Born Fallen

Chapter 3

Eventually Evelyn and the spook arrived at the cottage. Evelyn opened the door for the man and gestured for the man to come in. "I'd make tea, but I'm not really confident with anything hot just yet and I'd rather not make an embarrassment of myself by burning myself where you can see."

The phrase where you can see caught John Gregory's attention. It was obvious from his conversation with the girl (who still hasn't told him her name) that she had been taking care of her younger sisters for a while. He knew from experience that their mother was a disgusting excuse for a human being, but he didn't think that also extended to not feeding her own children, excluding the one she most obviously despised.

He heard the footsteps of tiny feet before he saw the two girls. One was bouncy and quick, full of energy, while the other was moving slowly away from his current position. The girl with the bouncy footsteps came into the parlor. She had the same turquoise eyes as her sister and the same jet-black hair, but she was also much shorter with bright, cheerful eyes and a short bob of hair. This one looked vaguely familiar to him.

"It's nice to meet you, Mister Spook!" she beamed, holding out a tiny hand to him and seemingly unafraid of his appearance. "I'm Elianna Riley and that's my sister Evey... Ever... Everin!" She pouted and murmured, "Still not right..." before brightening and adding, "I saw you hit Mother three days ago! You prob'ly didn't see me, though."

Ah, so that's what it was. "It's nice to meet you, girl. Your sister could learn manners from you. She never even told me her name."

The toddler grinned. "Eve said she doesn't like to waste time with manners when there are more impr-important things to do."

Smarter than the average three-year-old indeed. If her speech was any indication, Elianna was certainly intelligent enough.

"Where's Laylah?" the older one asked the toddler.

The girl's brightness dimmed just a bit. "Hiding in your room. She's awake, though, and not panicking. That's always good."

The older one's countenance brightened slightly. "That's better than I'd hoped. I thought for sure she'd have another episode before you even came into the house, sir."

He took note of the use of the word episode and suspected it to be something involving panic, but still said, "What's your name?"

The girl blushed, the first sign of something he saw of her actually acting her age. "Sorry, sir, I forgot. It's Evelyn. Elli can't really pronounce my name just yet. Why don't you go down to the basement while I coax Laylah out of hiding? It has all of Mother's... toys. I just hope you haven't eaten anything yet today because it isn't a pretty sight."

A chill ran down his spine at the thought of seeing the place where a four-year-old was tortured, but he showed no outward unease as the spook replied coolly, "I believe I will be fine, girl."

He felt something light peck his hand, and he looked down to see little Elianna kissing his hand, her expression so solemn for the bright and cheerful girl he saw before. "For luck," she said softly. "It's scary and really sad down there. I try to give L a kiss before she gets thrown down there, but sometimes I can't reach her. Most times I can't reach her and Mother is in the way."

It was then that the spook resolved to get all three of them away from this house as soon as possible, before he made his way down to the basement of the home.

And then, he realized as he walked down, that the basement really was the stuff of nightmares. Every kind of knife, every kind of torture machine imaginable was down here. The whole room was coated in red, from what little he could see with the candlelight. The spook could feel what little breakfast he had turn in his stomach; had he been anyone else, he knew he would be retching it up. Still, it was hard not to. Most of the tools were well-used and covered in blood, save for a few. He saw a few iron pokers in the room and hoped that they weren't used on that poor girl as well.