The Ones Who Live Inbetween

13

"Welcome, my home is your home for the duration of your stay."

Mummy had guests again. I wondered if they'd get to leave this time. That was how it was. She would invite them to tea and they wouldn't be seen again. Daddy would lock us in our room with Mallory for a while. Mallory played games with us and kept us quiet. I was usually quiet anyway. I knew better than to be loud. It's my brother that's the problem. He was so little still and hadn't yet learned that Mummy and Daddy wanted us to be quiet. When Daddy gets mad about the noise I take the blame. I don't want him to hurt my brother. Mallory tries to protect me but when that terrible hoarse noise is coming from her open mouth and tears are streaming down her freckled face, Daddy gets even angrier and she just gets hurt too. I wish she wouldn't. Either way I'll probably be hurt. I don't think it's fair that she should suffer it too.

I think the guests were important people. The household had been in such a whirl of activity that they forgot to lock me in with Mallory and my brother. We were playing hide and seek. I hid under the table, masked by a long white tablecloth, holding my breath as I waited for them to find me. Before long I heard people start to enter the room. They were talking and laughing. I could hear Mummy laughing too. Mummy never laughs. By then it was already too late. I knew I wasn't supposed to be in there when Mummy had guests. I flinched when all the chairs were pulled out and people sat down. I could hardly breathe for fear. I was sure that at any moment I would be discovered. As the laughter and talking died down Mummy began to speak.

"Welcome, welcome everybody. I'm sure you're all eagerly anticipating tea, I know I am. I'm positively starving."

A few murmurs of agreement resounded through the room. My heart began beating harder and faster in my chest. Somehow, I knew something bad was going to happen. I couldn't have lived in that house for long without noticing the signs. The inexplicable red stains that periodically showed up around the house, the constantly changed curtains and tablecloths in the dining room, the muffled screams. Yes, I'm sure I knew what was to happen. Ever since that day I've hated myself wondering if, if I'd just done something, maybe I could have saved them. But it is too late now. The Dragon Lord and his Pelican Lady are both gone. All their servants are gone. Their children are gone. And they're not coming back. As I lay crouched under there, people's legs on all side, my knees drawn up to my chin, I heard the worst sort of quiet. It was a quiet that meant death. Or something even worse. For that moment, not one of the people in the room made a sound. There was no talking, no shuffling, no breaths released or withdrawn.

"Bon appétit," I heard Mummy say.

And then it was shattered.

I couldn't see anything but I heard noises I will never forget. The sounds of tearing flesh. Then the screaming started. It was not a scream like any I'd ever heard. More than a scream of fear, more than a scream of pain, this was the scream of people watching as their loved ones were torn apart and devoured before their eyes, while harbouring the knowledge that they would surely be next. The legs around me kicked and writhed, some pulled clean out of their seats, and splatters of the most vibrant red began blossoming on the shuddering white cloth around me. My heart hammered away in my chest and I felt there was a fist closed around my lungs. Yet still I made not a sound. Fear had paralysed me and as blood pooled closer under the table I could do nothing. My dress, which was white and lacy, had been made new that day but as I sat there, was stained with red and flung pieces of flesh.

For an indeterminably long period of time I sat huddled there as the noises slowly died down until all I could hear was a sound akin to when a dog plays with a piece of meat, tearing and chewing and poking it. There was a thud and the head of a small child of a similar age to my own brother rolled under the table. In his glassy green eyes, I was sure I could see the remains of an unspeakable terror, mouth still open in a scream. It was this that finally broke me from my reverie. With a choked scream I stood, knocking the table above me over with a crash. As I stared into the tea room, all I could see was red and my mother, iridescent mass of curls falling long down her back, as she stands bent over in the midst of it all with a long and cruelly twisted sword dangling from her blood soaked hand.

"Mu-mummy?"

"Oh. It is you."

***