The Wailing Woman

38. Hop, Hop, Hop

TW: Child death

Grimm takes a hasty step forward and is about to speak but his face becomes like a blank void. He whips his head to the left, his gaze narrows and his spine is straightened like steel. My brows pinched together as I turned my gaze toward the direction he faced and that's when I saw her.

The demon I once met when we went to the ice parlor and I immediately remembered her strong dislikeness toward me. But here she was again, walking towards us with her shoulders pushed back and chin lifted. She wore a black coat with a silvered chained belt wrapped around her waist. A large skull sat in the middle of it. How fitting of her.

She kept an even gaze on Grimm and for a brief moment, I thought about how much she looked like Hans. Their facial features were different, but the way she carried herself was strangely similar to Hans'. She demonstrated the same emotionless stare and guarded loyalty toward Grimm.

Were all demons like this?

Her gaze then flickered over to mine and quickly showed her displeasure. She was no different from everyone else who didn't like me and I regarded her as I did with everyone else, I ignored her.

I tilt my head toward Grimm as a scowl had taken over his face, "Wait here." He said as he took my hand and forcibly made me take the wilting tulip. He strode toward her while I simply stared at the wilting flower. The flower and I were both hopeless beneath his touch and we were going to rot with him.

I turned away looking over the hundreds of gray and black tombstones. 

Crosses and angels sparsely sat on top of each grave. The dead grow every day while the living deteriorate. Sulking trees and the sound of crows broke through the cloudy day, visitors slowly left their dead as if they might wake them. There was a stone of an angelic woman with a sorrowful gaze and clasped hands, she reminded me of my mother and Refugio.

I think about them and their graves. I haven't visited them since they died, their names could be fading away. They probably haven't had fresh flowers in a long time. And yet as I stand here surrounded by the dead and near Death, my feet don't move. I don't dare to face them, I'm not getting better as I promised them I would be. 

Instead, I've become worse and it's getting harder each day to be a better person.

I'm about to put my sunglasses back on when my eye catches something peculiar. Or I should say someone peculiar. Rabbit ears. Dirt-smeared furry rabbit ears. A little girl was wearing half of a rabbit mask. She wore a pinkish-red spotted dress and twin pigtail braids. Her body was turned toward me, it felt as if she was meeting my gaze through the poked holes near her eyes. 

Oddly enough, she looked and felt familiar.

My eyes wander near her surroundings searching for her parents or any adult but no one was around. Why was there a little girl standing alone in a cemetery? Where were her parents? Maybe I'm imagining her. It wouldn't be the first time I saw something that wasn't there. I also haven't slept in a while. I looked down at my cherry red tights then looked further down at my boots and started counting.

My stomach formed a bunch of knots, they grew tighter like a punishment for not looking at her. I lifted my head and she was still there except now, she was closer. Five tombstones closer to the one she previously stood by. Chills swept the back of my neck.

She moved her mouth, she was talking but I couldn't hear her. I can't hear her.

Look away.

Look away.

Look away.

The little girl mouths her words, desperately as if she is running out of time. I dig my nails into the palm of my skin. "Do you need help?" I said under my breath.