"Michael? John?"
Wendy sleepily lifted her head to the nursery window that was now wide open, blowing in cold air.
John and Michael were staring out the window as a shadowy figure starting circling around them.
Wendy quickly tried to jump out of bed, but her legs wouldn't budge. She tried to scream out to her brothers, but she couldn't make a sound.
The shadow lifted them up off the ground as John and Michael shot their sister a look.
"Why won't you help us, Wendy?" Her brothers simultaneously said to her.
"Why won't you get up and help us?"
She tried to scream and jump out of her bed, but she was numb.
The shadow then slowly took them out the window into the cold, London air.
Wendy felt a tear stream down her cheek.
Wendy woke up suddenly in a cold sweat. It took her a minute to remember where she was.
"Just another nightmare," she told herself as she tried to calm down.
Wendy had the same reoccurring nightmare ever since she moved in with the Becketts. After that night.
That absolutely awful, life ruining night.
"WENDY!!!" Wendy sighed as she heard Mrs. Beckett call for her downstairs.
She pulled the pillow over her head and buried herself into the covers, hoping she would disappear.
"WENDY!!!"
Wendy groaned and threw the pillow to the other side of the bed. She glanced around her room at the mess of clothes lying on the floor and her mud-stained boots drying on the windowsill from the rain the other day. She stood up and pulled on her usual, dirty white t-shirt and overalls. She hated how stereotypical she dressed since she did live on a farm.
She rushed down the stairs and was greeted with the sound of Mrs. Beckett's opera music playing on her record player.
"Well, it's about time your lazy arse got out of bed! I hope you do realize you aren't a guest in my house!"
Mrs. Amelia Beckett was probably one of the funniest looking people Wendy had met in her life. She would dress in huge, colorful ballroom dresses every day and never left the house without a full face of makeup. She would always wear the same red lipstick that would always appear on her teeth when she smiled a full grin.
Today, Wendy noticed that Mrs. Beckett was wearing her bright purple dress with a blue cap on her head. Wendy knew all too well that this meant Mrs. Beckett had an audition today.
Mrs. Beckett aspired to be an opera singer. She would go to auditions at least five times a month and would always wear the same outfit. However, she never got a call back for any of her auditions. Not surprisingly since, according to Wendy, she sounded like a dog getting run over repeatedly by a car. Wendy would never dare tell that to her face though and she tried to be as supportive as possible.
"I'm very sorry, Mrs. Beckett." Wendy replied, "I must have forgotten you had your big audition today."
"Yes, you most indeed did forget my audition today." She spat at Wendy, "No matter. Nothing, not even your laziness, can make me in a bad mood! Now, make me some breakfast! I'm famished." Mrs. Beckett cooled herself off as Wendy nodded and walked over to the refrigerator to grab eggs.
"So, how do you feel about today?" Mrs Beckett asked.
"I honestly feel like today will be beautiful." Wendy said as she glanced out the window at the sunshine rising over the hills, "Not a cloud in the sky."
"Not about the weather, you young buffoon!" Mrs Beckett yelled, "About me!! My audition!"
"Oh, right." Wendy said as she flipped the eggs in her frying pan, "Well, I'm sure everything will go just as you want, Mrs. Beckett."
"I know it will!" She excitingly explained, "I just know it will!"
Wendy cringed as she started to sing along with the record playing in the living room. She tried hard to just focus on her cooking, hoping the eggs would cook faster so Mrs. Beckett could eat and stop singing.
Wendy glanced outside as the sun shone brighter, giving signs of a new day. The window showed her the acres of farm land and woods the Becketts owned in the small town of Ramsgate. The fields were a beautiful green on the summer morning with flecks of different reds, blues and yellows from the wild flowers. The animals grazed over them and walked freely on the land.
"I wonder what it'd be like to just go any place you choose." Wendy wondered to herself.
Wendy wished to be like them, to wander about care free, doing as they pleased. However, she knew that no matter how far one of the animals went, they always came back. So, in a way, they were somewhat like her.
"WENDY!"
Wendy awoke from her thoughts and the spatula in her hand flew from her hand onto the kitchen floor. She picked it up from the floor, and regrettably realized she burnt Mrs. Beckett's breakfast.
"You foolish girl! You dumb, foolish girl!" Mrs. Beckett yelled as she stormed over to the stove and gasped, "Wasteful! So incredibly wasteful!"
She slapped Wendy across the face, causing Wendy to fall to the floor in pain.
"I know you did this on purpose! You want my audition to be ruined, don't you?"
"No, Mrs. Beckett. Of course not!" Wendy whimpered on the floor.
"Go outside and help Mr. Beckett with the yard work!" Mrs. Beckett steamed as she took the frying pan from the stove's flames. "I'll just make the best of this." She angrily spat as she took the eggs and started scraping off the burnt parts.
Wendy quickly got up and walked outside. It was very warm, the comforting kind of warmth that doesn't make you sweat and want to die from heat exhaustion. She inhaled the summer air and it never surprised her how much different her surroundings smelled from when she lived in London.
London.
Home.
"Oh, hello Wendy."
Wendy turned and saw Mr. Beckett carrying a wheelbarrow full of hay towards the barn. He let it fall to the ground and slapped the dirt off his hands.
"You're up pretty early!"
Mr Beckett was an older, skinny man, much older than Mrs. Beckett. He told Wendy the story of how he loved his wife from the moment he saw her in college. He was a teacher at the time when Mrs. Beckett was a student. He even remembers what she wore the first time he saw her. Mr Beckett always made sure to mention they never officially dated until she graduated, for obvious reasons that could destroy his reputation as a teacher. Mrs. Beckett always told Wendy she just married him since he came from a wealthy family, but spent all his inheritance on a farm since he loved the country, and Mrs. Beckett hated him for it. Fortunately, for her, Mr. Beckett did have enough money to pay for Mrs. Beckett's opera auditions.
"Hello, Mr. Beckett." Wendy replied, "I just woke up early to make breakfast for Mrs. Beckett's audition today."
Mr Beckett's smile grew wider at the sound of his wife being mentioned, "Oh, yes! Her audition is today!" He walked closer to Wendy, "I picked some apples and blueberries earlier today and put them in the fridge. You know, just in case..."
Wendy had almost forgot. Every night, when Mrs. Beckett would come home and her audition was a failure, she would always eat a pie all by herself and sob on the couch until she fell asleep.
"Yes, Mr. Beckett. I'll make some dough as soon as she leaves for the day."
"Thank you, Wendy." Mr. Beckett smiled.
Mr. Beckett was always kind to Wendy, except when his wife was the topic of a conversation. He took her side no matter what and everything she did in his eyes was perfect. He did lose his temper often when he would not be feeling well, but he never laid a hand on Wendy.
"So, Wendy," he exclaimed as he put his work gloves on, "What could I do for you?"
"Mrs. Beckett asked if I could help you with something outside today."
"Oh, that Mrs. Beckett." Mr. Beckett exclaimed as his cheeky grin came back, "Always thinking of her poor, old husband."
"You're not old, Mr. Beckett." Wendy exclaimed with a smile.
Mr Beckett laughed as he struggled to lift the wheelbarrow by his feet.
"May I?" Wendy asked as she gestured to the wheelbarrow.
"Oh, well yes. Please. Thank you, Wendy."
Wendy lifted the wheelbarrow and headed towards the barn. She took the pitchfork hanging from the wall and started throwing hay from the wheelbarrow into each of the animals' stalls. She then milked the cows and brushed the horses' manes. Then, Wendy filled the pigs troughs with food and made sure Mr. Beckett remembered to water his plants. She then took a stroll through the orchards to take a breath before making Mrs. Beckett's pie. The apple and peach trees smelled divine as Wendy strolled longer through the fields.
"Wendy."
Wendy spun around at the sound of her name. No one was there. She looked ahead of her and still no one.
"Hmm," Wendy said to herself, "I guess I'm just hearing things."
She continued walking until she heard the whisper of her name again.
"Alright, who's there?" Wendy yelled, "Its not funny! Come out!"
She looked through the trees, remembering how the boys of her town would terrorize her when she was younger, giving her awful nicknames like "Wobbly Wendy" and "Wendy the Puffy Haired Troll."
Unfortunately, Wendy never found anyone in the orchards. She figured she must have been dehydrated from the morning's work and headed back to the house.
As she was waking back, she saw a shadow from beneath her feet that knocked her to the ground. It lifted up and into the air, then vanished. Wendy sat there, staring at the sky, dumbfounded.
"Wendy?" Mrs. Beckett stared at her on the ground outside of the house as she was getting into the taxi.
Wendy pointed to the sky "Please tell me you just saw that."
Mrs. Beckett stared at her like she lost her mind.
"Mrs. Beckett, you had to have se-"
"Wendy, dear. Why don't you go inside?"
"But-"
"Go inside. Now."
Mrs. Beckett gave her a glare that could kill as she stepped inside the taxi cab. The cab driver drove away and down the hills towards the city.
Wendy still sat there stunned. She knew that shadow seemed familiar. The voice calling for her. She knew she had heard it somewhere. It wasn't her hallucinating or daydreaming.
Then she remembered.
Day dream.
Dream.
Her nightmare.
The shadow.