Tantrums and melodramatics were not to be tolerated. I had earned myself a spanking and a day locked away in my room, made to lie on the same wet bed, where every time I closed my eyes, I was certain bloody hands would slip from some dark corner to strangle me.
Even after a sleepless night, even with the safety of the sun bright in my room, I could not find rest. It was too wet and cold, my blankets smelled, and I was ashamed of myself.
It was not until twilight that the maid came to change my sheets and dress me in a clean gown for sleeping.
She should not have bothered.
The tick-tock, tick-tock, tick-tock, of the grandfather clock crashed through the house so loud, so very loud I was certain the whole city must have heard that drumming.
Before I was fully prepared, before my childish prayers to Jesus were done, all went quiet.
Swallowing, I cut a glance where I should never have looked. Up high on the shelf, moonlight showing the perfect white fur, the rabbit had once again turned its head to watch me.
The woman was coming back, I knew it. She was coming and she’d figured out how to rip open my throat.
But then there was no wet slap of her sodden feet on the floor. No chesty, clicking breaths.
All was quiet and I began to breathe easy. It had just been a bad dream; the rabbit must always have been facing my direction. My papa was right; I was just a silly little girl full of nonsense.
I was so very wrong.
There were worse things than the bloody woman.
In the silence, I heard a pair of soft, childish giggles. Spider-like hands crept up the side of my bed, fisting my covers.
Something was under my bed!
With a terrible yank, my blankets began to be dragged under the mattress, the childish laughter growing mean. I tried to make a grab for my only defense, but whatever was hidden beneath me was so much stronger. In vain, I toppled to the floor. Before I might clamber back up, hands shot out from the dark space under my bed, encircled my ankles, and yanked my little body across the floor.
Next thing I knew I was stuffed under my bed, prodded and scratched by the unseen nightmare.
Unlike the evening before when I had kept silent, doing my best not to draw the red woman’s attention, I screamed. No one heard, no one came to save me. Scrambling to claw my way free, I fought and I kicked. My gown was ripped, white ruffles torn right off. I got myself to the nursery corner. Pressed my boney shoulders into the tasteful wallpaper and stared around the room, knees knocking together.
My arms smarted, my legs. I had been scratched so badly there were bleeding cuts all over me.
Then I saw them.
The first one leapt upon my bed and began jumping. The other took my sheet, threw it over his head, and ran about the room like a shrouded ghost. Two little boys... they were just two little half-dressed, emaciated boys.
Chortling as he bounded up and down on my mattress, the cruel-eyed waif grinned at me. His teeth had been filed into points, sharp and sinister. Looking at my wrist, I could see the bite marks those teeth had left behind—little puncture wounds that did not bleed much, but stung so badly my eyes watered.
His cohort was exactly the same.
The remainder of the night I spent pressed back against that corner. Sometimes I think the demented pair forgot I was there, or they had grown bored of me. They would play their vicious games. Turning their claws and teeth on one another, the scamps crashed about my room—knocking toys from shelves, breaking things.
When they would pull apart from their fighting, again they would turn their beady-eyed stare at me.
Snarls turned to giggles. In seeing my terror, the boys had found a new game to play. Trying to trick me, the pair of them worked in unison to sneak, to make a grab at my hands or feet, to drag me back screaming under the bed. My knees were bruised, elbows too, from all the times I had fallen trying to break free and hide from the pair of devils.
They were more cunning than one tired little girl.
After hours, I grew too shattered to fight back. Powerless, they took me by the ankles, and rolled my body in the sheets. Tangled in dark, I could hardly breathe. They were trying to crush me, giggling in their work as I groaned and begged them to stop stomping on my back.
When my nanny came to rouse me, I was still twisted in my blankets, crammed under the frame of my bed.
My room was a wreck. Standing meekly, I told my nanny that two boys had done it all. She did not believe a word.
I got the strap and no supper.