Exquisite Poison (Original Draft)

Chapter 2 - Meet Your Nightmare

Don't look at him.

Netta felt the very real weight of the arm on her shoulder. As soon as she felt it, she then became aware of a smell that she had believed that she had all but forgotten about.

A fresh smell of moss, covering some deeper, more pungent smell of decay. The smell of the deep woods, where humans felt a natural fear of treading through.

She felt Its stretch, that arm closing further on her. When It spoke, she could feel the rumble of Its voice from Its chest.

"It's been a while, hasn't it, Netta?" When she didn't answer, It continued, saying, "Why, yes, it has been, Mister Big Scary Monster, it has been a long, long long time since we've last seen each other." "Did you miss me, my dear, dear friend?" "Oh, I haven't been able to stop thinking about you at night." It paused, then in an irritated voice, It said, "What, cat got your tongue? Don't believe it's really me?"

It forced her forward with one sweep of Its arm, then bent down so that It was face to face with her.

For a moment, she was thrown off when she did not recognize his - Its - face. The voice was still the same – that deep, almost primal rumble.

This was no imaginary friend – Netta has always believed, if she had made an imaginary friend for herself, she would have created someone less – monstrous – than this "man" was. His face was not even the one that she remembered as belonging to that voice.

Since when did he have that perfectly kept blond hair, those – purple? - eyes? He was, in spite of his already great enough height, shorter than he had been previously. It still didn't make him any less of a tall - taller than her - presence.

And that face – an unfamiliar face. It was as if he had chosen it from some earlier time period when men's faces possessed a sort of soft, masculine character.

Showing her age, Netta's first thought was – I'm looking at James Dean.

And, no one else could see him. Well, It.

Netta looked down quickly, feeling a gasp tearing out of her.

Its chuckle, low and slow, rumbled against her. "You like this, don't you? You like this new face I made for myself?"

Netta couldn't resist it – or stop herself from talking out loud. "Same face you keep when talking to that little girl?" She, of course, immediately regretted talking aloud. Talking to yourself in public was a steadfast way of being noticed.

To make it worse, she never could win an argument against him.

She knew that It had gotten what It had wanted all along, heard it in Its triumphant laugh.

"Oh, no, I'm still a pretty good hand at channeling my inner child." Hearing It mention Its child's form made Netta flinch in unexpected memory. "You haven't made it easy to get to you, you know. I bet you're wondering how I side-stepped the curse you laid on me. The matter of that banishment." When Netta, now deciding that she had learned her lesson with talking, kept quiet, It kept going. "Well, it involved a lot of jumping from Witch to Witch, when their auras flared up enough for me to recognize them as such. You – you've camouflaged yours so well that I hardly could find it, even when I was right next to you. On top of you, you might say." Again Netta made a point of not saying anything. He sighed. "How were the dreams? I wanted you to be sure that you were never far from my mind -"

"How many Witches did you screw?" Even she was surprised when she said it - she wished, especially, that she could take back the biting hostility that she could hear in her own voice.