Versailles

by Yannick Hill

  26

  scoutfan > forum > scout > scout thoughts

  Why does Scout wear sunglasses?

  Started by kitsuun

  kitsuun

  Is it just me or has Scout started wearing sunglasses, like, all the time? Ever since she showed up again she’s always wearing them. All through that interview she was touching her sunglasses, it reminded me of people who are hiding something, like when a woman gets beat up and she doesn’t want anyone to see she’s got a black eye, you know what I mean? Call me crazy, I just thought it was a little strange . . .

  catpeople

  Seriously I think you are reading too deep into the whole sunglasses thing. Celebrities wear sunglasses for fashion because it complements their outfits Scout wears them to look perfect and she looks perfect so why not wear sunglasses it looks cool. Last time I checked she was totally rich so she can do whatever she wants.

  neonlove

  kitsuun’s right though Scout always had the best make-up it was part of her personality plus she has the most beautiful eyes so take off your sunglasses Scout we wanna see your face girl for real!

  pr1ncess

  Hi, I’m new to the forum and so excited to be here! Personally I can understand Scout wanting to protect herself from all those people around her all the time, wanting to take her picture and talking to her. Maybe she doesn’t feel confident in her looks although I think she’s gorgeous I would totally understand that because she’s a human being like you and me and we all feel badly about ourselves sometimes, right? I know I have days when I don’t want to talk to anyone, when I just want to be by myself, have time to think. I might be a ways off base with this but I’m just thinking out loud I guess!

  catpeople

  There are no confidence issues with Scout, you’re crazy to even think that, pr1ncess. I don’t want to be harsh but you need to chill the hell out and listen to her music and then maybe you’ll lighten up and feel better about yourself.

  InnerFame

  First of all welcome to the forum, pr1ncess, we’re always happy to see new people on here and you’re obviously an intelligent person with something to say about Scout. You make some interesting points in your post and catpeople everybody is entitled to their thoughts and opinions so go easy on the new girl.

  pr1ncess

  Thanks InnerFame but catpeople is right, I don’t know Scout at all, I was just thinking out loud like always, that’s just me.

  catpeople

  It’s okay, I forgive you, pr1ncess ;) Any fan of Scout is a friend of mine xx

  ineedscissors

  I would wear sunglasses if I were high all the damn time . . .

  catpeople

  Scissors running with scissors once again. I thought your ass was banned girl. Why you always got to hate on Scout like that? An why you have to be so angry all the time scissors? Scout just wants people to be happy so why can’t you be happy? I hate negative people they make me so depressed sometimes it’s like kill yourself already!

  ineedscissors

  Scout’s not herself right now and you people are too blind to see what I see. She disappears for a year and now she’s back and everything goes back to normal? Fuck that shit. Did you even watch the interview with Scout? That was some creepy shit right there. Deep Sky? Say what? I saw that and I thought this girl’s either high on drugs or she’s spent the last year hanging out with some dark-ass cult. All I know she’s in trouble and you clones don’t want to admit it because you’re goddamned hypocrites and all you care about is the release date for her next album. I was listening to Scout right from the start, before this forum even existed, I was listening to her music and now she’s in trouble and she needs her fans more than ever. You know I’m right, and pr1ncess is right too, Scout’s a human being, start treating her like a human being because that’s what she is. Out.

  InnerFame

  Three strikes, scissors, three strikes. You know the rules.

  catpeople

  Stalker alert.

  ineedscissors

  Fuck the rules, Fame, and fuck you too. What, did I say too much, like Scout said too much in her interview? Fuck you, Fame. You’re probably one of them. You think just because you get to ban people from some random board on the internet you some kind of mini boss and shit? Well you’re not. You used to be one of us. I got nothing against Scout, you know that better than anybody, you know I respect her as an artist and love her music but why does that mean we have to pretend like she’s perfect all the time? Something’s going on with her right now. She needs our help. You call yourself a fan, Fame? You stopped being that the moment you became a moderator. For all I know your part of this cult that’s got Scout all brainwashed and shit. Go ahead and ban my ass, it wouldn’t be the first time but it sure won’t be the last. I’ll be back under a different name and you’ll have to ban me again because I’m not giving up till the truth comes out, and the truth will come out, Fame, I guarantee you that. I know who you are, bitch, I know what you represent. I’m on to you, Fame, all over you like a cheap suit.

  catpeople

  RIP scissors, you one messed up kid.

  InnerFame

  She’s gone now, gone for good. What a shame. And let that be a lesson to y’all. This forum is a fan forum and when we talk about Scout we do so with the respect she deserves. The people still standing are her real fans, you guys are her real fans because you know who she really is. I’m sorry you had to see that, pr1ncess, scissors always was one for conspiracy theories, it’s sad really. I hope she didn’t put you off visiting us again. The forum could use somebody like you, someone with a little sensitivity.

  pr1ncess

  No need to apologize, Fame. I’m just happy to be able to get to talk to other fans about my favorite recording artist. Her music has got me through some hard times . . .

  kitsuun

  I gotta admit the interview was a little weird, to say the least. I mean, come on, I’ll bet there isn’t one person on this board who hasn’t searched Deep Sky and turned up some dark material. You look hard enough and the same things keep coming up. I read they remove your eyes and replace them with uncut diamonds. That was just one thing. I don’t know if I believe it but it creeps me out all the same. Hey, maybe that’s why Scout wears sunglasses all the time! D:<

  InnerFame

  You want to be next, kitsuun? I’m not afraid to wield the hammer twice in one day.

  kitsuun

  What did I do?

  neonlove

  Let the games begin.

  InnerFame

  I don’t have to explain myself to you, kitsuun, but for the benefit of those not familiar with our ethos here @ scoutfan. This is a fansite, not a gossip site. We’re here to celebrate a great artist while at the same time respecting her right to privacy. Are we clear?

  Moderators. They were all the same, always making with the small-town power trip. But InnerFame knew something. Could scoutfan really be a recruitment portal for Deep Sky? That stuff about diamonds for eyes. River had to believe it was all nonsense. He had to because his sister . . . it didn’t bear thinking about. Whatever Deep Sky was, InnerFame was in on it somehow.

  He’d tried hacking InnerFame and some of the other members posting on this board and had mixed results. Most of these guys were just real boys and girls, fans of Scout with nothing to hide. InnerFame though. Like unknown_user, InnerFame was untraceable. A dead end. And dead ends made River very nervous. But he was playing the role, keeping it loose (no typos). He was pr1ncess, a sixteen-year-old girl excited to make some new friends on the internet. unknown_user may have won round one, but River was going for the knockout. Left-right-left-left-right.

  Anonymity was his art. Anyone could be themselves. But what was the fun in that? Being yourself was for amateurs. Being yourself was for suckers. Who needed honesty when you could have duplicity? River never felt more alive, more centered, than when he was pretending to be someone else.

  But this wasn’t a game. Thi
s was about River finding out what happened to his sister. It made him sick to think of her in the hands of some cult. He threw his mouse across the room and watched it smash into not enough pieces. He was wasting his time with this forum nonsense. He needed to get out of this room. Only way he was going to make a diff­erence was if he actually did something. No cops, unknown_user said. River cast his eyes around the room for something else to break. When nothing good enough revealed itself, River thought of something he hadn’t thought of in years. Okay, so it wasn’t going to help him find Missy, but maybe it would help him relax, get his head straight. River hesitated. Fuck it. He pushed off from the desk with both feet, sending the expensive office chair careening across his bedroom in the direction of his bed. Next to his bed was a safe. He held his thumb to the scanner, triggering a satisfying chunk sound that told him the safe was unlocked. He reached inside and pulled out a scrunched-up brown paper bag containing something soft.

  Here was the deal. When River was a kid and he got sad or upset he’d do this thing. He’d lock his door, set up Croc the dinosaur on the bed and dance at him. Basically Croc was River’s favorite soft toy and he’d had him since he was like, four years old. His name was Croc but really he was a pea-green dinosaur with purple tail spikes. He had one eye missing and his tongue sticking out of his mouth like a dog, but somehow he managed to look serious in his expression, almost like he was worried or something. Plus, Croc dropped these dino data bombs every time you squeezed him (Croc: ‘The heaviest dinosaur was Argentinosaurus, at over one hundred tons. It was the equivalent to 18 African elephants.’/ River: ‘Hey, I didn’t know that, Croc, tell me more.’ etc.). So anyways, River’s thing was to dance as hard as he could in front of Croc and try to make the dinosaur move somehow. Like a dance-off. And Missy was in on it. She’d walked in on River dancing at Croc one time (before his bedroom got upgraded, Fort-Knox-style) and from that day made her brother swear to text her whenever it was happening so she could watch. Actually, having Missy watch was kind of great because he loved to hear his sister laugh. The harder River danced at Croc, the harder his sister laughed till she was crying. It was in the trying that River usually started feeling better, forget about whatever bad was happening. But today wasn’t about forgetting. Today was about focus, getting his head straight so he could save his beloved sister from harm.

  River reached inside the brown paper bag for Croc and got his second big shock in twenty-four hours. This one was a body blow. It wasn’t Croc in the paper bag. Croc was gone. These were clothes, rolled up neatly and tied with a blue ribbon like a fat scroll. Embraceable Cool Nights Delicate Chemise from Soma. It still had the labels. Vanishing Edge Microfiber panties, also from Soma. River had never seen these items before in real life, only on the computer screen when he loaded up that random lingerie site for inspiration during the chat with unknown_user. Something dropped to the floor from out the lacy scroll. A white key. Old-world. Ornate. Wait. It was made of chocolate. A white chocolate key. A fancy label attached by a line of black thread, it read: byte me, the handwriting somewhat familiar.

  Heart thumping hard, River did as he was told. He ate the key then and there, and like it was only natural he chased it by holding the panties to his nose and breathing deep. They smelled brand new. This could only mean one thing. The knowledge gave him an adrenaline rush so complete he was ready to walk the ceiling. There was some-one in here with him after all, besides Money under the blanket. Someone stepped out of the internet and trolling him in real life, in his own home. His own bedroom. A room so big you could play hide-and-seek and win.

  27

  Versailles was her nightmare, the corridors and locked doors, and in her nightmare Leticia had a key for all the rooms. But this was not a dream, she had to find the monitor before he hurt somebody. Anything could happen. Louis could be dangerous, even if he didn’t mean it he might bite somebody and then they would kill him in cold blood. She called his name again but knew he wouldn’t understand, stupid lizard with no ears. In fact it wasn’t true, monitors were actually pretty smart, she read on the internet that they could count all the way up to six. ‘I’m sorry, Louis,’ Leticia said out loud, ‘I know you got ears, they’re just not on the outside of your head like other animals, but that’s okay, Louis, that’s okay . . . LOUIS!’

  She entered another corridor, walked slowly down the middle like she was on a tightrope, listening for movement. But how could she hear when Versailles roared like an ocean? About three quarters of the way along the corridor Leticia saw that one of the white doors was slightly ajar. That wasn’t right. Leticia knew all the doors by heart, and this one should be locked. She took a step back, nearly losing her balance on the tightrope. This was like her dream. This was like her dream and it wasn’t right, the white door ajar and she knew it should be locked tight, like all the other doors in this corridor, locked tight, white on white.

  Leticia suddenly felt very cold, the door was ajar but there was no light in the gap. She tried to move but she could not, it was all she could do to keep her balance. She closed her eyes and thought about her teddy bears, so friendly, so cuddly, so nice. She pictured them on her bed at home, her welcome party. Hi, teddy bears! She managed a smile in the corridor. She pictured them on her bed and all their faces. She thought about how she cut each label off after bringing them home from the store, cutting the fabric label with the washing instructions, real close to the stitching so the rest disappeared in the fur. That way the bear was born, that way it was her bear and nobody else’s. She thought of how they smelled, when she put her nose in their bellies! She pictured their faces looking up at her when she came in the room, all friendly and fluffy, waiting for her on the bed, ready to protect her from all the bad things in the world. Her smile faded in the corridor. The door ajar when it should be locked tight. But she knew she had to look inside this room. She had to go inside because maybe then the dreams would stop, maybe then she would have only good dreams, the ones about her home country, the green mountains of her childhood in the Philippines. She was very cold, frozen to her spot on the powder-blue carpet in the corridor, the door ajar and no light in the gap.

  28

  River turned his room upside down looking for this real-life troll (he wasn’t talking to Money right now). Scariest game of hide-and-seek ever. After working through his vast wardrobe consisting mainly of customized caped crusader costumes, River decided to get into his fencing armor, complete with rapier, to continue the search (better safe, right?). He looked in all the obvious places. Under the bed. Behind the black-out curtains. Inside the full-scale replica of the lunar landing module (so that’s where he left his chainsaw). Beneath the wooden structure of his indoor skate park. Nothing. WTF. He had to be here somewhere. How else could this shape-shifter have gotten to Money or switched out Croc for ladies’ nightwear and a chocolate key?

  River climbed the rope ladder to his tree house. He had his library up here, all his books and comics too. He had, like, ten e-readers, but River was all about the real books still, loved the smell and weight and all that good stuff about bendy books. The hard ones not so much, but, yeah, he loved to read and there was no sign of the troll in the tree house so he took his position and zip-lined back down into the ball pool below, the rapier between his teeth. Except for his long-lost copy of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Kidnapped and a bush knife disguised as a bunch of flowers, the ball pool was empty, so he took a token ride on his ghost train, just to be sure he wasn’t in there either.

  Casey had the ghost train installed after Synthea over-heard River request a ghost train for Christmas in his sleep aged seven. In reality, River was totally awake at the time and knew exactly what he was doing. In fact, River’s whole room ­– the climbing wall, lunar module, tree house, zip-line, ball pool, ghost train, tennis ball cannon – everything. All of that was post-Missy getting to go to the aquarium in the city with their mom that time. Next thing River knew he was sleeping on his sister’s floor for like a month while all
this epic new shit was installed in his room. An upgrade, his father called it (they called him Alt Disney). River never really saw the logic in the whole thing, but he was just a kid at the time, so . . . Besides, these kinds of developments weren’t uncommon at Versailles. It depended on their father’s mood. For months, life would go on as normal and then suddenly it was all go: white vans, men in fluorescent vests and plastic hats filing into Versailles’ service entrance, and then the listening at walls and doors as the work was carried out.

  These days the ghost train wasn’t scary so much as a way for River to relax, a throwback to the halcyon years of his shitty, anonymous childhood. River did a lot of his most productive thinking in the ghost train. But there was no troll in there either. Weird.

  River set down the rapier so that it was flush with the edge of his desk and stood with his fists on his hips. Time to say it how it was. ‘Hey, listen, mister, just so you know? I ain’t scared of you, not even a little bit. So you can carry on doing your thing, hiding out here or doing whatever you’re doing from a remote location or whatever, I don’t care cus I’m ready. I’m a black belt in Karate. That’s number one, but you should also know I’m working on a martial art right now of my own design that’ll fuck you up real special if called for, real subtle at first so that you think you’re okay for, like, a while, but two minutes later when you’re going to the bathroom and your arm falls off while you’re, like, trying to wipe your ass or something? Don’t come crying to me cus I warned you. This is my warning. You have been warned. Peace out, bitches.’