The Need Fairy

Palm Sunday

Just before Easter, Palm Sunday, Cleo ventured into the attic once more.

The meagre bulb that hung in the centre of the attic shed little light in to the furthest reaches of the house's highest room, so Cleo had taken to carrying a torch with her. She had found a box of old Marvel comics the other week and so was in eager anticipation of what might lie in the last box.

She carefully lifted the cardboard flaps back and angled her torch to shed light on the contents. A red and blue kaleidoscope, a shabby hardback copy of Alice in Wonderland, a handmade rag doll, a wooden train, Cleudo and a set of wooden letter blocks lay at the top, above equally inviting lower levels.

'Just what I wanted,' Cleo murmured.

A small laugh, a childish giggle, sparkled around the room.

Cleo slowly looked up from the box into the unfathomable blackness. 'Who are you? What are you?' she whispered.

But there was no more sound, only silence, deadly silence. Cleo had the same cold feeling as before, when she had heard the crying. She made her way back along the middle of the attic towards the welcomed light and space emanating upwards from the hatchway. All the while she was overcome with the feeling that something not quite human could at any moment reach out and grab her and she would somehow be lost to reality for ever.

Breathing heavily she shakily made her way down the ladder to the landing, where Tony was waiting for her.

'I made you some tea,' he said as his wife turned to face him. She was paler than he had ever seen her before.

'You look like you've seen ...' he didn't finish his sentence.

'Creatures,' said Cleo, taking the much appreciated mug of hot tea and beginning to sip it.

'I'll take a look,' Tony offered, feeling quite heroic.

Tony climbed the ladder and poked his head up into the dimly lit room.

He looked all around and was about to say, 'nothing here', when he saw a pair of small, bright, human eyes staring at him from the far end of the attic. Tony picked up Cleo's abandoned torch and shone it into the darkness. There was nothing there, but he too was now filled with the same sense of dread that had possessed his wife.

He climbed slowly back down to where Cleo was waiting for him, still drinking her tea.

'I couldn't find anything, but still, I don't think it would be good as a games room,' he looked into his wife's still frightened eyes, 'I don't think you should go up there anymore.'

Cleo did not feel inclined to argue about the matter.

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