Kathryn was free - for now at least. She had been planning this escape for the last three weeks, since the moment she'd heard that her mother was to host this year's winter solstice ball. It was the perfect distraction - everybody, even her impeccably gracious governess had seemed at least slightly stressed today. However, Kathryn could care less about the ball, she couldn't be bothered to try and understand why the adults caused such hassle in preparation of an afternoon of pompous introductions, awkward dances, and endless gossip. She shrugged her shoulders as she walked, perhaps it was the food.
Kathryn couldn't have brought a jacket with her when she had slipped off the stage and through the crowd in the hall, or she would surely have been noticed . She almost wished she had tried though, but she would rather bear the chill over the haughty stuffiness of the ball. She started to shiver as she continued her walk through the maze-like garden, relishing the serenity of the flowers and plants, the outdoors itself and the freedom of the vast, clear, dark sky that stretched out above her. Millions of stars, more than it was possible to count, resembled the millions of opportunities that she could explore, once she was old enough and her mother could not control everything from her daily routine and what she wore to each and every last breath she took.
She was content in this moment of freedom, and did not mean to waste it. From the balcony of her room above, the walk to the flowers in the middle of the garden appeared to be much less complicated than it was actually turning out to be. When she did eventually reach the embossed red flowers that had seemed almost to coax her out to the garden for what ever reason, she was entranced. The blossoms glowed in the moonlight, giving them an ethereal quality, further enhanced by the tiny snowflakes landing and melting to form an icy dew of quicksilver on the leaves and petals, and ghostly pale cobwebs that adorned the bush.
Kathryn decided that she had to have one. She sauntered around the bush, inspecting keenly, and when she finally found it, reached for the most perfect flower -and immediately recoiled. She'd received a scratch from the previously inviting shrub and now she was bleeding. Her blood matched the colour of the blooms exactly and she held her injured had closer to compare. She was so engrossed with the blood and it's flower that she did not notice that the lights of the ball had gone out, or the eerie silence that had permeated the whole mansion. She did not notice that the garden was more populated than it had been in the last ten minutes, or the decade before it. And most unfortunately she did not notice the complacent, but predatory steps that advanced towards her by the second, not until it was too late.
Fear had gripped Kathryn by the throat, and when she'd tried to let out the bloodcurdling shriek that had clawed up her throat it was instantly muffled by her captor. Kathryn took huge deep breaths of panic through the cloth that smothered her nose and mouth, the beautiful, dangerous blood coloured flowers her last image of that life as her consciousness slipped away.
