The Holly and The Ivy

Snow dusted the group of eight, four young women and four young men, all above the age of sixteen, yet below the age of twenty-two, as they moved up the sidewalk. For a walk owned by someone that no one had ever seen before save for a short glimpse under the moon, it was remarkably well kept. The snow had been shoveled out of the way, rising in an elegant little slope once it reached the edge of the concrete until it was the same height as all the other snow in the yard. There were also no footprints in the snow, as perfect as it had been three days ago when it had begun to fall.

Clara, the first soprano and also the leader of the group, ascended the dark cherrywood stairs, taking a moment to appreciate the grand wreath nailed on the door--the only sign that someone lived here. It was pine, not surprisingly, and woven in the boughs were holly berries and mistletoe sprigs. Then, she knocked. Softly the first time, not wanting to disturb the serenity of the scene. Then she remembered that had been their unspoken mission--a dare, really. But she wasn't doing it for the dare.. she wanted the inhabitant of this beautiful mansion to see that the world was worth coming out for.

Since she had been a child, she was completely obsessed about the mansion. Many of the children teased her about it, but the truth was most of them were more interested about it than they let on. So when she challenged her seven other friends to come caroling at the mansion, they had decided to join her. Clara smiled. She had argued for many years about who the owner was. Some believed it was an old woman who had lost all her children in a fire--the mansion showed signs of being in a fire, but had been expertly restored. Some believed it was a war veteran's house, the man too haunted by his past to be around the townsfolk again. But Clara believed differently, and this more than anything was why she was teased.

Her dreams... haunted by a man with hair like blood, soft blue eyes burning in the semi-darkness. Calling to her, beckoning for her to save him. "From what?" she would ask softly, lost in his eyes. And he would do nothing more than shake his head. She would wake up at that moment, drenched in sweat and her own tears soaking through the pillow. Her chest would ache.. though she did not know why, and her whole body would feel heavy, a breath away from what most would call soreness.

This was what she felt as she knocked the second time, much louder, but she did not notice it. An impulsive decision had her grabbing the door, ignoring the gasps behind her, and opening it. They had only wanted to try to get the owner out of the mansion, not go in after him or her. She strolled into the place as if entranced and began to sing. The others hesitantly followed suit.

The Holly and the Ivy,
When they are both full grown,
Of all the trees that are in the wood,
The holly bears the crown.

As Clara sang, she began to feel a pressure in her temples. She missed a few notes in the next chorus, the pain becoming too much to bear. Her friends stopped, listening to her and wondering what was wrong. But they knew better to ask; Clara would not stop singing until the song was done, no matter what happened. Or so they thought.

A scream from the right had them all turning, as the second alto and the youngest of the lot, Isabella, was taken by a figure in a huge, billowing black cloak. The scream cut off abruptly and she fell to the floor, one side of her body covered in blood. The group stared in horror, frozen to the spot, and the figure did not miss the opportunity. The cloak claimed another, a tenor this time, and now that there was not any screaming, the horrible tear-pop sound could be heard. The poor young man was flung to the ground, and the figure spoke.

"How dare you pretentious little fools come into my home! You should have heeded the village elder's warnings. Now you have to die!"

The rest of them collapsed, giant cuts over their abdomens. All except for Clara. Dazed and confused by the near lethal pain in her temples, she weaved back and forth, her eyes twisted in pain. She was oblivious to what had just happened. The figure moved up to her, about to kill her. But then he saw her eyes. It was not the pain in them that stopped him, it was the color. The deepest lavender, one that surpassed even the most beautiful lavender fields in France. A color he had seen in his dreams...

She fell, and he caught her, unsure of what to do. If he took her back his life would doubly be at risk, but he owed her that much for awakening him, he supposed. He knew he would not, could not kill her. She was not like the group of humans she had been with. But if she stayed here, there was no telling when she would awaken, and he would be vulnerable in the day. She might try to kill him. And she might run off anyway, still risking his life.

After lingering in the parlor for a few moments, he decided to keep her. It didn't matter what happened anyway... he would be killed, most likely, whether she left or not. Any average mortal would be able to figure out where she had gone, and they would be showing up on his doorstep within a matter of days with pitchforks and torches, finally having gotten the proof they had been seeking for so long...

But, the thing that had truly decided it for him was the fact that somewhere, she knew what he was, and she had come anyway. If she was to go back to the village, they would kill her for being a witch. Here, he could protect her.

He sat down next to her on the bed, stroking her hair gently. In his dreams it had been an unnatural green, but when he looked upon it now, it was blonde. It clung to her in clumps, and the worried man stood, leaving the room. He came back with a cool, moist washcloth and a bowl of water, beginning to mop the sweat from the poor girl's visible body. While he worked, he toyed with the idea of wiping the previous events from her mind, eventually deciding not to. He had wanted to, to save her from the pain of his brutally murdering her friends, but it would only hurt more if she found out later that he had lied to her.

The task was finished a little more than half an hour later, and Chayne went back to the kitchen to wash out the cloth and empty the water bowl. When he returned with a change of clothes for her, he made a very soft, almost inaudible sound of surprise.

"I see you are awake... Don't push yourself too hard, it was quite a feat merely for you to retain consciousness around me as long as you did. My aura can be fatal to humans, if I choose it, and though it was nowhere near that, I'm sure you must be absolutely exhausted, and in much pain."

He watched her try to focus her eyes, closing his and taking in a deep breath when she screamed out in frustration, the sound almost unbearable. And for the first time in over two hundred years, he felt sick, because he knew he would be hearing it again, only worse, when she found out what he had done. He turned, leaving the room after putting the clothes on the foot of the bed. As he reached the end of the hallway to the parlor, he heard the sound of her body colliding with the bed.

Chayne then began the task of cleaning up the parlor area. Why did he care so much about her? Why was he the only one that dreamed? These questions rolled around in his head until he finally willed them away, allowing the repetitive motion of scrubbing the floor to bring his mind to a pleasant state of numbness. Then, he went out into the gardens, where he had brought the bodies. He buried them all there, deep under the white rose bushes.

By the time he was done, he could see the beginnings of grey on the horizon. He sighed softly and went back inside to the library, sitting down at his desk to write the girl sleeping in his guest room a letter.

"Dearest Lavender,

I hope you find this. I will try to put it somewhere you will see it. There are questions you will have when you awaken, I am sure. I'm afraid I will not be back to answer them until sundown. I suggest you stay here until then. Your life is in danger if you do not. I promise I will tell you everything when I come back."

He stared down at it disdainfully. Hopefully he managed to express how important it was that she stayed, without terrifying the poor girl. He would not be gone, of course, but there was no way for her to know that... and to be in this house all alone, all day, thinking that she was going to die if she so much as stepped foot outside... He sighed, standing up and pacing a few times before folding the note into three even pieces and walking to the room where she currently slept. He left it on top of the pile of neatly folded clothes he had put on the bed earlier, then headed to bed himself just as the sun peeked its first few rays over the horizon.


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Hope you enjoyed.. This was originally going to be a RP topic for Gaia, but after typing ten paragraphs of back story and not being able to find some way to work in any role playing, I became very greedy...

I am completely open to constructive criticism. I also would like reviews, since I am liable to give up on it if I think no one is interested because I don't think I write that well.