"Mr. Harmon convinced Mrs. Harmon I was stealing things from the garden so they decided to fire me," She said.
"Why would he do that? Why would he blame you for something you didn't do?" I asked.
Mr. Harmon walked outside. I turned away, walking away from Rosemary before I get into trouble for talking to her.
She didn't reply to my question. She simply glared at me. "You don't have much time," she said getting up and walking away.
I stood there, looking at her as she left. Even though Mr. Harmon was looking in my direction he didn't say anything. It was like he didn't even see Rose walking away. He just stared at me with his hands on his hips and then walked back inside.
***
I stayed outside in the garden for the longest time. I just couldn't quite get over what Rose had said. What did she mean? Not much time for what? Being here was really started to creep me out. I never really got over that nightmare that I had a few weeks ago. Being here just felt weird. I didn't want to be here anymore. I wanted the cop car to just pick us up and tell us that our grandmother wanted us. But I knew that wouldn't happen.
Being in the garden was making me feel uneasy. That was when I decided to explore, but not around here, around Mr. Harmon's old house. I was pretty sure he wouldn't care. No one lived around them, so I had nothing to worry about.
Little did I know, I was walking right into trouble. Trouble way beyond my imagination.
Chapter 8: Violet
It was a fifteen-minute walk to the old abandoned house. Once there, I studied it. An old house, gray in color. Most of the paint had shed off of it, exposing nothing but brick. The windows were cracked while some were completely broken. The place, even though old and worn out, somehow looked... alive? With a little effort, anyone could live here again. It wasn't falling apart, it just needed some care.
"I found you!"
My heart bolted out of my chest when I heard someone from inside of the house yelling. I then heard laughter as someone yelled out, "I found you!" once again.
I couldn't believe it. There were people inside playing hide and seek! Well, I was guessing they were playing that. A smile formed on my face.
I continued to listen to them play their game. I waited for over ten minutes, just listening in silence. Just then, two laughing boys and one girl came into view but stopped when they saw me. One boy quickly looked inside of the house, poking his head inside.
"Violet! Someone's here," he yelled.
While the rest of them looked young, another girl around my age came out of the house. She looked at me like she had seen a ghost. I waved my hand toward her, saying things like, "It's okay", "I'm cool", and that I had "just came to check out the place because I was bored."
"What's your name?" this so-called Violet asked. Her face was extremely pale. There was no expression on her face at all. Her hair was black and glossy, stopping at her shoulders. A few strands of her hair was curly near the ends.
"Emily," I said as I continued to study her. She wore a sweater and sweat pants, which struck me as odd, due to the warm weather of summer.
"Come join us," Violet said. She smiled at me. Her smile was beautiful. I wanted to tell her she should smile often.
The other kids smiled and welcomed me as I walked up the rickety stairs. They started to introduce themselves to me. As I got closer to Violet, I noticed she also had cute little freckles. While I continue to look at her, a boy jumped out in front of me, ultimately blocking my view of Violet.
He held his hand out to me. "I'm Tate. I'm ten years old. How old are you?" he asked.
"Hello, Tate. And I'm fourteen," I said, shaking his hand.
The other girl walked up to me. She was super bubbly. "Ha! I'm Caroline, and I be eleven years young!" she exclaimed in a voice that made her sound like the cowgirl, Jesse, off of the movie Toy Story 2. "And this be my brother, Jasper." She grabbed the other boy, who looked extremely shy.
Jasper's hands were in his pockets and his hair kind of hid his eyes from plain sight. He didn't say anything. Caroline punched his shoulder. "He's just a bit shy, but he's the coolest guy you've ever done met."
"How old is he?" I asked her.
To my surprise, he answered for himself. "Fifteen," he said. I was shocked, mainly because I was about a foot taller than he was.
"Where are you coming from, miss?" Caroline asked in a loud voice.
I pointed over to the mansion. "Over there," I said. "With the Harmon's."
All of them gasped and smiled in amazement. All of them except Violet. She just kind of stared at me.
"Wow! That big ol' fancy house," Carolina said while linking her hands together and shutting her eyes. "I'd give a whole cow to live in a place like that."
"It's not all that great," I assured.
"It's probably lonely over there. Living in a big house in the middle of nowhere," Violet said. Just like that, she was smiling at me again.
I smiled back. finally, someone understood. "Exactly," I said.
Jasper walked up next to Violet. "We gotta go now." He turned to face me. "It was nice meeting you, Emily," he said. Tate and Caroline followed behind Jasper while waving goodbye to me. I waved back. Pretty soon, it was just Violet and me standing there, watching the others go. I looked at her, smiling awkwardly as she stared at me.
"So, you never mentioned how old you are," I said.
Violet chuckled. "I'm also fourteen," she said.
There were a few seconds of silence between us before she asked another question.
"I didn't know the Harmon's had another daughter," she said.
"They adopted us. My brother Caleb and I have been living with them for a month and a half now," I said, turning to face her. "Did you know their daughter?"
She shook her head. She walked over to a broken chair that I hadn't noticed before and sat down. I took a seat on the concrete, hoping that it was still stable.
"I've seen her around before, but not lately," she replied.
"What do you think happened to her?" I asked.
Violet sighed. "Maybe she ran off. Maybe she wasn't happy."
Before I could say anything, she started speaking again.
"I bet it gets lonely over there. You should join us here. They can't stick around too long because of their parents, but you're welcome to stay as long as you like," she offered with a smile.
Then it hit me. She lived here.
"Do you live here?" I asked.
She nodded proudly. "Yes, I do."
It seemed she was happy about that. "It's perfect for games like hide and seek," Violet said, looking past me. "It's my favorite game."
My face lit up with joy. "That's my favorite game too!" I said happily.
She looked at me before leaning her head back in the chair and staring at the sun that was slowly setting. "I'm glad to hear that," she said with a smile.
Chapter 9: It
There are different types of punishments that a parent can give a child.
There's the kind of punishment where you're sent to your room, times that you may get hit, times where you may get grounded. You may receive extra chores, might not be able to talk on the phone. I'm sure you get the point. My punishment for getting home around 10 pm was walking around the garden, guarding it from groundhogs or whatever was lurking around in the dark.
"If you like to stay out late, then this is the perfect job for you, dear," Mr. Harmon had said once I got home.
I sure was glad it was summer. As I walked around the garden and the glow of the full moon illuminated the ground around me, I started to think about all the fun I had today with Violet. We got along right off the bat and talked for hours about games and horror movies and even offered each other hide and go seek tips. I asked her to play, but she said no.
"Not today. Come back tomorrow," she had said.
I was really looking forward to tomorrow, but right now, I had to face walking around the garden looking for groundhogs. Mr. Harmon made it very clea
r to me that if anything got destroyed or went missing, I would water the garden for three weeks straight. Ha! Like I'd dare take Mrs. Harmon's job. There were over hundreds of flowers and plants and I never understood how she got around to watering them all in one a day. Too much bending down for me.
I didn't know how long I had to walk around the garden, but it had already been an hour, and I was pretty tired at that point. As I walked toward the mansion, I heard something shatter. I nearly jumped out of my skin. I looked around, glad to see it was no one. My heart was pounding in my chest and the loud thumping of it seemed to be all that I could hear.
I looked in the direction of the noise and, sure enough, there had been a flower pot that fell over.
"Darn." I'd be stuck watering plants for weeks.
I walked toward the pot, hoping it could be fixed easily, but when I got there, I discovered that it had been shattered into big chunks of glass. I stared at the huge clump of dirt with the orange flowers wilted over. I know it sounded silly, but I felt as the flowers were kind of mocking me.
I looked away from the flowers and looked around. I hadn't seen any groundhogs. There were never any holes out here for that, believe me, I would know. I developed a theory that there weren't really any groundhogs out here at all, and that Mr. Harfbarf just sent me out here for no good reason. I chuckled to myself a bit. Harfbarf.
Just then, as I looked at the dirt underneath the flower, I saw it. Was I just seeing this? It's nothing, I told myself. I'm imagining things.I'm not imagining. I froze, unable to breathe. My pulse sped up. My heart was thumping so loud that it actually hurt. Groundhogs were not responsible for this, and I was most definitely not alone. As I looked closer, I made out an actual hand print by the clump of dirt.
I tried to create a logical explanation for this fresh hand print in the dirt. The huge hand print. I couldn't of course. Suddenly, I heard a crackling sound. This sound was moving closer and closer to me. My gaze stayed glued to the ground, afraid of what or who I might see in the dark. When you're alone and it's nighttime, noises tend to be scarier than usual. You hear them, your chest tightens, and you become conscious of your own breathing; it's quiet again, but you're still on edge and your ears are pricked, and you hear it again, closer this time. You want to run, but your mind is telling you, just one look. See what it is.
Instead of running back inside, I slowly lifted my head. I shouldn't have. I should have just ran.
Right in front of me, in clear view, were two long legs. I expected there to be, you know, a stomach and arms and a face? A human being. What I was staring at was beyond comprehension and any logic. The air in my lungs was gone. In front of me were two legs, normal ones, but above all, it was a creature unknown to man. Standing and looking at me. Or... I think it was looking at me. It... had no eyes. Its abdomen bent all the way over to the right, twisting and moving around. The head of this creature had long white hair, brown rough shedding skin and a distorted face. A light shined out of its neck. The head hung low like it was broke, nearly hitting the ground. Know what else? This creature had one hand.
It started to moan. As it moved, I heard the crackling of its body and decaying bones. The hair moved in front of its face, so I had no idea where this thing was looking. What's creepier than being out at night with an eyeless creature possibly staring at you?
"This is almost as fun as watching you sleep," she said.
It sounded like a woman but more, sinister. I heard more voices as she spoke. My legs felt like noodles now but I made a run for it anyway. As I ran, her limp and bent over body chased after me, screaming words of hatred. She was reaching out for me with one hand. The words she spoke were in a language that was most definitely not English, a langue that I could not fathom. As she screamed, the bright light radiated from her mouth. I was so close to the door of the mansion. So close. But I was tripped by something. Or someone, I should say. Lightening cracked in the sky. When I looked up, I saw Mr. Harmon standing over me.
He had the biggest smile on his face.
Chapter 10: First Game
Mr. Harmon stared at me as I scrambled to my feet. I started pushing him toward the door of the mansion yelling, "Come on, she's coming!" However, he stopped me and turned me around so that I faced the now empty garden.
"No one is out here, Emily," he said.
She was gone.
He let go of me and placed his hands on his hips. "Boy, maybe this wasn't a good idea," he said, closing the front door. "Tell ya what. Help me take out the trash, and then you can come back inside."
He stepped aside, revealing a black trash bag. The back was bulging. It had a disgusting odor that made my stomach cringe. He must have seen my face expression change.
"Mrs. Harmon hates taking out the trash and I haven't got around to it until today," he said. I helped him lift and carry it around toward the back of the house. We placed it in a dumpster.
"Thanks!" he said. "Now close it and let's go."
I held my nose and placed my free hand on the lid of the dumpster. As I pulled it down, the bag twitched. I ignored it. There had already been enough craziness for today. And besides... it was probably a mouse or something...
***
The next day was normal with a pinch of boredom. Caleb was acting so weird this morning. He kept staring at me. Every time I asked him if he was okay, he didn't answer me. When Mr. Harmon would come into the room with us, Caleb would leave.
"What's up with your brother?" Mr. Harmon asked me.
I just shrugged. "I don't know. He won't talk to me either."
***
After I saw that Mrs. and Mr. Harmon were busy, I decided to head over to Violet's place. When I got there, Violet had been sitting on the broken chair with her head down.
"Hey?" I asked, hopping up the steps. "You okay?"
She looked up at me and smiled. "Oh yeah. Of course. What's up?"
I sat down on the rickety floor next to her. "Nothing. Just glad to get away from there," I said.
She chuckled. "Well, just make yourself at home."
"Where are the others?" I asked.
"Well, I told them not to come today," she said.
I stood up. "Oh, should I..."
"No," Violet said interrupting my sentence. "I just thought since you love hide and seek and I love it too, we should see who's better."
"Who's better?" I repeated after her.
"I mean, with the others it's just too easy. I want to see how good you are," she said.
I laughed and smirked. "Well, I'm pretty much a professional."
She raised an eyebrow then stood up. She walked toward the door, opening it. I walked past her and into the house. The place sure did look abandoned. Grey and black streaked across the walls where mold grew as the damp nights seep in. Flaking speckles of paint lined the floor with dust and the corpses of unfortunate creatures. The old, unused wooden furniture was rotting, stained with lichen while the curtains hung limp and moth-eaten. The air was still, heavy with expectation and anticipation as the building waited for one more life form to creak across the worn, wooden floorboards. It smelled of wet wood and moist air mixed with mold. It wasn't pleasant at all.
"It's not great," she said to me, "but, it's still home."
When she said that, I saw some sadness in her eyes that I couldn't exactly fathom. I mean, why was this fourteen-year-old living here? Where were her parents? I wonder if she even knew that this was Mr. Harmon's old house?
"It's also perfect for hide and seek. So let's get started?" she asked, walking toward me. "There are four floors. The first one is level one. When you pass level one, you may hide on the second floor. I'm it, so you go ahead and hide. I'll count to twenty."
Hide & Seek Page 3