Whare Are You?

Snowflakes and videotapes

The butler was standing in the middle of a small kitchen, his hand frozen in midair. He must have been cleaning something up. "I thought that you were under ze impression zat' the guests were supposed to stay in ze dining area?" He said, his voice lidded with a heavy accent.

"Do you know what happened to Sheila?" Loche asked, ignoring the question in full.

The butler looked more stern as hr glowered over the group, all still linked in arms. "I did not learn the names of your party, I merely acted under the order of Mr. host."

A deep silence thick enough to cut with a knife followed the words, and with it, a sick, nauseating feeling worked its way into the back of the Snow's throat. She didn't dare look around at anyone, afraid of their faces, scared to see the same fear in their eyes. The only thing she seemed to have the strength to do was keep her arm linked tightly with Stars.

The sick feeling in the back of the snow intensified, but she forced it back down.

"Whose host?" Henry asked. Snow could hear the artificial venom he had laced into his voice. Star had used it whenever she had to tell anyone else, which wasn't often.

The butler shook his head. "He is' never shown me ez' real face, nor told me es' real name."

"Why are you here?" Jerry asked, the same kind of venom in his voice. The only difference was that he wasn't forced or artificial.

The butler sighed. His heavy french accent was audible even in the long breath of air. "I 'ave to be. Tis' house is cursed. My life is forever in ze hands of zis residence."

Snow's chest tightened more than it already was, if that was possible. Her whole body felt as though it was made of lead. She was sure that if she let go of the star's arm, even for a moment, she would fall. For moments the butler's words hung dead in the air.

Eventually, after a long moment of silence, Jerry spoke. "What's your power?" He asked. He looked too Henry as he said this. Henry nodded curtly. His eyes seemed too dark in away. The butlers eye mirrored it.

"I have the ability to make people forget that they are injured." He said, His tone was apathetic, monochrome. It had no emotion and sounded almost as empty as Snow was scared.

Snow looked over to Henry as the butler spoke, which was hard, considering that the whole group was still muddled together, hardly daring to move. He looked tired, and his eyes were a different kind of dark, the kind that was grim with the exhaustion of someone who had used a power that tried them to the point of wanting to pass out.

A weaker part of snow wanted to hug him, and the stronger part knew not too. She couldn't. If she moved, even a little, she would fall.

Jerry, Locke, and Henry exchanged glances, leaving the rest of the group at a kind of loss.

For a time, the latest words spoken hung dead in the air, a cynical phrase. Every person in the room had their own understanding as to their meaning.

'What did you do too shela?" Jerry asked finally, his eyes glimmering in anger. It was clear that he was in a rage.

The butler did not reply. He was standing still. Very, very still, as if he were a living statue, if snow didn't know better, she would have thought he was standing up dead. No one spoke.

Snow stole a glance at her sister. What she saw wasn't anything like what she had expected, whatever that was.

Star's skin was paler than she had ever seen it, and her blue eyes, which were usually soo calm and collected, that seemed to sparkle with the light of a morning to come, were dull and empty. Even the blue color seems to darken. The light hardly even reflected off of them. Her hair wasn't kept over her shoulders the way she usually kept it, in order to display the moon on her back. Instead, it was halfway down her back, part on her shoulder. She looked like a wreck of a person, like a person who had seen everything they needed too in life, like a person that was trying so hard to make things work, but no matter what she did, she just couldn't do good enough.