[IC] Midsummer Nights

[Ayesha]

"Are you okay?"

Nathan set up in his bed and looked at his two sisters. The were leaning close to him, with their little hands on his chest and shoulders, trying to make him lay back down on the bed. He had just come from the hospital, after a freak accident had him crying what looked like tears of blood. The doctor could not figure it out and in fact, he claimed it was not blood at all. He was dumbfounded. Nathan and his sisters knew the truth and the truth was far too scary for any child to comprehend. It was blood, or at least the illusion of blood. It was the Girl, the Ghost Girl, who made him cry the crimson tears.

She called herself Emily. She was always there. Even now, they could see the faded image of the little girl standing in a far corner of the room, not looking at them, but looking toward their bedroom door, as if she were listening to something. Emily wasn't nice. She said bad things about their parents. She wanted to hurt them.

"I-I'm fine," Nathan replied. Though how could he really be fine? He wasn't. They weren't. Emily slowly turned her head and gazed at him with dead black eyes. Her face was as white as snow. All she wore was a dirty, ripped nightgown that had once been white. It looked like she had been buried alive.

"What we gonna do?" Sarah whispered. She set down on the bed next to him, pulling her legs up to her chest. Julia climbed in next to her. She had a book that she was pretending to read, so that she did not have to look up and see Emily.

As if knowing Julia was doing this, Emily's face distorted until it looked like a mosaic panting of a little girl. Next thing Julia knew, her book flew across the room. Julia whimpered, burying her face against Sarah's side. Emily cackled, and then vanished from sight.

Even though they could not see her, her presence was still felt. Nathan shivered.

"Gene and Gav coming over? Sarah asked.

"And Lucy?" Julia added, quietly.

"I dunno, but I hope soon because there is power in numbers, right?" Nathan pressed his hands against his face. "You don't think she will really do the bad things she threatens?"

They just shrugged in answer, too afraid to answer out loud.

[emmyanne]

An annoyed sigh escaped the eight-year-old girl as Gene waited impatiently for her younger sister. "C'mon Lucy! Gav is already on his way over." Her voice echoed through the empty lobby that was the entrance of their rather large home. "Coming, coming." Lucy breathlessly sprinted towards Genevieve, her sweater hung loosely off one shoulder and her wild curls were a mess around her face. Another sigh, amusing in it's exasperation, made it's way from Gene's body as she grabbed her sisters arm an helped the poor child fix her clothes. "You're a mess, let me help you." After righting the thin sweater and helping the smaller child with her shoes Gene turned towards Lucy's hair with a look of disgust and pity. "Ever heard of a brush, Loo?"

The youngest Williams child scoffed and crossed her arms defiantly. "I don't need your help, I look perfectly fine!" Her thin voice was a whine that made her sister grimace. "Yeah right, just let me put it back in a ponytail at least." Without waiting for her sister to agree, Gene tugged the golden locks of hair that were on her sisters head back into a tight pony that rested on the top of Lucy's head. Several small fly-aways escaped the elastic and framed the little girls round face not unpleasantly. Despite the slight messiness, this hairstyle still looked one hundred percent better then the previous mane Loo had worn. "Now come on, Gavin's probably at the house already." Lucy pulled away from the tight grip Gene had on her arm and dashed back into the house. "Wait! I forgot my bear!"

"Lucy!"

Meanwhile, Gavin had made his way across both lush lawns and inside his neighbor's house. There was no hard and fast rules when it came to coming and going between his own household and the one of his best friends, so he didn't think twice about pushing open the heavy, yet beautifully carved, door and stepping over the threshold. His body as immediately hit but the chill that inevitably came when Emily was present. He could hear her faint giggled whisper eerily against his skin, sending chills down the young boys spine and causing him to walk faster through the house that he knew as if it were his own. Taking the stairs two at a time he didn't dare look behind himself because he just knew that if he did Emily would be standing right there with her endless black eyes and petrifying grin.

He shoved his way into the room where he knew Nathan, Julia and Sarah would be. They were lying on the bed, looking at each other with mutual expressions of fear that reflected in Gavin's own face. "H-hey guys." He murmured, taking two long strides and jumping onto the bed next to Nathan, all the while ignoring the faded figure who loomed in the corner. For some reason, this house was more haunted by this malevolent spirit, that isn't to say he hadn't felt her presence while at his own home, it was just that the feeling was stronger here. "How are you doing, Nate? My mom said you had an accident?" Trying his best not to glance over in the corner, Gav mumbled towards his friend.

Before Nathan could answer, however, a whirlwind of drama rushed in the room with Genevieve. "Sorry we're late, someone," she shot a glare to her younger sister who had booked it towards the bed and was no curled up in a ball, staring fearfully towards the corner. "Had to go get her stupid teddy bear."

"He helps keep her away!"

"No he doesn't!"

As if to validate Gene's response, the bear flew into the air suddenly and stayed suspended by the ceiling for several long moments before it landed lightly back on Lucy's lap. "Told you." Gene's voice held none of the contempt that she would have wished for and was entirely full of fear as she climbed up on the bed and looked towards her brother and her best friend. "How are you?"

"I just asked that, dummie!" Gavin retorted looking at his twin with furrowed eyebrows.

"Yeah well I'm better then you!" She dismissed her brother and stared questioningly at Nathan instead.

[Ayesha]

"He's been better!" Sarah exclaimed. "Something new is starting to happen with her. She made him cry bloody tears, but the doctors could not find a reason for them, even going as far as saying it wasn't blood, but some weird thing that would probably never happen again."

Julia looked up from her book, her face pale. "The doctors momma takes us to are nothing but quacks." She pushed her nose back into her book, trembling slightly, growing more cold the longer she pretended to ignore Emily. The ghost did not like being ignored. Not at all. At the moment, the five year old could feel what felt like icy fingernails running up and down her spine, not hard enough to cause marks, but they were a little painful and just made her so very cold.

"I can't explain it," Nathan said, smacking away Sarah's hands as his sister tried to push him back down on the bed again. "Stop it, Sarah. I can sit up."

Sarah sighed. "Dummy. If I bled in a weird place like that I would stay in bed for ages."

"Wait until you're about eleven," Julia whispered.

"Huh?" Sarah and Nathan said at the same time.

Julia rolled her eyes at them. She knew a lot more than the average five year old because she read books nonstop and her parents did not sensor the kinds of books she could read.

"LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME LOOK AT ME!" Emily popped in and out of assistance, each time coming closer to the small group of children. Nathan squeezed his eyes shut. Sarah looked down at her stomach, and Julia pushed her nose further into her book. It was bad, really bad when they made eye contact with Emily.

"Fine. You'll be sorry," Emily said in a sing-song voice, before she started to sing an eerie old fashioned sounding lullaby. Instead of the normal lyrics, she added different ones, about pain, and torture, and the things she wanted to do to them and especially their parents. "Don't worry, little children, Emily won't really do you much harm. This is just a game. A game. A GAME! Play with me!"

[emmyanne]

Emily's song floated through the air, making the dim bedroom horrific and causing fear to strike the six young children motionless. Gavin swallowed nervously when he saw several silent teas slip down his youngest sisters chubby cheeks and drop onto the teddy bear. Her eyes glistened with more tears that threatened to spill over and that would not be good. Climbing over the bed, and trying to avoid making any sort of motion towards the singing spirit. Gav sat beside the young girl and hugged her tightly. "It's okay, Loo. It's okay." His quiet voice was barely a whisper as they entire room stood still for several long moments.

With eyes squeezed shut, Gene tried to drown out the sounds and grasped hold of Nathan's hand in the process. It felt like hours, but could only have been minutes, before the sing-song voice quieted and the dark entity faded from view. Yet they could still feel her hallow eyes staring at them, watching them... just like always. "I'm scared..." Lucy's timid voice quivered with tears that she wiped away from her cheeks with the heel of her hand. "I don't wan't to play her game." Gene looked towards her sister with sharp eyes. "Lucy! Don't say that, if she hears do you know how mad she will be?" Gene's voice was a hushed whisper, growing louder bit by slow bit. "Sorry." Loo's quiet voice mumbled as she looked down at her teddy bear.

"Do you guys want to get out of here?" Gavin's voice, the voice of reason between that of his sisters, piped up. The dismal bedroom did nothing to help the creepiness that surrounded them almost constantly. "We can go outside to the playhouse and talk." The playhouse was a safe place, somewhere that Emily's fear didn't reach for some unknown reason. They talked there, about almost everything, and it was nearly the only safe haven the children had anymore. Gavin had drawn his knees up so that his chin rested on top of them as his blue eyes scanned the group quizzically.

"I wanna go." Lucy sounded timid as she gazed up at her idolized big brother.

"Me too..." Gene murmured, looking towards there friends. "I think I can feel her coming again." And that was true, from the shimmering grey shape that was forming in the corner. Her heart thudded in her chest as she scooted closer to the group an watched the levitating shape with caution. "So we should probably go now..."

[Ayesha]

The tree house seemed like it was yards away from the bedroom. Nathan stumbled out of bed, with the help of his sister and friends. He still felt a little weird after what the ghost had did to him, but he thought he was okay. At least the doctors said so. 'What do they know?' he thought bitterly. He threaded his hands through Sarah's and Julia's, a brotherly action that he did not preform much. He was a typical nine year old boy, who normally teased and tormented his sisters, but times had changed ever since She showed up. He loved his sisters, he truly did, so he would protect them with everything he had. Even if that meant sacrificing himself.

"The hallway seems longer than usual," Sarah muttered. She squeezed Nathan's hand and then reached out grabbing Gene's hand. They all huddled together as they walked down the winding hallway. Once, when she was six, she accidentally watched "The Shining", a horror movie. The hallways in the hotel were really creepy, kind of like the hallways in their huge house. She was half expecting the walls to start bleeding. Sarah winced at the thought, inwardly scolding herself for having such thoughts. Emily might read her mind and do just that.

"That's because they are," Julia said. "Emily is playing another one of her games." She stopped walking and squeezed her eyes shut. "Think of something randomly. Think hard." Sometimes, they could use the power of their thoughts to confuse Emily, or it seemed. It did seem like she read their minds a lot and did things that would scare them. Even for a ghost, it had to drain her powers when she was trying to read six minds at once.

Nathan thought of his due science project, Sarah thought of the time her family went to the zoo, and Julia thought of the last book she had read. Julia peeked one of her eyes open. It was working. Emily's illusion was wavering and she could see the hallway for how it was supposed to look.

"Keep thinking."

With a loud sound like a huge rubber band snapping, the hallway came back into focus, normal looking but still very eerie and quiet. "Now run," Sarah yelled.

[emmyanne]

Lucy eyes squeezed shut as he brain worked overtime to focus on her favorite colour, the long, endless hallway loomed around them as Julia's voice murured. "|Keep thinking" She thought harder and harder until finally the snapping around focused the hallway and brought the six young children back into the real hallway, which was only a little bit less creepy. None of them hesitated and soon they found themselves bounding through the halls, the pitter patter of their feet resounding through the empty house, fear churning in their stomachs. Lucy held tight to her older brother, letting him guide her through the halls as she kept her eyes shut tightly.

"Loo! What are you doing?" Gavin's voice was sharp as her mumbled to his youngest sister. "Keep your eyes open, watch where you're going, I don't want you to get hurt." Gav watched his sister's blonde head bob slightly as she widened her brilliant blue eyes and stared right ahead. It took them longer then they would have liked to weave through the maze-like hallways and finally burst into the backyard. The shock of their surroundings was immediate, coming from the dismal, damp house. Outside the sun shone brightly, causing Gavin to squint at it's glare. The air was warm, the grass sot underneath their feet as they continued to scamper closer and closer to the tree house.

It took them only several short seconds to clamber up the creaking old "stairs" that were mainly just boards nailed to the base of the tree. They creaked slightly but didn't give out as all of the kids made it safely into the homemade tree house, clamping the trapdoor unnecessarily behind them. "There." Gene's breathless voice said, looking her friends in the eyes as she went to sit in the center of what was just a small room. There were two windows, a small table that held an assortment of odds and ends that mostly took shape in the form of toys. The place was cluttered and small yet homey still the same. And it was safe... always safe.

"That was awful." Gene shook her head, her curls shifting slightly as she did so. "I don't think I ever want to come down from here." Her defiant voice muttered this as thin arms crossed over her chest. "It's too scary down there." The real world was a frightening place and the tragedy was that these children were learning this lesson, although not conventionally, very early. Too early, really. They should still hold high hopes for the safety of their lives and the world surrounding those lives. They should still hold on to that liveliness that all children had, a special kind of light that sparkled in their eyes and only died when your belief in goodness was tarnished.

"W-what now?" Gavin's stuttering voice piped up suddenly ater several minutes of contemplative silence.

[Ayesha]

Nathan walked over to one of their makeshift desks, though it was really a big piece of wood on top of two packing crates pushed close together. Sure, if they had asked, their parents would have got them a proper desk and it would have been way over the top. The children really liked finding things for themselves and that much was obvious to anyone who saw the clubhouse. The windows had curtains made out of ripped bedsheets and on the walls were murals the children drew themselves out of markers, crayons and paint they had stole from one of the groundskeepers shed. Well, in their minds they borrowed it, because truthfully the paint belonged to their parents. All the drawings were simple, animals, people, flowers mainly, but there were several odd fantasy creatures drawn by Julia.

On the desk were several notebooks, with childish scribbles of ways they imagined they could take down the ghost. So far none of their plans had worked. Most of their ideas came from movies, which turned out to be really dumb. Go figure. They had also started to write everything that Emily had done to them so far, trying to find some sort of rhyme or reason for the evil creature being in their lives.

A very common thing they all saw was that Emily liked to call them "little sister", or "big brother" when she referred to them, or she called "dear little children". How long ago had Emily died? Is it possible she had some sort of relation to them or to the houses they both lived in? Was she jealous of their sibling bonds with each other?

"It's likely that she is related to us somehow, someway," Nathan said. "If not by blood, than by something else."

"Yeah, but even if that is true, that doesn't give us any idea of how we can put her to rest," Sarah said, grumpily. "What has she got against us and especially our parents?"

"Do you think..." Julia stopped. No the idea was outrageous, even to her. But it would explain so much. She looked around at everyone, the color draining from her face. "Never mind, I'll come back to this train of thought once I see more proof." Julia nibbled on her lower lip and started to rock back and forth.

[emmyanne]

Gene, who was pacing around the playhouse slowly, started nodding. "I think you're probably right, Nathan." She mumbled, wringing her hands in front of herself before stopping in front of an old bean bag chair and flopping down into the worn seat. She placed her hands carefully under her thighs in an attempt to hide how they were slightly shaking. She never liked to appear nervous in front of the other children, especially her brother in fear of his mocking, yet playful, tone. "I mean, why else would she be here if there isn't some kind of reason. If she isn't related to us literally then there has to be something from the past that would link her to us..." Silently Gene mused this. "Do you guys think this is the first time she's done something like this?"

The room was silent for several long moments as the children thought this over. It was very possible that they weren't Emily's only victims, and if they weren't what had happened to those before them? Gene shuddered to think. "We should see if the old library at our house has any books or something..." She didn't suggest going back to Nathan, Sarah and Julia's house. That was too scary. "But we should go later, let's stay here for a bit." Just because their house was scarier, didn't mean that Emily's reach still couldn't be found where Gene, Gavin and Loo lived.

The smallest of the Williams children was staring wide-eyed at the ongoings. She hadn't so much as said a word since they'd come into the treehouse. Her round mouth was shaped into an o as her eyes darted around, unsure of what was going on. "Gene... Gav..." She whispered, her little lip trembling slightly as a single tear ran down her cheek. "I-I'm scared." Her voice was hoarse as she forcefully rubbed away the tear from her cheek, and wiped her nose on her sleeve. "I want my Mommy..."

"What, Julia?" Gavin looked curiously at the younger girl. "You kinda have to tell us now." He crossed his hands over his chest and raised an eyebrow inquiringly. "What are you thinking?" Gav, who had his legs crossed and was sitting in the centre of the room, beckoned his littlest sister closer to him. The young child had started to shake and more tears sparkled in the corners of her bright blue eyes. "It's okay, Loo." He murmured quietly, holding the girl closer to him. "You're gonna be alright." He gazed at the older children, Nathan, Gene and Sarah, and sighed. "So..."

[Ayesha]

Julia bit down on her lower lip. "I was wondering if Emily is not that old of a ghost. You know? Maybe she only recently died, or a few years ago. Who knows. She seems to really hate our parents and us, and likes to call us "children", "little sister, big sister, big brother" and so on.

"I'm just a kid and maybe I read too many fantasy books, horror ones at that, but what if she is OUR sister. Half sister, at least." She blushed, ducking her head in her book. She hoped they did not think her idea was too crazy. "I mean... one of our moms and one of our dads could be her parents?"

Sarah's face went pale. "Okay, are you saying they had an affair and killed Emily to cover it? But she is at least six, how did they hide her for six years?"

"She really seems to target our house more," Nathan put in, "so maybe she kept in a secret room."

"It sounds like a movie plot, not real life, but she's here, so she had to come from somewhere, right? And she has to have a reason for hating our parents so much and resenting us as well." Julia walked over to the clubhouse window and looked over toward their home. She shivered when she saw Emily looking out one of the windows, giving them almost what looked like a forlorn expression, for a split second, her child side peeking through.

[emmyanne]

Gene's face twisted into a mask of disgust. She refused to believe that her parents would do something that awful. "That's dumb!" She blurted meanly, crossing her arms over her chest and pouting. "My parents love each other, they wouldn't cheat." Defensively the little girl stood from her perch and walked to the window that overlooked the the house and frowned. Her parents were good people, or at least in the eyes of their impressionable young daughter they were. She was young an din't fully understand the concept of affairs, but she did know they weren't right and her parents never did anything wrong.

Or did they?

While Gene blatantly refused to believe the idea, Gavin found himself furrowing his eyebrows and nodding. As awful as it sounded, that was possible. He didn't like the thought of his mom and dad being unfaithful to each other but he couldn't deny the fact that both people could be a little unpredictable at points. "She really seems to target our house more, so maybe she was kept in a secret room." Gavin's head snapped towards Nathan, head still bobbing. "That is awful..." He sighed deeply, something deep in his stomach hoping that this couldn't be true. For as flighty as Caroline and Jared Williams were, they would never put a child in that type of danger.

Or would they?

Gavin slowly guided his younger sister off his lap and stood up. "It sounds like a movie plot, not real life, but she's here, so she had to come from somewhere, right? And she has to have a reason for hating our parents so much and resenting us as well." He flinched, a small movement that was barely visible. "You're right, it is a little outrageous." Gavin agreed slowly, he ran a hand through his shaggy blonde hair and looked over at Julia with troubled eyes. "But like you said.... there must be something tying her here, to us." He glanced out the window and shivered at the look in their tormentors ghostly eyes. There was something in those eyes that briefly reminded him of his mother, before the little dead girl's flickering figure vanished from the window. Once she was gone, Gavin mentally chided himself for even thinking that maybe Emily could have been his mother's daughter. He knew that none of their parents could have ever killed a child.

Or could they?

Lucy watched her brother with tearful eyes, suppressing the urge to run after him as he slowly stood up. "Maybe..." Gavin's voice was soft as he addressed the group. "Maybe she isn't our sister, but just a kid who died in this house and didn't have a very good life." That explanation made him feel better, yet not to the point where the pit in his stomach completely cleared. He didn't like to think that his mom and dad, the people who had always been there for him, could do anything so awful that someone's life could be lost in the process. Shivering slightly, Gav wrapped his arms around his body. "What do you think...?"