Making Friends

Rosalie slipped down the narrow hall of their house, toward one of the back sitting rooms. In shadows that, up until earlier that day, she wouldn’t have dared. Up until the white haired stranger had shown up and chased away the monsters that had crawled in the walls and skittered at the edges of her vision. Now… Now the house was blissfully quiet and dim. Shadows were shadows. The hallway was empty. Her father was dealing with the messy aftermath and ruins of the kitchen, speaking with some green haired guest whose eyes made Rosalie think of a snake. A snake that smiled, sure, but Rosalie didn’t like him.
Rather, she wanted to see the white haired stranger who smelled like sunshine. The one who had chased away the nightmares.
Her bare feet were quiet on the bare wooden floors while her fingertips brushed along the wall. Keeping her close to the side of the hall, where the gloom was the deepest. Like she could hide herself.
The back sitting room was one of the smaller, more intimate spaces that her parents reserved for special guests. It had the best furniture with polished cherry wood and gold-rimmed china. Thick Persian rugs covered the marble floors, framing the couches around the glass coffee table. The white-haired stranger was the only one in the room – which was the only reason Rosalie felt emboldened to step in. If any other adult were there, she’d have lingered in the hall.
The pretty stranger looked up from the thin book he’d been reading and offered her one of the kindest smiles she’d ever seen. And one of the saddest. “Hello, Rosalie. You should be upstairs with your mother.” Everyone said that. Her face scrunched up while she clasped her hands behind her, toying with the ribbon that hung there.
“I know but.. I just wanted to say hi.” No one had let her actually talk to the pretty stranger. Not when he’d arrived early, just as she’d woken up, nor after the entire affair. She’d not been allowed to thank him for saving her mom, for cleaning their house of the things that had been there.
His smile remained. “You are most welcome, Rosalie.”
They watched one another a moment before Rosalie asked, “Are you ok?”
The question caught the white-haired stranger off guard. He closed the book and held it on his lap. The smile was gone. For a moment, she thought she might be in trouble.
The stranger cleared his throat and managed a smile. “Of course. Why would you ask?”
Rosalie shifted in place. “You just look sad.”
His smile wasn’t a happy one. She’d never thought a smile could be sad, but there it was. From someone who had saved her family. She opened her mouth to ask if she could do anything for him, but was stopped when a hand came to rest on the top of her head.
“Making friends?”
Rosalie looked up then immediately took a couple of steps away when it was a man in a black suit that she didn’t recognize. He was so tall and lean, dressed like so many of the men her father had over. But his eyes. They were red and made her shiver.
“She was just saying hi,” the white haired stranger answered before he addressed Rosalie. “Go to your Mother. I’m sure she’s missed you.”
Rosalie edged around the man in the suit, who watched her with a smile she didn’t like. Why were there so many different ways to smile that weren’t happy? Her steps were hesitant and slow until she was out in the hall. Then she ran, quick to make her way up to her mom.

Rahatiel

Ceneric