Friends

Warning: Extreme violence, blood, and child death. Read with caution

The house is cold. As usual.

Footsteps tip-toe down the stairs, and a small ‘ow’ echoes as her toes touch the tiled floor.

I watch from the shadows. Darkness blankets my pale skin like a cloak, or like a dark snow. My eyes watch. They always watch. Pink tinted and rosy, like the little girl’s cheeks.

She reaches up, taking a glass from the cupboard. The fridge is opened, a glass bottle of milk is grabbed, and the lid is plunked open. A lugging kind of sound echoes through the house as it pours, and I step forward, my face lit up by moonlight.

Crash.

The milk bottle explodes to the floor. The cup also follows, plinking for a second before deflating into a million tiny pieces. She stands still. Her arms shake ever so slightly. I step, sinking onto the ground.

She looks at me. “Who are you,” she whispers.

I don’t answer. I feel the emptiness in my mouth, the numbness of my tongue.

My blonde hair glimmers. She watches it. Slowly, she moves toward me.

I smile, sitting on the floor.

“Um, why are you here? How did you get in?”

I just spread out my pink dress, subtly getting rid of the previously red stains across my stomach.

“I’m Nora,” she says, holding her hand out. I put my arm out too. We shake hands.

A smile spreads across her face. “Are you cold?”

Nora gets up and walks to the kitchen. I slink back into the shadows.

“Where’d you go?”

;

She sees me next outside. I sit on her swing, going back and forth, staring at the ground. She walks outside, wearing overalls and a striped shirt. I still have my dress on.

Nora pushes me on the swing, laughing and talking. “I thought you had disappeared,” she said, her small hands pressing my back.

Later, we walked inside. She is talking still, mostly about school and the dastardly Wesly Anderson. “He stole my pink pencil, and then threw it at a tree! It got stuck up there, until this birdie I named Fluff came and pushed it down.”

Nora’s mom was in the kitchen. “Who are you talking to, Nora?”

“One of my friends,” she responds, pointing at me.

An eyebrow raises on her mom’s face. “Oh, what’s her name?”

“I don’t know, momma,” she says. “What’s your name?”

I take her hand and lead her to her drawing table. I grab a pencil and very slowly write out my name.

ROSALIND.

“Oh, her name is Rosalind. Is it okay if I call you Rose?”

I nod, smiling again. I can feel the mom’s eyes on me, or where I would be.

;

“Rose! Come on!”

I shake my head, smiling.

“Come on, it’s not that scary,” Nora says, putting her hands on her hips.

I look down at the water, watching it ripple as Nora treads water.

“Come on, Rose!”

I pinch my nose with my thumb and pointer finger, and then jump into the water.

I land in the pool, but my dress washes over me. I can’t get out. I flounder, scared.

I can feel Nora get scared. She swims over to me, untangling me from the dress and pulling me to the shallow. I gasp, mouth practically unhinged. She smooths back her hair.

“You good?”

I nod, splashing some water. Nora smiles and splashes some at me. We throw water at each other, and the whole time I watch the window, where Nora’s mom watches us.

;

I realize soon that Nora is a gifted artist.

I sit across from her at the craft table, smiling and hand on hips. She sketches my face, slightly lopsided but good for a 7 year old. Then, the watercolors come out. Nora colors my golden hair, twirling the brush. She outlines my eyelashes. My skin is a creme, almost white color. And lastly, my eyes are a light pink.

Nora’s father enters the room. “Hey, sweetpea. What are you doing?”

“Drawing my friend.”

His face flickers, happy-concerned-happy. “Who might that be?”

“Rosalind. But I call her Rose.”

“Rosalind? How’d you figure out that name,” he laughs, imagining a TV character named Rosalind that might’ve inspired her.

“Oh, she told me. Well, she wrote it,” Nora responded, pulling out the sheet of paper. It was written in smooth cursive, but still with a few swirly script letters sprinkled throughout. Not exactly something his kid could write.

“Did momma write that for you,” he asked finally, hands shaking.

“No, silly! It was Rose.”

;

Nora came home from school crying one day. I step out of my shadows, looking at my friend.

“That stupid Wesly Anderson,” she mutters, throwing her bag down and running up the stairs. She gets to her room and slams the door.

I float up the stairs, and then open the door.

She’s sobbing on her bed. I place a hand on her shoulder.

“He killed Fluff,” Nora whispered.

I think back to the golden bird she had described.

“Fluff was flying by, and he threw a rock. She went falling, and then, when she hit the ground, she didn’t move,” Nora puffed out, her voice raw with tears.

I don’t like when my friends are hurt.

“Then he-he picked her up and brought her over to me. He said, ‘Isn’t this your little bird friend? She looks a little cold!’ And then he threw her, and she went over the fence. Oh, Fluff, I’m so sorry,” she continued, blubbering about how sorry she was.

I knew then that I had a little trip to take.

;

I followed Nora to school the next day. She never saw me.

I walked into her classroom, and sat in the back. I caught eye of Wesly.

At recess, I walked behind Wesly. When he got outside, I whispered, “Go to the wooded area.”

He listened.

I walked after him.

;

A scream rang from the woods.

;

Students ran toward the scene.

Teachers not long after.

;

Children cried. Teachers looked shocked.

I found Nora in the crowd.

;

It was actually Nora that walked forward.

“...Wesly?”

;

Wesly, in question, was in the middle, shaking like a leaf. His eyes were rolling to the back of his head.

And then, for all the people to see, he split.

He split into pieces: head, torso, and limbs.

The blood that spilt floated to the sky, and a message was written amongst the clouds.

“No one messes with Nora Elledge”

;

The house is cold. As usual.

It’s empty too.

I wait in the shadows, imagining the drawings upstairs in the attic, of a certain Rosalind.

They left them here when they ran away. Nora never looked back. She never said bye.

It’s okay. I’ll get my friend back. No one leaves Rosalind Robinett.