The Giggler Learns to Dance - Shortlisted - Open Novella Contest 2020

Chapter One - A Litter of Top Hats

Chapter One

A Litter of Top Hats

Alice Huxley sat on the porch of her new house with a wad of bloody tissue paper wrapped around her left hand, her face contorted into a scowl. With a deft kick, she knocked her school bag off the porch steps, cursing the fact that she had forgotten her house key. Today of all days.

It was the evening of Halloween and her secondary school had gotten out in a rush of costume plans, jokes, and party ideas for the night ahead. Alice had noticed that most plans included alcohol in some form or another and felt glad that she was too new to the school to have made friends.

Alice and her father had moved to Ryndale, a town on the borders of Dublin City, the capital county of Ireland a little over a week and a half ago. She had spent her childhood in the rural county Kerry, but lately, they had need to be close to the refined Dublin hospitals for her father's work. Their new house was a rather dilapidated detached building was on the outskirts of Glasnevin Cemetery, was built entirely out of grimy red-brick. The proximity to the cemetery hadn't bothered Alice when her father had first mentioned the move, but tonight, on Halloween and locked out of her house, she was none-too-impressed.

Alice stood up, her school skirt was damp from the gathering moisture of the misty October evening. The sky was already a deep inky black, though it was barely past five o'clock. It would be another half an hour before her father was home from work and could let her into the house. She had already tried to climb through the small bathroom window that was slightly ajar at the side of the house but ended up collapsing onto a pile of leaves and mud with only her bad hand to brace her fall.

She walked to the end of her driveway, peering out at the row of houses in her estate and saw the little kids that were already dressed up and trick-or-treating before it got too late and past their bedtime. Last night, her dad had dusted off a plastic pumpkin from their move-in boxes and placed it on the porch with no shortage of pride. Alice was confident that neither she nor her father, would fit in Ryndale. Especially on Halloween.

When five-thirty came and went and there was no sign of Alice's father, she decided she could no longer wait around aimlessly. What if some of the girls from school came trick-or-treating on her street with their younger siblings before going to the party in the town's community centre for the teenagers?

Her hand was aching now, a persistent reminder of how terrible her day at her new school had been. The first few days at the all-girls' Catholic School, Sister Columbanus', hadn't been that bad. Yet, when she had met Rebecca Farrell in P.E., things had taken a tragic turn for the worse.

Holding her left hand close to her chest, Alice took off in the direction that would take her far away from the town centre. She didn't want to bump into people. Plus, this way, she was likely to see her dad driving home and could hitch a lift back to the house.

Almost every house in Ryndale was bedecked in a colossal and gaudy number of Halloween decorations. As she walked, she counted the pumpkins, skulls and fake graves. That was nothing out of the ordinary, she supposed.

Yet what was unusual were the number of embellished top hats left out on people's porches or adorning the lawns. Some were ceramic, others were glass or made with soft fabric. Many looked to have been painted by children, others seemed so old that Alice felt sure that they were antiques. A few were even carved from wood. Regardless, they each had one thing in common - every black top hat was completed with a purple, velvet sash tied in a bow.

Alice frowned, the path giving way to a muddy margin at the side of the road as the houses became increasingly sparse. All light was slowly disappearing and if she kept walking, she was running the risk of being hit by a car. Still, she couldn't stop. After the day she had experienced in school, she wasn't ready to stop and face what had happened.

After a particularly strong twinge of pain from her hand, she stopped under the nearest streetlight and examine the sodden mess of tissue. Tears pricked the corners of her eyes as she attempted to remove the tissue. When the skin underneath was exposed, she had to bite her lip to stop herself from whimpering. The flesh was red, blistered and beginning to swell. A deep cut formed like a bracelet around her wrist, though the blood-flow seemed to have stemmed. Before she could stop herself, Alice slumped down onto the ground at the base of a nearby tree. She was far enough away from town now that the only houses on this strip of the tree-lined road seemed to be completely abandoned. For sale signs were wedged into the earth and the windows seemed to be boarded up on almost every house on the road.

Alice held her head in her one good hand, curled her legs underneath her skirt as the tears began to flow. Rebecca Farrell and her friends were cruel, abominable people, she decided. Someday, she would get revenge on them. Someday.

The final school bell of the day had just rung and the students had rushed to pack their bags and put their chairs on top of their desks. Alice, in no rush to face any Halloween plans, had lingered for longer than necessary in the bathroom before beginning the walk home. She had brushed her hair and splashed water on her face, hoping that the crush by the main doors would have abated by the time she left. It wasn't long before Alice heard voices rounding the bathroom doorway. She looked up to see Rebecca's artfully arched eyebrows raised while talking in Alice's short cherry-red hair and single silver wishbone pendant at her chest.

It took Alice a moment to remember Rebecca's name, though she was still confused with what she would want with her.

"I noticed you, yesterday, you know," Rebecca had said. She positively cackled when Alice had frowned in confusion. "Watching me, in PE. While I was changing."

Understanding had rushed through Alice with such a force that her palms grew slick and she was sure that she was blushing.

"That's pretty sick, you know." A girl behind Rebecca chimed in. The others nodded their agreement.

Before she could open her mouth to argue, to convince Rebecca that she hadn't been watching her get dress and certainly hadn't noticed her lacy pink bralette, three of the girls from behind Rebecca had launched at her while another darted around them to hit the blue button on the hand dryer.

With a searing, agonising pain, Alice's hand was thrust inside the hand dryer's wide nozzle, burning her flesh. The skin on her wrist that chafed against the silver rim of the dryer tore brutally. She screamed, but they held on.

"No one likes a lesbian perv," Rebecca sneered in her face. They released her and Alice fell to the floor, where she stayed for a long while, cradling her botched hand.

Now, from where she sat on the wet earth on the side of an abandoned road on Halloween night, Alice felt truly miserable. It was time to admit that she was a little relieved that she wouldn't have to explain her burnt hand to her dad if he came home late tonight. She could already pretend to be asleep. If she could figure out how to get into the house.

Alice had just convinced herself to push herself to get to her feet and walk home when a rustling nearby sounded and she froze. It was likely just a straw cat or dog. Maybe even a pheasant, she thought wildly as she scrambled to her feet and moved backward around the tree.

She stepped away from the light of the streetlamp, just as a man came into view.

Word Count: 1453

A/N:

I hope you enjoyed this first chapter! I'm using a prompt that really intrigued me, 'The Dance Necromancer is attacking the town with the dancing dead and it's up to an unlikely group of heroes to save the town.'

Thank you so much for reading - I'm excited to finally write something based in my lovely home country for once!

Love for now,

Jen x