Emmeline, the girl in the storm

Poor Peter

Peter lay on his side, a little crack had split his head in two. It wasn't the most impressive crack, except that it ran through the sold bronze he was cast from. His fairy friends and all the little animals who danced about his feet and kept him company, had long since run away.

"Oh Peter," Emmeline said, sitting down next to him on the ground, "everything has changed, hasn't it?" Everyday for the last three years since graduating High School, she had walked past him on her way to work. Initially she'd marvelled at his delicate features and perfect design.

Eventually he'd just blended into the scenery on the path, and sometimes she didn't even bother to divert down by the Long Water to see him, she'd just stay on the main path and trudge her way to work. Those had been the bad days, when life had seemed so mundane that there was nothing in all of London or possibly the world, that could have reawakened her imagination.

When she was over her own misery, it was often Peter who woke her imagination again.

"Lovely little thing, isn't it?"

Emmeline jumped. Not just for fright, but for flight. She was back up on her feet in a breath.
The thin man was sitting still, on the upturned end of the bronze rock that Peter stood on.
His top hat was hanging off the edge of the rock beside him. Beneath the hat, his hair was awry, a greying afro of salt, and pepper, and more salt.
Emmeline narrowed her eyes on the top hat. "I suppose you are going to tell me-"

"That tonight is the night that children come to life and the elder cease to age?" He said, his voice spilling out into the air in the same wispy weak tones that it had when she first met him.

Emmeline didn't pause for any kind of pity or questions, she threw her whole body at the thin man, tackling him hard and knocking him straight off the Peter Pan statue, laying into him with her fists, one punch after the other. She didn't care if he turned out to be stronger, or if she got hit back, so long as she got her punches in. His flesh felt like a cold pulp beneath her knuckles as her blind fury allowed the hits to roll off with without any regard for anything else. Blood came eventually. Emmeline already knew these creatures of the other world were capable of bleeding. She knew they were capable of dying too.

The thin man lay bent across the rocks where he had fallen, conscious, but unconcerned with fighting back.

It only fuelled Emmeline's blind fury more. Here was the creature, whatever he was, who had somehow caused her grandfather's death.
And it was all the more poignant for the tears which had not yet dried on her cheeks. For the words her grandfather had spoken, for who he was and for how much he still chose to care about her.

The thin man laughed and spat out a mouthful of blood, to the side, not toward Emmeline, "The children have come to life, and the adults have ceased to age," he spattered out the words between choking on his own bright red blood.
Geras had died, and Emmeline had come to life. It was a horrible prophecy, riddle, or whatever it was when spoken from the mouth of this creature, whatever he was. Melekh had also died. As had Angula, Pythia, and many years ago, Erebus, and Emmeline's own mortal mother.
And this creature, he should have died too. But here he was, and unlike Melekh and Geras, he didn't disappear into nothing.

He remained, nothing changed.

Emmeline laid her fists into him again. He laughed more, and the white hot fury burned in her.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a rock, a bronze rock that was a shard of Peter's statue. It was in her hands, both of them, raised up about the head of this, creature, ready to strike down as hard as she could.

As hard as she could.

With her hands raised above her head, and the rain still falling, she looked down at the thin man, and saw a view of her own self, her ripped t shirt, and fresh blood spatter pouring down her chest as it mingled with the rain. And she hesitated.

And she dropped the rock, pushing herself up off the laughing creature.

"You should have done it," the creature said.

"I still may," she told him, bitterly, as she wiped blood off her lips with a shred of cloth. "But first, why did you do it?"

"Do what?" He still lay there, content with whatever fate came his way. Or, perhaps, like Emmeline, he was grateful of the rain pouring down from the skies, even if it was bitter and acidic, it still washed away sweat, and blood, and tears.

"My grandfather. Why did you kill my grandfather?"

He blinked, and pushed a stray clump of dreaded curls away from his brow, "I didn't."

"But-" Emmeline's anger dissipated like a balloon.

"I've done other terrible things, and yes, I did trash the house, but my speciality is finding things, not killing them for sport,"

"Finding?"

The thin man nodded, "Every creature in your world has a smell, a beautiful, sweet, bitter and precious smell. Delicious, tasty, delectable."

Emmeline shuddered. His words reminded her of another thing, a horrible creature Charon had taken her to in their quest to find it who she was, the Eater. A monster who consumed flesh with a ceaseless hunger. It had been Melekh's pet, and Melekh had done well to keep it contained.
The thin man however, did not have the same presence. Not in the slightest. He was similar, the same kind of monster that they all were. Perhaps, holding a rock high above his head, Emmeline had felt a similar hunger to the Eater also.
"What are you?"

He shrugged, "In human words? So many things, so many names, time passes and names change, words change meaning. You can call me Hyde."
"I don't want to call you anything, I just want to know what you are."

He sat up finally, and ran both hands down his face to clear off the blood, which was his own. He licked his thin lips with a dexterous tongue, and then let out a panting chuckle. "You will call me Hyde, eventually. And you can hate me all you want, because it was my son who killed your mother and your adopted father, so hate me all you want," he continued, but Emmeline stopped listening.

Suddenly, all there was was a little yellow bonnet, sitting on her bed.

A little yellow bonnet that her nanny packed in the suitcase to London.

The same yellow bonnet that hard burned in the fire at the hands of her grandfather when he found it and recognised it for whatever horror it was, or whatever horrible creature it had belonged to.

Hyde let out a long breath, "We all are easily sold and bought for a price, daughter of Melekh," he twisted his hands together, and Emmeline observed how hairy they were. "You were bred for a purpose, but my son was born for love. What difference did it make? Melekh killed my wife and took my son, many many moons ago. He used my son to help Charon find your mother and his father, and then he let my son wreck havoc. And then he killed my boy." Hyde shrugged and didn't break eye contact with Emmeline.

"Years later, he used me in the same way, but I didn't kill your grandfather,"

Emmeline hadn't even realised she was holding her breathe.

"Then who did?" She finally burst out.