Chapter 29
Children of the Night
Peggy awoke to the sound of children's laughter and when she opened her eyes, she found herself standing in the middle of an old-fashioned, Victorian Era-style street. The sky was pitch black with light coming only from Gothic street lights stuck to the sides of buildings or the lampposts and the ghostly blue candlelight flickering in tall lampposts.
"Where am I?" she wondered aloud. "And how did I get here?"
The last thing Peggy remembered was getting into bed in the guest room of a house that belonged to her Boss' stepbrother while on an overnight trip to the Royal Capital with her Boss and George, Boss' son. They had come to visit the kingdom's largest library for George's homework (although even for a fantasy world full of magic, it didn't make any sense to Peggy that they needed to travel halfway across the country for elementary school homework).
Since she had never been to the Royal Capital before, it made sense that the street was unfamiliar to her. But that still didn't explain how she got out here in the first place. And that wasn't the only weird thing she noticed. For one thing, everything looked unusually bigger to her. For another . . .
"Hmm?" she went, lips turned into a deep frown.
Was it just me, she thought, or did my voice sound different?
"Ah, ah, ah." She opened her mouth wide and listened intently at the sounds she made herself from her throat.
Her voice did sound different, she determined. It was lighter, way lighter. Her voice could even be called shrill if she was being honest with herself.
While wondering what was happening to her, Peggy happened to wander close to a building with a huge window that, when combined with the darkness of night and the light of the nearby street lamps, became like a mirror. The darkened window reflected everything perfectly, but when Peggy happened to look at her own reflection, what she saw vastly differed from how she looked yesterday.
"What the -!?"
Utterly flabbergasted, Peggy threw herself at the mirror-like window, pressed her hands against the glass and gaped at her own face reflected back at her.
"I'M A KID AGAIN!?"
Looking at her reflection, Peggy saw that instead of looking twenty years old, take a few years, she looked to be around seven or eight years old. She was even wearing her old elementary school's uniform, a white short-sleeved dress shirt with the school's logo and a gray skirt with suspenders.
"Just what in the world happened to me?"
While trying to wrap her head around this mystery and make sense of it, the laughter of children filled the air. It was the same sort of laughter that woke her up in the first place.
Peggy tore her eyes away from the window and her reflection, and looked around.
"Hello?" she called out. "Is anyone there?"
"Over here!" a child spoke from far away. "Over here!"
There was something obviously creepy about hearing children laughing in a deserted street at night. But Peggy also knew those children, if they really were children, would be her best chance to getting to the bottom of all this weirdness. So against her better judgment, she ran to where she thought the voices were coming from.
Her black dress shoes went pitter-patter against pavement as she jogged down the darkened road. She turned a corner, hoping to catch the children there, but was disappointed to find the adjoining street empty.
Children's laughter filled her ears.
"Aw, so close," a girl said mockingly.
"Gotta do better than that, slowpoke!" said a boy.
"Come on! Try to keep up!" spoke another.
Their giggles faded with a chorus of rapid pitter-pattering feet.
Knowing when she was being teased, Peggy felt her cheeks go warm. The night air no longer chilled her and the city's dark Gothic look no longer sent shivers down her spine. She was just filled with determination to give the children a piece of her mind and resumed running after them.
Little Peggy turned another corner just in time to see a trio of dark shapes go into a wide, five-floor building shaped like a baseball diamond. The entrance was at the triangle's round point and consisted of two red-framed doors.
Peggy pushed one of the doors open and stepped into a massive open space. She could see all five floors of the building through open corridors that overlooked the lobby. When she happened to look behind one of the many windows that lined the walls, she spotted some vaguely human shapes and let out a frightened squeak. But she soon realized that these human shapes were actually just mannequins used by stores to show off the clothes they sell.
Peggy had suspected it when she got inside, but it appeared she had intruded into a shopping mall. It was smaller than the malls that she was used to seeing back on Earth, but the building was nonetheless huge.
Slowly, she walked down to towards the center where the statue of a mustachioed dog man stood dignified. The dog man's mustache was thick, bushy and groomed to a curl. He wore a three-piece suit with coattails and rested one hand on an elegant cane while keeping his other hand balled behind his back. His stomach was also big and bulged out.
"Now where could those kids be?" Peggy wondered aloud.
She looked all over but couldn't find a hint to their presence. They had also quit their taunts and laughter, so she could not even use her ears to try and pick up their location. The only sounds in the entire building came from her own feet and the echoes that followed.
Peggy puffed. It was going to be tough to find them in a place this big, she thought.
She scratched her head, at a loss what to do. But then came faint, stifled giggling from behind and spun around to see three dark shapes creep towards the exit.
"HEY!" she screamed. "GET BACK HERE!"
The shapes burst out laughing and darted out of the mall.
Peggy chased after them, barely keeping up. They raced down avenues, streets and boulevards, crossed city squares and plazas, passed by statues of kings, queens and other important dead people and finally dove into a public park.
She tried to catch up to the children on a red brick walkway alongside a row of thick, tall trees. But then the tip of her shoes got caught against an upturned brick and she tripped, falling flat on her face.
"Ow!"
The children ahead stopped, pointed at her, and laughed. They remained just outside the light of the lamppost and shrouded in darkness. All anyone watching could tell was that one of the children wore a skirt and a long-sleeve blouse with frilled cuffs.
They mockingly sang, "You tripped! You tripped!"
Angry, Peggy shouted at them, "That's not funny!"
The Seven-or-eight-year-old picked herself up and lunged at the children, but they sidestepped away before she could touch any of them. She stumbled to a stop and turned around.
One of the boys put his hand under the light, holding a shoe. A girl's shoe.
Filled with dread, Peggy looked down and sure enough, she saw she was only wearing one shoe.
"Hey! That's mine!"
She chased after the boy with her shoe. But before she could get it back, the boy tossed the footwear over her head to the other boy, who passed it off to the girl when Peggy went after him next.
"Give it back!" she screamed at them.
But the other children just giggled at her and kept passing the shoe back and forth.
"Give it back!"
Suddenly, a new voice cut in and shouted sharply, "HEY! Don't you know it's mean to bully people?"
Startled, one of the boys dropped the shoe onto the ground. He and the others abandoned it and scurried away in fright. They disappeared down the road when a much taller shadow ran past Peggy and chased after them.
This taller shadow stopped beneath light, revealing herself to be a girl in her late teens. She had red hair bundled into a bun behind her head, except for a pair of long, slightly curled bangs hanging off the sides of her narrow, flushed and slightly freckled face. Her eyes were as green and sparkled like emerald gemstone. A blood red wool shawl laid draped over her shoulders and her plain white dress.
The girl peered into the darkness and wiped some sweat from her forehead. After catching her breath, she grumbled, "Fast little buggers." And then she turned around and walked over to Peggy.
After bending down on one knee, the teenage girl held up Peggy's shoe and said, "I believe this is yours."
She gave Peggy the Cinderella treatment and slipped the shoe back on her foot.
"Thank you," Peggy said.
The teenager flashed her a smile and replied, "Think nothing of it. Still, that was rather wicked of those brats to gang up on a cute little thing like you. And I don't mean that in a good way."
Peggy scowled and said, "I'm not little! I'm a grownup already."
But as should be expected, the teen responded with an amused smile, "Sure you are." She clearly did not believe Peggy.
Peggy doubted that explaining how she shrunk and de-aged into a child would help matters. So she gave up and decided to just deal with being treated like a little kid for now.
"So what's a little thing like you doing out here so late?" the teen girl asked. "It's a bit late past your bedtime, don't you think?"
Peggy shrugged and said, "I don't know. One minute, I was in my room. The next minute I'm outside. I don't know how to get back home."
All this was true, but Peggy wasn't sure how much the teenage girl would believe. To her relief, however, it looked like the girl believed everything.
"Yikes," the teenager said. "So it's happened to you too, huh?"
"Too? You mean you also got teleported?"
"In a blink!" said the teenager. "And in the middle of a date, too, of all times! Talk about bad luck! I really fancied that bloke. He was HANDSOME!"
"Okay?"
"Oh! But where are my manners? The name's Becky. What's yours?"
"I'm Peggy."
"Well, Peggy," said Becky, putting her hands on her hips. "No point staying here. Let's see if we can't find our way home."
Together, they slowly strolled through the park, their path lit by evenly spaced out lampposts. They soon made it out of the park and took their time exploring the empty streets of the Royal Capital, getting to know each other in the meantime.
Becky mentioned being from a well-to-do (i.e. rich) family. She complained about feeling stifled by tradition and her peers' obsession with manners and what was "proper". And she also talked about her likes in music, art and books which related to horror.
When it was Peggy's turn, Beck asked a lot of questions. A LOT. Peggy ended up telling Becky EVERYTHING, from how she came from another world to what she did everyday at the coffee shop. Peggy even spilled out all her fears and insecurities about the future. She was the one talking, but even she was surprised by how much she was giving away. It was as if something was forcing the words out of her mouth.
Becky nodded along, soaking up every detail.
And then came questions about Boss and his family, particularly George.
"So about George," Becky said, "tell me everything about him."
Peggy knew that she should not. Her own self was one thing, but this was about other people's private lives. Those were things, Peggy had no right to talk about. Especially to a complete stranger she had gotten to know for about an hour or so.
But even while thinking that, Peggy's mouth opened and she said, "About George, he's - !"
A man's deep voice suddenly cut in and said, "Aren't you two a bit too young for a midnight jaunt?"
Both girls jumped and turned around to see a lion standing before them, dressed in a gray suit, tie, and waistcoat beneath a larger, brown overcoat. A bowler hat laid between his round, furry ears. His hand rested on the silver globe cap of a long, black walking stick.
Peggy vaguely felt like she had seen the lion before and then remembered the lion was actually George's uncle through his mom.
"Norman? Is that you?"
The lion rolled his eyes down on the little girl, showing not a hint of emotion. But he responded to Peggy's question and nodded.
"Good evening, Miss Lau," he said. "It's a pleasure to meet you again."
"You recognize me?" Peggy asked. "How?"
Instead of answering Peggy's question, Norman said, "Let us put that aside for now. We have more pressing matters to address."
He returned his gaze to Becky, his eyes narrowed with a dangerous glint.
Becky, however, scratched the back of her head and sighed.
"Figures I pushed my luck bringing up that lion cub," she said. "Gotta say I envy that kid to be surrounded by grownups who care so much about him."
Norman's mouth remained closed, but low rumble came from his throat.
Becky got the hint and threw her hands in the air.
"Okay, okay. I'll back off," she said. "Got more than enough to satisfy my curiosity, anyway. Oh, and I won't ask how you got here. I'm sure the Trickster's got something to do with it. That vampire's famous for breaking into places, after all."
Peggy wasn't sure what the teenager was talking about. Her head had suddenly gotten really fuzzy, so most of what she heard just went in one ear and out the other. She was also getting pretty unstable at her feet.
"Well, it was nice getting to know you, Peggy," Becky said, "but it looks like this is where we part ways."
Peggy just finished rubbing her right eye and looked up. "You're going? By yourself?"
"I figured you'd be okay with the lion bloke here." Becky threw a glance at Norman. "You two looked like you knew each other. I can find my way just fine, so I'll be okay on my own. No need to worry about little old me. Tata for now. Don't worry. If the Fates allow, we'll meet again."
She took three steps forward, turned at her heels, pinched the sides of her skirt and curtsied. And then she turned around again and walked away. Norman and Peggy watched her until she turned a corner and disappeared.
It was then that Peggy let out a big yawn.
"Feeling tired?" asked Norman.
Peggy nodded, again rubbing one of her heavy eyelids.
"Why don't you take a seat at the bench over there?"
Peggy took up Norman's offer and slowly trudged over to the stone slab he pointed at. As soon as she sat down, her eyes closed on their own and her mind went blank.
When she next opened her eyes, she found herself lying in bed with the bed covers up to her neck.
Gingerly, she sat up and turned on the lamp on the bedside table before getting out of bed to walk over to a mirror to see her adult self looking back at her.
"So it was all just a dream," she muttered to herself.
Well, of course it was. What else could it be?
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