Hide and Seek

Chapter 4: Rose

I'd seen over ten rooms in this house by now. My favorite had to be the library. There was a fireplace far away from the books, and in front of it was a soft carpet with small chairs for reclining on- sort of like a bean bag chair, but square and without the beans inside. Mr. Harmon had numerous books on animal taxidermy. There were no stuffed animals anywhere in the house, so I wasn't quite sure why he had it. Maybe he enjoyed the concept of it.

Being in a mansion and all, there wasn't too much for Caleb to get into. Mr. Harmon told us once Caleb's room was done, he'd never want to leave it.

After Caleb and I had finished exploring the house, we got off of our scooters and went into the garden behind the mansion. The garden was huge and consisted of flowers and plants. There were even a few mini waterfalls. Of course, Caleb wanted to play around them, but I told him no out of fear that Mrs. Harmon would get upset. I wouldn't want us to get off to a bad start.

Caleb saw a couple of birds inside a large oval shaped cage. He skipped ahead of me toward them. I began to run after him but stopped short. Caleb stopped too when he saw her. A few feet away from us stood a tall fountain, and in front of it, watering plants was a woman that wasn't Mrs. Harmon.

She saw us but didn't say anything. She just continued to water the plants in silence.

"Who is she?" Caleb asked.

"Probably the maid?" I said.

Caleb shrugged. "Mr. Harmon didn't mention a maid," he whispered.

Trying to make a good impression, I decided to greet her. Caleb and I walked over to her. She stopped watering the plants and looked up at us. I couldn't tell if she was a maid or what. She wore a long white dress with a pair of white pants. Her hair, which was light brown in color, was a bit messy. She didn't smile at us, either.

"Good evening," she said in a sharp monotone voice. "Who are you two?"

"I'm Emily, and this is my brother Caleb," I said. "The Harmon family adopted us."

The woman smiled. This wasn't a natural smile. She smiled off into the distance, like us being here was the best thing ever, and she was going to be the happiest human being on the planet. Maybe I'm weird, but her smile really struck me as odd.

"Emily and Caleb. A pleasure to meet you," she said, shaking both our hands. "I'm the gardener. I come to water the plants. It's my job here. I like to keep the place alive, you know?" She began to smell the air. "Alive," she repeated while holding her hands together near her chest. Her attention was focused on the bird that flew passed us. She sniffed the air then gazed at Caleb and me. She seemed even odder to me than before.

Caleb scratched at his hair. "What's your name?" he asked shyly.

"My name is Rosemary. Call me Rose," she said.

"That's a lovely name," I said.

Rose nodded and smiled. "Well, my time is up for today. The sun is setting, and I should really-" I expected her to finish her sentence, but she didn't. She waved goodbye to us then started walking forward, away from us and away from the mansion until we could no longer see her. If she was the maid, shouldn't she have had some kind of transportation? Where was she going? All I saw was fields and fields of grass. The only house nearby was the gray abandoned looking one, and I wasn't sure that's where she wanted to go. I could have been wrong.

...

We were allowed to see our rooms after supper. That's what Mr. Harmon told us.

We were all now sitting down, waiting for the food to be served. Caleb was too small for the chairs which were for people my size or taller if you wanted to actually reach the table. This dinner table was twice the size of our old table. It was huge. There were four chairs on each of the table's sides and at the end of the table were Mr. and Mrs. Harmon's seat. Caleb was told to eat on the couch by the TV in the living room, a privilege we had never gotten back at home. I sat at the table with the Harmon's. We were quiet, and it felt bit awkward until the food was ready.

...

The food was great. I couldn't believe Mrs. Harmon cooked this wonderful meal all by herself. I thanked her for the food.

"You're welcome," she said. "So, tell us about yourself, Emily."

Before I was about to speak, a moth flew out of nowhere and frantically fluttered around my head. It then went over near Mr. Harmon. He stood up slowly with his hands in the air and as slowly as he could, closed the moth in between his hands without killing it.

"Are you going to kill it or add it to the collection?" Mrs. Harmon then took of sip of her drink.

"Excuse me," Mr. Harmon was about to leave the table. "This is exactly what I needed"

I looked at Mrs. Harmon. "He collects moths?"

"No," she said while wiping her mouth. "He uses them for his art projects."

I was about to say something but this time I was interrupted by Caleb. "I don't like moths," he said.

"Then we will make sure no moths get in here again just for you," she playfully poked his nose.

Mr. Harmon got back and sat at the table. "So, as we were saying," he smiled at me. "tell us about yourself."

I didn't go into too much detail about myself. I just talked about my love for sports, video games, shopping, going out with friends, and hide and seek.

When I said hide and seek, they looked at me like, isn't she a little too old to play hide and seek? That's what most adults think of a fourteen-year-old. I told them that I don't like just regular hide and seek. I prefer to play hide and seek in the dark. They seemed intrigued by this statement.

Mrs. Harmon cleared her throat and linked her hands together.

"Well, I can assure you that there will be no hide and seek in this house. The house is far too big for that and someone could get hurt or lost. My art could get destroyed. I wouldn't want any accidents." He said.

To be honest, that excuse made me mad. It upset me to know that I couldn't play my favorite game in my new house, with my new foster parents. It was silly to ban hide and seek. It's not dangerous. I controlled my anger and nodded my head. There was no one to play hide and seek with anyway, so I just accepted this. I guess I would just have to find something else to do.

One in my room, I started to cry. I wished my parents were still alive. I didn't want to be here. I wanted to be at home where I could play hide and seek with Abby.