• The girl stepped leisurely out of her yellow hearse with red and blue racing stripes; her flouncy, bouncy curls flashing purple in the waxing gibbous moon. She looks around, her eyes full of comprehension of the disillusionment of the night and the horrors it can unravel. A wolf howled in the distance, a shot was fired, and the moon bleeds, but the girl did not move nor did she make a sound as the sheriff bustled past her and his deputy followed close behind him. She tilts her head to the side as the new experiences cause her to be in a state of wonderment. The girl smiles as she pulls down upon her necklace and closes her hand around the pendant and begins to walk toward the House on the other side of the street. A House blackened by years of fires and blackened by the many years of hate and prejudice, it seems to say ‘heal me’, yet no one will. The grass passes beneath the girl’s feet, the dead leaves crunch under her vintage black military boots, and the wind dances about her body causing her short, lacy dress, which mimics the moon’s blood, to swish and whip gently around her. She giggles and smiles as the wind dances and passes her by and a single black butterfly landed softly upon her ear. Soon the townsmen are running passed her with pistols and shotguns in hand, their faces spoke anger and their guns spoke death, but she just smiles and waves at them as they pass. The streetlights flicker, on off, on off, on off, on off, on…off…on…off…on…off, the lights die and the streets are quiet once more. Her footsteps pad gently along the concrete and whap the ground as the girl begins to drag her feet in the earnest distaste at returning to the hate and prejudice covered House. The boots scuff and leave parts of their rubber soles behind as the laces began to loosen with each whapping thump against the concrete. It comes closer, the House comes closer, and closer into view with each and every hesitant step the girl makes. A figure stands upon the blackened porch of the House with arms folded with one hand upon the forearm of the other; the legs are shoulder width apart with a look of disapproval upon its face. The girl approached cautiously, knowing that she had committed a crime against the House by leaving and knowing the punishment for such disrespect for the rules of the hate covered House.

    “Anastasia!” The figure booms from the porch, its hands moving to its waist as it waits for the girl’s attention, “You know the rules, Anastasia, no going out at night, it is exceedingly dangerous…especially for you.” The figure’s voice is condescending with a false output of superiority. It moves forward, stepping out from the darkness of the porch and into the light of the streets. The figures eyes are black with a black sclera as well, its lips are black but not by lipstick, and its skin is of an old ivory dolls whose ivory skin has grown old and dirty with black lines scattered throughout its visage. Its eyes move from side to side as the light reveals its gradual change from black to a dark gray at the very edge of the sclera. The figure stepped further out, revealing its black skinny jeans, red collard shirt, black and gray vest, black cravat, and black, tailored sports jacket; the figure is a man.

    “Father Lukus, please forgive me for my transgression against the House.” Anastasia spoke humbly while lowering her head in a sign of sadness over her transgression. Slowly, Anastasia lowered herself down upon her knees and place her hands upon the ground with her eyes closed and head faced towards the ground. No one is around as the figure called Father Lukus walked steadily down towards Anastasia. He walked towards her with his eyes shinning in the artificial light of the city; when he reached her, as he reached her, he looked down upon her and stood with his hands at his sides. Father Lukus’ face is void of emotion and his stare is death upon the skin.

    “The House wishes to know what you were thinking.” Father Lukus’ voice spoke softly as it spoke with the voice of the House. “The House is unhappy that Anastasia left without permission, the House demands retribution for its sorrow that was caused by you.” Anastasia’s eyes’ winced as she felt Father Lukus’ cold hand hovering above her head, poised for danger.

    “Tomorrow is the day that I will go out into the city during the day time.” Anastasia spoke in a bold tone of calm. “I only thought that it would be best for me to go out a little bit early so as to not seem as a scare to the general public, Father Lukus…House. I supplicate your forgiveness of my ignorance and mal-thinking.” Father Lukus smirked before he placed his hand on Anastasia’s head and the House’s conscience transferred into her. Anastasia stood up, her eyes blank as she walked past Lukus’ frozen body and into the House. Father Lukus’ would awake by dawn and teleport into the House before he was seen by the…humans. To be seen by the humans, especially for a zombie, such as Lukus, to be seen by humans, meant certain annihilation. When Father Lukus would walk into the House that morning, he would find the House full of bustling maids who ran to and fro from one end of the House to the other while gathering up different items for Anastasia’s first day outside. Father Lukus looked around, his eyes searching for the tale tell signs of the House’s presence inside one of the many maids, but the House is not in one of the maids nor is the House in the plants, nor could the House be found anywhere except for within the very fibers of the House itself… Father Lukus was disappointed.

    “Pray tell, where is Anastasia?” Father Lukus inquired in his mock tone of civility towards on of the many maids. The younger maid looked about startled before curtsying low and replying with a short, ‘in her room, sir’ and continued on her way. Father Lukus turned around slowly, his black eyes and old ivory face still only reflecting the calmness and serenity of still, unmoving water in a powerful lake. He stalks around inside the House from room to room, making the maids close the blinds before he enters and when he leaves they open them again. It is not that the sun would hurt him, the light would not hurt him, nor would the air or water, but the humans would… Father Lukus’ sister had gone outside when she was six years old and had been stoned to death out in the streets. It had taken the humans of the outside world only two minutes to falsely assess that his sister was a threat to them, only five minutes to completely mutilate and burn her remains, and only one minute to leave it in a crumpled mess on the streets… Anastasia reminded Father Lukus of his sister, they would have been the same age had his sister lived past that day and although both his sister and Anastasia were immortal beings Anastasia is not a zombie like his sister, like himself. Truthfully, Father Lukus knew not what Anastasia was for she is not like the House that stole its energy from the humans living inside; she did not turn into a wolf on full moons like Jonathan, though she could shape shift at will; she is not overly dramatic and although she can do magic is not a witch, wizard, or warlock. She is an overly brooding question in Father Lukus’ mind, a tick burrowing into his undead skin and crawling along in his empty veins and throughout his organs. Sometimes he would stay up at night and walking around the neighborhood pondering it. Halloween is the safest time for him to go outside when everyone only saw him as a man in a costume.

    “Father Lukus, think no longer on Anastasia’s person for she is not for you.” The House’s soft, cool voice echoed inside of Father Lukus’ mind like a wind through the trees at evening. “At this moment you need to be thinking of more important things than any one child or any one thing for at this moment there is great discomfort brewing outside against Me and the time will soon come when you, and you alone, can tame the beast called Jonathan…I know you two are friends.” The House left Father Lukus’ mind and all became still as Father Lukus felt the gravity of the words still hanging in his mind like ornaments on a Christmas tree. His discomfort grew as he heard Jonathan revving the engine to his 1950s motorcycle, though it is a small gesture, and from past conversations with Jonathan, Father Lukus knew that it meant more. It is a warning to Father Lukus, a warning of danger…humans were gathering outside the House, humans with fire and hate and a prejudice against old, rickety, black Houses.

    It’s a well placed hate, Father Lukus thought to himself in the silence before the storm, in the past there have been stories about black, rickety, old Houses attacking people and turning into a human, which then held all of the people inside it inside its stomach where the people burned and died. He heard one of the maids go outside to see what the angry, prejudice filled, House burning crowd wanted…a shot ran out, the maid fell to the ground. Slowly, Anastasia entered the room; her eyes somehow were shinning with a horrific light. When she spoke it was in a strange tongue, in a strange voice that Father Lukus did not know or understand. She turned and stared at him blankly, the House is not inside her. Anastasia walked slowly towards the window and after looking blankly back at Father Lukus before opening the shutters. The movement of the window opening caught the crowd’s attention and they all stared angrily at the window, yet Anastasia’s blank face continued. Her pink eyes flashed sweetly in the light that bounced off of them from the sun and her purple hair bounced as the wind rushed past. She leaned out the window, dangerously outside the window, and the crowd rushed to catch her as she fell, dropping their fire upon the dew dressed ground…their anger was gone, replaced by a genuine fear for her safety. As soon as it was seen that Anastasia was alright and she had thanked each and every one of them for saving her, the crowd left and Jonathan returned on his 1950’s bike…

    There is a House, all blackened with age and the many fires people have set to it. There is a House, all blackened with age whose floor is made up of bodies covered by carpet, covered by new floor boards, covered by rugs. There is a House, all blackened and old, on the corner of a street out in a field which is owned by no one but no one can buy it. There is a House, which sits alone in the middle of a field which pays girls and boys to come and take care of. There is a House that sits alone in the middle of a field that no one can buy, which pays girls and boys to come and keep its secrets. There is a House which pays boys and girls to come and keep its secrets, a lone house in the middle of a field that no one can buy, that is blackened with age and the many fires the locals have set to it…at least, that’s the story that everyone tells. But the girls and boys who exit and enter the house to clean and wash and take care of it have a different story to tell. They say that it is black from the pain of the butler who lives alone with his twelve year old daughter. The real house owner has died and is buried underneath the house as the owner’s final resting place. The boys and girls say that the butler and the owner were best friends, which is why the butler wears a black cloth over his body…to keep people from seeing him crying. And he blocks out the windows when he is in a room because the sun reminds him of his friend, who is dead. His daughter came later, however, she came in a yellow hearse with a driver who gave her the keys and ordered a taxi. His wife apparently died and sent him their child, their beautifully innocent child, to him to take care of… That is what the boys and girls say.

    “Hey Doll!” Jonathan yelped from across the way, his voice is booming like a wolf’s or bear’s, but all the same he is heard from the middle of the field. Anastasia smiled at him and waved him over but he just shook his head and made the sign of death across his throat. “Why don’t you come over here?” Jonathan yelped again with a friendly hand motion to come over. Anastasia began to walk across but was stopped at the edge of the house, unable to move her blue polka dotted dress swayed to a stopped and her matching blue shoes refused to move. Spinning around, she pouted at the House and the House pouted back. Turning around she shrugged her shoulders and freely walked to the edge of the sidewalk that runs around the perimeter of the field, her yellow hearse parked leisurely across the street in the parking lot of the grocery store. The House had compromised but would not let her step onto the sidewalk or any closer.

    “The House won’t let you get any closer, huh?” Jonathan knew about the House from Father Lukus but all that he knew was what everyone knew and that is that the House is a dictator who told people what to and to not do. “Well, daughter to Father Lukus, what is your name?” He spoke sarcastically, unlike the other locals, he knew that Father Lukus was not a father and had never married and so he could not have a daughter.

    “Hello Jonathan, father has told me SO much about you.” Anastasia spoke sarcastically back, her hands gradually going to her hips and her eyes flashing from pink to a dark gray in the sun. Jonathan stepped back startled at the change of color and shivered at the thought of the hidden power…Jonathan knew about hidden powers for he is a bearer of one as well. “How many cats did you chase last night, Jonathan, I heard that several cats were found this morning torn to pieces, the locals are saying it was a lone wolf come down from the mountains but whose to say. Not to mention…the mountains are eighty miles away and the cats were not eaten.” She did not ask the question but Jonathan knew he had picked the wrong fight and that he had been beaten…by a girl whose eyes scared him.

    “Forgive me Miss…uh…Miss Lukus.” Jonathan stuttered and scuffed his boot into the ground while his eyes looked down upon Anastasia’s blue shoes. Anastasia smirked happily as she held out her hand for him to shake, and carefully he looked up and shook her hand gently. “I am glad that you forgive me, Miss Lukus.” Jonathan had run away from home many years ago, he once had lived with the rest of his clan, but due to ‘differences in beliefs’ he was kicked out and the mark of his clan torn from his chest… Jonathan always wears high fitting t-shirts with a sports jacket and jeans worn over his black cowboy boots. His hair is slicked back like those 1950’s rebel boys and a small curl left upon his forehead.

    “When we are better friends I shall tell you my name.” Anastasia spoke calmly through a teenager’s voice of happiness as she reached up and poked Jonathan’s lone curl. “I am still yet a child.” Jonathan smiled and nodded, ‘yes, I know’ he whispered. “And you are an adult.” Anastasia continued. Jonathan nodded again, ‘yes, I am.’ Giggling, Anastasia flicked his forehead and skipped childishly away, her sunray colored dress bouncing and flouncing about her small frame. Jonathan watched her go and knew that he could never step on to the property no matter how much he went against his old clan’s teachings. Wincing he touched the massive scar on his chest that he is constantly hiding…only Father Lukus knew of the scar and that is how Jonathan wished to keep it, a secret.

    “Yes.” Jonathan whispered after Anastasia after the pain in his chest had left him. “You are a child.” He waved at the House who glared back, the House is not to be won over by a petty wave or happy thought; one had to prove their allegiance to it. The House is one of many Houses, one of many houses whose history is twisted between legend and the words of the boys and girls who work inside them. A red House resides four blocks due south of the black House, the red House resides between two businesses and its maids and butlers are paid few in many a pity penny. The Houses are the different clan’s meeting houses, the main house, where the head of the clan, the chieftain, resides. Suddenly, a figure caught Jonathan’s attention. There, standing in a window on the second story of the house is a man. The man is dressed in a black collard shirt with a yellow cravat and vest with a black overcoat, but the man’s eyes were black and the sclera black as well. It is not Father Lukus for this man’s hair is a sunray put upon a man’s head and his skin is perfectly white porcelain with no cracks or smudges.

    “A beautiful man, isn’t he?” A man’s voice spoke up behind him, an authoritarian voice and Jonathan turned to see him. The leaves crackled underneath Jonathan’s feet but the man is not touching the ground nor could one see his feet. His body is slowly disappearing and he appeared as a ghost before Jonathan. The man is dressed in a red overcoat and collard shirt with a yellow tie and vest. “Yellow is the mark of our tribe, as you already know, but within each tribe there are many clans. We may stand as one but our thoughts and beliefs differ and stray like many streams running away from the same ocean. I am of the red clan and that beautiful man there is of the black clan.” Jonathan looked into the stranger’s eyes to find both the sclera and pupil only one singular color, just like the man’s in the house and just like Father Lukus’, only this man’s were red.

    “That may be, but Tribe Yellow and Tribe Brown have been at war for many a century, so what gives a man of the Yellow Tribe-Red Clan the authority to speak to me, let alone converse as though there is a war between us?” Jonathan spoke coldly while his suspicions rose. Quickly, he looked back at the house but the man with the black eyes is no longer in the window and the room is empty. Pictures hung upon the walls, pictures of people dressed in yellow with white eyes and yellow hair, pictures of people laughing and smiling. They are family pictures, Jonathan guessed, but whose family? The man from the Red Clan began to speak again, jolting Jonathan out of his daze.

    “Unlike the Yellow Clan, the rest of us do not see fit to take part in a meaningless war that does not profit either of us. Besides…why would you care about such things as war, rumor has it that the Prince of Brown Tribe-Green Clan disbanded and grew his hair out long due to a disagreement with his father and the other head clan members, but! What would I know about such things…? In other news, although that man is beautiful, I have seen a more perfect specimen within the House’s perimeter…the young and every maturing, Anastasia.” The Red Clansman spoke softly as though it were a rumor. “What I wouldn’t give to get her to join my Clan, why, she could add such power and authority to my Clan that I would not have to worry about finding a new town for quite some time. But, of course, I would need the power of a White Tribesman in order to do so…and we all know how hidden they are. They slink through corridors and hide themselves in a human façade.”

    “Yellow Clan?” Jonathan had heard about the Yellow Clan. Rumor had it that it was the original clan but when the last Prince turned twenty-one and gained his true, everlasting power, he split with his parents and founded the Black Clan. It is that very prince, Jonathan thought, who had given me the courage to leave my home, but after the Yellow Clan prince left many of the other Yellow Clansman dismembered but when they went to go and find the new Black Clan they could not find it. So they began their own clans and now there are four clans: Yellow Clan, Black Clan, Red Clan, and Blue clan. “So you think that Anastasia is this all powerful White Tribesman that you need? I doubt that, she is a child, she said so herself. Members of the White Tribe just don’t’ go out and make a fuss, they like guessing games and puzzles; they like to hide and make you seek them. Members of the White Tribe hide themselves and only reveal themselves to those who they find worth…Anastasia is out in the open!”

    “Our information is not affirmative, but from our leads she comes from the town just north-west of here which was where many of the old White Tribe members lived for a time.” The Red Clansman smirked about his knowledge and flicked back his brown hair with his red leather glove. The Red Clansman’s hair is long and held together in girlish ringlets. “However, we found little if anything there except for a few people who mentioned having seen some strange people in rainbow colored hearses selling their houses and moving away.” The silence filled the air as the two men refused to speak. Both watched the second story window for the figure but it did not come back. A maid ran by, followed by a second who quickly closed the blinds. A lone wolf howled from miles away and a single bird sang sweetly in the weeping willow by the House. Neither of them moved as each considered the position of the other and to each the position of thought changed with the wind that could not decide which direction to sing today…north? South? East? West? No matter what the wind could not decide.

    “You should join me, Jonathan.” The Red Clansman spoke softly as he disappeared into the street. “Just come to the red house four blocks to the south and I will have one of my servants greet you and another one of my servants will I reside in to talk about OUR plans for the future of both Tribes…” Jonathan smiled and half considered the offer that the Red Clansman had made to him as he looked at the house with eyes clouded by a feeling to deep to describe, and slowly, he touched the scar on his chest. It did not hurt, but it is over his heart and his heart is telling him of danger to come. A low growl escaped his lips as he sounded his warning to the mysterious danger around him; suddenly movement caught his eye as the window is opened once again, the curtains drawn back. “…and don’t worry about Father Lukus, we will not hurt him.” The figure reappeared in the window, its eyes were sorrowful as it slowly motioned for Jonathan to step onto the property. Anastasia appeared next to the figure, smiled, and waved jovially before disappearing through the open doorway. Soon she is skipping out from the front door and the figure in the window watched her with steady, unmoving eyes. The figures eyes never moved from her, its black eyes seemed to be concerned about her as she headed towards Jonathan with her dress flouncing about her and her eyes pink and jovial.

    “Come into the house with me, Jonathan.” Anastasia spoke with an outstretched hand. Her smiled did not disappear and her jovial appearance did not change, and once again Jonathan looked at the figure in the window. Somewhere in the back of Jonathan’s mind there is a twinkling feeling of remembrance, somewhere at some place, Jonathan had seen the figure. Why am I only remembering this now, Jonathan shouted inside his mind, why can I not remember who the figure is! “Come Jon, come into the house with me…its okay Jon, you will be safe, no harm will happen to you.” Her smile remains and it is then that Jonathan noticed her eyes… They were pink earlier…or was it blue, green maybe, Jonathan asks himself inside his mind. Anastasia let out a sigh as her hand began to sag with the weight of gravity now taking his toll upon her childlike arm. Smiling quickly, Jonathan took Anastasia’s hand in his and together they strolled up to the House.

    The figure in the window did not move but continued to watch them walking and talking to each other. Its eyes became cold once Jonathan could no longer see them, and it straightened its cravat and vest with agitation. When its objects of interest could no longer be seen, the figure stepped away from the window, walked carefully across the wooded flooring, and stared blankly at the red flowers inside the yellow vase that had been carefully placed upon the tall, black stool. The flower had been a gift from the figure’s brother and the vase a gift from the figure’s parents. Soon the door opened down below and among the busy footsteps of the maids and butlers came the sound of steady footsteps heading up the stairs. The footsteps draw closer and closer to the figure still standing there, and still staring at the single red flower inside the yellow vase upon the black stool that resides beside the open door. The figure moves his hand and closes the door, it wants them to open it themselves; it wants them to show that they are unafraid to come into the room. The seconds pass by. Minutes pass by. The ebony door handle finally begins to twitch and shake, but it does not open. No one comes in. The door is not open. It shakes again, twitching violently but still it does not open.

    “A polite guest knocks upon a strangers door for who is the guest but one who was invited into the house, therefore, a guest must knock upon the door before entering therein.” The figure spoke genteelly and smoothly through its stone lips. Its eyebrows raise and it pauses from looking at the red, red flower to look at the door. Seconds drew their circles upon the corpse of time. One, two, three, four, five circles, seven, eight, nine, ten circles upon the corpse yet the door continues to wiggle and jiggle and never open. The figure sighs. It does not understand how unclear he could have been; maybe they just didn’t hear him. But soon a knocking comes from the door and the figure sighs in relief. This game, he thought, had become quite dull. The handle of the door wiggled and, with effort, the door finally opened. Jonathan stood there with Anastasia behind him, her eyes colored orange while Jonathan’s were still brown but showing exhaustion inside them.

    “I am sorry, House.” Anastasia spoke softly, her eyes changing to a blue as she curtsied low to the ground. “The Maid told us to go right in so we assumed that you had told her as such.” Jonathan looked perplexed as he switched his line of sight from Anastasia to the Figure whom she had addressed as ‘House’.