A/N: So, I decided to rewrite this. For anyone who decided to re-read this, tell me what you think. Was the one I wrote before better or worse? It’s really along the same lines, but I added a few characters, changed the place, and threw in a few extra things. There may be more chapters, but….yeah. So. Tell me what you think.

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I was startled awake into darkness, my heart drumming in my ears like the wings of a desperate butterfly. It was silent, except for the constant, maddening buzzing of the TV. The normal re-runs had been replaced with discontented static sometime during the night, and its sickly glow only illuminated the area around partially. I should’ve felt relief from it, but instead felt agitated and uneasy.

I let my hand droop over the edge of the couch, my trembling fingers searching for the remote. I stopped short when my fingers grazed something wet and sticky, and I flinched in horror. My breath hitched while I silently berated myself.

What was wrong with me? I was acting like a child who’d just watched a horror movie. But the feeling of anxiety didn’t go away until my eyes flickered over to an empty soda can tossed on its side, its innocence mocking me. Dark liquid dripped out, its smooth droplets leisurely dripping into the faded, cheap carpet like broken notes to a discordant melody. I turned my face away, nearly swallowing the mound of my white hair in the process. I was startled to find that it looked like dozens of glittering spider web strands in the bleached glow, and I fumbled with the power button on the remote, as if to erase the image.

Inky darkness spread over the room, eating the remnant of the light left by the television like a gradual poison. I nearly missed the company of it after lying awake in the oppressive silence, but then pushed it aside and told myself I was being absurd again.

Absurd. Ridiculous. Unreasonable. The three most said words about myself I’d ever heard from anyone and everyone. I buried my face into a shabby, nearby pillow and focused on breathing deeply rather than flinching at the fact that I’d used it against myself. I’d never asked, never wanted to be like…how I was. When I’d been younger, before It had happened, I’d only wanted to be accepted. I’d put myself into roles of how people wanted me to be, had slipped in and out of different personalities like a person would clothes. It’d been constant, catching me by the throat like some demented monster and making me live for the silent approval from the people I felt I needed to please.

But then It happened, the day that I’d been able to see what, as I was later told, no one else could. If I’d been half as clever and as observant as I thought I was, I’d have kept my mouth shut and pretended like I didn’t see the “odd people and animals”, like I didn’t see the lean man with long nails who ate gold or the weeping woman whose shrill voice matched the timbre of the bustling crowd of Chicago.

Once, when I was six, I had asked one of them, in my childish wonder, why they chose to live in such a crowded, big place with so many of the people they either disliked or were fascinated by. I’d gotten lost in the crowd, separated from my mother, and had decided to sit down and talk to him merely out of curiosity. He’d had a sad expression, and had been so remarkably beautiful that it hurt my eyes.

“But we have the worse limitations of all,” he’d whispered, and tugged out one of the bright red ribbons my mother had struggled to tie in that morning. It lay crumpled and pitiful in his palm, a powerful omen for my decidedly dreary future. I wonder now if he had known in some way.

I’d been lost, hurt and confused when I encountered the negative reaction by people when I mentioned the things I saw. My mother, who I’d admired and looked up to, who had whispered impossible stories in my ears at night like sacred music, had become distant and often angry and resentful.

It was too late when it finally dawned on me to never speak of the things I saw.

Pressure built up behind my eyelids and throat, and I smothered my face into the pillow with my eyes closed and my mouth clamped shut.

They were all just of memories, I reminded myself. Just sad ghosts without any light. Yet to me, they were so terrible that I had always tried to forget, or else frogs and snakes might come out instead of words when I spoke, like the jealous stepsister in one of my mother’s whispered tales. If I’d been treated like I was terrible, then I must’ve been, so I’d tried to become someone else, someone who wasn’t terrible or crazy. I knew it was childish, but the strange hole that had built up in my chest had ripped too much, until I always felt empty and afraid.

I took another deep breath and pushed back the memories, something I’d gotten good at. I sat up, my head spinning, and felt like I was swallowing a stone. My body ached from falling asleep, sprawled awkwardly on the grungy couch with the TV on and a soda. I wondered dimly if Ian, my stepfather, was home, and then decided I didn’t care. It was always better when he wasn’t, anyway.

I swung my legs off the couch and stood up unsteadily, my head pounding and my body suddenly chilly. Grabbing the blanket from off the floor, I wrapped it around myself and swooped down to pick up the empty soda can. I made a very elegant queen, I told myself as I sauntered into the kitchen. With my ragged blanket as a cloak and the soda can as my…scepter? I laughed nervously and flicked on the light.

It was all just as well, I thought as the light flickered and buzzed on. I would make a terrible queen. A terrible queen for terrible people.

I caught my reflection in the glass back door and bowed to it, seeing the image made up of harsh lines, hair made of frost and wide, dark eyes.

“Your Majesty,” I whispered. My laugh nearly ended on a sob.

I had a sudden urge to throw the can at the door but instead spun around and tossed it in trash. Sliding down to the sink, I went to turn on the water but froze instead, leaning over the sink to stare out the window.

I could’ve sworn I saw movement. Was there someone out there? I glanced at the clock, read 3:00. So it was three in the morning. No one in their right mind would be outside at this time, at least not in this secluded town.

Unless… I eyed the window again. Three was considered the “witching hour”, or at least by my dear departed mother. There was something else…I tried to remember the date and found myself scowling over the fact that we didn’t have any calendars.

May Day. I slumped against the counter. It was May Day, the day traditionally believed to be when the Good People, or the Fae, were out more than usual. I sighed and rubbed my finger against the chipped paint on the frame of the window, refusing to look back out at the window.

It was all nonsense. Utter and complete nonsense. There was no such thing as the Fae or anything else. All the stories about them had been made up to scare rotten children. I had only thought that I saw them when I was younger because I’d begun to believe my mother’s stories. It was nonsense, nonsense, nonsense.

Sometimes, if I chanted the word enough times in my head, I almost believed myself. Almost.

I pulled my hand away and watched the white paint chips fall from the frame like snowflakes. Like dreams and ghosts and all things imaginary.

Feeling foolish and brave, I pushed open the window and looked out, as if I could show myself that there really was nothing there.

I was wrong.

A cloaked, dark man stood some yards away, half-hidden in the dark and away from the bright kitchen light. He carried a dark umbrella, which was tilted to hide his face. His arm darted out with his palm upwards, as if he were testing for rain. Or as if he knew he had my attention.

My throat tightened and I bit back a shout once I saw his hand. It was startlingly white, and so bright that it caught the light. Long nails that looked to be made of ice curled over his hand as a flame burst alive on his palm. Tiny bells were attached to thin white threads, which in turn were tied around each of his long, spindly fingers.

His hand began to tilt, and I knew I should’ve looked away and covered my ears, but it was too late. The bells clinked slowly into each other, and each time they produced a high, ringing sound. At the same time I felt as if a heavy, wet cloth had settled over me, dulling my senses. But then the feeling was gone, taking with it my fear and leaving me restless instead.

He faded back into the darkness, leaving nothing behind for me to remember him by.

Not that I had wanted him to.

I stepped back and pushed the window down, straining a little when it wouldn’t go down as easily. More paint chips fluttered down, but I didn’t notice. When had everything gotten so hazy?

I shook my head as if to clear my head and to stop the odd stirring of impatience and wanting.

Sliding down onto the floor, I took a deep breath and leaned against the cracked, yellowed counter. Cold seeped up from the bare tiles, and I shivered from pleasure. It felt good, even steadying while I sorted out my thoughts.

Should I have not opened the window? The Fae were known for their tricks and enchantments, and that had surely been one. Just because I could see them didn’t make me immune to them, I reminded myself. But I hadn’t been carried off yet to whatever lair they dwelled. Besides; when had the Fae ever existed on the east coast? Last time I checked, they stuck to Europe, namely Ireland. I laughed shakily in reassurance. Of course, there was always one other option, one that stuck to my tongue like thorns but that I was too afraid to ever admit.

That I was just as crazy and terrible as everyone else thought I was. That the Fae and everything I saw didn’t actually exist.

Pulling my knees to my chest, I wrapped my arms around my legs and leaned my forehead against my legs. My hair spread down my back and along my sides as if it were my very own armor. Was it wrong that I felt better for thinking of it that way?

But what if I didn’t want to think anymore, or feel, for that matter?

What a fine idea. The best I’d ever had, in fact. Clutching the counter top, I pulled myself up, nearly stumbling as I did. Chimes pealed softly in the distance, their music carrying softly in the distance as a loaded reminder. I balanced myself against the door frame as I fought against dizziness and the foul taste of metal. A series of coughs racked my body, driving me to my knees. I felt like my head was splitting in two.

The chimes stopped, their echo struggling to stay behind as a persistent memory. I shook my head, nearly banging it into the door frame as I tried to rid myself of the ringing in my ears. The pain had stopped as well as the fit of coughs, but the ringing stayed behind.

I should’ve been more careful. I shouldn’t have opened the window.

I wiped my mouth, bringing away a smear of red as I did so. Blood? The dizziness returned, but this time from shock. Was this the metallic flavor I’d tasted in my mouth earlier? I stumbled to the sink and spat out more blood, its vividness a bright clarity against the gray dullness of the sink. I paused, huffing slightly, and turned on the water so that it drained away, leaving bits of red glass behind. Curious, and suddenly afraid, I picked up a piece of glass but instantly dropped it. It wasn’t glass; it was a piece of jagged ice.

Long nails that looked to be made of ice…

I threw myself away from the sink, not even noticing when I banged my shoulder into the refrigerator. I stared at the sink wildly, watching the water drain away the blood.

But the message remained, even if the blood didn’t.