Chapter 7

~~ Lily ~~

I slowly opened my eyes, light trickling across my face. I sat up, wondering where I was, the room was unfamiliar. Then I heard a thumping noise, and a trapdoor in the floor swung open with a loud thud, revealing Freddy up stairs that continued down past my sight.

"Oh sorry, did I wake you up? But I'm glad you're awake, you've been asleep for a while and I was just coming up to check on you."

Oh, that's where I was, this is Freddy's home. I must have fallen asleep while he was carrying me. I could somewhat remember that I had some strange dreams on my way back, but the dreams are all fuzzy now.

"You must have been really tired since you fell asleep while I carried you. But you're even cuter while you're sleeping though." He said, coming over and ruffling my hair.

"What time is it now?"

"Around nine I think, well at least that's what time it was when I started up here, it was about sixish when I found you. It took me a bit longer than normal to get up here though since I had to keep my siblings at bay."

"Do you usually get up that early?" I said, yawning a little.

"My mother, myself, and my siblings generally get up at five on weekdays. But today is Sunday, and they generally get up later on weekends."

He pulled back the covers at the foot of the bed revealing my poorly bandaged feet. He started gently pulling the red strips of fabric away, and then began rebandaging my feet with clean gauze.

"It looks like they're already started to scab over, which is good, but I can still carry you if you want."

I wasn't really used to someone making such a big deal over such a small injury. After my parents died there was no one left who cared and everyone just told me to slap a bandaid on it or just get over it. So it confused me why he was so worried about such small scrapes.

"Hey uh… why do you care so much about the cuts on my feet? They really aren't that big of a deal, I'm fine."

"Well um, I don't know… I guess it's just that you seem fragile, and I don't want them to scar over. It's weird, I know."

"That's sweet, really, but it's too late to avoid my body having any scars." I said, watching him finish tying up the bandages.

"They shouldn't scar, I've taken good care of the cuts."

"That's not what I meant." I said, starting to lift the shirt to show him the scar on my chest.

He quickly grabbed my hand, stopping me. "Whoah, w-what are you doing?" He said, his face flushing red.

"Showing you what I was talking about." I said, confused as to why he was freaking out.

"W-wait! I'm not ready for something like that, I mean we barely know each other, and I just don't think I'm ready for something like that." He said, blabbering on, his face getting redder.

"Um… what are you talking about? I was just going to show you this." I said, lifting the shirt up just enough so he could see the scar below the middle of my breasts, then I pointed at it.

"Ohhh s-sorry, just forget why I said, I uh… way over thought that." He said.

He studied the scar, staring at it for a while before tentatively reaching his hand out and brushing his fingers across it.

"It's smoother than I thought it would be, almost more like a tattoo than a scar. How did you get it, and why is it shaped like a heart?"

"I got it the night my parents died." I said, staring down at the bed.

"Would you maybe tell me what happened? You don't have to if you don't want to, but sometimes it helps to talk about things that bother us."

"There was a man, in a mask. He broke in late at night while we were watching a movie together. My father and mother told me to run, but the only place I could hide was in the corner. So I sat huddled there in the corner while parents tried to fend the man off. He shot them while I cowered in the corner… I'll never forgive myself for hiding while they were brave. By the time he reached me I had given up, I was prepared for him to shoot me too, but then he didn't. I'll never understand why he didn't kill me, maybe he took pity on me, I probably looked pretty pathetic, but I wish he had killed me so that I could be with my parents in the afterlife. I don't know what happened after that, whether he knocked me out or if I passed out from fear, but either way I awoke with this scar on my chest."

"Oh wow, that's really sad."

"Ya, but I try to stay positive if I can, and do my best to be happy."

"How… how can someone stay so happy after something so tragic."

"I never said it was easy to stay happy, but I know that's what they would want for me, to be happy instead of sad. Although it's been a lot harder to stay happy lately while I've been struggling so much. But before I lost everything I tried to cherish what I did have in my life, since they can't anymore."

"You seem to have a good view on life despite what happened to you…. Have you ever thought about getting revenge for what happened to your loved ones…."

"No, I haven't… I don't have it in me to take revenge."

"... if it were me I would have wanted to take revenge." He said, something in his expression changing. He started to say something else but then stopped, staring down at the comforter, squeezing it tightly in his fist.

"I think that's enough doom and gloom for today." I said, trying to lighten the mood. "Is there anything to eat? I'm getting pretty hungry." I said, my stomach growling in agreement, I blushed a little, embarrassed.

"Of course there's food, it wouldn't be breakfast without food." He said, returning to his normal self, or atleast normal as far as I knew. "Everyone is downstairs eating right now. And if they've eaten everything already I can just make us something to eat."

"You know how to cook?"

"Yup, I am the main chef around here after all." He said, grinning at me.

He helped me up out of bed and down the steep wobbly steps, I tripped a few times. He then insisted on giving me a piggyback ride into the dinning room since we were far from where it was in the house. When we got to the first I could hear the loud sounds of many people talking floating through the house. We rounded a corner and stepped through a doorway into the kitchen. It was a decent sized kitchen and the dining room was connected to it. A long table with twelve chairs around it sat in the middle of the dining room, ten of those chairs were filled.

"Look who finally bothered to come to breakfast." A girl with long red hair pulled into braids said.

"Mindy! You know very well that Freddy was getting our guest to bring her down for breakfast." Said an older girl that looked similar to freddy but with slightly darker skin.

"Look at you big brother, you've already got another girl clinging to you." Said a boy with brown hair, his skin was a soft peachy color, and his face was covered with freckles like the girls with long braided red hair.

"Jimmy, leave your brother alone." A woman who looked like their mother said. She was a beautiful rich caramel color, her hair was as dark as Freddy's and her eyes just as blue.

All of the children started talking over each other and the volume in the room grew.

"Guys calm down, I think before you guys start getting loud and shouting questions at her we should do introductions first so that way she can get to know you guys."

"We weren't shouting." Mindy said.

"Maybe not, but you guys were getting very loud, almost as loud as you were earlier and we could hear from the stairs then." Freddy said as he sat me down in one of the empty seats, he then took a seat in the empty chair next to me.

I tugged at the edge of his sleeve to get his attention. "It's fine, I don't mind the noise." I whispered to him.

"See, she doesn't mind." Mindy said.

"Still, she's very shy, so just keep that in mind okay." Freddy said.

"What are you, her mom?" Jimmy said, Freddy shot him a look.

"It's like he's introducing us to his new girlfriend or something." Mindy whispered to the girls that looked like her.

"Maybe he is." One of the girls said.

"Who knows what they did up there." The other one whispered.

"Okay, introduction time." Freddy said, quickly standing up, his face his bright red.

"Told you they did something." The same girl said, giggling with the other girls.

"No we didn't! Now could we please move on to introductions, if you guys could stand up and say hi, maybe introduce yourself, when I say your name. Alright here we go, everyone this is Lily, she'll be staying with us for the foreseeable future." He said, then he pointed to the older woman who spoke earlier. "This is our lovely mother, Ann."

"Hello dearie, welcome to our home." She said, giving me a warm smile, reaching across the table and taking my hands. "Many apologies for having to stick you up in the attic, but it's the only empty room we have left in the house."

"That's alright, I don't mind, I-I actually like the room." I said shyly.

"Oh, aren't you a sweet one." She said, giving me another warm smile.

Her dark blue eyes betrayed her smiling face, revealing the sorrow that lay beneath her surface.

"So next in age would be me, since I'm the oldest at nineteen one years old, but you already know me. So the second oldest in age is Sara, she's twenty and the oldest of all the girls in our family."

"Hello." She said, giving me a soft smile and a friendly wave.

She looked very similar to Freddy, with the same dark hair and freckled face, but her skin was a lot lighter and her eyes a dark shade of brown instead of blue.

"So after Sara is Jimmy, he's sixteen." Freddy said, then leaned over and whispered into my ear. "If you're ever wondering what our dad looked like then just picture Jimmy but older."

I wondered where their dad was, from the way he spoke about him it sounded like he had passed away. Jimmy's hair was a similar shade of red as Mindy's, and his eyes were a dark brown.

"Next up are the triplets, Mindy, Cindy, and Lindy, they're all fourteen."

"Hello!" All three said in unison.

"I'm Mindy, and I'm the oldest since I was born first." Mindy said, she was wearing a red dress.

"I'm Cindy, and I'm the middle child since I was born second." Cindy said, she had on a green dress.

"And I'm Mindy, I'm the youngest since I was born last." Lindy said, and she had on a blue dress.

All of their dresses were similar to each other, the only difference was the color. They each had dark red hair pulled into braids, a ribbon in the same color as their dress tied at the end. Their eyes were a dark brown like Jimmy's, and they all had a lot of freckles splattered across their faces.

"Next is Danny, he's the youngest of us boys at ten years old."

"H-hi." He said shyly, meekly waving at me.

Danny's hair was brown, unlike the others, but his eyes were the same dark brown as the four children before him.

"Sorry." Said a girl sitting next to him. "Danny is shy around new people."

"That's dawn, she's nine. Her and Danny are very close, so if you ever want to talk to Danny, Dawn will most likely be the one to give a response." Freddy said.

"Yup, big brother Freddy is right, we're attached at the hip." She said with a giggle, hugging Danny and giving me a big smile.

Dawn had bright orangey red hair and when it was paired with her blue eyes it reminded me of a sunset over the ocean, it was quite pretty.

"After Dawn is Mary, she's seven." Freddy said.

"Hello." Mary said.

Her light brown hair was styled into thick bouncy curls that almost seemed to float around her.

"And last but not least is little Annie, she's three, and yes she's named after our lovely mother." Freddy said.

"Hewo" She said, waving at me from her high chair next to their mother, mush spread across her little face. Her hair was a dark red, and her eyes an equally dark blue.

"So how old are you?" Sara said.

"I'm nineteen." I said, staring at the food in front of me.

"Oh, so you're the same age as me then." She said happily.

"Why is she staying with us?" Mindy said bluntly.

I shriveled into myself at that, shy, nervous, and really not wanting to share my life story again and to a whole group of strangers. Everyone started eating again as they waited for one of us to speak. Freddy looked at me and I shook my head no, silently saying that I didn't want to talk about it.

"To make a long story short that I don't think that she wants to share, she doesn't have a place to stay right now so I offered that she could stay with us." He said.

"What about your parents sweetie, can you not stay with them?" Their mother said. "Please don't misunderstand though, we are happy to let you stay with us, but wouldn't you rather stay with them?"

"They um… aren't around anymore." I said, staring at the table, trying to avoid eye contact.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to hear that sweetie, that must be really hard on you. We'd be happy to have you as long as you like." She said.

"Our daddy is dead too." Mary said.

"Mary!" Their mother said.

"But it's true." She said.

"That doesn't mean you have to talk about it in front of our guest." Freddy said, scolding her. "And you also shouldn't be so blunt about it, you don't want to upset mother."

"Freddy it's fine, I really don't mind, feel free to talk about whatever you want, you don't need to hide things for my sake. You can ask me anything too, I just won't answer if it makes me uncomfortable."

"How about we dig into this delicious food." Freddy said, trying to change the subject and break the tension in the air.

Everyone started to grab food or take a second helping from the plates of pancakes, eggs, toast, bacon, and the pitcher of milk. They all helped themselves to large portions, and began to dig in. Freddy took my plate and placed one of everything on it before placing it back in front of me and pouring a glass of milk, he then helped himself to two of everything.

"If you don't mind me asking, how did your parents pass away?" Their mother said.

"They um… they were killed." I said quietly, staring at my plate of food, taking a bite of food.

"Oh my, that's terrible." She said, giving me a pitying look.

"If you don't mind me asking Mrs…." I said, stopping when I realized I didn't know what her last name was.

"It's Mrs. Fletcher, but if you want you can call me Mom, but Ann is also fine." She said.

"Okay, Ann. If you don't mind me asking, how did Mr. Fletcher die?"

Everyone went silent as they continued to eat, avoiding eye contact with me and one another.

"I-I'm sorry, it seems like I hit a sore spot. I just thought I would ask since you asked about my parents…"

"No, it's alright dear, it's only fair…" Ann said.

"That isn't something she needs to know!" Jimmy shouted, cutting her off and slamming his hands against the table.

"Jimmy that's very rude, this isn't some sort of secret, it's only fair that we share since I pried into how she lost her parents."

"Dad hasn't even been gone that long, can we not talk about how he died so casually!" Jimmy shouted.

"It's been two years Jimmy!" Freddy shouted at him.

"I-I'm sorry, this is all my fault." I said, quickly standing up and running out the screen door in the kitchen.

"Lily, wait! Where are you going?!" Freddy called after me.

I ran out onto the porch and the steps that lead out into the yard, tears streaming down my face. I kept running until I reached a tree that was a couple yards from the house, I collapsed onto my knees behind the tree, sobbing. I curled into a ball, wrapping my arms around my knees and curling my head into their embrace. I heard the soft thumps of feet running across the grass behind me and then a hand landed on my shoulder.

"You okay?" Freddy said, sitting down next to me.

"I… no, I'm not. I've only been here for less than a day and I've already caused problems. It seems like everywhere I go something bad happens, and it always feels like it's all my fault."

"No, this isn't your fault, please don't think that it is." He said, pulling me into a hug. "Don't bother listening to Jimmy. He was really close with our dad, so he gets really protective of his memory for some reason."

He gently pushed me until my head rested against his lap, then he began petting my head and softly stroking my hair.

"Is that better?" He said. "When one of us would get upset this is what my mom would do to help us calm down, and it really does help sometimes."

"I… uh… yeah, it does kind of help." I said.

"In reality our dad died over two years ago, but Jimmy refuses to believe that it was actually that long ago. No one really knows how he died, we just kind of found him out on the property one day, he must have fallen and hit his head or something."

"At least that's better than being murdered, it front of you… his death was natural."

"Ya, I guess so…" He said, looking away from me and up at the sky.

"But I mean you still have your mom, and your siblings, even if they may annoy you sometimes. But me, I have no one."

"You have me though." He said softly, then he suddenly leaned over and kissed me.

I quickly sat up, causing our foreheads to collide before I pushed him away.

"W-why did you do that?" I said, not turning to look at him, my face beet red.

"I'm so sorry, I… I don't know what came over me." He said, his voice slightly muffled.

I turned to look at him. His face was just as red, his hand held over his mouth. A dazed awestruck look was spread across his face. I felt something wash over me as I stared at him, it was like there was something compelling me forward. I leaned over and gently brushed a stray hair away and gently pushed his hand away from his mouth. Then slowly I leaned in and kissed him back. His hand wrapped around the back of my head, holding me in the kiss as he leaned back into the grass with me on top of him. He then rolled over so that he was over top of me.

"Are you also feeling this unexplained attraction?" He said softly, then before I could respond he leaned in and kissed me again.

I wasn't entirely sure why I was kissing him, I mean I barely knew him. But it was nice, and something inside me told me I should. When we finally stopped he pulled me into his side and we lay cuddled in the grass for awhile. As we lay there he would occasionally give me a kiss until we both fell asleep.