Dead by Midnight

EIGHT

   Despite Cora's warning to pay attention to when he's arranging the flowers, Kit keeps looking out the shop's windows where the playground is.

Again, there's a group of children playing around without any care in the world. Other thing pushing each other on the swings or running away to play tag, there's a separate group of them who eagerly linked their hands together and skipped.

They're mouthing something. An uncanny, odd type of song that Kit has listened to for the past few days. He asked about it a few times to the children, but they merely shrugged and said it's always been sung by other people. Other children, perhaps that's what they meant.

But every time Kit looked, there would always be additions to the children playing. There's more kids who have joined the circle to play and skip, and they'd sing the song over and over again even if their mouths were being muffled by their large scarves that consisted of two prime colors such as white and green.

Still, the other kids don't mind. In fact, they're also hanging out with them as well until someone's parent comes over and those children who wore white and green immediately vanish.

Even today, Kit watches the children stop for a second before resuming their skipping, still singing that song no doubt.

"Careful now. You might want to look where you're cutting before you snip off your fingers instead of the flowers," Aria warns him from the side.

Kit looks down at his work. "Do they look okay?"

"I think you're doing better than before. The colors compliment each other."

"Are you sure? I don't want Cora coming over here and throwing black pepper on me again... I'd prefer it if she actually sprayed me with water."

"Actually, according to her, she always soaks up different types of petals and mixes it in with the water. There's like, roses, pine, lily, some eucalyptus... though I have to ask grandma just where she gets those flowers. They don't typically grow in this time of the season," Aria mumbles out loud.

Kit frowns. Maybe that's the reason why it always smelled good when Cora splashed him with water.

"It's basically perfume to me at this point."

Aria shakes her head. "Grandma says it's good for the body and to cleanse the air. Definitely not perfume."

"Cleanse the what?"

Aria gestures all around them. "Grandma says it's good to ward off bad omens and whatever else she blabs on about. If it wasn't for her always telling me that, I'd have just assume it's some sort of perfume as well. The scent gets a little overwhelming at times though, so watch out for that in case she tries to spray you again."

Kit makes a face. "Really?"

Aria sighs, "Yeah... better stop trying to attract animals at your house for a while. Have you seen any lately?"

"Just deer. They're always coming even though I don't leave any more food out there for them, but I felt a little bad so I just... you know, leave an apple or something like that-"

"You're just asking to get beat up at this point. Better be thankful Grandma isn't here right now."

That's right. Kit hasn't seen her at all today. He expected another lesson from Cora, but it's just been him and Aria so far.

"Is she out on an errand?"

"I think she's meeting up with the mayor. Something about strengthening town rules or whatever. But it's all the same."

"Town rules," Kit drifts off. "What exactly happens if you like... you know, stay out past curfew-"

"You really shouldn't."