle them.

But it’s her big brown eyes that I remember most. The strikingly dark brown colour, outer ring black, against her sickly pale skin, is vivid inside my mind. Large orbs set deep in her face, doll-like in the way her cheekbones were so sharp. There were always blue rings beneath them, tiredness carving into her face. Hollowing out her expression. That is a truth. Her face. The stories it told with not much more than a look. A stare. Cold and calculating. Unusual. It is what drew me in like a compulsion.

Still, to this day, it makes me wonder if my father already knew who I would find when he sent me there to recruit.

Goosebumps strike up residence on my dark skin. Although I am naturally a warm brown, very much the opposite to her icy flesh, I am likely now as drained of colour as she. She was never tanned. No kiss from the sun. And since I laid eyes on her last, I have only continued to stalk through umbra. Traipse aimlessly through gloom. Darkness and shadows, a cloak of cold comfort in a world full of loud, bright chaos. It is the deepest onyx that I am forever drawn into.

The weird and the wonderful.

The strange and macabre.

I, the white goat. She, the black lamb. Wrong in all senses of the word. The odd ones out. Different to our peers. Neither one of us belongs out in the fields, frolicking in daylight and sunshine, fresh green grass and bright white daisies. Instead, we should shelter inside the barn, in the damp, in the cold, in the darkest, creepiest corner. I would bathe her in my blood, drown her in our sin, and it would fill the emptycavity beneath my sternum with something more than wicked, lustful fantasy.

An opportunity is all I needed.

Something, it seems, that is finally presenting itself to me.

In a home for the defiled and strange.

A convent in the heart of Italy. An orphanage, one not too dissimilar to that which we shared as children. A place I have travelled to, in search of her, seeking her out, finding her in an unlikely, but also, not so unlikely, place.

She is a liar.

A very, very good one.

Manipulative.

She looks young, innocent, fragile.

But, like a shapeshifter, she can morph into anyone and anything she needs to be in order to fit her current circumstances. Whatever they may be.

She was never like that with me.

I had to leave her before.

I have waited for what feels like an eternity to get back to her.

But, finally, it is time.

To collect my precious Little Lamb for slaughter.

It is not often I feel unnerved.

Yet, today, I find myself creeping along the halls, palms flush to the cool white concrete. Peeking around corners, fingertips blanching as they curl into the wall. Sticking to the shadows, blinking harder to see better.

It is exciting.

This rush of feeling.

I am a twenty-two year old woman, posing as a fourteen year old girl in a foreign children’s home. It is unusual, but the rooms are large, the food is free and there are no responsibilities for me here. It is convenient. Nice. To exist beyond the predators of the outside world. The police. Here, they see me as an innocent little girl. I am protected.

A smile curls my lips as I skip down the stone floored hallway, my long dark brown hair slapping against my spine. Dancing through the high ceilinged archways, painted a bright white, fresh and clean against the old stone.

The Italian summer sun beams through the glassless arched window frames, heating my skin as I drift between cool shadows and warm light. My black shawl slips down my biceps, exposing my pale shoulders, and blood smears my arm as I wrench the fabric back up with aching fingers. Bringing my fist to my mouth, nails biting into my palm as I curl my fingers into my hand. I lick over my red stained knuckles, the metallic tang assaulting my tastebuds, but I frown at the lack of sting. I stop, peer down at my hand, and lap at the crimson a second time, cleaning my skin off further when I realise that it’s not split.

The blood is not my own.

Humming happily, I scrub at the red with a tasselled corner of the thick black fabric over my arms, and then haul the shawl back up and over my shoulders. My bright yellow sundress dances around my calves as I continue on my way, the thin cotton fabric tickling my skin. I skid around the corner, the soles of my little black ballet flats worn thin, and make my way into the large dining hall.

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