Lavender Eyes (warning; includes mental health issues, violence, suspense)

Alaya wasn’t at all happy with her life. First of all, her dad had died in a car crash and it had hit her mother and her hard. Second of all, for Alaya that hit was depression. And lastly, her mom was going to lose her job as an Indigenous Site tour guide because younger, better workers were coming in.

Also have I mentioned the thugs of classmates that had banded together on Alaya and she had just barely gotten away from? Well, now I have.

Alaya by no means looked like she had problems; that morning she had chosen old jeans, a hazel shirt and her grey sweater to wear, but now those were pretty much destroyed. Her sweater was lost in the chase with the bullies, her pants had skid marks and there were leaves woven into her blonde hair. Luckily, she her hands didn’t ache as much as her knees, so Alaya had begun to weave out the leaves and knots from her hair.

Cars whooshed past her, inches away from the sidewalk. The loud noise made her cringe, since she assumed the sound was the last thing her father had heard. Alaya was limping slightly yet still tense, ready to run if her classmates caught up to her. She would run, even though her limbs felt heavy. The school therapist told her it was just her mind playing tricks on her, but it sure felt real.

Alaya’s days were numb, grey blurs these days. She could just lock herself in her room and refuse to come out, but she couldn’t bring that upon her mother. Her wonderful mom, who through the grief of loosing her husband had kept working, cooking, noticing Alaya’s problems and asking about her days. And what was Alaya doing? Moping along streets with wrecked clothes. And that’s when the cat came by.

Usually, Alaya would have just walked past it, except this cat came from a gap in the bushes, stopped right in front of her, looked deep into her eyes and let out a rasping meow. Then it turned and leapt back through the gap, blending into the shadows with its black fur and looked expectantly back at her. Alaya froze. That black cat’s eyes were a deep shade of purple, just like the soft teasing gaze of her father. They seemed to have his shape too, narrower than usual because of her dad’s Chinese grandfather. The cat was waiting, for Alaya. And before she could stop herself, Alaya followed.

The first discovery Alaya made was that the cat hadn’t come through a gap; it had come up a stone-tiled path that had been hidden by the overgrowing bushes. The second thing she found was the teal, crumbling two-story house that the path led to. It was completely surrounded by plants, and looked tranquil against the busy roar of the city. It also looked abandoned, and ancient. The cat kept going, glancing over its shoulder, and stopped when Alaya had stopped. “Mrow!” Alaya recovered from her shock and slowly followed. How could a place like this exist in the city? Wouldn’t the house be bought and made into a new building foundation by now? Alaya was glad it did exist, because for the first time in a year, she felt… calm. No weight on her mind; no more meaningless words from other people. Just her, the mansion and the father-cat. “MROW!”

“Alright, alright I’m coming!” Alaya grumbled, following the cat’s lead. It vanished into an actual gap this time, at the base of one wall, that also held a door. Which Alaya opened and stepped through.

The door led to a hall that led to a living room, which also held a kitchen and dining room. There were two doors down the hall; one for a bathroom and one a bedroom. Everything was coated in a fine layer of dust, and some walls were beginning to crumble, letting in light, plant tendrils and the calm feeling. Dove-patterned yellowed wallpaper peeled off the walls, and wooden furniture lay around in the different rooms; chairs, a table, seats, a couch, a bed, a bed stand, stools. A thick TV still sat on a TV stand in the bedroom. Alaya tried turning the TV on out of curiosity, and jolted when a static sound erupted into the air and the screen turned fuzzy grey.

Fiddling with the knobs, she got some blurbs of colour, but she truly figured out the problem when she un-bent the antenna and got an old tape playing. It was of a family, in this house. Parents and a baby, making a home movie on a camera they had just bought. The baby threw around soup, cackling gleefully as the father laughed and held the camera, and the mother tried to stop the disaster. Soon she did, only to have the baby tip over her plate and drink, which landed on him and caused him to cry. The father rushed over quickly, giving the toddler a hug along with the mother, who murmured comforting words.

Alaya turned the TV off, tears forming in her eyes at the sight of the happy family. She fell to her knees, which accidentally opened a cassette section in the TV, and a tape labelled “Soupnado” fell into her lap. Alaya was about to shove it back in and race out of the house when the front door was slammed open. Her eyes widened, and her instincts drove her into a corner of the room, behind the door before her brain could even react. She nearly stepped on father-cat, who had crept in through another hole. He let out a soft snarl, and Alaya quickly scooped him up to shush him. Thundering footsteps came down the hall, then voices. “So, this is the place? Where’s the recording?” “Just through there, Sir.” The footsteps came into the room Alaya was in, and as panic took her over the door slammed into her face and brought her to her senses.

Alaya grabbed the door and crouched down, using the piece of wood to hide her. The cat stayed quiet and tense in grip, tail lashing, ears down, and one paw over the cassette. Two men stormed into the room. A thin young one, wearing a black suit and carrying a suitcase, and a stoic square-built older man wearing a top hat, smoking, and with one hand over a gun at his belt. A gun. Alaya had never seen anyone with a gun before, except in books and movies. She didn’t even know if it was legal to be waving one about. A loaded gun, she guessed by the way the man’s fingers were positioned on the trigger. The first thing the older man noticed was the empty cassette section. He whipped around on the younger man. “Do you have it?” Though by his stunned expression, he definitely did not. “Well, where is it?” The man was yelling, screaming and Alaya crouched down even further. Her dad and teachers had never, ever yelled at her. I’m disabled mentally, the explanation from her therapist popped into her mind. No one should yell at me for suffering. Well, technically, this man wasn’t yelling at her, but he was yelling about something she had done. Did I? Alaya looked down at the “Soupnado” cassette. Who would want a happy home movie so badly?

Apparently, this old man, because he pulled out his gun and aimed it straight at the younger one. “Where. Is. It?” He hissed. “It was here this morning – I made sure of it. No one else knows about this place! You still need me! WAI---” The younger man's words were cut off as a loud BANG! echoed through the house. Alaya shut her eyes and didn’t move a single muscle. She heard a thud, the gun sliding back into the old man’s belt. He stormed out of the house, muttering about how there were others like him. Like the man he had just murdered? Alaya didn’t move for a half-hour after that. When she finally managed to open her eyes, she avoided looking at the body on the floor. The cat was still in her arms, and had snuggled with her in her terror, which she was grateful for. What she wasn’t grateful for was the crunch the younger man’s arm let out when she stepped on it. Alaya ran out of the room and slammed against the hallway wall. Her mind was a whirlwind of confusion and panic, finally registering what had happened.

She looked down at the feel of fur at her legs, and saw the father-cat rubbing against her. Alaya decided she would call the police, which meant looking for a phone. Though that was before she figured out that the only phone in this house was an old-fashioned sausage shaped one with a damaged cord and HECK, Alaya would NOT get electrocuted and be the second body on the ground today. So instead, she sprinted back home.

Alaya and her mother lived in a five-room apartment, that absolutely did not allow pets. But if Alaya didn’t have the support of her father-cat, she would absolutely collapse (and then maybe be too traumatized to tell anyone what she had witnessed)! Okay, maybe that was slanting the situation a little bit, but she did need him. Alaya fumbled out her keys and unlocked their front door on the fourth floor, slammed it open and ran to the stool where her mom kept her phone. Except it wasn’t there. Alaya slapped her forehead and groaned. How could she have forgotten? Every morning, her mom packed her own purse, Alaya’s lunch, took her phone and keys and walked her daughter to the end of the block. Her mom worked until 7 pm. And, one glance at the microwave clock told her she had around three hours until then, even with all the events. So, was Alaya going to call the police, feed father-cat and herself and solve this mystery? Nope! She was going to barricade herself in her room and wait until her mom came home.

Locking the front door, she dragged in father-cat, shut her blinds, and flopped down on her bed. Alaya then decided to spend her three hours coming up with a name for father-cat while untangling leaves from her hair.

She would name him after her dad (obviously,) because of his eyes, but she didn’t want to name him her dad’s first name (Tom) because it would just remind her of his death. She decided on her dad’s middle name (Jiayu) and not his last name because that was also the last name of Alaya and her mom. My mom. In all the chaos, Alaya had never thought about how her mother would handle Jiayu. They would have to move to a new apartment, and cat supplies plus vaccines totalled up to a… lot of money. Or maybe I won’t tell her. The thought was the first mischievous one that Alaya had had in over a year. Before she could stop herself she was imagining what she’d need; cat food, toys, a litter box and a cat bed, all in a kennel that she could leave Jiayu in for the day… but then she looked at the cat madly scratching at her door, and knew there was no containing him. Just then, the front door unlocked and opened. Her three hours were up.

Alaya shoved Jiayu aside, threw open her door and tackled her mom in a hug. Alaya’s mother, Sarah was wearing her practical black jacket underneath which was her work uniform. She had hazel, curly hair and light blue-grey eyes, which widened as she dropped her bag. Usually when she came home, her daughter would be in her room, staring sadly off into space.

Alaya’s mom spun around in confusion, which turned to joy as she returned her daughter’s hug. For once, Alaya’s pale lavender eyes were alive and happy, but there were also leaves scattered all around her room. “Did a hurricane sweep through there?” Her mom asked teasingly, and Alaya shrugged, responding with, “Pretty much.” It wasn’t a lie, because a little furry hurricane had swept through her room in the form of zoomines. Alaya opened her mouth, ready to tell her mom everything, when she saw how happy she was, how happy Alaya was, and it felt like a burden to talk about murder and terror. So Alaya stayed quiet, picking at her dinner while Jiayu somehow managed to stay quiet in her room.

That morning Jiayu walked her to school, and throughout the day she blasted through her work, her teachers awestruck that the quiet depressed kid who had barely managed to scrape together BE’s was now getting MA’s left and right. Alaya finished everything early to assess the school computers, so she could research what she had witnessed.

During three weeks’ worth of time, Alaya figured out that a company had purchased the house after its previous owners died suddenly, and then the records said that the house was destroyed, and the area was turned into a private park. Clearly this was not the case. Alaya dug deeper, also finding out that several companies were fighting for the property. This meant this fond little house was worth something. Or… something inside it was. The cassette. Alaya didn’t have a player for it, and they were expensive... She would have to go back to the house and use the TV. But did she want to? She finally had happiness and a clear mind! Would these feelings be erased like when her dad died?

She took the risk one day after school, Jiayu joining her after his afternoon hunt. Alaya pulled herself through the thick bushes around the clearing, not using the path since she was afraid the old man would be on it. When the house was in her view, Alaya waited twenty minutes before going inside. And when she did, she ran into the bedroom, forgetting about the body of the young man. Except there was no body. There was a space clear of dust in the shape of a human, sure, and footprints tracking through the grime, but all that was left of the body was a blood stain. Which meant that the old man had come back. And that he might again.

Alaya smacked the tape in and pressed play as Jiayu rubbed against her back, watching the doorway. The “Soupnado” cassette started up again. The family, the tantrum, the murmured words of comfort. Nothing caught her eye. Alaya watched it twelve more times before she realized she was getting nowhere. She shut her eyes and leaned back in frustration, only for her knee to brush the play button. She was going to open her eyes when Jiayu pressed his paws against her eyelids, and her hearing was enhanced. Laughing, concerned voices, crying, soup splattering, jingling – wait, what? Alaya opened her eyes and restarted the video. The jingling wasn’t coming from the background or the mom, or the baby. It was coming from the dad. In fact, cameras were sure to be expensive… Money. Of course. The whole world revolves around money… The coins and bills from so long ago must cost a fortune now! The companies were battling for the riches! And if the jingling was coming from the clothes of the father, they would probably in a wardrobe. The cloaks and coins. Alaya found the closet fast, and the man’s long black-gray cloaks, socks, hats, and underwear (which she didn’t touch). She watched the video again. The father was wearing a white cloak hinted with black, so she looked until she found it.

Alaya rifled around in the pockets, looked in every fold, and was about to search again when Jiayu tore the cloak off its hook. A silver key, along with a bagful of coins fell out of a secret fold near the sleeve. Alaya picked it up, her eyes widening. She had found the key. This was probably to a safe, one with money. Money. Me and my mom can have our lives turned around… I can just take a little bit… but it’s wrong! I should hand it in to the police… but mom… but…

And that’s when Alaya heard the gun cock behind her. “Hands up,” Rasped the gruff voice of the old man. Alaya raised them over her head, though she was clutching the key still. So hard her knuckles were white. “Tell me how you found those coins, and where the rest are, or a bullet goes through your head.” Alaya opened her mouth, eyes feeling with tears, ready to plea, to cry, when Jiayu leapt from the top of the door and onto the old man’s head, screeching. Alaya spun around, just as the gun shot. And a bullet did go through something that day.

Alaya clutched her throbbing, bleeding shoulder as darkness crept up on her. She fought it, forcing herself up. The man was thrashing around the room, trying to throw a furious furry blur off his head. He had dropped his gun, so Alaya hobbled up to him and thrust out her hand. She just needed to let out her pain and anger, but her fist landed on his jaw, causing him to fall, and Jiayu jumped onto her uninjured shoulder. Alaya had a split second to think, and she bolted out the door, or, tried to, because the old man was with another younger man in a suit. He looked ready to fight, but one punch from Alaya and a hiss from Jiayu, and he backed off.

And Alaya ran. She ran even though her left shoulder hurt, and Jiayu was clutching her right one. She had finally gained happiness, a friend, and a fortune that could be hers. Alaya held that thought as tight as she was holding the key.

She was finally happy with her life, and it was staying that way.