Becoming Anne Again

Chapter Seventy-Four

A/N Hello my friends! I don't have much to say, I just want to check in and say that I love you and I am praying for you! Let me know how everything is going for you guys!

Time has a way of changing people. No one is immune to it; it is ultimately as inevitable as the changing of seasons. In fact, in many ways, it is exactly as the changing of seasons, each person moving more or less seamlessly from one chapter of their life to the next. How much was left from the previous season differed from person to person—some changes were small tweaks of personality, the result of just growing up, while other changed into entirely different people.

Anne didn't know Emily before the O'Keafe house. She had no way of knowing if once upon a time Emily had been a completely different person—if she hadn't always been cruel, if she hadn't always been the kind of girl who would press a knife against the neck of little brunette girls whose eyes were as wide as saucers and whose teeth were knocking together because she was trembling so hard.

Who Anne could know—on some level—was herself. Still, even then she didn't have a completely clear picture.

Was she recognizable as the seven-year-old girl who sat next to Mrs. Hammond on the bus, who talked too much and used words bigger than she understood, who said things like "scope for the imagination" and still believed in princesses who were rescued by princes and faeries who exuded light? Was she even like the eleven-year-old girl who had crouched behind the bannister?

In some ways, perhaps. But the change was not imperceptible. It was blaring, because what thirteen-year-old girl would stare at such evil right in the eye?

"Emily," she said, her voice calm, even if she was shaking inside, "put the knife down."

"Ordering me around? Seems like someone has forgotten their place," Emily replied in a sing song voice, her lips stretched in a toothy grin that still chilled Anne to the bone.

Esme opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out except gasping breath. Her entire body seemed to go stiff—she was hyperventilating.

Hannah was hyperventilating.

No, it was still Esme, but was the difference so profound? Was she just being forced to relive the same story, penance for failure?

No, not this time. This time she would win.

She set her lips in a resolute line, taking a step forward. "Leave her out of this." Idly, she tossed her own knife in the air, flipping it before catching the handle again, never breaking eye contact. "Just you and me."

"Aw," Emily crooned, "and miss out on being able to take two girls? Carrots and—" she glanced down at her captive— "doesn't this look like one of your girls? I thought she was dead? Chopped up?" she said, loosening her grip on the girl's neck to twirl Esme's hair between her fingers. It was like Esme was paralyzed. She couldn't move.

Somewhere behind Anne, she heard a cry. She didn't turn to look. She didn't see the crowd gathering behind her, the people of the house gaping at the house while Gilbert fumbled with calling 911, but she did see the red that was seeping out from underneath the knife as soon as Mrs. Blythe took a step forward. A shuffling from Samantha grabbing onto her—if Mrs. Blythe tried to grab Esme, Emily might kill her.

"You know what your problem is, Emily?" Anne said, keeping a level tone and forcing herself not to look at Esme, not to feel the fear, because she needed to be steady. "You were never that smart." Another step forward, and Tinisha was in her head again.