LITTLE GRIM

01 PROLOGUE TO EVIL

ACT ONE        HONEY TEETH

It is warm but faintly chilly under the canopy of trees that stand unsullied on the marketplace. The wind blows so freely it dances, softly, but entices her silky hair to move along. The branches of the trees are gnarled and chime amongst with the mellifluous melody of the natural movement of air, echoing against a sky so, so clear. The sun dances in the middle of an opaque expanse of blue and it appears the few clouds that surround it have emerged solely to witness the suns pulchritudinous performance.

And there, by one of the stands, a girl. Imagine skin like milk and the apples of her cheeks slightly reddened because of the toe-curling but comforting wind that brushes past them. When we think godlike, we think her - other words than divine do not suffice to describe her, whose gaze is slightly dazed as she takes a pink peach in her small hands. But look closer: somewhere in those dousing eyes rests diabolical that only few manage to see. Passer-by's cannot help but turn their heads when they see her amidst the chants of nature, birds singing their greatest song, and the acoustic string medley an old man plays from afar. Right then, she is a picture of calm and serene. Her gown is the cheapest she can find and weary, torn at the seams, but she looks like the fairest princess of all with those kitten-like features.

Eyes large and curious as she looks around herself, standing peaceful under the blue clouds that drifted overhead, the familiar twigs and leaves, divine girl swears that she can feel the life. It makes her flutter and feel ebullient, beautifully alive, when she hears the earth crunching under her footwear (that, and her arms and legs aching in warning of her body lengthening).

Pearl De Bulles is her name, and she is sun-kissed where she stands; the sanguine rays of light of the coruscating yellow creation leave honey in their wake like like teardrops from ones eyes. They are dripping like honeysuckle nectar. Those who stand close to her can hear her produce tunes of beauty, roses, petals, can see heaven and that it is even more divine than those of pious platitudes preached. In her hands she takes one of the fruits and pierces her teeth in the raw pink flesh, fingers sticky with the juice that tricked down her chin. It's sweet, it's gentle.

But a brush of something entices her eyes to widen abruptly.

"GIVE THAT BACK, HAROLD!"

She chants mellifluously, a few men and women alike turning their head upon the sudden hoarse voice that seeps from the honeyed girl and the controversy, when a boy takes something that isn't his from her stand, her eyebrows slightly furrowed but an upward curve perking her petal lips. Oh, if you think you can vex me, you do not yet know me! She runs after the mischievous boy clumsily, like a little lamb having just learned how to stand atop four feet. Oh, boy - it seems the sun is out, Harold is, too, and if it appears so, often times, so is the wrathful side to little Pearl. Pearl De Bulles, the girl an ounce of ichor short of absolute serenity, could only - to the eye of onlookers - be stirred by one: that thief with the enamoring smile and the green moss still lurking behind his large ears. Pearl De Bulles had loved to say that she hated him so much, him and the saccharine long fingers he possessed of, but truly, Pearl adores him. And so she no longer bothers to engage in pointless cat-and-mouse games with him.

Pearl sighs, so deep it entices her silken hair to move along faintly, when she returns to her stand, but her demeanor manifests when she sees a familiar pair of brown orbs. Blooming, her friend, given the name Juliette, suddenly stands next to her, suddenly, and those long and slender fingers of hers - heavily contrasting against Pearls, whose digits are short and chubby, much like herself - reveal a golden necklace. Juliette had been one of the very few people who knew Pearl well. Like a pirate his honorable ship, like you know each and every little detail of your hand, Juliette knows of every minuscule crevice and flaw of the De Bulles girls being. She is a willowy, lithe girl, that looks as though she has been lured out of a fairytale, possessing a heart bedazzled with the fairest diamonds - yet she, like all girls who possess of good money and looks in equal measure, so has Pearl come to know along the years, has always faintly believed she is above others.