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"One..."

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"Two..."

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"Three..."

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Timothy trotted along happily. His parents had finally deemed him grown up enough to walk home alone after school and, to make the day even better, he had found the perfect stick just outside the schoolhouse for counting the bushes that lined the city's sidewalks.

"Four..." he continued, tapping the next bush.

Sob.

Timothy paused and looked around. Was someone crying? He didn't see anyone. Forgetting his game, he continued walking, slowly now, cautiously. He was suddenly more aware of his solitude, the setting sun, and the looming darkness that was soon to follow. As he walked the muffled sobs got louder. He was finally able to trace them to a small alley not a block away from his home. Now Timothy could distinctly make out that it was a woman's voice. He felt uneasy, but, remembering his mother's words that one should always help those in need, he straightened up and made his way towards the sound.

"Ma'am?" he called out.

The crying grew louder but there was no response. Hesitantly, Timothy journeyed deeper, wrapping his jacket tighter around him, the alley was freezing, curiously more so than the city streets just adjacent to it. There was also something else that made Timothy uneasy; besides himself and the source of the crying he saw absolutely no sign of life. The city council had always made sure to balance the time's booming urban industrialism with city parks and an abundance of plant life lining the streets and walkways, but even in the darkest and most neglected parts of it one would still find mildew growing through the cracks or stray animals roaming about. Natural life always seemed to find a way to house itself in every nook and cranny that Timothy had ever seen. This place was cold, and dank, and dead.

He could see the source of the sound now, a woman, curled up and head down against the alley wall. Despite her grimy setting Timothy could tell that she was a lady of a high social standing. Her arms were pale and decorated with intricate and expensive looking jewelry. Her dress was a rich blue color and seemed to be made of silk. Trying not to wonder what such a woman would be doing here and why she would be so sad, Timothy cleared his throat and tried again.

"Ma'am," he called out. "Ma'am are you ok?"

The woman stopped crying but remained curled up. Timothy perked up, feeling very proud and grown up. He took the woman's silence as a signal to continue.

"Are you afraid because it's getting dark?" he guessed. "My mom always says I need to be home before dark on account of that nasty things come out when it's dark."

Then realizing, embarrassed, that they were out here in the soon-to-be dark he added "But I don't think you're a nasty thing," he paused again, "And I promise I'm not."

"You don't think I'm a nasty thing?" the woman whispered softly.

Timothy lit up, finally getting a response, and shook his head violently. "Nope."

After a moment's pause, she slowly lifted her head up and faced him. Timothy's smile vanished and his face went pale with shock and horror. He wanted to run but his legs refused to move. The creature smirked.

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

Timothy didn't make it home that night.

The Case of the Blue Lady

Dear Mother and Father,

Since our move to the Mainland this apartment is slowly starting to become a home. Victor is doing well in school and although we live comfortably on the monthly allowance you send us, he has started a small business as to entertain himself in his strange amass of spare time. It is not exactly a private detective agency (though that is how it is listed), as no clients really come to him, but the term bounty hunter doesn't seem to be quite right either. It started by accident at his school, on a dare I believe, a sort of "prove it "challenge that you know he loves too much. Anyhow, it's too hard to explain. I'll have to have him tell the story when we get back. To put it simply, he and a new friend of his pick up the cases that the police have left unsolved and collect the reward. It is a curious business, and not particularly steady, but it has succeeded in its original purpose to keep him occupied.

In the sitting room of their upstairs apartment overlooking the docks, Mina and Victor McGill carried on their morning in a comfortable silence, Mina typing her letter and Victor smoking his pipe. It was a small, cozy room, clean but by no means neat, as neither sibling saw it as a large priority so long as the room was presentable to outside company. Drawers were packed with long forgotten wonders, while anything deemed important was placed either on the old wooden desk in the corner or on the shelf above it in an neat, almost decorative fashion. Instead of the traditional vertical placement, books were packed on the bookshelf in an odd game of Tetris, as to use the space to its greatest extent. Besides the bookshelf and typewriter, nearly every piece of furniture in the room had been furnished by their godfather Mr. Jekyll, it's previous inhabitant, though he had gone missing and had not been recorded to have used the apartment for several months before the siblings arrived.

After a weekend of rigorous cleaning and dusting it was all quite sanitary, but still old and worn. The smell of decay was replaced by that of cleaning products and then, more permanently, by a strange combination of smoke and mango. This was due to Victor for, although he didn't enjoy tobacco, he often smoked mango extract for the flavor, leaving the walls permeated with its scent. The wallpaper, unchanged from the previous inhabitant and perhaps even the one before, was washed-out and peeling around the edges. Its replacement was a repeated conversation between the siblings, usually regarding the question of when they would replace it and or whether they had the right to replace it, as it was ultimately their godfather's. In the end its fate was put off, free to fade and age indefinitely like the rest of the furnishings. All in all it gave the room an old, homelike quality, as though it had been lived in for generations, despite its first tenants in quite a while having lived in it for less than a year.

Mina paused, reading over what she had written. It seemed a fairly good summary. As her fingers hovered over the keys, ready to continue, her train of thought was interrupted by a sudden shout.

"Victor!" came a familiar voice, "Victor!"

Victor and Mina turned just in time to see a stout young man burst in, waving a manila envelope and grinning from ear to ear. "We have a case!"