Even as she fought the feeling of sickening vertigo in her head, Penny Columbine could see the slight differences. The remnants of her earlier panic attack couldn't conceal them from her, even when she stopped at the top of the staircase to lean against the wall and cover her face with her hands for a few seconds just to get a breather.
The whole place was... nicer than it should be, she knew. Her house had been slightly worn down and lonely-looking, not precisely unkempt but definitely showing signs of age. This one was clean and neat and, aside from the door that Mister Sticks had kicked in, unblemished.
Well, almost unblemished. She lowered her face from her hands and looked into the bedroom. It wasn't her bedroom. Hers was never without a few discarded clothes scattered about. And this one had a bouquet on the nightstand.
It wasn't a real bouquet. Each of the flowers was crafted out of some sort of brass, like the kitschy little handmade things she saw at garage sales. And, despite their metallic composition, each of them managed to look wilted and dessicated.
There was a small note taped to the side of the vase. She hesitated a moment, then stepped forward. She wasn't surprised to see the familiar writing there.
To My Penny
- Ethan
There was a tiny smiling face drawn to the side of it.
Vertigo welled up inside her head again, and she sat back on the bed to cover her eyes. She wasn't going to cry. Or throw up. The two of them were fighting inside her gut, trying to force her into some sort of reaction, but she was in control.
Five. Two. Five. Two. Five...
She had thrown the flowers out. And they hadn't been brass. But that was the note that had been on them, right down to the happy smiling face, the little face that had seemed to be as mocking as it was sincere. Disgust and confusion clenched her stomach like a fist.
With her eyes still covered, and still breathing in slow, measured time, she reached out and pushed the vase off of the nightstand.
It didn't break. The fall wasn't far enough for that. The only sound was a small, unsatisfying clunk.
Trembling, she stood up and shuffled into the bathroom. She didn't bother to grab a change of clothes. She didn't want to wear anything from this place. It wasn't her house, however much it wanted to be. Even the suit was better than that.
The shower worked, at least. It was so hot that it stung her skin, but she didn't care. She even liked it, a little. The minor discomfort gave her something tangible and manageable to focus on while she scrubbed.
The greasepaint took longer to remove than she had expected, but the rest went quickly. She scrubbed the dirt and sweat from her skin, taking special care around the scratches that the scarecrow had left on her wrist. Her fingers were slightly bloody as well, from when she had struck out at it during her panic attack, but they weren't in too bad of a shape, considering.
Then she heard the scraping.
It was high and thin and keening, like a knife being drawn across metal. And it was coming from the mirror just beside the stall.
Something was scratching on the back side of the mirror.
The side of the stall was glass. She stared through its misted surface, too petrified to move, as a phrase etched itself on the glass.
NEVER
FAR
She wanted to scream, but the panic was back, seizing her throat in an iron grip and stifling her voice. She couldn't even look away from the mirror. It was here. It was going to kill her again, and this time she wouldn't wake up, she had broken the cycle and she would die horribly-
There was a loud thudding sound from the staircase, followed by another and another, a series of them in rapid ascension. A moment later, she heard the bedroom door burst open, and then a strike like a hammer blow on the bathroom door.
"Penny? Penny!"
The scarecrow's voice. A little voice in the back of her head breathed a sigh of relief, but the rest of her still couldn't bring itself to speak.
Then the door exploded inward as the wooden man's boot crashed through it. Mister Sticks forced his way through the remnants.
The jack-o'-lantern head swiveled grotesquely, the black pits of its eyes scanning the room, while the rest of the disfigured form hunched like an animal. Its hands were like claws, long and thin and pointed, and the jagged grin had a desperate, predatory edge.
She screamed.
------
Now she was seated on the edge of the bed, dressed again, with her face buried in her hands as she struggled to control her breathing. She could hear the uneven footsteps of the scarecrow pacing the room around her.
"Five, two, five," it kept repeating. "Five, two, five..."
"I know," she managed, "the rhythm. I know." She took another breath, held it, and then released. She couldn't stop the shuddering, but the screaming had stopped. It was progress.
There was a soft sound, and the scarecrow's pacing stopped. She heard another slight noise, and then it said: "You threw the flowers away."
She opened her left eye and peered up through a slit between her fingers. "What?"
Mister Sticks was standing there, holding the tiny note that had been taped to the side of the vase. He was turning it over and over in his fingers, as if he'd never seen anything like it before.
"You threw them away," he said. "I don't think... I don't think you should have done that."
She groaned and shut her eye again. "I just knocked them over."
"The real ones, I mean."
Her eye shot open again. Now Mister Sticks was looking at her, the note held unregarded between two claw-like fingers. "You threw them away," he repeated. "And the note. I remember that. Why did you throw them away?"
She blinked once, and the rhythm slipped. She took a few seconds to force herself back into it, then shook her head. "It's not important," she said. Her voice was small and quiet.
"But the flowers are here," said Mister Sticks. "I think-"
"Because I didn't want them," she said, her voice sharp and cutting. "They weren't from anyone I wanted flowers from, okay? I didn't want them, so I threw them out, and now these ones are here with the same damn note. I don't know why, and I don't care. This place is messing with my head and I don't want to think about Ethan right now, okay? Just let it go."
At the end, her voice broke, and she shut her eye again.
She heard the floor creak as Mister Sticks shifted from side to side on his uneven legs. "I think you're going to need to think about him," he began, after a minute. He didn't say anything else, though, because he was interrupted by another sound.
There was a small television on the dresser.
It had just turned on by itself.
"Our top story tonight..."
Penny opened her eyes - both of them, this time - and lowered her hands. She knew that voice.
There, on the screen, was a man wearing a neatly-pressed suit. A man that seemed to be all bright eyes and gleaming grin.
The ringmaster.
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