Muriel and the Monsters

Chapter 1.

 Bold colorful dresses swept across the floor of the ballroom, each woman who clad them seemed to float across the floor like a brilliant phantom wrapped up in silk. The men who guided them although graceful, seemed like clumsy and dimwitted apes compared to the angelic nature of their partners.

I caught my mother's disapproving glare from across the room. Her glare was the product of her realizing that I had yet to allow one of these well-groomed gorillas to attempt to lead me in a dance. Really, I saw nothing wrong with attempting to avoid the male species, and therefore public events, completely. Men often had marriage on the mind as well as... other things that often occurred between the female and male sex. Those were certain societal expectations that I was not completely alright with conforming to. However Mother never really did see my point. Although I am the last of my mother's four daughters to remain unwed, I am far from the youngest and as I continue to delay my personal courting by any and all male suitors her patience with me has begun to run thin. At this point, I think it's safe to say it's non-existent.

Her storming figure began a rather sped up march towards me ripping through dancing couples that seemed to ignore her as they were completely engrossed with each other. This is it, I'm going to die at my own mother's hands. How tragic, I'm sure the married off dimwits who gossiped in downtown would love to have something so truly tragic happen, something for those evil hags to talk about and twist into an unlikely story based loosely on the original events.

There has to be somewhere to hide from my mother's wrath. My eyes wandered the crowded room frantically, my eyes land on the only reasonable hiding place, underneath a long table holding barrels of brew and many cakes, pies and other sweets. I dove underneath it and hid behind the tablecloth using the holes in the lace as a peephole to view the raging monster that had replaced my mother.

" Miss Eleanor Delamere you get yourself up from underneath that table!"

She demanded as she marched directly towards my ingenious hiding spot, steam pouring out of her ears and fire burning in her eyes. I sent a silent prayer up to the Lord, hoping that by some divine intervention he would stop my inevitable death. Just as I was finishing a gloved hand appeared beside me as an answer to my prayers, offering me a chance to get away from the maddened grim reaper in a gown who was still frantically screaming my name. Quickly I grabbed at the hand without giving a second thought to whom it was attached. My savior dragged me out from underneath the table and suddenly we were running. People seemed to form one long blur as we raced past them. My breath became ragged as my gloved hero, who I now can see is a tall dark haired woman bearing a brilliant red and gold dress dragged me along. We sprinted down corridors upon corridors. The number of people we passed consistently lowering until it seemed that we were completely alone zooming down the hallways of my father's home. We burst through a pair of double doors. The cold bit at my skin as we ceased our running and took in deep breaths of fresh chilled air to fill our bursting lungs. The lady in red beside me burst into a fit of deep and musical like laughter, holding her stomach as tears formed in her eyes as if the humor in our situation caused her physical pain. Her laughter becoming contagious, I could no longer resist and threw my head back joining her joyful chorus of chuckles. I imagine to the outside world we appeared moderately insane.

"So Miss Eleanor Delamere," she said. Mimicking my mother own voice as she did so.

"May I ask why you were hiding underneath a table?''

"Oh, well, you see... I was hiding from my mother to be completely honest with you."

"Really?" The lady turned towards me with a cocked half smile and I was finally able to study her. She had a slender face with a petite turned up nose and perfect cupid bow lips, her long hair and hooded eyes were as dark as the sky surrounding us, an outstanding contrast to her flawless nearly translucent skin.

"Why would that be?" She asked coyly, interrupting my study session.

"Well she wants me to dance and I don't particularly enjoy the accompaniment of males, especially the boorish ones in current attendance"

Her smile got wider revealing her blinding pearly whites.

"Ah I see," she said making her way towards me. Her feet dragging as she closed the distance but not making a noise. With each step she took, we grew closer until she was able to whisper in my ear "neither do I".

My heart gave a wee flutter from having someone I dont yet know so close to me.

I couldn't help but feel comfortable around her but she was a stranger, wasn't she? I hadn't even asked her name, my lord how rude of me. Eleanor you dunce.

Taking a few step backs I worked towards correcting my mistake.

"May I ask your name?'' I voiced the words slowly and with an as much ladylike politeness that I could manage. Despite what my recent escapades may reveal I do enjoy semi-proper manners.

She raised her hand to her chin as if she was having an internal debate on whether or not she should tell me this trivial detail about herself. She dragged it out until the point where I could no longer tolerate it. I couldn't go on without knowing. Honestly just say it you wench! What's the point of forcing me to wait in agonizing curiosity? She seemed to have picked up on my obvious frustration in regards to the delayed introduction as she raised a single eyebrow amusedly.

Her smile momentarily flickered and she turned to me having made up her mind. She truly had taken her time as if introducing yourself should be some complex inner discussion.

"No"

No? Did she actually tell me no? I was just asking out of formality, I had no idea she would actually turn down the idea of giving up something so simple as her name.

"Wait-Why?" I ushered out, flabbergasted from her overly blunt and simplistic response.

She gave a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders as if that simple careless movement was to be the answer to my confusion.

"I'll tell you eventually I suppose." She remarked tiredly as she began to make her way down the dark hallway and back inside. I could've sworn the lights had been on when we had raced through these hallways just moments before. I tried to follow her but she seemed to have vanished into the darkness. The next half an hour consisted of me scouring the house in search for this ridiculous woman. My actions distracting me and leaving me perfectly vulnerable to a pair of harsh fingers which found my earlobe. Resulting in me being dragged by my mother up to my room where I have left the occurrences of tonight swirling in my mind like paint until they all became one muddled color that I could not decipher. I drifted into a difficult sleep with that muddled color on the mind.