Darkheart

The Past: Tooth & Claw

The boy! That weird boy--they'd followed him, and then he'd run off. Crystal had spotted him on the fringes of the crowd, beyond the lights of the revelers, and he'd been all alone, just standing there, looking into the people, strange and isolated as every time she'd seen him in the dining hall. What kind of parents did this child have? Why was he always alone? Negligence, that's what it was. She herself knew how to look out for someone--was used to all that with Jess--so she'd done the rational thing and gone to the boy, asked if he'd needed help.

He was only five or six, and he was pale and small. There was something of illness about him, his head like a skull that just happened to have eyes in it and his lips scarlet. Crystal had thought they were stained from continuous imbibement of the fruit punch in the dining hall, but when she'd approached him at the Maritime Festival, realized that the color hadn't changed. In any case he'd admitted he was lost, that he'd wandered off the resort and wanted to be taken back in. One look at the darkness of the resorters' stretch of the lake and Jeremiah had balked, but then he'd murmured that the wealthy, potentially notable people who'd birthed the kid might have some connections, and he'd perked right up, even insisted they do the job themselves when Crystal suggested looking for someone else to help.

They'd started off, left the safety of others, of life and light, and headed toward the resort road. In spite of their bold words, both Crystal and Jeremiah had exchanged wary glances under the moonlight, and when the kid insisted they go in the direction of the golf course, well, the red flags had gone up, Crystal had begun some excuse about going back, but then the boy had taken her hand, and something about his cold little fingers in her own--well, she'd been unable to refuse him. What followed had been a frustrating walkaround, back to the golf course and toward the snack shack, with no real goal in sight, and when Jeremiah had said they'd go back to the Maritime Festival, the kid had let go of Crystal and darted into the woods, making use of the "Path to Narnia." They'd followed, slowly at first, and then more quickly as Jeremiah's paranoia set in, and soon enough they were bolting pell-mell through the trees, no longer sure whether they were on the path or even if that boy were in front of them.

It'd all ended when they'd burst out onto the road and right into some solid form which was, at present, attempting to get to its feet.

"Oh my gosh, oh my gosh--I'm so sorry! We're--we're so sorry!" Jeremiah was the first to speak. "Please don't fire us!"

It was dark, but even Crystal could tell that whoever they'd run into, it wasn't an adult. She elbowed her friend, held out a hand to try to help whoever it was--a girl, she could tell by that long hair. "Are you okay?"

"It's fine. I'm--it's fine."

Crystal watched as the girl straightened herself out. The blue dimness allowed her to make some observations, and as the other girl calmed down, her features became a bit clearer. The crop top and shorts revealed a figure Crystal had found herself staring at more than once whenever she'd seen it in the dining hall; the pale aqua eyes in their heart-shaped face caught some piece of the scarce light. It was Heather Finn.

"She's just--it's Heather," Crystal told Jeremiah, her disdain clearer than she realized. "She works in the dining hall with us."

"I know who she is!" he chirped. "Thank you powers above!"

"Are you all right?"

The new voice startled all three of them, and they spun toward the exit, which was only about fifteen yards away, its opening onto the public lot a pale leaf-limned oval against everything dark around it. The silhouette moving toward them appeared unthreatening even in its obscurity, and yet it still put Crystal on edge, and she scowled as he arrived, though no one could really tell. "My sister isn't here," she mocked.