Demon Stories

Cheol: Pity, 1876, England

Cheol

Pity

1876, England

I do not yet know what attracts the red flame rose to children. Perhaps her heart goes to them, or cries for them. Perhaps it is a pity. 

She wants the ones who do not have homes. Only those. Maybe if they do not have a family it is better. No one is sad that way. No one at least, except for her. 

This is a part which I do not understand. If to eat these causes her to weep, why have them? What drives this sweet creature to destroy the world's most innocent, the ones who were abandoned so young and have nothing? If any other were to prey on these most innocent I would think a bad opinion of them, but this one is a mystery, for I can not have a bad mind for her. She would not take if there was not a reason. This is but a mystery which does not seem to have a light.

Out here in the dark of night, while the red rose one slept, I had seen a beggar child up the street by the hat store who had been asking of the ladies who came out for small cash in an equally small voice. I had spied him more times as I had done coal runs with the boys. Over the horse's hooves on the cobbles and over the noise of the coal cart it had even been hard to hear the boy's tiny voice as such: "a small coin, please, a copper one, a little one, please Miss, have you spent it all? Have you gotten one from the till? A small coin."

Now this night, as the red rose spoke with her friends at the house, I had slipped out as I was good at doing. She would notice me gone, but would assume I was up to something of my own desires. She would not suspect how I was going out for her, to bestow a gift. This was not something she was used to, as she was used to be treated as something not very valuable. But how she deserved such gifts. She did not realize how much of a treasure she was to me.

I was dressed in a fine suit which one of her friends had tailored for me. Oh such wonders people were capable of. This particular friend had been a tailor in a former life, owning such a shop and even having a few in his employ. But he had been driven out of business by upset former clients who had discovered his particular affection for ladies garments. Luckily for him, he had been the tailor for the red rose and she took pity on him for he had discovered her secret when tailoring her clothes and showed no unpleasant reaction. For this, she showed him the way to the home of the man where we were staying. 

Now this man who owned the house was not an ordinary man by any means. He was an old fellow, perhaps of seventy or plus years, and in his former life he had been the wife of a coal deliveryman. Being sensitive to individuals as like himself, the man had opened his home to those like him in need. This way, we had secured places in his home along with four others. It was perhaps a boarding house, but he did not call it as such. He did not accept payment, you see. However, we tried to make things easier on him by bringing home groceries or making dinner, and I had developed a sudden interest in all things coal in order to make things easier on him as he did his job delivering coal. For this the red rose was very grateful, and I wanted to do everything I could to please her.

Dressed so finely, I strode out of the house confidently and slipped a cigarette into my mouth, checking from side to side for passerby. There seemed to be no one about, even though it was only late evening. As I descended the steps, however, unfortunately I heard familiar footsteps behind me in the foyer of the house. Steps which should have been masculinely heavy, were they not femininely soft because of the lady creature who possessed the feet. On the steps I paused gentleman-like and waited for the heavy door to open.